Who Owns the Landscape? Policy Conflict Over the Proposed Designation of Křivoklátsko as a National Park

Abstract

Nature conservation conflicts increasingly extend beyond ecological objectives to disputes over decision‐making legitimacy, institutional authority, and competing understandings of landscape and expertise. This article examines the conflict over the proposed designation of Křivoklátsko as a national park in the Czech Republic between 2021 and 2025. Drawing on the Policy Conflict Framework (PCF), the study uses a qualitative case‐study design based on 17 interviews, policy documents, legislative materials, and media discourse. Analysis proceeded in two stages: deductive coding organized by the PCF, followed by inductive coding that specified how recurring themes operated in this case. The findings identify four interrelated mechanisms of conflict escalation: epistemic divergence sustained competing standards of credible knowledge; historically rooted distrust conditioned how the proposal was interpreted; early procedural exclusion turned uncertainty into a threat to local control; and venue shifts moved the dispute from expert‐administrative preparation into municipal mobilization and parliamentary politics. Together, these mechanisms reduced willingness to compromise and generated feedback effects, including declining trust in central institutions, consolidation of regional resistance, and increased political salience. The PCF identifies and relates these mechanisms across the policy setting, cognitive and behavioral dynamics, and feedback effects, while the inductive coding specifies their case‐specific operation.