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In order to evaluate the existing practices of the Slovenian parliamentary democracy, the author conducted a chronological overview of the shifts in prevailing democratic patterns, starting with the first parliamentary elections after the country gained independence onwards. Parliamentary and governmental political party behaviour was central to the analysis and, thus, was analysed using both statistical data and secondary sources, which primarily consisted of academic and research papers and media records. The analysis revealed that Slovenian parliamentary democracy in the initial (first) decade was according to the electoral data predictable and by programme orientation oriented towards democratic development. However, over the past three election cycles (second decade), the situation began to change quickly, indicating a predominance of internal party interests and conflicts that affect the country's entire democratic arena. One of the main findings of the article suggests that political parties in Slovenia remain a fundamentally important pillar of parliamentary democracy, but their roles and activities within the parliamentary, governmental and other arenas increasingly warn of their central mission and democratic system functions. It can be detected that the potentials for electoral uncertainties increase with the intensities of internal and inter-parties' conflicts which all give distinctly negative connotation to the country's parliamentary democracy. To reverse the curve of parliamentary democracy in a country upwards again a new period of democratic transformation should be activated, built on the principles of a new model of democratic and party governance, as well as also global sustainability policies. A clear distance from narrow internal political parties' interests, conflicts and in this regard negative competition needs to be considered as well.

Knowledge is supposed to be one of the most important values of our life. When speaking about it we have to be aware of its complexity and integrity. Knowledge is in a way omnipresent in all fields of our every-day living, and this fact makes it a necessary condition for the quality of well-being. In a way we can claim that no single field of our existence can get by without knowledge. In this article the central interest is oriented towards understanding the role of knowledge in the field of policy science and the worth of policy knowledge in and for democratic policy-making. A very special emphasis is in this regard placed on the conditions of policy knowledge in the younger democracies that have evolved from democratisation processes, reaching their zenith in the late 1980s in the territories of ex-socialist systems in Central and Eastern Europe. The article is in this regard seeking answers to the timeless dilemmas of the worth of policy knowledge, and of policy scientists, focusing on selected characteristics of policy-making practices in the case of post-socialist systems. In doing so, the article, which is more or less an academic--descriptive policy-analytical debate, has two main aims – first, to discuss and further define the understanding of policy knowledge through selected theoretical aspects; and second, to disclose the main characteristics of democratic policy and its knowledge in the context of post-socialist experiences of think tanks. As expected, it is revealed that, in the case of think tanks making, the role of policy knowledge in post-socialist systems is peculiar despite its universal meaning. According to its characteristics, it reflects the specifics of democratic development of the broader post-socialist political system. The 'facade' of democratic policy praxis often conceals a tight connectedness to the state and foreign-aid structures, political advocacy, as well as the apparent maturity of civil society. ; Znanje bi trebalo biti jedna od najvažnijih vrijednosti našeg života. Kad ...

A synthesis of existing academic, expert and everyday practical political literature demonstrates that we can trace many different approaches to the phenomena of governance. Based on the political sciences, particularly policy literature, the governance concept is most frequently connected with an analysis of the relations between actors or institutions of the state and society at different political levels. Use of the governance concept is also becoming increasingly popular when discussing sports issues, especially when the multi-level or global sport perspective is in question. This article aims to confront the national perspectives and understandings of, as well as attempts at, sports governance, in relation to multi-level ones. This refers specifically the EU, because over the last few years, not only have states expanded their traditional concerns with health and social security to encompass leisure and cultural life, including sport, but the EU has also implemented different activities concerning sport issues. This particularly emphasises the extent and importance of the relations that key national policy actors have established with themselves and especially towards supra-national (EU) actors in the processes of creating common EU sports policy directions as part of preparing the White Paper on Sport (2007). It does this by analysing the available official documents, records and statistics relating to the issue, as well as interviews conducted in spring 2007 with representatives of the state and sports-governing bodies in Slovenia. The conclusions of the analysis indicate a predominantly EU-centric type of multi-level governance approach and make some observations about the EU's future development and how this could impact the development of (sub)national sports policy.

In the article we analyze the election campaign processes for the European Parliament election in Slovenia in 2004. We emphasize different theoretical explanations of election campaigns, among which we synthesize three important sets of contents, defined as process-organizational, media & system elements of the campaign. In the article we analyze the existence of all mentioned contents, where we predict that we can talk about some sort of connection between the efficiency of the election campaign or the decision about the selection of the campaign elements & final election effects of final party success at the elections. On the basis of the exposed efficiency indicators & implemented analysis in the case of Slovenian election campaign for the European ejection we can not confirm the connectedness between different campaign activities & final election result between the competitive political parties. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

In the article we analyze the election campaign processes for the European Parliament election in Slovenia in 2004. We emphasize different theoretical explanations of election campaigns, among which we synthesize three important sets of contents, defined as process-organizational, media & system elements of the campaign. In the article we analyze the existence of all mentioned contents, where we predict that we can talk about some sort of connection between the efficiency of the election campaign or the decision about the selection of the campaign elements & final election effects of final party success at the elections. On the basis of the exposed efficiency indicators & implemented analysis in the case of Slovenian election campaign for the European ejection we can not confirm the connectedness between different campaign activities & final election result between the competitive political parties. Tables, Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.

The processes of Europeanization have invaded the public policy sphere & introduced into it, among other things, the altered views of the roles of policy players & their relationships in the processes of the formation & the implementation of public policy. As soon as these new developments had been detected, numerous political science debates understandably ensued about the changed roles & competences of the actors who operate at different political levels in the European Union. The paper begins with the definition of the policy actor in the research of the EU policy process. The usability of the traditional & the contemporary understanding of the policy actor in the EU policy system is looked into by means of the indicators of (non)statehood & the existing view of the role of the state, thereby articulating the dilemmas & the prospects for the potential new taxonomies of policy actors that might emerge as a consequence of the policy activity at the EU level, since the newly identified features breed suspicion in the unequivocal adequacy of the existing taxonomy of the actors. Also, the appropriateness of the categorization of the players according to their political level or to the structural-functional character of their activities is discussed. References. Adapted from the source document.

In exploring the first two decades of evolution of political programmes applied for the electoral processes in Slovenia, a young European multiparty parliamentary democracy with a proportional electoral system and multiparty government coalitions, the article contributes to a rich tradition of studying the programmes of political parties as relevant narrators of the development of democratic systems and suggests an answer to 'why do parties write manifestos?' The main findings include the distinct issue emphasis of parliamentary and non-parliamentary parties' manifestos and convergence in issue emphasis over time among parliamentary parties who go on to form coalition governments. Regarding the 'why', these and other findings indicate that the manifestos considered here are intended more for post-election purposes – in particular, for the formation of alliances and negotiating and running a coalition government – than for attracting voters in the pre-election period. Party programmes are seen more as self-intended tools for political struggle than as promoters or control mechanisms for the further development of the democratic political system.

The main goal of this paper is to provide a descriptive analytical overview of the existing evolution of the Slovenian parliamentary arena since its transition to democracy and independence. The paper is divided into two main parts: (1) an overview of a normative insight into the parliamentary and party system, and (2) an analytical assessment of the structure of the parliamentary arena as it is reflected in electoral and parties' choices and policy preferences. A look at the contemporary democratic parliamentary arena in Slovenia shows that it, in itself, has been quite stable, while, on the contrary, its main integral parts – political parties – have gradually become less stable and less predictable, especially in the second decade of democracy, which can potentially influence the future stability of parliamentary arena, too.