The sense of external political efficacy is an individual's belief that the political system, political representatives, and public institutions are responsive to citizens' demands, and that citizens can influence political decision-making through political participation. This concept captures the extent to which people perceive the political system as open and responsive to citizens, and whether citizens believe their views and interests are considered in political decision-making. In the CZEPS panel survey, external political efficacy is measured through agreement with several statements. One of these is the following statement: "It doesn't matter who wins the parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic, because nobody cares about the interests of ordinary people anyway."
The results of the third CZEPS wave, conducted in autumn 2025, show that the level of agreement with this critical assessment of Czech politics differs considerably across students from different educational tracks. The statement was disagreed with by 57% of students on the academic track, 34% on the higher vocational track, and only 23% on the lower vocational track. Conversely, only 15% of academic-track students agreed with the statement, compared with 26% of higher vocational-track students and 28% of lower vocational-track students. At the same time, students on the lower vocational track (49% of them) and on the higher vocational track (40% of them) chose the middle response category ("neither agree nor disagree") considerably more often than academic-track students (only 28%).
The differences shown in the figure below suggest that students on the academic track have a markedly higher sense of external political efficacy than students in the other two educational tracks, that is, a lower degree of conviction that the interests of ordinary people do not matter in politics. Conversely, a neutral attitude is more frequent among students on the lower vocational track, and there is a higher share of agreement with the critical statement discussed here. More detailed follow-up analyses of the CZEPS survey data may help reveal whether these differences are linked to differences in educational experiences, students' social backgrounds, their levels of critical thinking, or other factors.
