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The Europeanization of national political parties is one of the most important topic areas in the Europeanization literature. Slovenian parties have slowly started to act in the arena of the European Union (EU) since the 1990s, and questions regarding the degree of their Europeanization have become increasingly relevant. In light of Ladrech's conviction that the clearest types of evidence of Europeanization may be found in programme changes, we focus our research on party manifestos. By conducting a computer-assisted content analysis of 65 manifestos between 1990 and 2014, we were able to examine the presence of EU-related topics and the frequency of reference to these topics, utilizing a quantitative measure of party Europeanization. We conclude that the presence of Europe in Slovenian parliamentary party manifestos is a consequence of an incremental process that intensified with the turn of the millennium and peaked with Slovenia's accession to the EU. In addition, we observe that the interaction of variables has an important effect on the salience of Europe in manifestos, with the variables involved in a mutual feedback process, thus indicating that size, governmental status and EU party links matter. In the case of fringe parties, party family proved relevant as well. Adapted from the source document.

Throughout history public administration has faced various challenges. Today those challenges are visible in the need to connect public administration and successful democracy, which is evident in the emphasis of the idea of serving citizens and not (only) users. It is obvious that the answer can be found in the concept of the new public service. The authors focus on whether it is possible, in Slovenia, which is facing similar challenges as those of many other developed countries, to introduce the concept of the new public service formally or actually, especially the element of open public administration. The research has shown that in the last decade a lot has changed concerning this, but at the same time a lot has stayed the same. That is why the authors establish that the strength of the concept of the new public service lies within the formal aspect (the existence of the special document that demands the openness of public administration to users); on a lesser scale this actually exists. For this reason, open public administration in Slovenia is still an unfulfilled wish. Adapted from the source document.

A detailed analysis of party organization, party funding and voting behaviour in parliament in Slovenia indicates a partial cartelization of Slovene party politics. In line with the cartel thesis, parties in Slovenia are heavily dependent on the state for their finances and there is evidence that parties have used the resources of the state to limit competition. Nonetheless, there is much less evidence of cartelization in terms of party organization indicating more cartelization in the party system as a whole than within individual parties. [Copyright The Regents of the University of California; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

Since independence in 1991 and until full membership in 2004, the EU played only a side role in party politics in Slovenia. However, the situation has remained very similar in the first four years of full EU membership as EU issues do not directly influence inter-party competition. Such issues have in fact held particular salience for national politics, but little salience for party politics. In addition, the EU arena has not exerted a significant impact on parties' internal organizational changes. The influence of the EU on a party and politics relates mainly to two factors: the governmental position of a party and its representation in the European parliament. Adapted from the source document.

The article takes a comparative perspective to review the background to campaign for & result of the Slovenian ED-accession referendum. The authors describe the ED's accession referendum campaign in Slovenia as a 'cat-&-mouse game' since the 'yes' campaign was outstandingly well organized & synchronized in stark contrast to the 'no' campaign which was poorly organized & came across as the representative of a narrow set of interests. Irrespective of this, the large victory (almost 90 percent) of the 'yes' camp was unexpected as was the relatively low turnout (60,4 percent). Two of the most important reasons for this high support shown at the ED accession referendum can be traced to a broad consensus among political, social & economic elites & the reorientation of the most exposed & well-known anti-ED actors towards the NATO accession referendum that was held simultaneously. Thereby, the article also partially examines the Slovenian NATO-accession referendum but only to the extent that it influenced the campaign & result of the ED referendum. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

The article takes a comparative perspective to review the background to campaign for & result of the Slovenian ED-accession referendum. The authors describe the ED's accession referendum campaign in Slovenia as a 'cat-&-mouse game' since the 'yes' campaign was outstandingly well organized & synchronized in stark contrast to the 'no' campaign which was poorly organized & came across as the representative of a narrow set of interests. Irrespective of this, the large victory (almost 90 percent) of the 'yes' camp was unexpected as was the relatively low turnout (60,4 percent). Two of the most important reasons for this high support shown at the ED accession referendum can be traced to a broad consensus among political, social & economic elites & the reorientation of the most exposed & well-known anti-ED actors towards the NATO accession referendum that was held simultaneously. Thereby, the article also partially examines the Slovenian NATO-accession referendum but only to the extent that it influenced the campaign & result of the ED referendum. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

In the article we test certain political scientists' findings about the influence of various institutional contexts on different candidate-selection arrangements for elections, using the case of Slovenia. Specifically, we examine the 2004 elections to both the national parliament and the European Parliament (EP), where different electoral systems were used. According to different political scientists, candidate selection for EP elections should be more decentralised. We also expected to reveal a higher level of democracy in the processes applied in Slovenian parliamentary parties for the EP elections than in those used for national parliamentary elections. An analysis of formal documents indicates only minor trends (in some parties) of greater centralisation and a lower level of democracy in candidate selection for EP elections compared to elections to the national parliament. Interviews with representatives from parties' selectors revealed a slightly different picture; some changes in all parties and somewhat bigger changes as well. Larger differences in the selection of candidates for both elections were only discovered in terms of the criteria the selectors employed. Nevertheless, it is hard to speak about the strong impact of different institutional contexts on the aforementioned aspects of candidate selection. Adapted from the source document.