Rivalry of Advocacy Coalitions in the Czech Pension Reform

The Czech Republic, as many other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, faced and is still facing a pension-reform challenge. The diversification of pension pillars led to the massive displacements of participant contributions from the public PAYG pension pillars to the newly constructed private, defined-contribution, fully-funded pillars. In the Czech Republic, the adoption of the relevant law was preceded by serious political conflict between supporters and opponents of this step (both among different political actors and among professionals). In an analysis of the conflict we critically apply the Advocacy Coalition Framework. We work mainly with the analysis of policy documents, public statements of the individual actors and an analysis of voting on the relevant law in both chambers of the Czech Parliament towards the identification of the crystallization process of two clear-cut coalitions between actors from both sides of the spectrum. The Advocacy Coalition Framework in exploring the dynamics of the public-policy process proved to be able to explain situations where there is sharp political conflict. Through the lens of the devil-shift of both camps (advocacy coalitions with different beliefs), each fell into extreme positions within the coalition to affirm the correctness of their arguments and positions.