This article addresses a gap in the literature concerning the survivability of new political parties in existing parliamentary systems. It focuses on the particularities of post-communist party systems and considers the impact that the recent international financial and economic crisis has had on decreasing the legitimacy of the established parties - for which Slovenia will serve as a case study. We observe that, in addition to the institutional and political milieu (which in Slovenia is relatively amenable to new parties), two factors co-determine the ability of a newcomer to maintain a long-term parliamentary presence: (i) the new partys organisational resources and potential - particularly its social appeal and whether it has a publicly-recognisable party leader; and (ii) the nature of its positioning within the existing political divide, which entails having a clear original policy focus that can be located on the established political spectrum. However, a new partys potential success will also depends upon the relative responsiveness, representativeness, integrity and transparency of the established parties. Therefore, we argue that the study of newcomers also necessitates the study of established parties, of party-system adaptations, and party collapse.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32489821
Slovenia has been widely portrayed as a ‘success story’ of the transition to modern liberal democracy. This paper attempts to revise that somewhat distorted image by explaining how different political visions, and their clashes and coalitions over two decades of independent statehood, influenced the Slovenian citizenship regime, which is rife with undemocratic practices. Drawing on the ‘nationalizing state’ approach, the paper illuminates two dominant political agendas: the nationalizing state agenda and the Europeanizing state agenda. However, both agendas are frequently intertwined and provide legitimacy to political actors across the ideological spectrum depending on the circumstances. These circumstances are external or internal to the political system and determine the relevance of either of the two agendas.
COBISS.SI-ID: 31833181
In this volume we examine how the university is a critical part of society and should be (and actually is) playing a major role in the wider objectives of creating a citizenship culture. From the viewpoint of the formal curriculum we analyze and discern the following patterns. The soft disciplines prove to have civic and citizenship content included in their study programmes, and the applied disciplines prevail over pure ones in terms of greater community involvement and civic participation. The curriculums for ‘making’ social professionals thrive in terms of civic identities and civic principles, yet this is also heavily related to their subject areas. What is disturbing is the fact that a true liberal arts education is virtually absent from the university curriculum and that the majority of the civic and citizenship content covered may be subsumed under the broad umbrella of political literacy, without devoting much attention to important concepts of empowerment, social cohesion, duties and civil society.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32567901
The objective of this book is to contribute to an increase in the knowledge of the concepts, forms and consequences of discrimination in Croatian society (with an emphasis on gender and ethnic-based discrimination) as well as legal and institutional frameworks for its combating among citizens, women's NGOs and ethnic minority NGOs and politicians. It represents the research efforts of the ‘AD ACTE – Anti-Discrimination Actions Towards the Equality of Women and Men’ project and strives to monitor the implementation of already-enacted national anti-discrimination policies, to assess their effectiveness and to propose new benchmarking models. The monitoring focuses on the anti-discrimination policies in the field of female political participation (including ethnic minority groups). On the basis of the data acquired and the analysis performed, the book argues that the measures adopted in Croatia to promote the balanced representation of women and men have failed to produce any significant improvements.
COBISS.SI-ID: 270704896
This article focuses on how domestic and EU-level political factors affect the functional aspect of the national coordination of EU affairs. Due to the idiosyncrasies of the post-communist countries which have joined the EU since 2004, an analysis of dynamic changes in the national systems of coordination needs to focus on three factors: (a) functional pressures from the EU; (b) the consolidation of the national party system; and (c) existing traditions of politico-administrative relations. The international economic and financial crisis is considered as a fourth factor that has affected the first three factors through the increase in the EUʼs ʼinformal intergovernmentalismʼ, which adds to the politicization of EU matters. The Slovenian case points to an increased, though selective, politicization of EU business due to both national- and EU-level factors.
COBISS.SI-ID: 32114781