Migration, Corruption, and Ideological Centrism: Explanations of Anti-Establishment Attitudes in the Czech Republic

Abstract

Migration, Corruption, and Ideological Centrism: Explanations of Anti-Establishment Attitudes in the Czech Republic. Although the Czech Republic has experienced an unprecedented rise of anti-establishment political parties in recent decades, a systematic examination of anti-establishment attitudes among the public is still missing from the scholarly literature. This paper tests different explanations for anti-establishment attitudes among the voting population, working with the concepts of anti-political establishment parties, populism, and taking into account the specific national context. Using original data from the 2017 Czech National Election Study (N = 919), we show that anti-establishment attitudes among the Czech public stem from feelings of low political efficacy, the perceived salience of corruption, and anti-immigration attitudes. These results demonstrate that researchers need to consider contextual specifics, including the nature of diverse antiestablishment actors, when searching for the causes of anti-establishment attitudes in a particular country or region. Sociológia 2021, Vol. 53 (No. 3: 287-308) https://doi.org/10.31577/sociologia.2021.53.3.11