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In their article, the authors deal with the role of civil society as a factor of European democratic governance. Democratic governance is perceived as an ‘extended polyarchy’ that refers both to the electoral dimension of accountability and to the mechanisms of permanent control over power-holders through institutional balance of power. The authors examine specifics of governance and civil society at the EU level, claiming that participatory democracy is unrealistic at the EU level, which holds also for citizens’ engagement in civil society organized at EU level. They argue that civil society organized at the EU level can contribute to higher accountability of the Union’s institutions, but in a specific way, less through enhancing political engagement of citizens and linking them to political institutions but more through mutual control of different societal actors that would foster greater transparency of political process.

Despite their smallness, Slovenia and Estonia are economically and institutionally the most prominent post-communist countries, and since 2004 they are also members of European Union. However, they developed completely different - even diametrically opposite - institutional organisation and introduced different political and social arrangements. Besides the "path-dependence" reasons, one could set out as an important factor in these differences also the role of strategic decisions of political elite, its connections and ideological backgrounds. It is possible to claim that political elite in Estonia introduced a type of the state that is close to liberal-minimalist model, while Slovenia is closer to corporative model of social state. In both cases some dysfunctional effects appeared, which represent new challenge for elites and at the same time they are a test of their credibility and competence. Estonija in Slovenija sta navkljub majhnosti gospodarsko najuspešnejši postkomunistični državi, od leta 2004 pa tudi članici Evropske unije. Pa vendar sta razvili dve povsem različni - celo diametralno nasprotni si - institucionalni ureditvi in uveljavljali različne politične in socialne aranžmaje. Kot pomemben dejavnik pri nastajanju teh razlik lahko ob razlogih "path-dependence" izpostavimo predvsem vlogo strateških odločitev politične elite, njenih povezav ter ideološkega ozadja. Mogoče je trditi, da je politična elita v Estoniji uveljavila tip države, ki je blizu liberalno-minimalističnemu modelu, Slovenija pa je bliže korporativnemu modelu socialne države. V obeh primerih je prišlo do nekaterih disfunkcionalnih učinkov, ki za elite predstavljajo nov izziv, obenem pa preizkus njihove kredibilnosti ter kompetenc.

The article deals with the analysis of relationship between the character of the media sphere and political dynamics and the profile of political elite. Media as a framework of social and political communication exert significant influence on development of open and democratic society. Democracy as political system is based on competition between different political actors for support of the citizenry as well as on the balance of power between different political institutions and branches of government. The main thesis of this article is that a certain level of elite circulation, in terms of continuous change on top positions in political space, is necessary for sustained and developed democracy to take place. These changes - or at least the prospect of them - that are related to the existence of feasible alternative to incumbent ruling elite contribute to the maintenance of relative dispersion of power, thus preventing its monopolization by the hand of political group of any kind. Media pluralism is one of the factors that importantly contributes to this elite circulation. It provides different individual and groups with a chance to present their views, ideas and problem-solutions in public on the equal basis what enables the voters to make an informed political choice. Furthermore, it is important for the citizens to have opportunity to get information from different sources. In this regard, the media space should be composed of media providers that follow diverse political and ideological orientations, thus dealing with particular political and social issue form different angles, in order to perform its democratic function. The author shows the connection between the structure of media sphere and dynamics of change on power position on the case of post-communist Slovenia. He argues that weak media pluralism, in terms of prevalence of particular ideological orientations in Slovenian media and political affiliation of most opinion-leaders to particular political camp, contributed to long-term dominant position of this camp in Slovenian political space

In this article, the author analyses the cultural profile of Slovenian transition elites in the context of Slovenia's integration with the European Union. He is especially interested in those cultural characteristics (values, competencies, behavioural patterns) that have the greatest impact on their ability to induce the process of the modernisation of Slovenian society. He supposes that, in the process of integrating with the European Union, elites play a dual role: at the European level as a representative of national interests and at the national level as a generator of the 'Europeanisation' of society (i.e. the transfer of European standards). In this regard he finds that, in spite of their relatively positive role in this process, there are some deficiences deriving from both historical tradition and the composition of the political space in the transition period that raise some doubts about the developmental role of Slovenian elites. V članku se avtor ukvarja z analizo kulturnega profila slovenskih tranzicijskih elit v kontekstu vključevanja Slovenije v Evropsko unijo. Pri tem ga še posebej zanimajo tiste kulturne značilnosti, ki najbolj vplivajo na to, kako elite opravljajo svojo vlogo nosilca družbene modernizacije. Predvideva, da imajo pri vključevanju v Evropsko unijo elite dvojno vlogo: po eni strani so zastopniki nacionalnih teženj in interesov v evropskem prostoru,po drugi strani pa so dejavnik "evropeizacije" družbe (uvedba evropskih standardov). Ugotavlja, da kljub njihovi relativni uspešnosti v tem procesu obstajajo določene pomanjkljivosti, ki so posledica tako zgodovinskega razvoja kot strukturiranosti političnega prostora v tranzicijskem obdobju in ki sprožajo skepticizem glede razvojne vloge elit.

In this paper, the author discusses "measurement" of democracy, especially problems and dilemmas emerging as a consequence of specifics of this field of research. In this context, he stresses three critical moments of evaluation of a state of democracy: problem of validity, problem of reliability and problem of transparency. All of them derive from the qualitative type of evaluation that inevitably contains "subjective" elements. These problems are illustrated through critical examination of some existing research studies - the focus is on reports from Freedom House