Abstract
Different authors have recently revealed several trends towards the personalisation and presidentialisation of politics in many Western liberal democracies, but also in post-socialist democracies. In the chapter, we analyse (trends of) presidentialisation in five parties that won elections in Slovenia, a country mostly described as having a premier-presidential form of constitutional system, but also where parties have exhibited different genetic features. An in-depth analysis shows that, given the stability of the semi-presidential constitutional system, the PR electoral system and the continuous fragmentation of the party system and in a context where coalition governments are the norm, to some extent the genetic features of parties can be seen as an explanatory variable of party presidentialisation.
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Notes
- 1.
One of the reformed socio-political organisations from the socialist system was the Alliance of Socialist Youth, which changed its name several times to express its liberal orientation and since 1994 has been known as the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia (LDS).
- 2.
Similarly, like the Alliance of Socialist Youth, the former League of Communists of Slovenia had adapted its name several times in the process of transforming into a social democratic party, including, amongst others, the name of the League of Communists of Slovenia—The Party of Democratic Renewal; since 2005, it is known as the Social Democrats (SD).
- 3.
The List of Zoran Janković—Positive Slovenia changed its name to Positive Slovenia in 2012, less than a year after the parliamentary elections at which it ran for the first time.
- 4.
Up until 2003, the party’s name was the Social Democratic Party of Slovenia.
- 5.
The Party of Miro Cerar was established in 2014, and in 2015 was renamed the Modern Centre Party.
- 6.
With the exception of six months in 2000.
- 7.
The 1990 elections were held according to the old institutional framework (a delegate system involving a three-chamber assembly at the level of the republic). The political consensus at the time was to experiment with various electoral systems at the same elections. The Chamber of Associated Labour was elected according to the plurality system, the Chamber of Communes to the majority system and the Socio-political Chamber to the proportional system.
- 8.
The Constitutional Act Amending Article 80 of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia, available at http://www.us-rs.si/en/about-the-court/legal-basis/constitution/constitutional-acts-amending-the-constitution-of-t/ (last access on 10 March 2018).
- 9.
Noting that 7% is the same as the percentage share of League of Communists membership in Slovenia in the old regime.
- 10.
- 11.
Cumulative percentages for the first, second, third and fourth political personalities ranked by those surveyed according to their estimates of politicians’ reputation were: for Janez Drnovšek between 47 and 74%; for Janez Janša between 6 and 38% in the 1991–2011 period; for Borut Pahor between 8 and 28% in the 1997–2011 period.
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Fink-Hafner, D., Krašovec, A. (2019). The Presidentialisation of Parties in Slovenia: Leaders and Parties. In: Passarelli, G. (eds) The Presidentialisation of Political Parties in the Western Balkans. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97352-4_7
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