This paper fills in the gap in the literature on new parties entering parliament by focusing on particularities of a post-communist party system by taking Slovenia as a case study. During the Slovenian party system’s consolidation period (1992-2011) only four new parties (DeSUS, SMS, NSi, Zares) succeeded in entering parliament. However, just one (DeSUS) has endured over the long term. Based on the literature on new parties in the Western party system, the literature on particularities of post-communist party systems embedded in parliamentary systems and empirical research into the case of Slovenia it has been revealed that, in general, Slovenia’s institutional rules do matter when it comes to new parties entering the parliamentary system. However, besides the institutional milieu there are necessary preconditions that need to be fulfilled by a new party to enter parliament. Nevertheless, in order to maintain a long-term parliamentary position, newcomers also need to satisfy sufficient preconditions. Apart from the necessary preconditions listed above they need to focus on a long-term policy issue which is vital to a large proportion of a targeted social group; this social group needs to represent an important share of the electorate, there should not be other serious competitors with the same social appeal and the party must have strong coalition potential.
B.03 Paper at an international scientific conference
COBISS.SI-ID: 30622045This article draws on the assumption that certain congruence exists between the content of partiesʼ electoral policy platforms and of the succeeding governmentʼs policy performance and it shall be considered an important indicator of the overall quality of democracy. Therefore, we analyse the association between the policy contents in partiesʼ electoral programmes and those in key governmental policy documents, i.e. coalition agreements, government sessionsʼ agenda and weekly press releases, utilising the MARPOR or Manifesto Research on Political Representation (ex CMP, MRG) approach. Slovenia is used as a pilot study to test the application of the original MARPOR methodology to data on governmental policy performance
B.03 Paper at an international scientific conference
COBISS.SI-ID: 309719972011 coalition crisis in Slovenia could be solved by applying many different resolution tools, among them also the so called constructive vote of no confidence (like in 1992). Vote of confidence prolonged the existence of the non-operative minority coalition and deepened the crisis.
F.30 Professional assessment of the situation
COBISS.SI-ID: 30560349