Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Energy Research & Social Science journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/erss Original research article A contested transition toward a coal-free future: Advocacy coalitions and coal policy in the Czech Republic Petr Ocelík a,b, ⁎ , Kamila Svobodová c , Markéta Hendrychová d , Lukáš Lehotský a , Jo-Anne Everingham c , Saleem Ali c,e , Jaroslaw Badera f , Alex Lechner g a Department of International Relations and European Studies, Faculty Social Studies, Masaryk University, Joštova 218/10, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic b International Institute of Political Science, Faculty Social Studies, Masaryk University, Jostova 218/10, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic c Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, Sustainable Minerals Institute, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia d Czech University of Life Sciences, Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Department of Land Use and Improvement, Kamycka 1176, Prague 16500, Czech Republic e College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, University of Delaware, 272 The Green APT 111, Newark, Delaware, 19716, USA f Faculty of Earth Sciences, University of Silesia, 41 - 200 Sosnowiec, Poland g School of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, University of Nottingham Malaysia, Semenyih, 43500, Malaysia ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Energy policy Energy transition Coal phase-out Policy networks ABSTRACT Coal phase-out is an integral part of the ongoing energy transition to a decarbonized economy. Any such process involves diverse actors that compete over the nature and pace of such transition. This research uses the Advocacy Coalition Framework to analyze the conditions of policy change within an adversarial subsystem. It focuses on the coal subsystem in the Czech Republic, a post-communist coal-dependent country with comparatively large economically recoverable reserves. Using data from an organizational survey, exploratory social network ana- lysis techniques are applied to identify advocacy coalitions and deductive block-modeling is used to test hy- potheses on the subsystem’s functioning. The focus is on: (1) fragmentation of decision-makers, (2) targeting of decision-makers, and (3) use of expert information. Two competing and ideologically distant coalitions were identifed: the Industry Coalition and Environmental Coalition. The results further show high fragmentation among decision-makers, as indicated by their cross-coalition membership and the heterogeneity of their beliefs. The targeting of decision-makers is practiced by principal members of both coalitions, i.e. environmental non- governmental organizations and industry, but also by research organizations. Lastly, expert information ex- change strongly overlaps with the identifed coalitions and thus increases their cohesiveness. It is argued that such subsystem confguration limits the potential for policy change through negotiated agreement or policy learning. Policy brokers and policy venues are suggested as remedies to moderate the adversarial nature of the subsystem. 1. Introduction Energy transition to a low-carbon economy is one of the most pressing and complex challenges that modern societies face globally. In this context, coal has been recognized as a reliable and cheap source of energy from the very beginnings of the industrial revolution and a backbone of traditional energy industries [1]. Nevertheless, it is now considered to be one of the major anthropogenic drivers of greenhouse gas emissions [2]. Thus, the European Union's policies aim to phase out coal production in the next 25 to 50 years and require member state governments as well as regional authorities to engage in the energy transition [3]. Besides regulation, the decline in coal demand is further strengthened by increased competition from renewables and un- conventional natural gas resources, which are pushing coal out of the North American market [4]. These trends generate landscape pressures impacting member states where involved policy actors and their coa- litions compete in uncertain environments over the formulation of specifc transition pathways [5,6]. In this respect, coal dependent countries that have not yet adopted phase-out strategies stand at a decisive point when key decisions on how quickly and by what means to transform their carbon intensive energy industries need to be made. As Markard et al. [7] reported, research on the political dimension of https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2019.101283 Received 23 December 2018; Received in revised form 25 August 2019; Accepted 1 September 2019 ⁎ Corresponding author at: Masaryk University, Jostova 218/10, 602 00 Brno, Czech Republic. E-mail addresses: petr.ocelik@gmail.com (P. Ocelík), k.svobodova@uq.edu.au (K. Svobodová), hendrychovam@fzp.czu.cz (M. Hendrychová), llehotsky@mail.muni.cz (L. Lehotský), j.everingham1@uq.edu.au (J.-A. Everingham), saleem@udel.edu (S. Ali), jaroslaw.badera@us.edu.pl (J. Badera), Alex.Lechner@nottingham.edu.my (A. Lechner). Energy Research & Social Science 58 (2019) 101283 Available online 03 October 2019 2214-6296/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T