Abstract
The Czech Republic has undergone a quite severe economic recession since 2009. This recession put many public policies in conditions of austerity because of severe budget cuts and opened a window for changes in different policies.
The liberal-conservative government formed in 2010 tried to exploit this opportunity and launched a wide range of neoliberal "reforms" concerning pensions, social security, health care, public finances, education etc. However opponents of these reforms formed broad civic coalition that opposed these "reforms" and formulated own counter-proposals.
The Czech Republic thus became a field of fierce disputes about where and how to cut. In our paper we focus on the role of political parties in this process.
We consider them as crucial actors in the policy-making process due to their hegemony in appointing decision-makers in public offices (especially Parliament and government) and linking civil society with the state. Czech political parties were put under the stress and had to deal with challenges coming from the austerity.
They had to activate their policy capacity to frame problems and formulate solutions. We are interested in ways how they have used their policy capacity and policy advisory systems to get required policy knowledge for formulation of these problems and solutions.
We focus especially on their relations with think tanks and policy experts in developing arguments concerning policies change under the austerity.