The Slovenian Greens: from Early Success to Long-Term Failure
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
0 8 THE SLOVENIAN GREENS: POLITIKA FROM EARLY SUCCESS TO LONG-TERM FAILURE SUCCESS TO LONG-TERM FAILURE LONG-TERM TO SUCCESS EARLY FROM THE GREENS: SLOVENIAN Danica Fink-Hafner POLITIKA Matej Knep Meta Novak 8 ii Published in book series Politika Simona Kustec Lipicer (ed.) Politične vsebine in volilna kampanja Alenka Krašovec (ed.) Volitve v Evropski parlament 2009 Tomaž Deželan Nasproti evropskemu federalizmu? Simona Kustec Lipicer, Samo Kropivnik,Tomaž Deželan in Alem Maksuti Volilni programi in stališča Drago Zajc, Samo Kropivnik, Simona Kustec Lipicer Od volilnih programov do koalicijskih pogodb Janko Prunk in Marjetka Rangus Sto let življenja slovenskih političnih strank: 1890–1990 Danica Fink-Hafner (ed.) The Development of Civil Society in the Countries on the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1980s The Slovenian Greens: From Early Success to Long-Term Failure Danica Fink-Hafner, Matej Knep, Meta Novak POLITIKA POLITIKA POLITIKA POLITIKA POLITIKA POLITIKA POLITIKA POLITIKA POLITIKA POLITIKA POLITIKA Danica Fink-Hafner, Matej Knep, Meta Novak The Slovenian Greens: From Early Success to Long-Term Failure Book series: POLITIKA Editor: Alenka Krašovec Publisher: Faculty of Social Sciences, Ljubljana For the publisher: Hermina Kranjc Copyright © FDV 2015, Ljubljana. Peer review: Professor Bogomil Ferfila and Associate Professor Drago Zajc Language editing by Mark Gough Cover design by Janko Testen Layout by: Leon Beton The book was financially supported by the Slovenian Research Agency. Ljubljana, 2015 CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana 329(497.4)(0.034.2) FINK-Hafner, Danica FINThe Slovenian Greens [Elektronski vir] : from early success to long-term failure / Danica Fink-Hafner, Matej Knep, Meta Novak. - El. knjiga. - Ljubljana : Faculty of Social Sciences, 2015. - (Book series Politika) ISBN 978-961-235-768-9 (pdf) 1. Knep, Matej 2. Novak, Meta 282557440 Table of contents Abbreviations ......................................................................... vii List of tables ......................................................................... viii List of figures ........................................................................ viii About authors .........................................................................ix Acknowledgements .................................................................xi 1 Introduction .............................................................................1 2 The Research Question and the Methodological Framework ....................................................5 3 Theoretical Lenses: Factors of Green Party Development .......................................................9 The Political Environment ...........................................................9 The Internal Agential Characteristics of Green Party Developments ........................................................10 The Economic Crisis ..................................................................12 4 The Development of Green Parties in Slovenia ..................15 From Social Movement to Party Politics ......................................15 Green Parties at Elections ..........................................................18 Green Party Fragmentation and Coalitions ..................................22 Greens in Government ..............................................................25 5 Explaining the Development of Green Parties in Slovenia ......................................................29 The Political Environment ..........................................................29 Internal Agential Factors ............................................................45 The organisational development of Green parties in Slovenia .................45 Ideological divisions and internal disputes among the Greens ...................47 Critical political decisions and failures of leadership ............................51 The Impact of the Economic Crisis ............................................53 6 Conclusions ............................................................................61 References ..............................................................................65 Appendix ................................................................................85 Index .......................................................................................95 vii Abbreviations DEMOS Democratic Opposition of Slovenia [Demokratična opozicija Slovenije] EFGP European Federation of Green Parties EG European Greens EP European Parliament EU European Union LZČPV Citizen’s List for Clean Potable Water [Lista za čisto pitno vodo] MEP Member of the European Parliament MP Member of