Local Identity or Economic Benefits? The Municipal Splits in the Czech Republic

While in Western Europe amalgamation reform is fiercely discussed, in some Eastern European countries, including the Czech Republic, it is nearly taboo. There, rapid growth in the number of municipalities occurred after the regime change in 1989 (Illner 2011). By 1994, the total number of municipalities had stabilized and the number has remained much the same since then. Minor changes are due to the extinction of several depopulated municipalities or to the transformation of former military areas into renewed municipalities. Yet significant changes happened because of municipal splits or divorces. In total, there have been 38 splits of municipal parts from mother municipalities (1995–2020). The time frame was chosen because it excludes the municipal splits in the specific transition period and focuses only on the time after which the municipal structure had stabilized. Additionally, it corresponds to the chosen timeframe of other country cases in this volume. The aim of the study is thus to answer the research question of why those municipalities split, and whether a common pattern across those municipalities may be identified.

Municipal splits in the Czech Republic have remained largely understudied. Two studies close to the topic discuss splits, but only indirectly (Vajdová et al. 2006; Bernard & Kostelecký 2010). Bernard & Kostelecký (2010) analyse and compare the socioeconomic development of small communities that have their own local government (traditional or newly created municipalities) and communities that form part of a bigger municipality and do not therefore have their own local government, but not the municipal splits per se. One reason might be that the municipal structure is immensely fragmented. With 6,258 municipalities in 2020, the 38 splits do not seem to be worthy of study, especially when the last secession of two city parts of one Moravian-Wallachian municipality occurred quite a long time ago, in 2012, and due to a specific reason – in order to close a grammar school in one of the parts. Reading the information on splits in daily local news, one might come to the hasty conclusion that municipal divorce is due to specific local reasons a foreign observer could not understand and that it is not worthy of being systematically studied. Nevertheless, when we look at municipal splits from a comparative perspective, common patterns can be observed.

First, most of the split municipalities were geographically detached from the mother municipality and were unproportionally small in comparison. Second, the splits occurred predominantly in Moravia, while in Bohemian regions, splits were rare. This is because of the specific local culture and identity of municipalities in Moravia (see Illner 1999, p.89). Here, citizens feel strong attachment to their municipality and are very active in organizing local cultural events. While this might be interesting for a Czech reader, it is not a satisfactory answer to the broader community of local government researchers. We have to look for broad generalizable explanations.

There have been several explanations of municipal splits proposed in the academic literature (Erlingsson 2005; Tanguay & Wihry 2008; Dollery et al. 2011; Lima & Neto 2018; Swianiewicz & Łukomska 2019). These include the economic reasons, the culture, and the agency-based approach that focuses on political actors and local community leaders. Those factors can be subsumed into two types: (1) the environment (or context) and (2) the actors of the policy arena (see Swianiewicz 2021 in this volume). However, they are not mutually exclusive as economic and cultural reasons can motivate political actors to act. These factors also serve as opportunity structures or contexts within which the local leaders are motivated to act. Furthermore, we cannot expect that in the case of the Czech Republic there is a single explanation. Rather, the splits result from multiple factors. Yet from the collected data, it seems that the dominant explanation favours economic reasons, while local culture and identity play a minor role although that had been the dominant explanation in the early 1990s.

This paper is structured as follows. First, the context of the Czech local government system and the procedural and formal rules of the secession of municipalities is explained. In the subsequent analytical section, the factors explaining the 38 splits are examined. After that, the consequences and impacts of splits on the newly established municipalities, as well as on their mother municipalities, are discussed. The last section concludes and proposes policy implications.

Just after the regime change, there were virtually no obstacles for municipalities to divorce from their former central municipality (the Czech term středisková obec), which was the product of the socialist amalgamation reforms in the early 1970s (Musil 2001; Hudečková & Pitterling 2009). Fragmentation was seen as a democratic reform in the early stage of the Czech transition (Campbell & Coulson 2008; Illner 2011). Therefore, the Municipal Act did not stipulate any requirements for the newly created municipalities regarding a minimum population or any other thresholds. Since 1992, a local referendum must be held in the municipal part that is pursuing a split from the municipality. From 1994, The Municipal Election Act stipulated that the newly established municipality must have at least 300 inhabitants. Although the country has not experienced a dramatic number of splits in the period after 1994, the new Municipal Act of 2000 (still in force) further tightens the rules for municipal splits. It was the last chance for small municipalities, that had not done so already in the early 90s, to split. Legislatures intended to prevent further fragmentation of the municipal structure (Illner 2011; Bernard & Kostelecký 2010).

