On July 1, 2017, legendary Irish musician and activist Bob Geldof visited Slovenia as part of the Lent Festival in Maribor. This was at the time of Brexit, and Geldof was resigned and critical in his opinion both about the political situation in Europe and worldwide:

"I am not sceptical about Europe, as I have been intimately involved with it for more than thirty years. With all European leaders. I have been to Brussels countless times. Brussels is shit. It is a colossal bureaucracy. But maybe it has to exist to reconcile all the differences in Europe. Also, nationalisms and national identities. Personally, I think the EU functions based on the French being afraid of the Germans and the Germans being afraid of themselves. Meanwhile, the English are always, at least seemingly, somewhere in the mix.”Aleš Kocjan and Uroš Esih, “Bob Geldof na Lentu: Ne razumete se, ker ste zajeb*** idioti,” Večer, June 29, 2017, accessed 8. 5. 2023, https://vecer.com/prosti-cas/bob-geldof-na-lentu-ne-razumete-se-ker-ste-zajeb-idioti-6275625.

In the style of a punk musician, Geldof uttered comprehensible and resounding criticism that was met with much approval. His words were almost in tune with the popular wisdom that Europe is fine but essentially colossal, distant and therefore not to be trusted. The thoughts expressed during Brexit, which for many represented yet another European crisis, were basically no different from the judgments already heard throughout Central and Eastern Europe at the time of EU accession and in the first years as new members of the EU.

In the first EU elections after the fifth enlargement of the European Union (EU) when ten new countries joined in the so called “big bang” accession in 2004, many people shared the opinion of the Czech man when asked by a BBC reporter on the streets of Prague, whether he had voted: “I didn’t. I am against the European Union for several reasons. I don’t believe giant bureaucratic structures can help their member nations.” Brane Kastelic, “Evropa v 2004: ne samo leto širitve,” BBC Slovene.com, December 30, 2004, accessed 8. 5. 2023, https://www.bbc.co.uk/slovene/news/story/2004/12/041230_europe2004.shtml.

The 2004 elections focused mainly on national issues, resulting in the lowest voter turnout in the history of EU elections and revealing a growing distance between citizens and EU institutions. As shown in Table 1, a downward trend in turnout in EU elections has been observed since 1979, with particularly low interest in the Central and Eastern European new member states. Turnout was lowest in Slovakia (16.69%) and highest in Malta (82%), with Slovenia well below the EU average (28.3%).“European Parliament Elections 2004: results,” Euractiv, June 30, 2004, accessed 8. 5. 2023, https://www.euractiv.com/section/elections/linksdossier/european-parliament-elections-2004-results/.

These results undoubtedly raise a whole range of issues related to the image of the EU. The "ambivalent mood" towards the Union that journalists and politicians often observe in Eastern European member states may have divisive consequences. Especially after Brexit, concerns about the future fate of the EU are becoming more frequent (although at present they have subsided somewhat due to the war in Ukraine).

Together with our colleagues from the Institute of Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Science (USD) in Prague, we reduced the sentiment to the "triple thesis": Admiration, Adaptation, Resistance. All three are characteristic of the field and the key question is how each of these sentiments were formed and why. The key then, is to look at contemporary history, in a specific national context, which according to the applied history approachHarm Kaal and Jelle van Lottum, "Applied History: Past, Present, and Future," Journal of Applied History 3, No. 1-2 (2021): 135–54., can offer a convincing explanation of the issue of our time, popularly referred to as Euroscepticism.

Euroscepticism as a political problem of mainly populist political groups and parties is a political position that involves not only criticism of the European Union as a whole, but also highlights doubts about its organizations, laws and practices. It is in opposition to European integration, certain EU policies and the path the European Union is taking. Seck Gulmez, "EU-scepticism vs. euroscepticism. re-assessing the party positions in the accession countries towards EU membership," EU Enlargement. Current Challenges and Strategic Choices Europe plurielle–Multiple Europes 50 (2013). It is a strong feature of political landscapes across the European Union that has shaken confidence in further integration and provoked several attempts to redefine the process.Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks, "Sources of Euroscepticism," Acta Politica 42 (2007): 119–27. Various surveys (e.g., Eurobarometer 2016) show that trust in the EU and its institutions declined sharply between 2004 and 2015. Although after 2016 the number of people doubting the EU started to decrease, the percentage of those doubting the institutions was still high. This can be attributed to several factors. The most important is the belief that EU integration undermines national sovereignty, that the EU is elitist, bureaucratic and wasteful, and that it lacks transparency and democratic legitimacy.Juliette Alibert, "Euroscepticism: the root causes and how to address them" (2015). We are aware of the weaknesses of the concept of Euroscepticism that have been repeatedly pointed out: an originally non-academic term, a negative construction, spanning from opposition to some aspect of European integration to full condemnation of the European ideal. Yet the recent situation in the EU has reawakened the academic debate, which has seen only the first attempts at historicizing and comparing Euroscepticism.Euroscepticisms, The Historical Roots of a Political Challenges, eds. Mark Gilbert and Daniele Pasquinucci (Leiden and Boston: Brill Publisher, 2020).

