From authoritarianism to democracy via independence. The case of Slovenia.

This book aims to provide a sociological explanation for the birth of an independent state and democracy in Slovenia following the collapse of the communist regime and in the global context of the third wave of democratization (1974-1990).
 
Its principal goals are to acknowledge the social processes that lead to or threaten the consolidation of democracy in Slovenia and in the last analysis to transfer Slovenia’s framework of democratization from an ethnic group to an internationally recognized nation-state.
 
Chapters two and three deal with the development and centrality of civil society and the role of anti-conformist intellectuals in Slovenia at the beginning of the 1980s and their destiny in post-communism.
 
Chapter four focuses on issues related to the Catholic church’s role and situation in secularized Slovene society, whereas Chapter five analyzes the emergence of the radical right in post-communist Slovenia, with particular reference to its potential threat to democracy’s conquests.
 
The last chapter discusses the results of fifteen years of democratic development and reaches the conclusion that democratization processes in Slovenia are irreversible and that this nation has reached the first phases of consolidated democracy.