At present, a new municipality may by constituted by separating part of the municipality from the existing municipality under several conditions. First, the part of the municipality wishing to separate must have a separate cadastral territory adjacent to at least two municipalities, or one municipality and a bordering state, and it must form a coherent territorial unit. Second, after separation, the new municipality must have at least 1,000 citizens. The remaining part of the municipality, after the separation of one of its parts, must meet the first two conditions. Third, and most importantly, the citizens living in the part of the municipality that wants to separate must consent via a local referendum. A self-proclaimed citizen committee initiating a referendum must create a petition and collect signatures from 30 % of the population.

If the population is under 3,000; 20 % if under 20,000; 10 % if under 200,000; 6 % if over 200,000.

Since 1995, which is the starting point of this study, there have been 38 splits. The dynamics have not been equal though. After 2001 (see Figure 1), we see a decline in the number of split municipalities due to the population requirement. The changes in legislation directly affected the number of splits in the Czech Republic. Before 2001, out of 31 splits, only two would have fulfilled the population requirement for a divorce stipulated by the new Municipal Act.

Figure 1

The first two splits under the new Municipal Act occurred in 2006 (the referendums were held in 2004). Within two years, there was legal uncertainty and procedures for the splits were not defined or settled. The first split, the municipality of Ladná, even consulted the Ministry of the Interior and successfully proposed an amendment to the Municipal Act that made it clear that secessions would always take effect in the year following the referendum (1 January). Before that, the establishment of the new part was not effective until the beginning of the calendar year following elections to municipal councils. In extreme cases, this could take four years if the referendum was held immediately after municipal elections. Furthermore, the Municipal Act does not stipulate economic and property terms of divisions. Therefore, many legal disputes had to be decided in court (e.g. a property dispute between Bohuslavice and Slavičín was ruled out by the Czech Constitutional Court); some are still ongoing.

The current literature on municipal splits is rather limited as opposed to literature on municipal amalgamation. There are two studies (Erlingsson 2005; Brink 2004) from Sweden, and Canadian (Tanguay & Wihry 2008) and Australian (Tanguay & Wihry 2008) studies. Regarding the region of post-communist Europe, most of the studies are focused on Poland (see Gendźwiłł et al. 2020; Swianiewicz et al. 2018). The literature divides the general factors connected to splits or that increase the likelihood of municipal secession into (1) cultural factors, (2) economic factors, and (3) political ones. All are described in detail by Swianiewicz (2021; in this volume). In this section, the structural factors that are specifically important for the Czech context such as the geographic context and municipality size are also discussed. However, both the above factors are indirectly linked to cultural or economic claims.

All the municipalities in the Czech Republic have the same scope of independent powers, although they differ in terms of state delegated powers (see Illner 2011) as there are municipalities with extended scope (N=205). The municipal council is directly elected using the proportional single district electoral system. The council elects, among its members, a mayor and municipal board members (yet, in one fifth of municipalities, the board consists of a mayor only, who presides over it; see Ryšavý & Bernard 2013). The most important revenue source is tax revenues (approximately 58 % of total revenues in 2020; Ministry of Finance 2020), which are fixed by a shared tax formula that takes the municipal size, cadastral size and other criteria into account. The other sources are direct payments (state or EU funds) and fees. Generally, the institutional setting seems to be favourable for municipal divorces in the Czech Republic.

In this section, the results of descriptive analysis on why municipalities split are synthesized, and whether there is a common pattern that can generally explain successful splits in the Czech Republic is illustrated. The reasons for splits were predominantly compiled from the interviews with the mayors or local actors of 30 out of the 38 municipalities that have split since 1995. Three general questions were asked: (1) What do you think the main reasons were for the secession of the village? (2) Who was behind or who initiated and organized the secession of the village? (3) How was the initial period after secession? What did the village have to contend with? Were there any problems?

