Introduction

Abstract

On a cold and cloudy morning in late January 2013, demonstrators were gathering in one of the main squares in Ljubljana as part of a one-day national strike of public sector workers. Similar gatherings were taking place elsewhere in the city — notably at university campuses — as well as in other urban areas of the small (population 2 million) country of Slovenia. The strike was part of a larger, growing protest movement against the government, specially the prime minister, and local authorities in some municipalities, that had been growing in size and intensity since the autumn of the previous year, though largely beyond the coverage of the international news media. Slovenia had been the most prosperous republic within former Yugoslavia; its transition to an independent state in June 1991 had proceeded with minimal bloodshed. Since independence, its economy had flourished; it joined both the European Union (EU) and the eurozone.