Role of opposition in contemporary parliamentary democracies : the case of Slovenia

english

2016

volume 9, issue 1

Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

While the role of institutionalized parliamentary opposition in legislative and wider political processes is most important for the quality of parliamentary democracy, opposition has been inadequately researched and the actual behaviour of opposition in a particular country or a set of countries has not been properly explained. Traditional functions of parliamentary opposition % to propose, oppose, expose and depose have been in highly politicized circumstances in post-Socialist countries frequently intended to block the government's proposals and to delegitimize coalitional government. The paper presents the particular model of government-opposition relation in Slovenia where opposition was using constitutionally designed means of control, being at the same time over equipped with possibility to demand a referendum on matters which have been decided in the parliament what made the legislative process controversial and futile. After the change of constitution in 2013 the opposition has had to change its strategies and adopt a more cooperative attitude.

20.12.2023