The survey represents the subjective opinions of the actors; however, the responses were also checked against news articles discussing the split at the time. The collection of data was also complicated by the COVID-19 outbreak.

Table 1 (see below) shows all the municipalities that split between 1995 and 2020. In all the municipalities that responded to the survey in February 2020, all the actors indicated the economic reasons but three of them mentioned historical and cultural factors as being most important. Four respondents indicated that economic and cultural factors were equally important. The results are similar to the only conducted study

77 % of mayors claimed economic reasons, 13 % indicated personal reasons such as the ambitions of local leaders, only 6 % answered that the reasons were historical (former amalgamated municipalities), and 4 % indicated ‘other reasons’.

Out of 38 secessions, 28 occurred in parts that were geographically distant to the ‘natural capital’

The maps of the location and geographic context of municipal splits can be requested by email. Distant municipalities are treated as ones that are not connected by a built-up area to the mother municipality.

Figure 2

While the splits before 2000 were not regarded as very controversial, the splits in 2006 gained nationwide media coverage, due in part to the new Act. The secessionists were quite big municipalities with a population of over a thousand inhabitants. Whereas before 2006 the splits were driven by cultural factors too, the splits after 2006 were driven by the fact that the central municipality had underinvested in municipal parts. The mistreatment of parts is also frequent in the statutory cities

The 27 largest urban municipalities listed in the Municipal Act with a special status. Statutory cities can establish sub-municipal units in their parts with their own council and board.

In some cases, the reasons for the split resulted from plans made by the central municipality to limit services in its city parts. In two parts of Valašské Meziříčí, the city councillors decided to close the grammar school, which triggered the protest of the citizens. Although the councillors backed off and promised greater transparency in the negotiations and offered representatives of the settlement committee to participate in the city council meeting, the citizens in both parts voted to ‘exit’. The closure of grammar schools was also the reason for the first secession after 2000 of Ladná from the city of Břeclav, and of Chvojno from the Libouchec municipality in 1998, and Těchlovice from the statutory city of Děčín in 1997. Crucial in the Czech context, another example of the mistreatment of municipal parts was in Kujavy, where the mother municipality Fulnek closed a school and sold the building where the local pub with its dance hall was located. In small towns, local pubs with halls are places where citizens meet and where cultural events take place. Interestingly, two municipalities did not feel underinvested in or exploited, because the mother municipality objectively invested in these parts (e.g. Libhošť and Nový Jičín), yet they decided to have their own budget for both cultural and economic reasons, which are complementary and not exclusive, because culturally self-aware municipalities want to make decisions on their own.

Regionally, splits have occurred disproportionately in the Zlín region (10 splits), Moravian-Silesian region (8), Olomouc region (6) and South-Moravian region (5). These four regions are all located in the eastern part of the country, historically called Moravia, while in the western (Bohemian) part, splits have been rare despite the fact that the population is larger (6.2 compared to 3.9 million). Both parts have small as well as large regions so the number is not affected by population size. Furthermore, the municipal structure is not as fragmented in Moravia. Moravian municipalities are comparatively larger in population size than Bohemian ones (Bernard & Kostelecký 2010) and they also generally perceive themselves as having a strong cultural and identity (Perlín et al. 2010). They score high on social capital and participation (Pileček & Jančák 2010).

Furthermore, the media coverage of Moravian splits was higher while it was difficult to get any information from local media about splits in Bohemian regions. Municipal splits are thus quite freely discussed in Moravia.

The picture would not be complete without mentioning that there were several unsuccessful attempts for municipal divorce. In several municipalities,

Unfortunately, the Ministry of the Interior did not collect data on local referendums before 2006. So, the information is scattered and not complete.

