Gregory A. Fossedal, Direct Democracy in Switzerland, 2002.3
WillensnationVictory at Morgarten established the upstart confederation as a viable emerging confederation. It also set off the dynamic of growth by attraction -- the voluntary association of neighboring principalities, cities, and individuals -- that makes Switzerland a nation created by acts of the free will.
The Swiss call this concept, and the political entity based on it, Willensnation, and use the term with pride. It is a nation of people who have come to Switzerland (even today, nearly 20 percent are foreigners) or whose ancestors did, or whose ancestors belonged to towns or small principalities that freely joined the confederation. The common point is some attraction to the idea of Switzerland with its freedom and cultural diversity under a banner of strong national ideals.
In this way, as in many others, Switzerland bears some resemblance to the United States.
The term Willensnation is apt in a second sense -- one used by few or no Swiss today, and certainly not intended at the start, but nevertheless appropriate. For Switzerland was also "willed" in the sense that the country's independence, neutrality, prosperity, and special political and social culture resulted in part from a long series of deliberate policies. Switzerland's position and its geography sometimes aided these developments, sometimes frustrated them. They were not, however, sheer accidents of climate and other facts of nature, contrary to much commentary from Sully to Montesquieu to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and down to the present.
These tendencies, once established, reinforced one another. As Switzerland became known as a haven for the industrious, the freedom-loving, the independent, it tended to attract more such people. Many emigrated to escape ruinous taxes, or the feudal duties that acted like taxes. As this turbulent frontier attracted such pioneers, the traits of independence and fortitude were reinforced, and so on. All these dynamics, however, required a point of crystallization, some core, at the start -- much as the "Norwegian section" or "little Vietnam" of Chicago, after reaching some critical mass, became a self-generating phenomenon.
Without this core, we might have seen simply a long history of bloody rebellions along the borders of the three great empires -- France and Burgundy; the German-Austrian Hapsburg Reich; and Italy and (to some extent) Lombard and the Papacy to the South. Instead, the confederation of independence-minded states at the crossroads of Europe became an example and a magnet. Suddenly, and ever since, the idea of liberty had enough soil for something living to grow on.
If we examine Switzerland's history from 1291 up through the twentieth century, its political economy and culture can be seen as represented in Figure 3.1. The figure is not exactly a map, though it roughly positions the main actors geographically. It is more of an historical flow chart that represents a number of Switzerland's roles in Europe and, indeed, the West.
For 800 years, Switzerland has served as a natural crossroads for the exchange of goods between Germany, France, and Italy. By the early eighteenth century, more than 10,000 persons passed over the Devil's Bridge annually -- often accompanied, of course, by more than one cart or horse of products per traveler. There were other ways to travel between France, Germany, and Italy, of course, but -- especially for transporting livestock or large caravans of goods -- the most efficient way was to cut through the Alps, especially as this became more and more efficient with improvements to the bridge and the surrounding roads and towns.
To attract a growing volume of traffic, even this strategically situated crossroads had to be adept, or at least competent, at many tasks. Merchants needed a safe road to travel on, with inns and churches and other essentials of life along the way. They would prefer traveling through areas where the legal system was fair, prompt, and relatively simple to deal with. Money -- preferably a single, reliable currency; certainly a multitude of them if not one -- was essential. When Plato sets about establishing the ideal state in his Republic, he starts with the need for a market for exchange and for a market to carry out that exchange -- money is needed. Naturally it would be helpful to find people along the way who could converse in your native tongue, particularly in the larger cities where contracts and exchanges might have to be worked out.
Switzerland has benefited from the earliest times in that it had a strong incentive to develop this kind of efficient, stable political economy. All nations have an interest in this, of course, but for the people that inhabit what is now Switzerland, the potential gains were even larger -- and the potential for division and violence, arguably, greater too. Much was riding on the successful maintenance of this position, both for the original cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden, and for the surrounding cities -- Zurich, Baden, Luzern, Bern -- that prospered in part thanks to the success of the confederation.
The geographical additions to the confederation began almost immediately. Zurich joined in a separate alliance weeks after the Bundesbrief. It proved ill-fated when the Hapsburg Austrians destroyed much of the city in revenge two years later, and was tested again throughout the fourteenth century, but eventually proved solid. Luzern, likewise, sometimes leaned Hapsburg, sometimes toward the Alpine Bund. These two rich cities had the largest stake of any in a free, prosperous transit across the Alps.
In a sense, the early Swiss were in a competition with the Hapsburgs -- with the support of the merchant cities likely to swing toward the group they thought could provide the most effective economic and political regime. Who could run the trans-Alpine marketplace best? Inexorably, both Luzern and Zurich took advantage of every opportunity to side with the confederation, and generally tacked back toward the Hapsburgs only under duress. There were divisions within their own populations as well, of course, but these were evidently few. Note, for example, how eagerly the Zurich elite sided with the unproved alliance within ten weeks of the sealing of the Bundesbrief in 1291.
