Policy Conflicts in the Czech Policy concerning Draught: Reflections on Policy Conflict Framework Application

Over the past decade, drought has emerged as one of the central challenges in Czech water and environmental policy. Although the Czech government has adopted new strategies, policy frameworks, and legislative measures, drought adaptation policy remains persistently contested. While drought has been extensively studied from hydrological and environmental perspectives, its political and governance dimensions have received far less attention. Addressing this gap, this article addresses policy conflicts concerning drought adaptation through the analytical lens of the Policy Conflict Framework (PCF). It contributes to the social science literature on environmental governance by exploring how policy beliefs, actor strategies, and institutional arrangements shape conflicts over drought adaptation. The article is based on a qualitative case study of Czech drought adaptation policy between 2013 and 2025, combining 11 semi-structured interviews with key policy actors with an analysis of related strategic and legislative documents. The findings show that the conflict extends beyond disagreements over adaptation instruments. It reflects competing understandings of the role of water in the landscape, tensions between ecosystem protection and productive land-use functions, and divergent views on the allocation of responsibilities among public authorities. These conflicts are reinforced by institutional fragmentation, interministerial tensions, and limited coordination across governance levels. Beyond providing an empirical analysis of drought governance in the Czech Republic, the article critically assesses the applicability of the Policy Conflict Framework to environmental policy conflicts in Central and Eastern Europe. The findings demonstrate that the PCF is a valuable framework for explaining the persistence of policy conflict, while also highlighting the importance of historical legacies, sectoral fragmentation, and multilevel governance in shaping conflict dynamics. By extending the application of the PCF to a post-socialist context, the study contributes both to the refinement of the framework and to comparative research on environmental governance and public policy.