Parliament NGO Nongovernmental Organisation SEG Party of Ecological Movements of Slovenia [Stranka ekoloških gibanj Slovenije] SMS Party of Youth of Slovenia [Stranka mladih Slovenije] SPOS Slovenian Public Opinion Survey [Slovensko javno mnenje] TRS Party for Sustainable Development of Slovenia [Stranka za trajnostni razvoj Slovenije] ZK Green Coalition [Zelena koalicija] ZS Zeleni Slovenije [Greens of Slovenia] ZZ United Greens [Združeni Zeleni] ZL United Left [Združena levica] viii List of tables Table 1: Lists of Slovenian Green parties which competed in the national parliamentary elections and at the European Parliament elections, and their electoral results (percentage of votes and – in brackets – a number of parliamentary seats won) ....................................................19 Table 2: List of Slovenian Political Parties with representatives in the European parliament, their European Affiliations and number of MEPs in the period 2004–2014 ...................21 Table 3: The Results of Slovenian Green parties at local elections in the main cities (municipalities with city status) ..................23 Table 4: Green members of coalition governments in Slovenia (1990–2015) .....................................................................26 Table 5: The characteristics of party systems immediately after the 1990–2014 national elections ................................33 Table 6: Political figures with reputation. The cumulative percentage of the first, second, third and fourth named politician with the greatest reputation in percentage. ............36 Table 7: Attitudes towards the natural beauty of the mountains .........40 Table 8: The core and other segments of the parliamentary party system in Slovenia immediately following elections (1992–2014) .....................................................................54 Table 9: Ecological activism ............................................................60 List of figures Figure 1: Cumulative percentage of votes for Green parties at parliamentary elections in Slovenia since 1990 .......................6 Figure 2: Are the following phenomena in your living and working environment hazardous for you…or are there no such problems? ‘It is a big problem’ + ‘It is dangerous to my life’ (percentage). .....................................................................42 Figure 3: The percentage of respondents to the questions ‘Thinking about the parliamentary elections of September last year [2008], what for you personally was the most important theme during the electoral campaign? And what was for you personally the second most important theme? Thinking now of today’s situation, which do you think is the most important political problem in Slovenia today? And which is the second most important political problem?’ ..................57 ix About the authors Danica FINK-HAFNER is Professor of Political Parties, Interest Groups and Policy Analysis, the Head of the Centre for Political Science Research at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana as well as the P5-0136 Political science research pro- gramme, the 10-ECPR-008 ARRS-N5-0014 European Collabo- rative Research Project in the Social Sciences (ECRP) Comparative Research on Interest Group Politics in Europe – INTEREURO (http:// www.intereuro.eu/) and ARRS-N5-0023 The Organisational Devel- opment of National Interests Groups in a European Comparative Perspective. Matej KNEP worked on this book as a research assistant at the Centre for Political Science Research at the Faculty of Social Sci- ences, University of Ljubljana in the framework of the P5-0136 Political science research programme and the 10-ECPR-008 ARRS-N5-0014 European Collaborative Research Project in the Social Sciences (ECRP) Comparative Research on Interest Group Politics in Europe – INTEREURO (http://www.intereuro.eu/). Meta NOVAK is a researcher at the Centre for Political Science Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana. She has worked in the framework of the P5-0136 Political sci- ence research programme, the 10-ECPR-008 ARRS-N5-0014 European Collaborative Research Project in the Social Sciences (ECRP) Comparative Research on Interest Group Politics in Europe – IN- TEREURO (http://www.intereuro.eu/) and ARRS-N5-0023 The Organisational Development of National Interest Groups in a European Comparative Perspective. x xi Acknowledgements This publication has been produced in the framework of the re- search programme, P5-0136 Political Science Research, financed by the Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS). We are grateful to Professor Stane Kranjc for his help in gathering the material on Green party developments in Slovenia. This book is based, among others, on the article by Danica Fink- Hafner and Matej Knep on ‘Factors Affecting Green Party Develop-