Volume 16 (2020): Edition 3 (December 2020)

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.

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.

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.

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 19^th 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.

As part of former Yugoslavia and non -members of the Eastern Bloc, Slovenia and Montenegro enjoyed a special status and relationships with the European Communities (EC) before most other socialist countries. Economic and social interactions with the EC and its member states thus formed part of Slovenian and Montenegrin life even during socialism, particularly after Yugoslavia signed special agreements on trade relations with the EC in the 1970s and 1980s. In this respect, Europeanisation as ‘practical’ integration with the EC was closely linked with liberalisation processes concerning the economy, society and politics along with democratic transition processes that began in the late 1980s. When Slovenia joined the European Union (EU) in 2004 following a relatively smooth integration process, Montenegro was still holding EU candidate member status, after having officially started its accession negotiations in June 2012. The article analyses selected development and integration aspects of Slovenia and Montenegro, their relationship with the EU, together with their similarities and differences. The aim is to highlight developments in both countries and determine whether Slovenia, as an ex -Yugoslav republic and EU member since 2004, may serve as a good example for Montenegro to follow while pursuing European integration.

Slovenia and Montenegro have a common past; however, they have also experienced diverse developments in the field of social policy over the last three decades. The social policy of the two countries is based on a Yugoslav welfare model, and yet the positions of the two countries were quite rather different even as part of Federal Yugoslavia, with Slovenia being one of the most developed territories within the federation, while Montenegro was one of the least developed. In this article, we will describe the position and main challenges of the transition of the two countries from 1990 in relation to the developments and changes in the core fields of social policy, such as the labour market and social assistance, family policy and old age policy. The emphasis will be on linking the diverse starting points, the process of transition and the direction of developments, within the framework of path dependent changes in the two welfare systems, as well as a discussion of the relevant structural pressures, such as the economic and social situation of the two countries and ways of coping with these pressures that were employed. In the conclusion, the changes within the individual fields of social policy will also be discussed in relation to the prevalent discourses of the neoliberal transformation of modern welfare states, along with the development of social investment perspectives within social policy as a whole.

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.