Swiss Consensus Democracy in Transition: A Re-analysis of Lijphart's Concept of Democracy for Switzerland from 1997 to 2007

The present article addresses the question of whether Switzerland can continue to be seen as an extreme case of federal consensus democracy, as illustrated by Arend Lijphart (1999). A re-analysis of Lijphart's (1999) study of the Swiss political system from 1997 to 2007 clearly demonstrates that due to recent political-institutional changes (a decreasing number of parties, growing electoral disproportionality, increasing decentralization and deregulation of the relationship between the state and interest groups), a consensus democracy with strong tendencies toward adjustment and normalization of the original exceptional Swiss case to meet the rest of the continental European consensus democracies has emerged. This development has been further strengthened by intensified public political contestation, rising polarization between the political camps in parliament, and the weakening of the cooperative search for consensus as the dominant mode of negotiation within the government. From the perspective of international comparison, Switzerland can thus be seen henceforth as a typical example, not an extreme case, of consensus democrac

Lijphart expanded: three dimensions of democracy in advanced OECD countries?

This article attempts to examine the relationship between the most important political institutions and direct democracy in 23 modern OECD democracies by expanding Lijphart's concept of majoritarian and consensus democracy. The article updates Lijphart's data collection for the most recent period (1997-2006); it responds to criticisms of Lijphart's measurement of a number of variables and of case selection, and it integrates direct democracy as an additional variable. Based on factor analysis, the main finding is that there are not just two, but three dimensions of democracy in advanced democracies. The horizontal dimension comprises the disproportionality of the electoral system, the number of parties, the executive-legislative relationship, the interest groups, and the degree of central bank independence. In the vertical dimension of democracy, we find federalism, decentralization, bicameralism, the rigidity of constitutional provisions, and the strength of judicial review. The top-to-bottom dimension of democracy comprises the type of cabinet government and the strength of direct democracy. In contrast to earlier research, our empirical analysis furnishes the hypothesis that direct democracy is not a variable that is independent of all other political institutions. While active direct democracy goes hand-in-hand with broadly supported multi-party governments, purely representative constitutions frequently appear in conjunction with minimal winning cabinet

Does Satisfaction with Democracy Really Increase Happiness? Direct Democracy and Individual Satisfaction in Switzerland

This paper takes the influential "direct democracy makes people happy”-research as a starting point and asks whether direct democracy impacts individual satisfaction. Unlike former studies we distinguish two aspects of individual satisfaction, namely satisfaction with life ("happiness”) and with how democracy works. Based on multilevel analysis of the 26 Swiss cantons we show that the theoretical assumption on which the happiness hypothesis is based has to be questioned, as there is very little evidence for a robust relationship between satisfaction with democracy and life satisfaction. Furthermore, we do not find a substantive positive effect of direct democracy on happiness. However, with respect to satisfaction with democracy, our analysis shows some evidence for a procedural effect of direct democracy, i.e. positive effects related to using direct democratic rights, rather than these rights per s

Kleine Parteien sind die Verlierer des föderalen Wahlsystems

Wahlsysteme prägen entscheidend den Charakter eines politischen Systems. Durch sie werden die politischen Präferenzen der Wähler in Mandate für die Repräsentationsorgane wie den Nationalrat übersetzt. Die Gestaltung des Wahlsystems ist damit auch immer eine zentrale Machtfrage, die darüber entscheidet, welche politischen Gruppierungen die Parlamentsmehrheit stellen und welche in der Minderheit sind. Der Artikel sucht nach Antworten auf folgende Fragen: Wie wirkt sich das schweizerische Wahlsystem auf den Erfolg der Parteien bei den Nationalratswahlen aus? Ist eine Systemreform angezeigt

Do governments delay the implementation of parliamentary requests? Examining time variation in implementing legislative requests in Switzerland

This paper investigates time variations in the implementation of legislative requests by the Swiss government. Combining the literature on executive–legislative relations with findings from implementation research, we focus on the procedural level and argue that implementation delays can occur because the government does not want to, cannot or should not implement faster. We test these mechanisms using a unique database, which enables us to analyse a systematic collection of all legislative requests that have been approved between the parliament’s 2003 winter session and its 2018 spring session. Our results show that the considerable variation in the time needed for the legislative mandates’ implementation is mostly related to the Swiss government’s inability to transpose faster, i.e. to factors like highly busy administrative offices or complex and controversial issues. In contrast, there is no support for the ideas that the government “shall not” or “does not want to” transpose faster

