The national identity of post-communist small states in the process of accession to the European Union: the case of Slovenia

The article discusses, through conceptual elaboration and empirical investigation, the interplay between the perception of smallness and the concept of national identity in the case of Slovenia’s integration into the European Union. Unlike the prevailing literature on Slovenia, the authors do not take Slovenia’s smallness for granted. They argue that, in the particular case of Slovenian identity-building, smallness as an independent variable does not feature frequently at all. The research is based on methodological pluralism, with a special emphasis on political discourse, the mass media and public opinion in Slovenia.