The influence of public opinion is one of the key drivers in the EU and has become increasingly important in recent decades. It is not only crucial for the discussion on European integration, but also influences national policy makers and shapes the EU institutions.Robert Alvarez, "Attitudes toward the European Union: The role of social class, social stratification, and political orientation," International Journal of Sociology 32, No. 1 (2002): 58–76.

The general attitude towards the EU can be observed through opinion polls (through the study of public opinion in Slovenia – Slovensko javno mnenje - SJM VI), and the impact of public opinion is similar to the sentiment expressed by Geldof. We can observe that people were generally sympathetic to the EU, but never completely enthusiastic about it. They were often sceptical, partly out of concern for their own position and well-being. The results of the survey Political Culture and Democratic Values in New Democracies, conducted in 2000, are very revealing as respondents largely agreed that it would be in our country's interest to follow the path of other (Western) European countries, while at the same time they felt that Slovenia should develop more self-confidenceNiko Toš, "Slovensko javno mnenje 2001/1: Stališča Slovencev o pridruževanju Evropski Uniji in Mednarodna raziskava o delovnih aktivnostih." Ljubljana: Univerza v Ljubljani, Arhiv družboslovnih podatkov. ADP-IDNo: SJM011, https://www.adp.fdv.uni-lj.si/opisi/sjm011 (2001). before joining the European Union. In the survey conducted by Toš in 2001, respondents were asked about their feelings towards the EU and Slovenia’s accession, as well as about their level of knowledge on the most important EU issues. Tables 2 to 5 show their responses..

The ambivalent attitude towards the EU is evident from Table 2, which clearly shows that almost 22% of respondents believe that Slovenia would not benefit from joining the EU. Moreover, almost 29% did not have a clear opinion on Slovenia’s EU integration, which means that more than half of the respondents were not very optimistic about integration. The high percentage of respondents who did not have a clear opinion on integration also indicates that they may be missing some important information about integration and therefore undecided about what this means. Hand in hand with these findings, the results from Table 4 also clearly show that more than half of the respondents would neither regret nor care if Slovenia’s efforts to join the EU failed. This reinforces the assumption that public opinion about Slovenia's EU accession was rather low and did not support integration.

The problem of insufficient information being available to the public is also evident from Table 3, which shows that when asked about other EU accession candidates, approximately 33% of respondents could not name any state other than Slovenia that was on the path to EU accession. In addition, four states that were negotiating membership at the time (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Malta) were not mentioned as candidates for accession and Croatia, not a serious candidate for EU accession at the time, because it did not begin negotiations until 2003, was recognized as a state negotiating accession.

The above-mentioned ambiguous or often negative attitude towards the EU, as well as the lack of information, can also be observed in responses about Slovenia’s development in case of non-accession to the EU. About half of the respondents believe that Slovenia could develop just as well if it were not part of the EU, and another 19% of the respondents were not able to comment directly. Only about 30% of respondents felt that Slovenia would not develop if EU integration did not take place.

The argument about indifference is therefore not tenable either as many people are aware that funding for development of their municipalities comes from Brussels and that mayors are powerless without cohesion funds as indicated by the Opinion Poll on EU Accession conducted by Tavčar.Rudi Tavčar, “Mnenjska raziskava o priključitvi k EU,” University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana (2002), https://doi.org/10.17898/ADP_EUACC00_V1.

Considering the above findings, we believe that additional research should be invested into a thorough investigation of the reasons for doubts about the EU and ambiguous or negative feelings about EU accession.

