Michael Škvrňák

Macinka's FB post: Our excellent opposition is becoming increasingly hysterical. In its desperation, it's enough for itself. 💩 Therefore, I cannot deny myself one comment on yesterday's debate, where it drew a bit of interest between me and my Polish colleague Radek Sikorski. Regarding the debate on the topic of the so-called democratic deficit of the EU, which was held in the past and according to my opinion should be held further, I must say that this was precisely the topic of my thesis, which I successfully defended many years ago. So I do know what I'm talking about... For your information, below I'm attaching an evaluation of my work from Prof. Novák - the first Czech professor of political science from Charles University and the most cited francophone political scientist in the world. The "excellent" grade was also proposed by the opponent of this work. There's no problem looking up even his assessment (it's on the internet). Funny thing is, my then opponent is one of today's opposition MPs for ODS. I'm not saying anything...😁 P.S.: Tomorrow I'm flying to a work visit to Poland, where I'll be meeting precisely with Radek Sikorski. In many important positions we undoubtedly agree with him, but there's also time now and then for continuing the debate on the democratic deficit of the EU. 🙂

ICYMI, Macinka is defending his exchange with Sikorski by referring to his thesis on EU democratic deficit which got an A from prof. Novák, allegedly "the most cited francophone political scientist in the world". With respect to Novák, that is not even close. But you can just say (deranged) things!

screenshot that reads "Appendix F. Robustness checks"

ngl, my Gallic (Asterix & Obelix) name would be Appendix

no, sorry.
btw. current proposal for distributing money from cohesion funds in 2028-34 still uses AROPE in rural areas (eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-conten...)

After visiting National Gallery in London, I realised that my thoughts about the post-election situation in the Czech Republic can be summarised like this:

fwiw in 2021, in every stage of Pirates' party primaries the share of women increased (a bit) and the Pirates achieved parity with 2 men and 2 women among their MPs (by accident by being outvoted by STAN on their joint list). Maybe it's time to reconsider quotas/zipper 🙃
(chart from my dissertation)

The Czech Trump wins an election, again Andrej Babis, a populist billionaire, looks set to return after a term out of power

4/ Babiš is not Czech Trump, ffs. www.economist.com/europe/2025/...

And also in the case of STAN preferential voting helped mostly young candidates.
In 2021, voters used preferential votes to support candidates from the party they identify with and candidates residing in their home towns. Did it change? Idk, can't wait for data from the post-election survey.

Preferential voting also altered who won the seats in the case of Pirates where women almost obliterated men with 15 women elected (including 2 Green MPs) out of 18 Pirate MPs.

3/ Spolu is also electorally favourable for KDU-ČSL who gained more seats due to preferential voting, while ODS probably loses.

Sterzikovi z hnutí Stačilo! došly peníze. Žádá o příspěvek dětem na klavír - Seznam Zprávy Několik málo hodin po vyhlášení výsledků voleb, který nepustil hnutí Stačilo! do Sněmovny, jeho předseda Daniel Sterzik začal počítat. Nikoli hlasy voličů, ale zůstatek vlastních financí. A prosí příz...

Especially in the case of those underperforming their expectations. Leader of Stačilo! Sterzik asks for money, which is quite funny. Grifters keep grifting, I suppose.
www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/volby...

2/ Most of the parties ran as pre-electoral coalitions: Spolu (ODS, KDU-ČSL, TOP 09), Pirates (with Greens), SPD (with PRO, Trikolora and Svobodní), Stačilo! (KSČM, SOCDEM and other microparties) and also technically STAN (with SLK). It will be interesting to watch if the coalitions survive.

ANO also possibly attracted some voters who considered voting for Stačilo! (and SPD). Babiš claiming that he will not form a government with the communists worked, I guess.

Clearly, if non-populist parties want to win again, doing nothing to broaden your electoral support/demobilise your opponents and hoping for the best is not a winning strategy. (Yes, their position was hard due to war, inflation etc).

The win of Spolu in 2021 was a result of demobilisation of ANO voters and failure of other potential ANO allies to cross the electoral threshold.

Hot takes on Czech elections:
1/ the outcomes were driven by voter mobilisation in economic peripheries which are ANO strongholds. Pre-election polls suggested that ANO is able to mobilise their voters from 2017 who abstained in 2021 and also non-voters from 2021.

ANO vysálo antisystémové strany. Pětikoalice naráží na malou podporu v chudších mikroregionech, kde navíc vzrostla účast Analyzujeme sněmovní volby.

ANO vysálo antisystémové strany. Pětikoalice naráží na malou podporu v chudších mikroregionech, kde navíc vzrostla účast

Vydali jsme první analýzu voleb. Hodně důležitých grafů. Tady:

www.paqresearch.cz/post/ano-vys...

The negative effect of state funding on electoral support of new parties in post-communist countries - Lukáš Linek, Michael Škvrňák, 2025 Does state funding of parties lead to petrification of the party systems with very few new parties, or to competition that is more open where new parties prolif...

Yeah, sure, publishing a paper in Party Politics is great, but have you tried to overtook a car belonging to Motorists for Themselves while on your bike. (I managed to do both today)

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Chytřejší daně Česko může prosperovat, potřebuje ale chytřejší daně. Máme propracovaný plán. Vyzkoušejte si na webu vlastní kombinaci reforem

Posílení růstu, méně chudoby a výjimek, dost peněz na veřejné investice💸

Vychází nejpodrobnější daňová studie v Česku.

Modelujeme společně s @verejnefinance.bsky.social a IDEA při CERGE-EI.

Vše představujeme na chytrejsidane.cz, kde si může každý otestovat vlastní kombinaci🎯

1/

Once again, from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

mood

All motivation letters should be abolished and replaced by motivation haiku:

Give me money please
Pretty please, I am not an idiot
Most of the time

The rich must be incentivised; the poor must be disciplined.

The political economy of the super-elite in one headline.

trying to displace Prawdziwy kebab u prawdziwego Polaka

Motoristé přichystali pro své voliče oříšek. V programu prosazují méně parkování u nových bytů

Motoristé sobě, welcome to the war on cars

Stanové město je okolo 500 metrů od festivalu, cca v severní třetině letiště. Se špunty do uší jsem se vyspal (ale to může být dost individuální).

Ano (předloni), a letos jedu zas.

Chart of raw data

Also the spike around 0.04-0.05 is driven by 3 municipalities, excluding them makes the effect not statistically significant.

First two models are from the original study, the other two are the same models with homicides in a municipality standardized per 1000 voters

I looked at the replication materials and as far as I can tell they use number of homicides in absolute numbers (the number of homicides are all integers). That seems like a strange choice to me as population of municipalities vary. Quick and dirty standardization per voter attenuates the effect.

👌NEW article: 'Development of new party support in post-communist Europe and the effect of the 2008 economic crisis' by Lukáš Linek & Michael Škvrňák (@czechacademy.bsky.social)👉 doi.org/10.1080/2159... ✨

🗳️Satisfaction boosts turnout, or voting boosts satisfaction?

➡️@filipkostelka.bsky.social L.Linek @jrovny.bsky.social @skvrnami.bsky.social find both in Central-Eastern Europe. Satisfaction spurs turnout, voting raises satisfaction, especially for winners www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #FirstView