Does Europeanisation matter? The Case of Slovenian Political Party Electoral Campaign for the European Union

Abstract

This article is based on a comparative analysis of five major Slovenian parliamentary political parties at the time of the elections of deputies to the European Parliament (EP). The electoral campaigns of individual national political parties were scrutinized, with a special consideration of organizational features and strategic activities linked to the dynamics of the European Union (EU). The essence of the study lies in the detection of changes in political party election activities brought about by the impact of EU processes. The EU’s political, social and economic influence on the national political discourse through analysis of the EP electoral campaign structures and identities complements the more conventional approach to investigating the Europeanization of national political parties, with a conceptual framework based on Ladrech’s (2001) attempt to embrace the Europeanization phenomenon. Consequently, the emphasis is on identifying programmatic and organizational changes, patterns of party competition and relations beyond the national party system. Party references to transnational interactions and networks, cooperation with foreign national and supranational party structures or representatives, the organizational and power relations of electoral campaign teams, the relevance of EU issues and institutions’ assessments and the perception of the pro and contra EU dimension therefore make up the core elements of this paper.