Introduction In 1991 Switzerland celebrated its 700th year of existence. For its inhabitants this was an occasion to reflect on its history, to think about inherited values and to be grateful to be living in a country that is well known for its stable democracy, for remaining unscathed and independent through two world wars, and for its wealth. Yet the 700th anniversary of Switzerland was not just a year of celebration. It was also a time of doubts about Swiss identity.
The Swiss, proud to be living in one of the oldest European democracies, learned that the intelligence service of their government had snooped not only on criminals and spies from other countries, but also on hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens, and this often for ridiculous reasons. Moreover at the beginning of the 1990s the Swiss economy seemed to be less competitive and less efficient than in previous decades. And then there were fundamental questions about Switzerland's future: when the Soviet Union disintegrated Switzerland's political neutrality lost much of its significance. In 1991-2 the European integration process reached a new stage when the countries of the European Free Trade Association signed the European Economic Area treaty with the European Community. The Swiss government, which was in favour of integration, not only signed the treaty but was willing to negotiate on the eventual EC-membership of Switzerland. At the end of 1992, however, a popular vote rejected the EEA treaty. This halted the government's plan to integrate and left the country politically divided. Will Switzerland really remain on its own, proud of the independence it has defended so vigorously in the past, or will it join the integration process in Europe in a few years time? Switzerland seems to be in a state of transition, with outside and inside pressure for fundamental changes. Even if the things that so impress visitors - mountains, cleanness, wealth, reliable public transport - will remain, there are changes of mentality in the country. At the end of 1991 the editor-in-chief of the newspaper Le Nouveau Quotidien in Lausanne, Jacques Pilet, wrote:
Switzerland has changed.... We shall never think again that our country will be the eternal innocent-girl model of democracy. Swiss democracy, like other democracies, can be led into wrong or even stupid ways of behaving. We shall never believe again that, by nature, we are more capable of behaving more economically, more proficiently than our neighbours, from whom we actually learned so many lessons in the past. We shall never believe again that our wealth will last for ever. Recent economic problems remind us of the fact that, in order to maintain our standard of living, we have to try harder than ever and must renounce many comfortable and soporific privileges. We shall never believe again that it will be wise for our small country, for eternity, to take its political decisions proudly and solitarily without regard for its friends and partners. So much exaggerated pride has been dashed that we shall have to develop new reasons to be proud.... The Swiss have a somewhat irritating and, at the same time, seductive quality: a certain inclination to take the opposite course to predominant fashions and modes, and a certain resistance to go where everybody is going. Let's cultivate this quality.1In some ways, this book is written in this spirit. First, it describes a 'deviant case' of democracy: a democracy where citizens participate not only in the election of its parliament and its government, but also vote on and ratify parliamentary decisions of major importance. Since this type of direct democracy has remained unique, it runs the risk of being doubly misunderstood: being rejected out of hand or giving rise to uncritical mystification. My intention is to provide a critical account that avoids both fallacies. Moreover this book will focus on those questions of political history and modern political life that are important beyond the borders of Switzerland, asking how it was possible to create and integrate a political nation out of four different linguistic regions with a religious division between Protestants and Catholics. And why it was that Switzerland - a small country whose population of 6.9 million inhabitants makes up only about 2 per cent of Western Europe -- did not fall apart when faced with the class struggles arising from modern industrialisation, and furthermore, managed to hold on to its independence and democracy in times of war and totalitarism in Europe. Finally I ask: how can a small democracy like Switzerland ensure political stability yet innovate at the same time?
These questions are of paramount importance today. First, multicultural coexistence, integration and peace are crucial, and too often unresolved in many parts of the world. Conflicts between different ethnic, language, religious and cultural groups are a main reason behind the failure of social modernisation in the Third World, of war in the Middle East and the Balkans as well as in many other nations where different ethnic groups coexist. The oppression of cultural minorities throughout its many decades of existence played a major role in the internal collapse of the Soviet Union, and in producing the outbreak of a new nationalism in the now independent republics. But how will this new nationalism - focusing as it does on cultural or ethnic identity - deal with the problem of other minorities who remain inside the boundaries of newly created states in Eastern Europe?