In the context of the present discussion, we will use the example of Slovenia to explain attitudes towards the EU with the help of contemporary populist theories and the thesis that the gap between the elites and the general public is becoming ever more present and evident. According to Cas Mudde, there are no politics for populists because the will of the people is clear and all people are one, so there is no need for compromise. At the same time, however, all decisions must coincide with "the common will of the people" - which is not the case, because the elites decide everything. Thus, populists are in effect demanding re-politicization and the right to decide on everything, while established politics transfer more and more tasks to experts, expert groups and bureaucratic battalions and in many cases resorts to TINA (There Is No Alternative) argument. Liberal parliamentary democracy is thus, according to the populists, becoming less and less democratic.Cas Mudde, "The populist zeitgeist," Government and Opposition 39, No. 4 (2004): 541-63.

The latter is particularly evident in the case of the EU, where Eurosceptic parties in the European Parliament argue precisely that decisions taken in Brussels in the past would not have met with the approval of the people if they had been better informed. The real problem, then, may be that European policy issues are not part of the domestic political spectrum and that not enough politicians talk about them and address the electorate.

The above observation is confirmed by a brief look at the corpora available in Slovenia, which has not changed significantly (see, for example, politicians' tweets 2013-2017). NoSketch Engine, https://www.clarin.si/ske/#dashboard?corpname=janes_twepo . We used Nosketch Engine Available at: https://www.clarin.si/noske/ concordancer to search the SiParl 3.0 corpusAvailable at: https://www.clarin.si/noske/run.cgi/corp_info?corpname=siparl30&struct_attr_stats=1 which we perceived to be the best option to obtain the most suitable results. When it comes to the EU, "funds" (Slovenian: sredstva) are the main topic. However, European issues encompass much more than just funds.

Advocating ideological positions is part of election campaigns, and some parties succeed in communicating their positions much more clearly than others.James Lo, Sven-Oliver Proksch, and Jonathan B. Slapin, "Ideological clarity in multiparty competition: A new measure and test using elections manifestos," British Journal of Political Science 46, No. 3 (2016): 591–610. An effective means of communicating the parties' ideological positions, views and intentions is through the publication of election manifestos. These are publications issued by political parties before elections that contain a set of policies that the party stands for and intends to implement if elected to government.UK Parliament, “Elections manifestos,” accessed May 10, 2023, https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/manifesto/. Manifestos, therefore, can be understood as a set of intentions, motives or views of the political party, or the statement of its ideology and intentions, designed to promote new ideas that are consistent with the party's political and ideological positions. Various studies have shown that under certain conditions there is a high degree of correlation between what parties feature in their election manifestos and what governments then do.Robert Thomson, "Parties’ Elections Manifestos and Public Policies" (2020).

We have relied on data from The Manifesto Project (Manifesto Research on Political Representation - MARPOR), whose main objective is to analyze parties' election manifestos in order to study parties' policy preferences. The Manifesto Project provides the scientific community with parties' policy positions derived from content analysis of parties' election manifestos. It covers over 1000 parties from 1945 to the present, in over 50 countries on five continents. Manifesto Project Database, accessed May 10, 2023, https://manifesto-project.wzb.eu/information/documents/information.

Regardless of the ideological-political positioning of each party, European issues were present in the political programs of all parties. Attitudes towards Europe have fluctuated, however have been positive among almost all parties in the period since the first multiparty elections in 1990.Andrea Volkens et al., “The Manifesto Data Collection,” Manifesto Project (MRG/CMP/MARPOR). Version 2021a. (2021). Berlin: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB), https://doi.org/10.25522/manifesto.mpds.2021a. Taking a closer look at the last Slovenian elections before EU accession (in 2000), we find that positive European attitudes were even more pronounced in all major parties’ manifestos compared with the 1996 elections. Most parties emphasized the importance of membership for the country's economic and social development and security. The functioning of the EU itself and its legal framework were not examined in detail. In the following elections (2004), reference to the EU in election programs continued to have a legitimizing function. The parties used it to justify the correctness of their positions. A more visible integration of European issues with clear positions took place in the following years, but its importance remained low for a long time.Simona Kustec Lipicer, Samo Kropivnik, Tomaž Deželan and Alem Maksuti. Volilni programi in stališča (Ljubljana: Fakulteta za družbene vede, 2011).

Even though electoral manifestos are the most "rational" instruments of electoral campaigns and are therefore considered the most appropriate material for analysis and form the substantive basis for the actions of the parties and later the government, they will not be the focus of our analysis. Rather, we are interested in the following two issues: 1) the actual share of European issues in the policy-making and decision-making process, and above all, 2) their communication impact.

