Europeanization and multi‐level governance in Slovenia

This study considers whether EU cohesion policy has contributed to the development of a more compound polity in Slovenia and, specifically, considers the extent to which there is a process of Europeanization characterized by emergent features of multi‐level governance. After providing a brief background on the nature of domestic governance and politics, it reviews the development of cohesion policy instruments in Slovenia and, then, discusses the scope and the nature of changes that have taken place in the last decade. The main finding is that despite the pre‐existing corporatist tradition suggesting a greater openness to cross‐sectoral engagement than in most new member states, this tradition has little impact on the domestic approach to governing the structural funds. Only a weak system of multi‐level governance has been developed, meeting the letter rather than the spirit of EU requirements, with central government ministries dominating both planning and implementation processes.