Problems of cultural minorities also constitute persistent and serious political problems in developed industrial societies, as we see with blacks in the USA, Catholics in Northern Ireland and French-speakers in Belgium and Canada. Industrialisation and market-oriented economies have led to a worldwide exchange of goods, services and capital. But this situation has also led to confrontation between different cultures and produced millions of refugees, especially among and from the Third World. In the new order of worldwide liberalisation and open markets, if the money does not go to the poor, the poor go where the money is. A large majority of the 170 nations considered as sovereign states nowadays constitute multicultural societies. However it seems that the real problems of integrating different ethnic and cultural traditions, and of dealing with religious and linguistic minorities within the boundaries of existing nations, have remained politically unresolved, despite promises of self-determination and democracy.
Switzerland has been fortunate in finding political ways of achieving multicultural understanding over the past 150 years. The solution was based on two concepts. First, Switzerland renounced -- or was forced to renounce -- the idea of creating a one-culture, one-language nation-state. Instead, from the very beginning of its modern existence it has been an 'artificial' multicultural nation, depending only on the constraints of history and on the political will of inhabitants with different cultures. This was, and still is, fundamentally different from other ideas of nationalism in the middle of the nineteenth century as well as of those at the end of the twentieth century. Second, the Swiss were able to develop a type of democracy that favours - and enforces - political power-sharing between Protestants and Catholics, between the German-speaking majority and French-, Italian and Romansch-speaking minorities, and between organised employers and trade unions. This has led to social integration, peaceful conflict-resolution by negotiation, and national consensus amongst a once fragmented and heterogeneous population.
If Switzerland is considered to be a 'paradigmatic case of political integration',2 this has been helped by historical circumstances. The problems of Swiss integration may not be comparable with the much greater difficulties of multicultural integration in many young nations of today. Political scientists have observed many models of political integration through power-sharing that are different from those found in Switzerland.3 Nevertheless, I believe that it may be helpful to illustrate in this book a successful case of political integration. The creation of a multicultural state, and the political integration of different religions and languages without destroying particular cultural identities, is probably the most precious legacy of Switzerland's democracy, and it may be the most precious message it can leave for others.
Because of this message, the focus of this book may differ slightly from earlier monographs on Switzerland in English.4 Besides the peculiarities of direct democracy, it focuses on different aspects of political power-sharing, sometimes called 'consociational democracy'. In Chapter 1 the historical process of Swiss nation-building is described. It includes not only the creation of the Swiss federation, but the process of achieving the participation of the most important minority groups and the different social classes through proportional representation. The latter is considered a first element of power-sharing, the common notion of many comparative political scientists to describe the characteristics of democracies that renounce majority and 'winner takes all' rules.
In Chapter 2, we focus on the characteristics of Swiss federalism. Federalism allows the division of power between central and regional government and is therefore a widely used institutional arrangement in multicultural societies. In the Swiss case, it allows not only the protection of various minorities, it has also served to preserve different regional identities, themselves multicultural. In Chapter 3 I turn to direct democracy -how it works in modern Switzerland, and how it works despite the claim of many theorists that it is too demanding for people in a highly developed industrial society. I try to define the limits of direct democracy, and consider why it has led to political conservatism rather than to social innovation. Many other countries use a variety of institutional forms of plebiscite, referenda and popular initiative in order to influence parliamentary and governmental policies. Switzerland, however, is the only country where direct democracy has become an important - perhaps also the most constraining - element of power-sharing. In fact the referendum has enabled minorities successfully to challenge parliamentary proposals that did not take into account their group interests. Consequently lawmaking in Switzerland has become impossible without the participation of various interest groups. Thus the referendum has profoundly changed the Swiss political system, which initially intended to follow the winner-takes-all pattern of Anglo-Saxon democracy. Instead it has developed patterns of political pluralism. In its structures of consociational democracy, all political parties and interest groups are permanently represented in the political institutions, and lawmaking has become a process of negotiation and mutual adjustment involving all political forces.
In the final chapter I try to develop three perspectives, based on the previous chapters, that go beyond the case of Switzerland, beginning with direct democracy. In a theoretical perspective, democracy is not a definitive concept, but one which changes with the passage of time. Thus enhancing the participation of the people by direct democracy as in Switzerland -considered revolutionary in the nineteenth century - may still be considered a very progressive form of democracy. But can the principle of utmost participation of the greatest possible number of people be applied to the whole spectrum of political issues and decision-making? And are increased political rights, offering the people not only a voice in the election of their representatives but a chance to vote on major decisions, an efficient way forward to better democracy? The second perspective is that of federalism. Traditionally federalism has been a means for the subnational division of institutional power. But could it also play a role in the supranational division of power and the participation of minorities? Despite the fact that federalism is an old and well-known institutional arrangement, it seems that not all of its possibilities are exploited today. Finally I discuss different institutional arrangements for political power-sharing and their effectiveness in settling conflicts, especially in multicultural societies. I end by stressing that power-sharing is not just an institutional arrangement, it has to be based on the specific culture of the society that intends to introduce it.
