Open Section Political Science (332)
Political Science, other (332)
Cleavages and Government in Slovenia and Montenegro
Alenka Krašovec and Nemanja Batrićević
In this article we identify the factors that contribute to the formation and especially the durability/stability of governments in both Slovenia and Montenegro after they formally introduced multiparty systems and following their democratic transition, with a focus on the effect of cleavages and party system characteristics generally. Although these two polities share several important similarities (small size, common institutional setting during Yugoslav era, aspirations for membership in international organisations etc.), the nature of governments' durability/stability in the democratic era entails distinct differences. While Montenegro stands out in post-socialist Europe as the only case where the ruling party has not been overthrown, Slovenia has been led by many governments composed of different political parties. While it seems that in neither country are the ideological characteristics of the governments able to explain their duration/stability to any important extent, it is obvious that the cleavage structure in the two countries has varied, as has the importance of particular cleavages.
in Politics in Central Europe
Democratisation of Defence Policies and Systems in Slovenia and Montenegro: Developmental and Comparative Aspects
Iztok Prezelj, Olivera Injac, and Anja Kolak
The democratisation of national defence policies and systems plays a vital role in making any country more democratic. The democratic transition of this sector in Slovenia and Montenegro has experienced a challenging reform process and it is now time for reflection. This paper aims to identify the main characteristics and issues of the democratisation process in the field of national defence in both countries and, by comparing them, to look for key similarities and differences. The paper argues and confirms that the Slovenian and Montenegrin national defence and security systems were initially faced with serious post-socialist democratic deficits, but gradual democratisation then brought drastic improvements to the quality of their democracy. The process of joining NATO and the change from a military threat perception to a non-military threat perception created space for many reforms. Greatest steps forward in democratisation in both countries entailed nominating civilian defence ministers, having a reasonable number of civilian defence experts involved in the military business, establishing working parliamentary monitoring committees, reducing defence budgets and reallocating funding to other sectors. Progress was also observed in reducing the total number of soldiers, establishing a fully professional armed force, assuring that women in the armed forces were properly represented and increasing the deployment of soldiers to foreign stabilisation operations in a sign of becoming security providers.
Development Processes for Changing the Party System in Slovenia and Montenegro
Elena Nacevska and Nemanja Stankov
This paper explores differences in the party system development of two former Yugoslav republics: Slovenia and Montenegro. Despite sharing a communist institutional system, after that disintegrated Slovenia had a much faster pace of democratic consolidation and economic development than Montenegro. Similarly, the nature of the party competition and party system structure are also quite different. Using a quantitative and descriptive approach applied to the period between 1990 and 2018, we outline patterns of party competition and party system development and explore how they complement the stages of democratisation. We investigate how the comparatively faster democratisation in Slovenia is reflected in the competitive party system with a focus on the ideological divide as the chief source of electoral competition. In contrast, we look at how the prolonged transition in Montenegro is reflected in the closed party system with party competition occurring mainly along ethnic lines.
Introduction: (De)democratisation in Slovenia and Montenegro: Comparing the Quality of Democracy
Olivera Komar and Meta Novak
This paper creates a framework for the comparison of two similar and yet different democratisation cases – Slovenia and Montenegro. The two countries have obvious similarities: their geography and small population, as well as their common socialist Yugoslav heritage and common aspirations to join international organisations, most importantly the European Union. However, while Slovenia went through the democratisation process rather smoothly, Montenegro took the longer road, struggling for more than a decade to regain its independence and complete its transition. We take into account different internal and external factors in these two cases such as the year of independence and of joining NATO, the political and electoral system, ethnic homogeneity, the viability of civil society, EU integration status, economic development and the presence of war in each territory in order to identify and describe those factors that contributed to the success of democratisation in different areas: the party system, the interest groups system, the defence system, Europeanisation and social policy. We find that the democratisation process in these countries produced different results in terms of quality. Various objective measures of the quality of democracy score Slovenia higher compared to Montenegro, while public opinion data shows, in general, greater satisfaction with the political system and greater trust in political institutions in Montenegro than in Slovenia.
The organisational development of interest groups in Montenegro and Slovenia: Do they contribute to more inclusive democracy?
Meta Novak and Olivera Komar
Despite the joint history of Montenegro and Slovenia as republics of the former Yugoslavia, the development of the interest groups system has been different in these countries. While in Slovenia, these groups started to develop from the 19th century, in Montenegro the interest groups system was almost non-existent in the pre-socialist period with only a few participative elements, such as the use of tribal assemblies. Socialism did not support associational life, since most of the organizations that were founded at the time were under some form of government control. As a consequence, the interest groups system in Slovenia shrank during socialist rule, while in Montenegro it remained at the same level. During the 1980s and after the collapse of the socialist regime the interest group system in Montenegro finally starts to develop, being heavily influenced by international donor and assistance programmes, while in Slovenia the system had a new opportunity to flourish. In this article we are in particularly interested in how the interest group system contributes to the quality of democracy. Although Montenegrin interest groups have been a tool of influence and democratisation primarily on behalf of the international community, their internal democracy is less sophisticated than is the case in Slovenia. The results show that the origin of the interest groups system and the distinct histories of the specific political cultures seem to be embedded in the functioning of contemporary interest groups. This in turn, determines the strength or weakness of these groups in facing the challenges of de-democratisation.