In this article, the author analyses the cultural profile of Slovenian transition elites in the context of Slovenia's integration with the European Union. He is especially interested in those cultural characteristics (values, competencies, behavioural patterns) that have the greatest impact on their ability to induce the process of the modernisation of Slovenian society. He supposes that, in the process of integrating with the European Union, elites play a dual role: at the European level as a representative of national interests and at the national level as a generator of the 'Europeanisation' ofsociety (i.e. the transfer of European standards). In this regard he finds that, in spite of their relatively positive role in this process, there are some deficiences deriving from both historical tradition and the composition of the political space in the transition period that raise some doubts about the developmental role of Slovenian elites.
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