After gaining independence from Yugoslavia, Slovenia became a parliamentary democratic republic where the power belongs to the people. However, the basis for a successful democracy is that the general public is consistently transparently informed about the actions of the government.Jenille Fairbanks, Kenneth D. Plowman and Brad L. Rawlins, "Transparency in government communication," Journal of Public Affairs: An International Journal 7, No. 1 (2007): 23–37. This means that governments must openly discuss their plans, activities and procedures and make this information available to the public, especially when it comes to discussing important policy decisions or deciding on significant political issues (e.g., accession to the EU). Governing, therefore, necessarily involves a constant exchange of information and communication about policies, ideas and decisions between the governing and the governedKaren Sanders and María José Canel, Government communication: Cases and challenges (London: Bloomsbury academic, 2013). that ensures the public is informed about the government’s activities in a transparent manner. The public needs to be suitably informed not only about who they elect as head of governmentFairbanks, Plowman, and Rawlins, "Transparency in government communication," 23–37. (pre-election information), but also about what politicians do and how they keep their campaign promises. However, government communicators often fail to inform the public about key policy decisions and what politicians are actually doing. We see this as a serious threat to democracy, as the public is not informed about the content of government activities.

Our analysis shows two fundamental problems of the Slovenian government in the period from 2000 to 2004. The first problem is the almost automatic and routine adoption of EU regulations without serious public debate. This observation can be deduced from the above data, which show that the government completed only a limited amount of EU-related tasks and that regulations were indeed adopted routinely. We can see, for example, that the program does not contain any meaningful communication besides the frequent There Is No Alternative (TINA) argumentation. This clearly shows the attitude of Slovenian political parties towards the EU; Slovenia's accession to the EU is seen as inevitable and politicians would like to show that they are prepared to do whatever is necessary for integration. It can be assumed that the government's communication officers acted in this way deliberately and after careful consideration, as they wanted to create the impression that Slovenia is acting as a "good student" on the road to EU integration.

The second problem is that the public was not informed about the actual work of the Slovenian government. The government failed to communicate relevant matters in a timely manner, to address any negative aspects and by doing so bring them closer to their constituents. The public was only informed after the government had adopted the regulations. As a result, public debate failed to materialize, and the EU remained a large bureaucratic organization that was at the forefront of the government's activities, but without content for the public. The main impression was that many regulations regarding the EU were passed without the public being informed about what was actually decided. Such a lack of communication and information creates a breeding ground for the development of populist policies, as "the people" (who are the main point of reference for populists) will eventually no longer tolerate them. And the general characteristics of the 2000-2004 legislative period strongly support this thesis and findings.

It should also be noted that the main issues discussed in public were not related to the process of European integration, but to areas that were the focus of ideological-political disputes. For example, one of the most notorious parliamentary debates of the third term was concerning medically assisted infertility treatment. After the introduction of the Act on Infertility Treatment and Fertilization Procedures with Biomedical Assistance, Pravno-informacijski sistem Republike Slovenije, “Zakon o zdravljenju neplodnosti in postopkih oploditve z biomedicinsko pomočjo (ZZNPOB)”, Act September 7, 2000, accessed May 15, 2023, http://pisrs.si/Pis.web/pregledPredpisa?id=ZAKO2518#. ideological and moral differences became evident in the Slovenian parliament, leading to several political statements that had mostly negative connotations in public. Moreover, the issue of "national interest" in the economy was one of the main reasons for several confrontations between Prime Minister Janez Drnovšek and opposition leader Janez Janša. The latter claimed that the government neglects the "national interest" and is ineffective when it comes to the sale of Slovenian companies to foreign investors. Such debates raised several questions, such as "What does national interest mean anyway?" and "Does the term presuppose a majority domestic shareholding in the capital?" As a result, parliamentary debates were often extremely discordant, cynical and combative, which was particularly evident on the issue of the "erased," a topic that at its core, reveals the dark side of Slovenian transition. After gaining independence in 1991, citizens of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia were automatically granted Slovenian citizenship, while those who came from other republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) had the opportunity to apply for citizenship within a period of six months. However, those who for whatever reason, did not apply for citizenship in time, or if their application was rejected for whatever reason, were removed from the population register by the Slovenian state, depriving them of all their constitutional rights.Izbrisani: informacije in dokumenti, “Kaj je izbris?,” accessed May 15, 2023, https://www.mirovni-institut.si/izbrisani/opis-izbrisa/index.html.