By 1393, the original confederation of three cantons had grown to eight: Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden were joined by Luzern, Zurich, Glarus, Zug, and Bern as confederates. This central core was working cooperatively with communities on the next periphery to solidify the new de facto state still further. Bern reached out toward the now-French-speaking cities of Fribourg and Lausanne, Uri and Luzern looked south toward what is now the Italian portion of Switzerland, and Zurich and Schwyz aimed at popular diplomacy with the independence-minded farmers and merchants of Aargau to the West and St. Gallen to the East to provide a buffer zone from the Hapsburgs -- and, of course, potential ground for the federation's own growth. This process is represented in Figure 3.2. Note that Switzerland was not yet a "country" as such, and would not be for many years. Some would place the date as late as 1648 and the treaty of Westphalia -- or even 1848 and the constitution following Switzerland's final major religious war. On the other hand, attributes of sovereignty were forming out of this Willens-confederation as early as 1291, as we have observed. This makes assigning an exact date both difficult and, in a sense, arbitrary and unnecessary.
The white core in the center represents the three original cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden (Obwalden and Niwalden) roughly as they were in 1291. The four gray regions that seem to move out from that core represent the confederation's expansion to include Luzern (1332), Glarus (1352), and Zug (1352), and the cities of Zurich (1351) and Bern (1353). Some of the territories not marked as part of the confederation were already, in the mid-1300s, "subject territories" of Bern, Zurich, or of the confederation. For example, Fribourg (associated with the confederation in 1481). The broadest dark line around the outside is the border of modern-day Switzerland with France, Germany, Italy, Liecthenstein, and Austria.
An illustrative addition to the confederation during this period was Zug, a city (and now canton) on a still lake south of Ziirich. The Hapsburgs strove to retain control there as they did in Bern and Zurich -- anything to avoid being completely cut out of the picture in a region evolving as a crossroads. Parts of the town sympathized with the earlier confederation, and probably fought as individuals at Morgarten. Some of the ruling aristocracy were Hapsburg and pro-Hapsburg; others not. After securing the support of Zurich and Luzern in 1351, the central cantons moved against Zug in June 1352. It fell in a matter of weeks. From a Hapsburg point of view, one might say that the Swiss confederation seized the town by mere physical force. This, though, is only part of the story. There was in fact a vigorous faction within the city that supported incorporation within the confederation. Families within the township of Zug and in the surrounding countryside organized themselves and were fighting for the confederation within the city. Few details of the battle remain and there were apparently few casualties, all suggestive of a short battle in which the conqueror was welcomed as a liberator.
It was at the end of the century, however, that the real cement was applied to the confederation. In that year, Emperor Friedrich III died, succeeded by his son Maximilian I. To a treasury already strained by rivalry with the French, Maximilian added an untimely taste for luxury and even display. He established a tax, the Pfennig tax of one penny, throughout the kingdom. Maximilian also strove to centralize the judicial system, introducing an Imperial Chamber of Justice and allowing appeals of purely local cases. Here were two matters, taxes and centralized justice, on which nearly all Swiss, peasant and landowner, worker and merchant, could agree. After winning an alliance that brought money but no troops from France, the Swiss confronted the Austri-ans, the kaiser's initial proxy, in a series of campaigns running from the Jura in the Northwest through Basel and Baden in central Switzerland and Graubiinden and St. Galien in the East.
The decisive battle took place on July 22, 1499, near the Solothurn fortress of Dornach. The Austrian troops assumed the Swiss were far away and were bathing lazily in the Birs to escape the heat. The Swiss fell on the Austrians and killed many of their 16,000 men, including the Austrian commander. The kaiser relented and agreed to a peace treaty at Basel on September 22, 1499.
Within two years, Basel itself joined the confederation, which grew to thirteen cantons with its entry in 1501. Basel illustrates the attraction of the confederation's free democratic model in a highly positive way. Even the city's ruling class had reason to admire the tenacious fighting spirit that the mountain democracy of the forest cantons seemed to breed. Swiss troops had heroically defended the city in 1444 in what might be called the Pyrrhic defeat of St. Jakob's. Marching with the intention of absorbing Basel and nearby areas into France, the French troops slaughtered their opponents. But they were chastened by the courage with which some 1,500 Swiss held off 40,000 trained and well-armed troops, inflicted great casualties, and fought to the death. The French decided there were better places to expand than this region where they would be resisted with such ferocity. The people of Basel realized they had been rescued by this act of self-sacrifice, and relations between the city and the confederation grew closer in the coming decades.
