Abstract
The article deals with the process of creation of Labor Office of the Czech Republic. In 2011, the law 73/2011 Co. established Labor Office as a central institution providing both unemployment benefits and social security protection.
This change has been highly controversial. The decision-making process, approval and implementation is often cited as an prototype of policy fiasco.
The article analyzes the process of the adoption of the Law Office law through the lens of groupthink theory. Using process tracing method we examine different symptoms of the groupthink theory, and discuss to what extent the "diagnostic evidence" supports this theory.
We find that this process can indeed be fruitfully understood in terms of groupthink theory, e.g. we find that the group that prepared the law was relatively closed and that dissenting viewpoints has been suppressed. Nevertheless, we conclude that groupthink theory cannot fully explain the decision-making process.