The regional dimension of the socio-political urban-rural conflict in Slovakia

Abstract

Political behaviour of citizens is traditionally formed by a wide range of factors that influence their voting decision in the election. Dichotomy of both the space and society into the town and the countryside generates different election results constantly. A key aim of this paper is to assess the extent of rurality concerning the electoral support of relevant political parties operating on the Slovak political scene after the groundbreaking elections held in 1998 until ballots of 2010 not only at national, but also at the regional level. Evaluation of level and dynamics in socio-political cleavage between rural and urban space is one of the most important research ambitions of this study. We shall note the position of particular regions in Slovakia in terms of size and acceleration of the conflict and try to categorize them according to the similarity in values of indicators characterizing this social discrepancy. On the basis of found facts, we shall appraise the electoral success of political parties in urban and rural environment and compose the regional typization of Slovakia concerning the party representatives of urban and rural environment. Finally, we shall evaluate the potential of the regions to be future outbreak sites of latent cleavage influencing their differential political inclination.