Slovenia Between Liberalization and -- Democratization?

Abstract

During visit to Yugoslavia, March 14-19, 1988, by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Washington Post of March 15, wrote: (Gorbachev] is also to visit (northwestern] Yugoslav republic of Slovenia, where a liberal local regime has developed a radical model of under communism. A follow-up report in same newspaper of March 17, day Gorbachev was in Slovenia, said that the Soviet leader asked to visit Slovenia because of its status as a Communist-ruled region that is most advanced in economic development and liberalization. On same day New York Times correspodent wrote from Ljubljana: Hard-working Slovenia ... has often marched to a different drumbeat than most of Yugoslavia, wielding tools of economic restructuring to pursue its own development and interests ... its Communist leaders have opened up intellectual debate to a wider degree than is evident elsewhere in country. Such reports naturally provoke question: What kind of political pluralism did Gorbachev find in There is a broad consensus among foreign observers that since death in 1980 of Yugoslavia's President-for-life Josip Broz-Tito, developments in Slovenia have indeed evolved more and further than in other republics of multinational Yugoslavia. Sometimes one even gets impression that Slovenia is on verge of independence and ready for transition to democratic rule. Calling in its title Slovene dissidents The Champions of Glasnost, an editorial in Economist of March 19, 1988 asked: Are there any taboos left in Slovenia? There is no doubt that, at its roots, difference between Slovenia and rest of Yugoslavia has to do with Slovenia's ethnic homogeneity as well as its cultural and economic affinity and proximity to West as a sort of mini-Europe in geographic center of old continent on the sunny side of Alps. However, even in Slovenia and economic evolution has not reached as far as readers of above and similar reports may have inferred. Misunderstandings stem from failure to distinguish between two related but quite different evolutionary concepts: vs. democratization. Liberalization, in reference to today's Communist regimes, means different things in different countries, but these differences are all to be found in following categories: greater assertion of policy differences within ruling Communist Party, limited recognition of human and civil rights to citizens and, at its most liberal, toleration of various dissident phenomena. Within these categories is expansible or reversible by decisions of Communist Party leadership. Slovene Communist Party (League of Communists) has permitted in Slovenia to expand farther than it has in other republics of Yugoslavia. Glasnost (with perestroika) is Gorbachev's (not yet fully clarified) version and extent of liberalization for Soviet Union. In no case has affected monopoly of ruling Communist party. concept of democratization, on other hand, extends, as etymological meaning of word suggests, essentially beyond liberalization. It involves legalization of organized opposition with a view to making possible equal participation of all people in electoral processes of periodically selecting a country's government and