Political preferences of towns in Slovakia in the 1929 parliamentary election

Abstract

This article examines historical patterns in the political preferences of Slovakia’s urban population based on the results of the 1929 democratic parliamentary election. Within the group of 114 towns existing at that time, the authors define nine types of towns with specific patterns of political preferences, identified by using the cluster analysis. Individual types are named according to the dominant political orientation. These types are also characterized in terms of their geographic location, size, ethnic origin and religious makeup, which is essential to explain spatial electoral patterns of the day. The article also delineates the position of individual towns and their clusters in relation to the main cleavages (centre/periphery, conservatism/secularism, right/left) existing within the party system in interwar Slovakia.