Although there are numerous definitions of populism, the distinction between the different forms of populism in relation to changing forms of societies has not yet been conceptualised. Such a typologisation requires a focus on changes in political paradigms relating to changing forms of societies, and on particular reactions to processes of globalisation. It is argued that adopting this approach can make research more precise both in studying a single country and for comparative cross-country research. In this article we report on development and testing of conceptualisations of pre-modern, modern national, authoritarian national and post-modern populism with reference to the case of Slovenia, a society which has recently undergone dynamic change.
COBISS.SI-ID: 34389853
For the very first time in EU history, the 2014 EP elections provided citizens with the opportunity to influence the nomination of the Commission President by casting a vote for the main Europarties "lead candidates". By subjecting the position of the Commission President to an open political contest, many experts have formulated the expectation that heightened political competition would strengthen the weak electoral connection between EU citizens and EU legislators, which some consider a root cause for the EU's lack of public support. In particular, this contest was on display in the so-called "Eurovision Debate", a televised debate between the main contenders for the Commission President broadcasted live across Europe. Drawing on a quasi-experimental study conducted in 24 EU countries, we find that debate exposure led to increased cognitive and political involvement and EU support among young citizens. Unfortunately, the debate has only reached a very small audience.
COBISS.SI-ID: 34611805
This comparison of two small European states, Slovenia and Norway, illuminates several similarities that can be traced back in their status as a small countries and also shows how their regional and historical contexts are visible in different approaches to domestic and international politics. There are three chapters included in the publication from the program members: 1) introductory chapter on comparison of these two small states (Fink-Hafner, ed.), 2) a chapter on political parties in both countries (Krašovec) and 3) final chapter on the relations with the EU which reveals Norway’s EU - skeptic and Slovenian EU - enthusiastic relations with the European Community / European Union. By comparing the Slovenian and Norwegian experiences, we can test many of the most common arguments for why Norwegians continually oppose membership in the European Union. After all, both countries share features which are often used to explain Norwegian exceptionalism with respect to EU membership: small and peripheral countries, “suppressed” by large neighbours.
COBISS.SI-ID: 34042205
The article offers insight into the development of democracy in Slovenia, which is consistently placed among the countries that made the most progress toward consolidated democracy. Recently, however, Slovenian democracy has been challenged. The article shows that the balance between responsible and responsive policies tipped following the first decade, due to the demise of corporatism, distrust in political parties, and the personalization of politics.
COBISS.SI-ID: 34344541
This article draws on the assumption that certain congruence between the parties' electoral platforms and of the succeeding government's performance shall exist in democratic systems and shall, as such, be considered as an important research topic for the researchers of democratic policy-making processes and political systems in general. In the article, we analyse whether the contents of parties' electoral programmes and the contents of key post-electoral governmental policy documents - that is, the coalition agreement, the government sessions' agenda and governmental weekly press releases ecorrespond to each other. Slovenia, as one of the younger EU democracies, is used as a case study to test the application of the stated. Original Manifesto Research on Political Representation (MARPOR) methodology for quantifying documents' content is applied and analysis primarily focuses on governmental period of the first right-centred government from 2004 to 2008. The conclusions confirm the existence of issue congruence in the period of the analysed electoral cycle, and at the same time reveal substantial specifics between the hierarchy of political to policy issue orientations of the government and its constitutive political parties. Consequently, an initiative for constructing a tentative theory of political documents is put forward on the basis of inductive research conclusions.
COBISS.SI-ID: 33394013