The Difficult Look Back: Slovenian Democratic Path after European Union Accession

In the third wave of democratic changes in the early 1990s when the Central and Eastern European (CEE) political landscape changed radically and the democratisation processes started in the eastern part of the continent, Slovenia was one of the most prominent countries with the best prospects for rapid democratic growth. Slovenia somewhat luckily escaped the Yugoslav civil wars and towards the end of the 20th century was already on the path towards a stable and consolidated democracy with the most successful economy in the entire CEE area. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Slovenia had a simple and straight-forward political goals, i.e. to join the European union as soon as possible, thus consolidating its place among the most developed countries within the region. After some setbacks, this goal was accomplished in (so far) the biggest enlargement to the Union in May 2004. But what happened after Slovenia managed to successfully achieve its pair of major political goals? In this chapter, we search for an answer to this question and find out why Slovenian voters are increasingly distrustful not only of political institutions, but why so-called new political faces and instant political parties are so successful and why Slovenian democracy has lost a leading place among consolidated democracies in CEE.