Independent Slovenia

Even three years ago it would have been impossible to imagine that Slovenia could ever aspire to achieve full independence, but this is what has happened. Unlike her neighbour Croatia, it has been done with virtually no loss of life. This is the first economic study to be devoted to the viability of the new state and thus provides a great deal of useful information both for those who wish to do business there and for students of small-state economies. It will also cover other neglected areas of Slovene studies, including social movements, the cultural renaissance of the 1980s, the emergence of new political parties, and the remaking of the political road map from 1990 to the present. The damage done by the loss of Slovenia's main markets in the Balkans, refugee pressure, and somewhat uneasy territorial issues with both Italy and Austria have made independence much more problematic than many Slovenes had imagined, but whether their country becomes ' the Balkan Switzerland' or a helpless mini-state is as yet unresolved.