Slovenia's road to democracy

WITH LESS THAN TWO MILLION INHABITANTS and no history of independent statehood in the last millennium, Slovenia seemed to many in the West to be an unlikely candidate for independence. Advocates of large states warned in vain that Slovenia was 'too small' to be viable and suggested that if the republic separated from Yugoslavia, it would inevitably find it necessary to join a federal or confederal union with one of its neighbours-whether Austria, Italy, Croatia, or-in the most fanciful renditioncombining with Austria, Hungary and Croatia to form an entirely new state. Yet despite all this scepticism, Slovenia, which had been a part of Yugoslavia from 1918 to 1941 and again from 1945 on, declared its independence on 25 June 1991. Almost two years later, Slovenia's economy has been strained by the influx of Bosnian refugees, and recovery has been held up by the long delay in passing a bill of privatisation. That said, Slovenia appears to be roughly in a class with Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in terms of its prospects for carrying out successfully the transition to pluralism. Slovenia has had several important advantages in this regard. First, Slovenia's per capita social product, while lower than Austria's or Italy's, has nonetheless ranked as the highest in Eastern Europe, more than twice as high, for example, as that in Hungary or Poland. Second, the transition to pluralism was begun by the Slovenian communists themselves, for reasons having nothing to do with broader processes in Eastern Europe. Indeed, for reasons quite specific to Slovenia, pluralisation was undertaken (in the late 1980s) by the local communists and local dissidents jointly and cooperatively. Third, the population of Slovenia remains, despite the recent immigration of people from other parts of former Yugoslavia, largely homogeneous: about 90% of the population is Slovenian. Fourth, none of Slovenia's neighbours has either active or inactive claims on its territory. Compared to the uncertainties associated with most of the rest of former Yugoslavia, let alone Transylvania, Sub-Carpathian Ruthenia, and Kaliningrad oblast', there is little to trouble the Slovenian authorities here. Their most difficult 'border' problem has related to free access to the sea through Croatian territorial waters-a problem which might be resolved by trading some territory west of Zagreb in exchange for Cape Savudrija.1 And fifth, Slovenia's transport infrastructure, a critical element in calculating the prospects of economic success, is on a par with other Central and West European states. On the other hand, Slovenia has, since the Serbian side launched its war against Bosnia-Hercegovina at