Slowenien: Eine brüchige Demokratie nach zwanzig Jahren Selbstständigkeit
Slovenia: A Feeble Democracy After Twenty Years of Independence

Summary/Abstract: In the first, historical part of the article the author covers Slovenia’s efforts to develop towards an independent and free state. The extremely conflictive situation during the Second World War, when the nation decided between waiting and fighting against the occupational forces (fascism and Nazism), was used by the communist totalitarian system for starting a revolution. Individuals and groups were entering into different compromises which have been burdening the development of democracy in Slovenia until today. Social changes twenty years ago took place rather peacefully and with relatively few casualties. The social order was changed, but forms of thinking and acting, imparted by the communist Titoism, remained. In the last years, under the protection of left-of-centre political forces, different forms of revitalization of old symbols and attempts to revive the communist social order have emerged. Slovenia has not performed the paradigm shift from the totalitarian attitude towards the state into the democratic attitude towards the citizens. The burdened history as well as the remaining and revitalised communist social paradigm effect the unawareness of the people and their political culture. The latter is confirmed by public opinion researches at home and abroad. Twenty years after the democratic changes Slovenian democracy is fragile and vulnerable.

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