Discourse Before Coordination? Coalition Dynamics in Czech Climate Policy

This paper examines the interaction between discourse coalitions and advocacy coalitions in Czech climate policy. Drawing on the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and discourse-oriented approaches to the policy process, the point of departure is that legacy media discourse and policy networks form asymmetric yet interdependent layers of coalition politics. Media discourse constitutes a broader and more inclusive space for policy signalling and coordination, while advocacy coalitions rely on more durable, resource-dependent inter-organizational ties. The study combines organizational survey data capturing policy networks in two governmental periods (2013-2017 and 2021-2025) with longitudinal legacy media data spanning 2009-2025. The two governmental periods with contrasting partisan orientations are divided by the adoption of the European Green Deal in 2019, an external event that might have contributed to the restructuring of the Czech climate policy network, as well as legacy media discourse on climate. We use network analysis methods to examine three expectations. First, changes in discourse coalitions are expected to precede and more strongly predict changes, if any, in advocacy coalition structures than the reverse. Second, more pronounced realignments in discourse coalitions than in advocacy coalitions are expected, indicating faster adaptation at the discursive level than at the organizational level. Third, actors associated with incumbent fossil-fuel interests are expected to discursively reposition more extensively than in terms of their advocacy coalition memberships.