State-building, Europeanisation and the Erased of Slovenia

This article explores the process of disintegration of Yugoslavia, the state-build-ing process in Slovenia and the context of the specific phenomenon – the erasure that took place in Slovenia in the early 1990s. It reconstructs the socio-historic and political contexts in which the independence of Slovenia occurred. While describing the state-building process, the process of democratisation and the di-lemmas about minority protection in Slovenia – including the distinction be-tween the recognised “autochthonous ” minorities and the non-recognised “new” minorities – it paves the ground for theoretical and sociological discussion of the “erased”. The theoretical discussion is based on the questions of human rights, nationalism and citizenship, both in its classic (nation-state) conception and its alternative forms such as global citizenship. Sociologically, it places the “eras-ure ” into a broader frame of investigating the processes of democratisation and Europeanisation, thus highlighting the key factors that caused the perforation of Slovene democracy in its twenty years of independence. Key words: state disintegration, state-building, Europeanisation, the erased of Slovenia, democratisation, human rights, citizenshi