Thus, I would like to give a first response to the subtitle of this book: Switzerland provides a model example because of its enduring will to constitute an independent political nation based on the mutual respect of its minorities. It provides a model for finding political institutions and patterns of behaviour that enable peaceful conflict-resolution in a multicultural society. While the model cannot be copied in its entirety, some of its basic elements can be noted, adapted and used by others. Renouncing a 'nation-state' of one culture, one religion and one language was essential for the success of the Swiss model. The option of political integration and democratic pluralism could be an alternative to today's new nationalism. Elements of political power-sharing - such as federalism, proportional participation of minorities, lawmaking by negotiation - can be helpful in any country that is faced with problems of multicultural conflict. Properly adapted, direct democracy can enhance the quality of citizens' participation in parliamentary systems. Democracy and peaceful conflict-resolution, however, not only depend on adequate political institutions. They also need the social development of a political culture. Unlike technical innovation, this takes a long time to develop. This may be the last, but not the least important lesson offered by the Swiss experience: successfully overcoming cultural conflicts is a political process requiring decades rather than years.
I am indebted to a number of persons who assisted me during the research and writing of this book.
The first is George W. Jones from the London School of Economics, whom I met at an international congress on local government at Germany in 1988. He not only inspired me to write a book on Swiss government but got things started by looking for a publisher for the project. Later he gave invaluable advice on revisions of earlier versions of the text. Similar help came from Clive Church of the University of Kent at Canterbury. As a specialist in Swiss contemporary history, Clive made particularly well-informed suggestions on how to explain the specificities of Swiss political institutions to an English-speaking public. I am also very grateful to both of them for their help in improving my 'Swiss English'.
As mentioned in the Foreword, the first draft of the book was written during my sabbatical at the University of Chapel Hill. I am grateful to Ruth and Jiirg Steiner; their kind hospitality made my work at Chapel Hill pleasant in every respect.
The focus of the book is on Swiss political institutions and democracy. In many respects, however, it goes beyond the perspective of political science. I am particularly thankful, therefore, to a number of colleagues from other disciplines for their support during the writing of the book. Jean-Francois Aubert from the University of Neuchatel, Peter Saladin and Walter Kalin from the University of Bern, all of whom are specialists in constitutional or international law, and peace-researcher Johan Galtung from the University of Honolulu, were critical readers of the manuscript and gave invaluable advice as well as encouragement.
Hans Hirter, Lorenz Kummer, Martin Senti and Adrian Vatter, assistants at the Political Science Institute in Bern, indulged me in various versions of my argument. Daniel Hug undertook the bibliographical research, collected economic and sociological data and prepared some of the information boxes. Visiting scholar Peter Stettler helped to improve the English and provided historical advice. I am most grateful to Monika Spinatsch for her excellent editorial work on all the drafts of the manuscript. Last but not least, I thank my partner Ursula Nordmann for many discussions on the book, and for all her personal encouragement.
Notes 1. Jacques Pilet, 'Voeux au bout d'une annee folie, Nouveau Quotidien, January 1/2 1992. 2. Karl Deutsch, Die Schweiz als paradigmatischer Fall politischer Integration (Bern: Haupt, 1975). 3. Arend Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1977); Kenneth D. McRae (ed.), Consociational Democracy (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1974). 4. For instance Andre Siegfried, La Suisse, democratie-temoin (Neuchatel: La Baconniere, 1948); George A. Codding, The Federal Government of Switzerland, (Cambridge Mass: Riverside Press, 1962); Christopher Hughes, Switzerland (London: Praeger/Benn, 1975); Jonathan Steinberg, Why Switzerland?, (London/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976); Oswald Sigg, Switzerland's Political Institutions (Zurich and Bern: Pro Helvetia, 1983); Kenneth D. McRae, Conflict and Compromise in Multilingual Societies, vol. 1, Switzerland (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1983); Clive. H. Church et al. Aspects of Switzerland: Sources and Reflections (Canterbury: University of Kent, 1986); Nicholas Gilett, The Swiss Constitution - Can it be Exported? (Bristol: Yes Publications, 1989); J. E. Hilowitz, 'Switzerland in Perspective', Contributions in Sociology no. 92 (1990) (Praeger/Greenwood).