Abstract
An analysis of national and regional elections reveals that elections are highly nationalized in Slovakia. However, the nationalization of regional elections does not translate into second-order election effects. Due to radically different electoral systems used for regional and national elections, political parties are induced to form alliances in regional but not in national elections and electoral alliances crossing the government-opposition divide are abundant in regional elections. Another notable and important regional election dynamic is the growing success of independent candidates. This trend can be interpreted as ‘departyisation’ of regional politics rather than regionalization. Regional elections may be conceived as ‘barometer elections’ whereby voters do not use their vote to punish parties in national government. Rather, the regional vote indicates the electoral prospects of parties in the upcoming national election.
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