The starting point of the proposed research project is a thesis that critical situations in the economy had great influence on democratic political turning points; however, the reasons for democratic transitions were never exclusively economic. Therefore, the project group will research the problem of the actual influence of the economy to the political turning points. Chronological framework of the research will be the economical crisis before the March revolution in 1848 and Slovene attainment of independence in 1991. The project group will research the set problem within the framework of nine complexes of contents, from which each will represent carefully selected cases from Slovene history. Within the framework of these complexes of contents the performers will, on one hand, identify, analyze and interpret various factors, because of which democratization could occur. On the other hand they will research why some democratic transitions were not successful and which factors enabled the enforcement of authoritarianism. At the same time the performers will compare economical factors with the remaining social, external and internal political, cultural, and ideal factors, which influenced the political turning points. In the process the performers will, on one hand, put the researched cases of the Slovene history into the broader researching complex of the Habsburg monarchy as well as the first and second Yugoslavia. On the other hand, they will compare the history of this space with broader European and universal history. By means of this set comparative research of different factors from different historical periods, and in different historical circumstances, the research project will explain the actual influence of the economy to democratic and non-democratic political turning points in Slovenia. This will explain the influence of the economy on the development of Slovene democratic traditions.
