Europeanisation of the Slovenian party system – from marginal European impacts to the domestification of EU policy issues?

Abstract

While more general research findings on the impact of European integration on party system competition in post-socialist EU countries remain inconclusive, some studies have shown direct interdependence between the deepening of democratisation and its Europeanisation. Whereas in successfully democratising new EU members EU pressure to satisfy the political criteria did not create deep tensions between intergovernmental and domestic levels, this was not the case in Slovakia. Based on Slovakian experiences and taking the unfinished process of EU enlargement into account, the authors suggest: a) a theoretical model encompassing a two-level game; and b) a greater variety of research units (allowing a bigger variety of national political characteristics as well as EU-impacts) to be included in further research efforts. The model was tested on Slovenia. While in Slovenia (like most recent post-socialist EU member states) the EU’s relatively weak impact on political parties and party competition could be observed in the accession period, full EU membership has created greater space for EU-policy related cleavages on the basis of the domestic pattern of party system competition (left-right, government-opposition parties).