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Participation and Swiss Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Benjamin Barber
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AS THE GREAT HISTORIAN LOUIS HARTZ TAUGHT US IN HIS remarkable study The Liberal Tradition in America, anyone wishing to focus on the special character of a regime would do well to begin by taking the measure of what is absent rather than what is present. Like America, Switzerland has long been regarded as an exception to many of the conventional rules of historical and democratic development — Sonderfall Schweiz is how the Swiss portray and perhaps boast a little about their national exceptionalism. Switzerland possesses a unique form of democratic government the hallmarks of which are participatory democracy, neutrality and radical federalism (decentrahsm or localism, what the Swiss sometimes call Kantönligeist). These hallmarks give to it a character which stands in stark contrast to traditional Anglo-American democracy. The student of comparative politics will observe at once that a great many of Switzerland's leading political features seem to have no analogue in either the English common law or the American Constitution. Swiss democracy is English democracy minus most of English democracy's salient features: which is to say, it is scarcely English democracy at all.

The powerful idea of natural rights as the armour of the individual against illegitimate authority (originally against the illegitimacy of absolute monarchy, later against the hyper-legitimacy of majoritarian tyranny) is largely missing, for example. Missing too is the tradition of an independent judiciary devoted to the protection of wholly private rights against an alien, power-mongering state. When Alexis de Tocqueville, whose liberal premises suited America so well, went looking in the Alps for something like the English liberties, he went astray. Not finding English liberties, he quite misunderstood Switzerland's regime.

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Government and Opposition , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , Winter 1988 , pp. 31 - 50
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Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1988

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References

1 Hartz, Louis, The Liberal Tradition in America, New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1953 Google Scholar.

2 Like many of the interpretations in this article, this assertion of Swiss exceptionalism is controversial and controvertible. Among the papers laid on the table of the conference from which this article comes, is a lively essay by Yves Fricker that is highly critical of the traditional thesis of Swiss exceptionalism. However, his analysis focuses on features of the Swiss regime that differentiate it from what he calls the ‘Westminster Model’ and he seems to make a case for exceptionalism despite himself. Cf. ‘A Sociological Look at Swiss Democracy’, Proceedings of the conference ‘Can the Confederatio Helvetica be Imitated’, Centre Européen de la Culture, Geneva, 2–4 07, 1987, (henceforward Proceedings)Google Scholar.

3 de Tocqueville, Alexis, ‘Report Given Before the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences on January 15,1848 on the Subject of M. Cherbuliez's Book Entitled “On Democracy in Switzerland”,’ in Democracy in America, edited by Mayer, J. P., Garden City, N.J., Doubleday, 1969, p. 740 Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., 741.

5 Ruffieux, Roland, ‘The Swiss Confederation From Past to Present’, Proceedings, p. 1 Google Scholar.

6 Louis Hartz's other great project, after The Liberal Tradition in America, was to offer a comparative theory of ‘fragments’ in the founding of new societies in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, and so on. Cf. The Founding of New Societies, New York, Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964 Google Scholar.

7 H. B. Kunz, in a provocative account of Swiss history as an evolution ‘From Outlaw to Outsider’, Proceedings, argues that the real question of the 1291 ‘Founding’ was simply the question of ‘whether the covenant was an expression of a progressively democratic will or a conservative reaction to more dynamic outside influences’, p. 1. In any case, Kunz is clear that it is a moment in a history already under way rather than some Urquelle of all subsequent political democracy.

8 For an account of the historical development of the Swiss in the absence of integration into feudal Europe see Barber, Benjamin R., The Death of Communal Liberty: Freedom in a Swiss Mountain Canton, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1974, Ch. 3Google Scholar. On Swiss nation-building, see Kohn, Hans, Nationalism and Liberty: The Swiss Example, London, Allen & Unwin, 1956 Google Scholar.

9 Thus, at the conference from which the papers in this collection arose, a number of Swiss participants were anxious to distance themselves from what they saw as traditionalist or romantic notions of Swiss democracy. The point of view offered here, while in keeping with some Swiss historiography, must thus be regarded as a challenge to rather than the realisation of certain trends in current Swiss thought.

