ABSTRACT
This chapter presents Slovenia profiles of longstanding democracies and of the European Union, and provides essential detail on history, electoral system, political parties and cleavages, and governments. Historically Slovenia was territory consisting of a number of Austrian crown lands, then it was part of Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes which was later renamed Yugoslavia in October 1929. Post-communist party politics in Slovenia began with a bipolar structure of anti-communists versus reformed communists, then moved to a multi-polar structure based on left-right ideology and religiosity. Slovenia has an ongoing single-interest party in the form of the democratic party of pensioners of Slovenia, which formed in 1991 and ran as part of the United Left in 1992. Almost all Slovenian governments up through 2004 were headed by the liberal Democratic Party (LDS), and the only changes were with regard to which parties the LDS decided to choose as allies.
