Explaining the electoral success of the extreme right party ĽSNS in Slovakia 2010 - 2018: integration of Census data and electoral results

The unit of datais the so-called micro-region. These units were created in 2005 as an alternative to the existing territorial division of Slovakia (Slavík, Kožuch, and Bačík 2005) as group of municipalities following natural borders, as well as the economic and social structure of the population. Together there are 160 micro-regions with an average population of just over 30,000 people. However, two of the regions, which include the two biggest cities in Slovakia, the capital Bratislava, and the city of Košice, are enormously populated when compared to the other units. For the sake of the research, we divided these two regions into smaller parts, which we broke down into districts. As such, we work with 169 micro-regions. Finally, we excluded micro-regions with at least 30 percent Hungarians. Thus, we end up with 136 territorial units. Based on theoretical considerations, we need variables that capture the presence and share of Roma minority, unemployment and education. As the basis for analysis, we use census data and official results of national elections provided by the Slovak Statistical Office. Due to specific conditions, the data about the Roma minority are gathered from the Atlas project . This unique project was undertaken in cooperation with several national and international bodies, and its results are based on thorough fieldwork, mapping all towns in Slovakia. It tallies not only the numbers of persons belonging to the Roma minority, but it also describes how Roma people are concentrated in a municipality. The remaining variables are based on census data. Unemployment rate is computed as the share of unemployed people among all economically active people. For the measure of education, we use a variable of the share of people with vocational education, because the proportion of people with basic education as the lowest possible level strongly correlates with unemployment. The amount of people with vocational education is calculated as the share of those with this level of education among all inhabitants older than fifteen years of age. Dependent variable of analysis is the support of LSNS in microregions computed from official electoral results of 2010, 2012 and 2016 elections.

本数据集的基本分析单元为所谓的微型区域（micro-region）。该类单元于2005年被创设，作为斯洛伐克既有行政区划的替代方案（Slavík、Kožuch与Bačík，2005），以自然边界、人口经济与社会结构为依据，由若干市镇组合而成。整体共计160个微型区域，平均人口规模略超3万人。但其中包含斯洛伐克两大城市——首都布拉迪斯拉发与科希策的两个微型区域，其人口规模远高于其余单元。为满足本研究需求，我们将这两个区域拆分为更小的分区，最终得到169个微型区域作为分析单元。最终，我们剔除了匈牙利裔人口占比不低于30%的微型区域，最终得到136个行政区划单元。基于理论考量，本研究所需变量需涵盖罗姆人（Roma）少数群体的存在情况与占比、失业率及教育水平相关指标。本研究的分析基础数据取自斯洛伐克统计局提供的人口普查数据与全国选举官方结果。受限于特定数据获取条件，罗姆人少数群体的相关数据取自《阿特拉斯项目》（Atlas project）。该独特项目由多个国内与国际机构合作开展，基于对斯洛伐克所有城镇的全面实地调研与测绘形成最终成果，不仅统计了罗姆人少数群体的人口规模，还细致刻画了罗姆群体在各市镇内的聚居分布情况。其余变量均源自人口普查数据。失业率的计算方式为：失业人口占全部经济活动人口的比例。教育水平指标方面，我们选用职业教育人口占比变量：由于最低层级的基础教育人口占比与失业率存在较强相关性，因此本研究以15岁以上常住人口中接受过职业教育的人口占比作为教育水平的衡量指标。本研究的因变量为微型区域内LSNS的得票支持率，该指标基于2010年、2012年与2016年的官方选举结果计算得出。