The Relevance of Higher Education in Slovenia for Creating Virtuous Citizens and a Working Democracy: An Underexploited Source?

Abstract

In the past decade, vibrant electoral activity has been witnessed. Although the results have been unpredictable, the most astonishing and disturbing result is the constant decline in voter turnout. A decrease in voter turnout has been recorded with every election, regardless of the level for which representatives are being chosen, the importance of the arena and the level of contestation. According to the National Electoral Commission of the Republic of Slovenia (2010), turnout levels have reached an all-time low for all types of elections, the lowest of which was 28 percent at the European Parliament elections in 2009. Although second-order political arenas tend to suffer low turnout levels by definition (Norris, 1997), this does not suffice to explain the rapidly decreasing trend and how it does not depend on the type of elections involved. The reasons lie elsewhere and, apart from structural processes of democratic consolidation which denote a major shift from a socialist self-management structure with one-party rule to market capitalism with democratic pluralism, they also include the level of virtuous citizenry in the country. Namely, it is not only electoral turnout levels that are alarming. On the contrary, levels of civic engagement are negligible, voluntarism is weak, and even the self-perception of civil society’s morality is highly distressing (Rakar et al., 2010).