The political system of Switzerland:

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The political system of SwitzerlandBuilt and
driven by the society and the sub-national
societies

• 7 hypothesis as a contribution to the
• Training program for Diplomats from Iraq
• By Andreas Gross (Switzerland)
• (Political Scientist, MP, Leader of the
  Socialdemocrats in the Parliamentary Assembly of
  the Council of Europe in Strasburg)
• Info_at_andigross.ch www.andigross.ch
• SFDFA/ Multidimensional Diplomacy
• Bern, November 2nd 2009

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1. The Swiss Federal State is pretty young
(1848) - but grounded on a common existence of
550 years
The old Confederation (1291-1848) was very loose
and very diverse in many ways Only few were very
weak democracies and many much more oligarchic
and aristocratic !
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2. Democracy and freedom were results from the
French Revolution and the Napoleonian invasion.

• From 1798 until 1848 a sclerotic
  oligarchic association of old states became the
  only democratic State in Europe.
• New competing elites could only achieve this with
  the support of the citizens and after a short,
  civil civil warin a European window of
  opportunity.

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3. The Swiss Federal and democratic state was
1848 only possible, because other people in
Europe tried also to free themselves from feudal
powers.

• The 1848 Peoples Spring were economically and
  politically - we want to be our own masters of
  our life - reasonable.

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4. The way it was achieved and its societal
diversity marked the political design of the new
Swiss Federation

• Strong Decentralization and Sharing of Powers
• Bicameral Parliament as the U.S.A.
• Collegial Federal Government
• (No strong President)
• Double majorities for Constitutional Powers

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5. Power sharing - vertical and horizontal -
helps you to integrate a diverse society and
produces stability by high legitimacy.
From 1848 - 1870 the new liberal elites happen to
be very elitist so the peoples starting in the
Cantons and ending on Federal level asked for
real participatory rights and transformed a
primarily representative, indirect democracy in a
direct democracy. They enforced an even better
power sharing !
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6. In Switzerland nobody has so much power that
he has the ambivalent privilege, not to have to
learn.
When the democratic power is really shared with
the people, political progress and social change
have to be understood as collective learning
processes. Every citizen has the right to propose
where he or she thing progress and change are
necessary !
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7. The difficulties of the Swiss system today
has two main components
As a consequence of the unique way how it
survived the three big wars from 1870-1945 and
its self centric world view during the Cold War
Switzerland faces difficulties in its relations
to Europe and the World. Inside the
infrastructure of its democracy has to be
modernised in order to remake its direct
democracy serve the people best.