Small countries join alliances in order to increase their influence in the international community and strengthen their security. So shortly after declaring its independence, Slovenia has decided to pursue membership in various international organizations and among others, it joined the NATO political and defence alliance in 2004. At the time of its accession, as well as during the membership, there have been many controversial arguments raised in the public, both in favour of the membership and against it. These arguments, in addition to the review of the political, military, and economic aspects of the membership, are briefly discussed in the thesis. However, since academics emphasize that security and defence policies in general can only be formed up to acceptable limits set by public opinion, we were most interested in the Slovenian public opinion in relation to NATO. As the concept of public opinion is complex and broad, we have equated it with opinion polls, and checked how it has changed over time by examining the changes in the methods of research and in public opinion itself over time. In addition to that, we have interviewed public opinion researchers to find out why the frequency and content diversity of the analysed surveys decreased significantly.
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