10 American social science came to Switzerland in the 1960s, and sociology departments in Berne, Basle, Zurich and above all Lausanne and Geneva (where the French influence is felt) have now begun to pursue its methodologies — in some cases with considerable compensatory fervour. As might be expected, American-style social science has brought with it the denial of Swiss exceptionalism (see note 7 above) and a certain embarrassment at traditional exceptionalist models of Swiss democracy (as in the case of Yves Flicker's essay noted above in note 2). A number of social scientists at the conference from which these papers grew insisted that while a foreigner (e.g., Barber) might indulge in exceptionalist speculations about the unique participatory features of Swiss democracy, neither Swiss social scientists nor citizens could be expected to take such a line without being ridiculed as reactionary traditionalists or simple-minded romantics. Nonetheless, even among social scientists, certain special terms have emerged to deal with the distinctiveness of Swiss democracy — for example, consociationalism.

11 Deutsch, Karl and Weilenmann, Hermann, United for Diversity, (unpublished ms.), Ch. 8, pp. 13–14 Google Scholar. This work, begun in the 1960s but currently only in manuscript form, was interrupted by Weilenmann's death. Despite his own advancing years, Karl Deutsch recently reported to me that he continues to work on it, and hopes to publish it in the future.

12 Kreis, Georg, ‘Democracy and Foreign Policy’, Proceedings, p. 4 Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., p. 6. The great Federal Councillor, Giuseppe Motta, argued in later years: ‘Nous savions les dangers qu'il y a à discuter les affaires diplomatiques en public et cependant nous avons dit que les interêts enjeu étaient si considérables et que la confiance du peuple nous était si nécessaire qu'il fallait avoir le courage de cette discussion publique en plein jour, en plein soleil.’ (Kreis, p. 7).

14 The secondary role of the party system in Switzerland may explain the mystery of why as parties in other European countries have witnessed radical changes in popular support, the Swiss parties have maintained a constant rate of support for over 50 years. For a discussion see the excellent account of Steinberg, Jonathan in his Why Switzerland?, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1976, pp. 82–83 Google Scholar.

15 These generalizations, like many about Switzerland, exhibit a German–Swiss Alpine bias. The institutions discussed are in fact primarily German Swiss and Alpine. Arrangements vary in the cities, which he on the plains, or in the Italian or French regions of Switzerland, where historical circumstances are different. But these German institutions have defined the Swiss democratic experience, and even in French Switzerland, direct democracy has deep roots — in the work of Rousseau for example. See Barber, Benjamin R., ‘How Swiss is Rousseau?’, Political Theory, 11, 1985 Google Scholar.

16 Gustav Däniker, ‘Swiss Military Strategy’, Proceedings.

17 For an account see the classic study by Bonjour, Edgar (English translation), Swiss Neutrality: Its History and Meaning, London, 1946 Google Scholar; and Lloyd, William B., Waging Peace: The Swiss Experience, Washington, D. C., 1958 Google Scholar.

18 In Glams, for example, the Landsgemeinde continues to meet, but it has become largely a tourist attraction made possible by the continuing exclusion of women from cantonal citizenship (they have had the federal vote since 1969, and most of the cantons have followed suit). Some critics regard these vestigial bodies as theatres of manipulation and demagoguery (see Steinberg, op. cit.,) but in reality genuine legislative power now resides almost entirely in the cantonal and federal referendums and the Great and Lesser Councils which meet as representative bodies.

19 Klöti, Ulrich, ‘Political Ideals, Financial Interests, and Intergovernmental Relations: New Aspects of Swiss Federalism’, Proceedings, p. 4 Google Scholar. Like so many critics of exceptionalism and traditionalist accounts of Swiss democracy, Klöti nonetheless finds himself giving an account of Swiss political institutions rooted in distinctive institutional arrangements that seem radically dissimilar from English and American conceptions. See what he says with respect to the rather unusual quasi-sovereignty of local communes (p. 96 below). See also Meylan, T. et al., Communes Swisses et autonomie communale, Greneva, 1972 Google Scholar.

20 The argument of Robert Michels in Political Parties (elaborated by Joseph Schumpeter in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy) that all representative systems tend to increase the distance between constituents and their representatives until an inadvertent oligarchy is created has never applied with much force to Switzerland, above all because of the referendum and initiative.

21 For a full account of the referendum see Aubert, Jean-François, ‘Switzerland’, in Butler, D. and Rauney, A., Referendums: A Comparative Study of Practice and Theory, Washington, D.C., Comparative Study American Enterprise Institute, 1978 Google Scholar; see also Ruffieux, R. (ed.) La démocratie référendaire en Suisse, Freibourg, 1972 Google Scholar.