The cities joining the federation took the lesson of Willensnation to heart, adapting some of the principles of democracy at work in the rural cantons to their own use. Bern, one of the most aristocratic entrants into the confederation, adopted democratic political reforms after resentment of the city's ruling elite resulted in riots in 1470. Zurich's ruling families ceded increasing powers to an elected council and acquiesced in the rise of the guilds, whose power transformed the city. These reforms did not put the more elitist cities on a democratic par with the rural Landsgemeinde, or community meetings, but they were a significant step.
Thus, even Switzerland's conquests represent persuasion and example as much as sheer muscle. It was at popular diplomacy that the Swiss excelled. Such cities as Bern, Fribourg, and others followed the pattern of Zurich in many ways. They could surely have resisted the mountain men of the Alps, had it not been for the fact that many of their people sympathized more with, and longed for the freedom of, the Waldstatte. They evidently felt an alliance with these rugged folk was more reliable than those based on the caprice of the dukes and princes and clergy that dominated the rest of Europe. "The Swiss are not easy to win as allies," as the Duke of Milan said during one of Switzerland's less creditable hours as the Duke and France engaged in a bidding war for the use of Swiss mercenaries. "But they are highly sought because, as allies, they are extremely valuable." Machiavelli, who observed the Swiss in battle and traveled extensively in Switzerland, regarded the Swiss as perhaps the toughest fighters in Europe, comparing them -- the highest compliment possible from Machiavelli -- to the soldiers of the Roman Republic. This reputation as fierce fighters stayed with the Swiss down through the centuries, leading to comparisons to the Vietnamese in the 1960s and 1970s and the Afghanistan rebels of the 1980s.
Like the Romans, Machiavelli observed, the Swiss fought well in part because they had something to fight for. Their free lives and republican virtues not only gave them better weapons and better leaders to fight with, but animated great individual courage among this "army of citizens."
By the time Machiavelli saw the Swiss defeated by French forces at the battle of Marignano (1515), Switzerland's growth by absorption of territory was almost at an end. Thirteen of the present twenty-three cantons belonged to the confederation, stretching from the Bernese territories in the west across Basel, Zurich, and down through the forest cantons and into Appenzell and Glarus in the East. The full inclusion of many of the French-speaking cantons in the West in a multilingual Switzerland was not complete until the nineteenth century. But already there was great affinity and extensive trade, monetary, and other links with Geneva and Lausanne, as well as with some of the towns of what is now the Italian-speaking Ticino in the South. This affinity became formal defense treaties with Lausanne in 1525 and Geneva in 1526. The Duke of Savoy made a final attempt to assert his rights over Geneva and was crushed by a confederate force composed largely of troops from Bern and Solothurn.
It would be wrong, however, to think that Switzerland ceased to be a political magnet after 1500. From the sixteenth century onward, Switzerland didn't absorb bordering cities and territories at the same rate, and it began to follow a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs that has survived to the present. It did, though, continue to attract large numbers of people. Some were religious, political, or ethnic refugees. Others were risk takers, entrepreneurs. Still others were the rebellious and the contrary who didn't like the taxes, the feudal dues, or the social elitism of European society. Almost all took part willingly in the culture of freedom, tolerance, and democracy.
In short, before about the year 1530, Willensnation moved borders. Afterward, to a large extent, it moved people.
In 1685? Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, setting forth a great exodus of Huguenots and other Protestants from France. In the coming years, an estimated 120,000 poured into the Swiss confederation. Many of these resettled into Germany, America, and other countries, but many chose to remain. In percentage terms, those figures compare with the great Irish migration to the United States. A deliberate policy to control the population growth played a role in how the immigrants were assimilated (or not) into Swiss society. In the 1670s and 1680s, Bern, Luzern, Solothurn, and Geneva established fees before one could become a burgher. Smaller towns followed suit and the fees generally grew throughout the century until they were prohibitively high. The result was that skilled laborers, who valued their ability to export readily into the French market, had the wherewithal to remain in Switzerland: approximately 3,000 in Geneva, 1,500 in Lausanne and Bern, and a significant number in the smaller towns of Vaud and Fribourg. Of these, a disproportionate number consisted of highly skilled artisans, employers, and financial elites.
"Much of Swiss industry (watches and textiles, to name just two) owes its origins, not to economic causes, but to religious oppression in neighboring countries," writes J. Murray Luck in his History of Switzerland. "The refugees from France and Italy brought with them invaluable skills and know-how."
Data from Geneva and Zurich for the year 1700 indicate the population of both cities consisted of 28 percent or more of immigrants. If we add in the number of persons who came from other parts of the federation -- such as
Italian-speaking and German-speaking Protestants from the forest cantons and the Ticino -- the proportion of refugees and immigrants would surely have approached or exceeded 40 percent.
