Slovenia’s State Institutions in the Grip of Democratic Political Culture and the Media (The Telecom Case)

Abstract This paper analyses the systemic framework of the operation of the Intelligence and Security Service – ISS, and the parliamentary supervision of its operations. It takes as its focus a case that occurred last year and was related to the Defence Minister’s commissioning of working materials from the Service on the effects that the privatization of the national telecommunications provider – Telekom Slovenije would have on the operation of the Service in the light of Slovenia’s defence interests. This work also presents a linguostylistic analysis of the media reports covering this case. The findings show that while after 25 years as an independent state Slovenia has established the institutional framework for the operation of the ISS and regulated parliamentary supervision of its work, it has not as yet managed to achieve the harmonized operation of all state policies in the field of national security. Rather than contributing to the solution of certain dilemmas regarding the legal, political and professional aspects of the operation of this civil intelligence and security service in the context of Slovenian national defence, the media reporting used a selection of foregrounded (marked) linguistic means in headlines to characterize the event as a scandal, and designate the ISS as a military intelligence service.