22 Imboden, Max, Helvetisches Malaise, Zurich, 1964, p. 8 Google Scholar.

23 Steinberg, op. cit., p. 97.

24 It does not follow that every form of progress must compromise direct democracy. For example, although many Swiss fear that peaceful international ‘entanglements’ with the United Nations or the European Economic Community might lead to a diminution of participatory democracy, the distinguished Swiss political scientist Dusan Sidjanski has predicted that ‘dans son état actuel, le processus communautaire n'affecterait pas fondementalement la démocratie directe en Suisse’. ‘L'Interface Suisse—Communauté Européenne’, in Proceedings, p. 13. Sidjanski observes that the referendum itself has been used to air issues of interface with Europe, recalling that of 76 federal referendums from 1977 to 1985, 16 concerned the possible transfer of competences from Swiss sovereignty to the European Community.

25 Some Swiss observers worry that the referendum can become an instrument of demagogic manipulation — as could have happened in the Schwarzenbach referendum. See Gruner, Erich, Die Parteien in der Schweiz, Berne, 1969, pp. 29–30 Google Scholar et passim. But cases like those of Schwarzenbach or the food magnate Dutweiler seem to me to suggest exactly the contrary — how hard it is even in such volatile areas as the ‘guest worker’ problem, to create a neo-fascist populist constitency of the kind that has been generated by Le Pen in France. Steinberg is less sanguine than I am. See op. cit., pp. 92–95.

26 Ruffieux, Roland, ‘The Swiss Confederation from Past to Present’, Proceedings, p. 8 Google Scholar.

27 For an example of this approach see Steiner, Jürg, ‘Non-violent Conflict Resolution in Democratic Systems: Switzerland’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 09, 1969 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and also his Amicable Agreement versus Majority Rule, University of North Carolina Press, 1974 Google Scholar.

28 Swiss constitutional history is a chaotic affair with none of the stability of its American or French cousins. If one dates it from the first pact of 1291 (and Swiss history begins much earlier — the Habsburgs cut Uri loose in 1231, for example), then the history of Helvetic constitutionalism is 700 years old and encompasses dozens of confederal and federal pacts, including in recent centuries Napoleon's expedient and short-lived constitution, the restoration constitution of 1815, the first ‘modern’ constitution in 1848 following the brief civil war (Sonderbundskrieg, 1847) and the 1874 constitution which is the oft-amended modern document. For the rich variety of the pre-modem constitutional tradition, see Klauli, P. L. (ed.), Freiheitsbriefe, Bundesbriefe, Vorkomnisse und Verfassungen: 1231–1815, Aarau, 1952 Google Scholar. Important Swiss sources include Rappard, William, La Constitution fédérale de la Suisse, Neuchâtel, 1948 Google Scholar; Bonjour, Edgar, Die Gründung der schweizerisches Bundesstaates, Basle, 1948 Google Scholar. The best English account remains Hughes, C. J., The Federal Constitution of Switzerland, London, 1948 Google Scholar. Professor Hughes was a major participant in the conference from which these papers are drawn.

29 The most recent campaign for total revision was in the late 1960s — for examples of the kinds of lively discussion engendered, see Buercher, B. et al., Helvetische Alternative: Eine Kritik am Unternehmen der Totalretuschier ung unserer Verfassung nebst einem neuen Fragebogen, Zurich, Polygraphischer Verlag, 1971 Google Scholar, and Reck, Oskar, Brauchen wir eine neue Bundesverfassung?, Berne, Verlag Paul Haupt, 1978 Google Scholar.

30 Ulrich Klöti has thus argued strenously that much of Swiss political life corresponds to the pluralist economic model; that its majorities are merely conglomerations of minorities working together; that the system as a whole is rooted in conflict no less than the American or British systems. See U. Klöti, ‘Political Ideals, Financial Interests, and Intergovernmental Relations: New Aspects of Swiss Federalism’, Proceedings. And he has the support of social scientists like Erich Gruner, Jürg Steiner, and many other younger Swiss scholars.

31 This was the hope expressed in a number of the papers delivered at the conference from which this essay is drawn — among them the one by Sidjanski cited above (note 24), and an interesting piece by Jakob Kellenberger, ‘Switzerland and European Integration: The Challenges of the Future’, Proceedings. Noting that 65 per cent of Switzerland's exports go to the European Free Trade System, and 80 per cent of its imports come from it, Kellenberger argues that ‘an economically sound and stable Switzerland is in Europe's interest’, and that the ‘risks of the marginalization of Switzerland’ by Europe's evolution are now being overcome. The question is, what is the cost to Switzerland's extraordinary political system? Despite Sidjanski's optimism here, there are grave risks.