Box 3.6 'No single winner takes all, everybody wins something': conditions of good or poor compromise

Different political conjunctures

The idea that 'no single winner takes all, everybody wins something' has not always worked out. Mutual adjustments were most successful in the period leading up to the 1970s, when economic growth also allowed the distribution of more public goods. In the aftermath of the Second World War - an experience that unified the small country - many old antagonisms between party ideologies disappeared. Optional referenda were few and the success rate of obligatory referenda was high. Consensus became more difficult after 1974. With lower economic growth after the first oil crisis, there was less surplus to distribute. Political redistribution in social security and the health system became a zero-sum game, in which what one actor won the other lost. New problems with the environment prompted new conflicts. The party system fragmented and new social movements arose. In conflicts over industrial and post-industrial values, and with the rise of neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism, part of the basic Swiss consensus melted away. At the end of the 1980s important legislation failed or remained incomplete. The rate of successful referenda challenges and the number of initiatives, which indicate dissatisfaction with institutional solutions, increased.

Different issues

The feasibility of the idea 'no single winner takes all, everybody wins something', then, depends on the issue. As long as money is involved, and as long as there is money available, compromises can be easily reached. But conflicts can involve other things. In 1977 the Federal Council proposed to introduce daylight saving as many Western European countries were doing at the time. Farmers refused to put their clocks one hour forward in the spring and then back again in the autumn, claiming that cows would give less milk. The typical Swiss compromise was not possible in this case: advancing the clock half an hour would have helped nobody. It was easy for the well-organised farmers to call for a referendum, and their challenge was successful. However, living on a 'time isle' in the centre of Europe did not prove to be very practical. Two years later a new bill passed in parliament and the farmers gave in. It can be most difficult, then, to give everybody something when an issue involves fundamental values such as abortion. Whether or not a woman should be given the right to have an abortion is considered by many people to be more a question of principle. Contrary to the daylight saving issue, pragmatic experience would not change preferences because its interpretations can go both ways. In Switzerland reform of the abortion law led to several popular votations and all were defeated. Proponents of liberalisation, aware that they can reach an important minority but still not succeed, refrain from new initiatives. Opponents of abortion find the status quo too liberal, but know they can neither find a majority for their ideas. On the legislative level, the question is blocked. The status quo is unsatisfactory because practice differs a great deal from canton to canton. Proposals to allow the cantons to regulate the issue were refused by both sides. The culture of mutual adjustment has its limits in Switzerland too. Despite these difficulties, the pattern of compromise-seeking carries on. 'Concordance' has become a part of the system that cannot be circumvented.