Föderalismus und staatliche Verschuldung: ein makro-quantitativer Vergleich

'Dieser Beitrag analysiert die Zusammenhänge zwischen dezentralen staatlichen Strukturen und dem Ausmaß an öffentlicher Verschuldung in den Schweizer Kantonen für die Periode zwischen 1984 und 2000. Aus theoretischer Warte lassen sich mit der föderalen Architektur sowohl erhöhende als auch dämpfende Effekte auf die staatliche Verschuldung verbinden. Einerseits können föderale Strukturen zu einer Dämpfung des Schuldenstandes führen, weil sowohl der inhärente Wettbewerb zwischen den Gliedstaaten als auch die Fülle subnationaler Vetopositionen zur Einschränkung der Staatstätigkeit führen. Andererseits kann der Föderalismus zur Ausdehnung der staatlichen Verschuldung beitragen, weil sowohl funktionale und organisatorische Doppelspurigkeiten als auch unkoordinierte und voneinander abweichende Handlungen einer Vielzahl von Akteuren kostenintensive und oftmals schuldenfinanzierte Kompromisslösungen einfordern. Die vorliegenden statistisch quantitativen Auswertungen zeigen, dass eine stärkere Dezentralisierung in den Schweizer Gliedstaaten eher zu einer Einschränkung der kantonalen Verschuldung führt.' (Autorenreferat)'This article analyses the relationship between decentralised state structure and the extent of public debt in the Swiss cantons between 1984 and 2000. From a theoretical point of view, federalism can be associated with both, an expansive and a dampening effect on government debt. On the one hand, federal structures have been argued to lead to a reduction of debt due to inherent competition between the member states and the multitude of veto positions which restrict public intervention. On the other hand, federalism has been claimed to contribute to an extension of public debt as it involves expensive functional and organisational duplications as well as costintensive compromise solutions between a large number of actors that operate in an uncoordinated and contradictory way. Our statistical estimations show that the former effect is dominant: public debt tends to be lower in Swiss member states with a more decentralised political structure.' (author's abstract

Liberal and Radical Democracies: The Swiss Cantons Compared

This article examines the widespread hypothesis that German-speaking Swiss cantons exhibit radical-democratic characteristics, while the Latin cantons possess stronger liberal-representative democratic profiles. Empirical and multi-dimensional measuring of the quality of democracy in the cantons shows that this hypothesis does not do the complexity of cantonal democracy justice. Today's position of the cantons along the axes of liberal and radical democracy is best explained with reference to the strong liberal and democratic constitutional movements within the cantons during the middle of the 19th centur

Self-Interest or Solidarity?

This article puts the self-interest hypothesis to an empirical test by analysing the 2004 referendum on fiscal equalisation in Switzerland. That vote put forth a series of reforms which created regional winners and loser in terms of having to pay or receiving unconditional funding. Although Switzerland is usually portrayed as a paradigmatic case in terms of inter-regional solidarity and national integration, we show that rational and selfish cost-benefit calculations strongly mattered for the end-result. We rely on a multi-level model with referendum and other data on more than 2700 municipalities and all 26 cantons. More broadly, our findings confirm that rational choice theory works well for voting on straightforward monetary issues with a clearly defined group of winners and losers. However, symbolic interests such as party strength and cultural predispositions against state intervention and in favour of subsidiarity also matter and need to be taken into account alongside

'Stretched but not snapped' : a response to Russell & Serban on Retiring the 'Westminster Model'

This article engages with Meg Russell and Ruxandra Serban's (2021) argument that the Westminster model is 'a concept stretched beyond repair' that deserves 'to be retired'. We examine the logic, theory and methods that led to such a powerful, potent and provocative argument. We suggest their approach may have inadvertently 'muddied' an already muddled concept. We assess the implications of 'muddying' for their conclusion that the Westminster model is, in essence, a dead concept in need of a decent funeral. We suggest the concept is 'stretched but not snapped' by developing a simple four-perspective broadening of the analytical lens. This approach aids understanding about what the concept covers, how it is operationalized and why it remains useful in comparative research