In 1864, the confederation concluded a treaty with France that provided for the establishment of Jews in Switzerland. The treaty obliged the Swiss to allow French Jews to settle freely in Swiss territory. This was followed by a popular vote, in 1866, that codified the right of Jews to settle anywhere they wanted in the country. If it seems a grudging measure by today's standards, it came some eighty years before similar protections were provided in the rest of Europe. Coming at a time when anti-Semitism was on the rise again in Europe, as the industrial age advanced and paranoia about "Jewish capitalists" resurfaced, this was an important gesture by the newly reconstituted nation. In Geneva (about 6 percent) and Lausanne (close to 10 percent), the percentage of Jews in the population was higher. A number of Jews, of course, emigrated to Switzerland only to relocate in a few years to such destinations as Poland and the United States. Those who remained made disproportionate contributions to scientific, financial, and other core economic activities, and helped generate the kind of critical mass in intellectual brilliance that would attract other leading researchers and entrepreneurs, making Switzerland the greatest contributor to increased productivity of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. (Switzerland has won more than five times the Nobel Prizes for science of any other nation on a per capita basis.)
If generous, then, the policy was also wise. Jewish immigrants from France and (later) Germany formed the basis of a great expansion of the Swiss banking, construction, and manufacturing industries. The contribution from immigrants was by no means limited to Jews. Arab traders and financiers fled from Spain and helped make Basel a center of science and trading in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and their descendants remain today. Protestant refugees from France, fleeing to the Western cantons, and later Catholic refugees from Holland, England, and Scotland flocked to the central cantons -- Switzerland, at times, was a magnet for both confessions. It was the willingness to accept people power of many different races, faiths, and ideologies that helped Switzerland thrive. Diversity, it turns out, is competitive.
For example, two engineers who left France in the 1860s played a key role in the construction of a railroad through the St. Gotthard pass, completed in 1882. The initiative, financed privately by the leadership of investment magnate Alfred Escher, spawned a number of spin-off innovations in engineering by immigrants in Geneva, Lausanne, and Bern. This intelligent but much-disputed decision by government and industry (debated from the late 1840s onward) acted somewhat like the U.S. space industry or the Internet, catapulting Swiss firms to the lead in a number of technological fields. The direct impact resembled that of the Teufelsbriicke: the new trans-Gotthard route reduced transit time from a period of several days to less than ten hours.
The list of Swiss immigrants (Jewish and non-Jewish) from the mid-nine-teenth to the mid-twentieth centuries reads like an international Who's-Who of overachievers, job generators, and breakthrough scientists. In 1858, Henri Nestle left Germany to work in the pharmacy of another Swiss immigrant; during his apprenticeship he first began to toy with improved infant food formulas that were not only to form the basis of one of the world's largest conglomerates, but would save countless lives. He was spurred on by the work of two American brothers, Charles and Henry Page, who in 1866 had founded a condensed milk factory in the small Swiss town of Cham. The development illustrates the important "critical mass" feature seen in places such as America's Silicon Valley, where the presence of so many bright minds, finance capital, and new ideas becomes a synergistic, self-generating boom.
In the same period, Brown Boveri of Baden was founded by a Scottish engineer and a German financier. Today, Asea-Brown-Boveri, or ABB, employs several hundred thousand workers in Switzerland and around the world. French immigrants had already brought the manufacture of muslin to Zurich in the 1690s; in the early nineteenth century the textile industry attracted more immigrants as Escher Wyss and other spinning establishments, not allowed to import equipment, brought spinning experts from Britain and the United States to develop their own. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Switzerland proved an attractive haven for such diverse intellectuals as Victor Hugo, Madame de Stael, Gibbon, and Albert Einstein.
In flipping through five or six centuries in as many pages, we run the risk of missing some important intervening developments, rather like a time-lapse photographer snapping a shot only once a generation. For the purpose of understanding Switzerland, however, it is enough to describe the dynamic that was at work over those many years -- and to provide some examples and anecdotes that illustrate the basic historical movement.
One danger is that we make the development of democracy in Switzerland seem easier than it really was. There were, after all, jealous and powerful princes who would have loved to seize control of the chokepoint in the Alps. For all the advantages geography gave to the Swiss in defending their mountain redoubt, geography also placed most of the country's arable land and natural living space in a valley wide open to French and German attack, and naturally drawn toward those lands by many habits of language and culture. Swiss toleration for religious differences seems simple looking back, but then, so does most history when we can look back on it. For four centuries, the Swiss were as divided between competing religious ideas as the rest of Europe, and, indeed, gave birth to two of the more searching critics of Catholicism, Zwingli and Calvin, the West has seen.
Before we begin to survey the operation of Swiss i in the present and recent past, it is important to examine some of the difficulties they had to overcome to arrive at their present state.