Based on the limited number of cases it is hard to infer the general impact of splits on the functioning of a municipality or its socio-economic development. The only study conducted in the Czech Republic (Bernard & Kostelecký 2010) found that in the category of municipalities with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants there was no difference in the socio-economic development between settlements that have their own local government and communities that form a part of a bigger municipality and do not dispose therefore of their own local government. However, there was a tendency that showed that having an administrative status, as opposed to being just a municipal part, positively correlates with socio-economic development in the group of larger municipalities and their parts (settlements with populations of more than 1,000). The study of Bernard & Kostelecký (2010) thus supports the claim that larger settlements, without their own local government, should split from the mother municipality. Indeed, the split municipalities subjectively claim they are better off after the secession. However, the effect of a split on efficiency and effectiveness is unclear. On the one hand, the economy of scale assumption applies because the newly established municipality must hire officials to the municipal office and other public service positions, including elected members of local council. The costs are fixed and the further fragmentation inherently lowers efficiency, especially in terms of measures such as per capita spending on local administration or the percentage share of spending on local administration compared to total expenditure (Sharpe 1995; Gimenez & Prior 2007; Swianiewicz & Łukomska 2019; Gendźwiłł et al. 2020). Moreover, in the Czech context, a simple equation generally applies regarding tax revenues: the original municipality, before the secession of its part, receives more than the two successor municipalities after the separation. On the other hand, the ‘closeness’ to citizens means they can better decide what the investment needs are. Furthermore, some clear benefits can hardly be economized, such as an increase in cultural and associational life in a municipality.

The splits are commonly perceived as disadvantageous for the capital municipality. The current mayor of the Slavičín municipality, Tomáš Chmela, refers to the year 2000 as the year of ‘Africa 1960’.

Interview with Tomáš Chmela, the mayor of Slavičín and deputy director of the Associations of Local Municipalities (SMS ČR).

Frequently, the initiators of splits argue that citizens do not have a means for effective democratic participation. A study from Poland (Swianiewicz et al. 2018) demonstrates that the electoral turnout in municipalities that initiated a referendum did indeed increase, but the electoral competition simultaneously decreased. At least regarding the turnout, the results are similar in the Czech context. Comparing the turnout in elections preceding the split and following the split (difference-in-differences design of the paired electoral precinct in new and old municipalities), the turnout increases in new municipalities by approximately 24 % in the following election. However, the split municipalities do not differ from their independent counterparts as in all the municipal elections after 2010 the difference in turnout between split municipalities and controls (based on the matching method algorithm) is not significant and substantial. The results also show that in the split municipalities, the number of candidates is the same as in similar sized municipalities with similar sociodemographic conditions. The same trend, as identified globally on Czech municipal election data by Ryšavý & Bernard (2013), shows that in split municipalities with small populations the number of candidates is lower than in bigger ones (correlation between size and number of candidates per seats is 0.47 using the Spearman rank coefficient). Therefore, the split only has a temporal effect on electoral turnout and in time the split municipalities do not differ to other municipalities.

Before the reform of the municipal law setting the requirement of 1,000 inhabitants from newly seceded municipalities, the splits were driven by perceived local identity and the historical memory of being a former independent municipality. Those former municipalities that wanted to split from the amalgamated centre did it after the regime transition, and after 1992 with a referendum and the consent of its citizens. Yet after 1995, the splits were predominantly driven by economic factors, be it objective underinvestment or perceived grievance that the mother municipality did not take care of its fringe parts. Economic or cultural factors did not operate independently but in conjunction with political factors. They gave a structure opportunity for local (independent) leaders. In all cases, the mother municipality failed to communicate with the initiator and overwhelmingly lost the referendums. However, if the central municipality invested in its parts and its political leaders communicated with the citizens, the referendum failed.

What are the lessons learned? While there are clear benefits of splits such as increased political participation, it may be claimed that smaller split municipalities are unable to bear large investment projects due to economies of scale. As a result of the population threshold since 2001, the splits typically occur in local parts of larger cities. Just recently, in 2009, a municipality Želechovice nad Dřevnicí split from the statutory city Zlín. A local activist stated that their first demand during the negotiations was that the statutory city opt for decentralization and establish the sub-municipal government in its separationist part.

Michal Špendlík, who became a mayor. Email communication.