The split between the coalition and the opposition continued to intensify even after Janez Drnovšek resigned from the post of Prime Minister and was appointed President of the Republic. However, one of the few issues that united almost all deputies was their stance on EU accession and joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). As a result, the National Assembly had no difficulty passing the necessary harmonization laws and amending the constitution in February 2003. According to the two presidents of the Assembly, Borut Pahor and Feri Horvat, "much was achieved in terms of the scope of the work, and it was also important in terms of its content." This is certainly true, but the problem that most of the provisions were not disclosed to the public remained at the forefront.

In public debates about politics, it is often argued that democracy is severely compromised primarily because politicians often fail to keep their (pre-election) promises, that what is said or promised is rarely addressed in parliament and that politicians do little and live off the people. Such arguments suggest that many citizens are fundamentally misinformed about the range of political issues and political figures, leading to misconceptions about the work of politicians.Michael D. Cobb, Brendan Nyhan, and Jason Reifler, "Beliefs don't always persevere: How political figures are punished when positive information about them is discredited," Political Psychology 34, No. 3 (2013): 307-26. We argue that the real problem and threat to representative democracy is not the incompetence of politicians, nor the work they do not perform but rather the work they do but about which the public is not informed. We show that in addition to what they promise, politicians are involved in many other activities that the public are not aware of. They pass countless resolutions and regulations that are not discussed in real terms during the election campaign but are wrapped up in a few uninformative phrases that often go unnoticed or unintentionally ignored by the public. We see a crucial problem in the fact that politicians are often very busy informing the public about regulations and decisions when they have already been passed and they do not discuss them beforehand.

After this analysis, we see that our initial thesis that democracy is threatened by the fact that politicians deliver more than they promise should be modified by the following observation: European issues were omnipresent in Slovenian politics and imbued with positive sentiments, but they lacked substance in communications with voters. By passing European laws, the government tried to win over voters. It communicated the regulations more frequently than usual and assigned them a central role, but only after they had been passed. This was because, despite the voters' feelings and thoughts, as responsible politicians they had no other alternative to the EU. It must be noted, however, that the mentality of "no matter what the voters think" can sometimes be dangerous, as recent social media attacks on the German foreign minister clearly show.German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, without regard to the opinion of the German public and against the opinion of her constituents, reiterated the support she had already pledged to Ukraine during Russia's aggression against Ukraine. This pledge was followed by a fierce smear campaign in which many voters expressed their distrust and dissatisfaction with the foreign minister primarily because she "does not represent the interests of German voters, but those of Ukraine." However, the video of her statement was manipulated, and this manipulation was fueled by pro-Russian disinformation and cyber activism, as her statement was taken out of context in such a way that it falsely reinforced anti-German sentiments. (Sabine am Orde, “Desinformation von der Stange,” Taz, September 2, 2022, https://taz.de/Social-Media-Kampagne-gegen-Baerbock/!5878877/.)

Our initial thesis, therefore, is that the adopted regulations are the sum of the difference between election promises and unfulfilled election promises on the one hand and regulations that are not part of the election promises on the other. In other words, the adopted regulations consist of the fulfilled campaign promises and the regulations that were not part of the campaign promises, the latter being a variable that is more important than campaign promises and fulfilled campaign promises. When the thesis is corrected, it remains essentially the same, with the only difference being the definition of regulations that are not part of pre-election promises. In the corrected thesis, these regulations are defined as a variable that receives much attention from government communicators but is often not communicated to the public.

Our analysis therefore focuses on regulations that are not part of the electoral promises but are nevertheless part of the politicians' program and their work. According to our initial conjectures, such schemes and deliberate miscommunication pose a serious threat to representative democracy, as they imply that politicians are working on issues and actions that were not included in their manifestos and therefore constituents are simply not aware. Moreover, we show that the threat to democracy is exacerbated by the fact that the public is informed only after regulations have already been passed and important policy decisions have already been made. This creates a sense among voters that their opinions do not matter and that their voices are heard and "made "useful" only when politicians need them to get elected.

Although our analysis refers to the period of Slovenia's EU integration (one of the most important periods in Slovenian political history) almost 20 years ago, we believe that our results are even more meaningful today. Politics have indeed taken an interesting turn, where mainstream media coverage is often replaced or intertwined by posts from politicians on social media, which especially before elections, are filled with promises, ideas and plans, if elected. Therefore, it would be interesting to conduct similar research today, not focusing on “traditional” media, but analyzing the activities of the most prominent Slovenian coalition and opposition politicians in social media. We believe that such a study would provide a useful insight into the development of politics and how much this differs from politics during the period of Slovenian independence and EU accession.