SGI 2024 | Switzerland | Executive Summary

Executive Summary

Recent Governments Experts

SGI experts on Switzerland

Klaus Armingeon

Klaus Armingeon is full professor for comparative and European politics and director at the Institute of Political Science in Bern (Switzerland). He has worked at several academic institutions, including the universities of Konstanz, Mannheim, Heidelberg (Germany), Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (United States) and Innsbruck (Austria). His main publications focus on welfare state policy, political economy, industrial relations, trade unions and political parties in comparative perspective, with a special emphasis on Switzerland. His recent publications include a chapter on fiscal and economics policies in the Handbook of Swiss Politics (2014), and articles on the fiscal responses to the great recession (Governance 2012), the loss of trust in the European Union (European Union Politics 2014), and the decline of support for national democracy in the recent recession (European Journal of Political Research 2014).

Fritz Sager

Fritz Sager, PhD, is a Professor of political science at the KPM Center for Public Management at the University of Bern. He is specialized in administrative studies and theory, policy research and evaluation, organizational analysis, and Swiss politics. Recent research focuses on topics as diverse as the history of administrative ideas and their transatlantic transfer in the 20th century; the politics of blame avoidance in Western democracies; the role of policy evaluations in the Swiss political system; the design, implementation and effects of smoking prevention programmes in the Swiss cantons; the locational policies of Secondary Capital Cities as well as small and medium-sized towns; as well as the acceptance of new policy instruments in spatial planning. His mos recent books are ‘Policy-Analyse in der Schweiz’ (NZZ Libro, 2017), ‘Evaluation im politischen System der Schweiz’ (NZZ Libro, 2017) and ‚The Political Economy of Capital Cities‘ (Routledge, 2017).

Céline Mavrot

Prof. Dr. Céline Mavrot is a tenure-track Assistant Professor on the Governance of Health Systems at the University of Lausanne. She has been a visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at Yale University in 2021, as well as at the University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2020. She is a political scientist specialized in public policy evaluation, comparative policy analysis, and multi-level governance. Her work focuses on democratic processes and health inequalities. She has conducted numerous consultancy and policy evaluation mandates for public agencies and non-governmental organisations on the designing and implementation of public policies. She is currently participating in the CROSS research project on industrial pollution and in the Undeterred Horizon-Europe research project on institutional discrimination in the sectors of health, housing, work, and education. Her work has been published in journals such as the American Review of Public Administration, the Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, the Journal of European Public Policy, the European Journal of Political Research, Public Policy & Administration, or Climate Policy.

Reimut Zohlnhöfer (Coordinator)

Reimut Zohlnhöfer holds a chair of political science at Ruprecht-Karls-University Heidelberg (Germany), where he is also the head of the political science department. He holds an MA from the University of Heidelberg, a PhD from the University of Bremen and a Habilitation from the University of Heidelberg. Previously, he worked at the Center for Social Policy Research of the University of Bremen, at the Center of European Studies at Harvard University and at the University of Bamberg. His research focuses on economic and social policies in developed democracies.

Based on a careful international comparison, eminent Austrian-German political scientist Herbert Obinger (2023: 795) has argued that “Switzerland, more than almost any other country in the world, has realized the ideal of government by the people and for the people. Nowhere else do citizens have such extensive opportunities to participate in the political decision-making process, and there are very few countries that have a similarly strong track record as Switzerland across all policy areas. The unique rights of citizens in political decision-making and the excellent performance of the political system are closely related. In conjunction with consensus democracy, they generate an extraordinarily high degree of input and output legitimacy, which is the root cause for political stability and peaceful coexistence in a multi-dimensionally fragmented society.”

There is no doubt about Switzerland’s strengths: They include a stable and robust democracy, an efficient rule of law, an excellent system of public education and research, and a competent system of public transportation. The country has high levels of GDP per capita (one of the highest in the OECD) and accumulated wealth, and the natural environment remains ecologically sound. Social and economic policies are pragmatic, solution-oriented and heterodox. In general, Swiss citizens support national democracy, show high levels of trust in their government and parliament, and are very satisfied with their lives and with how national democratic and economic institutions operate. The Swiss government can be commended for maintaining a highly competitive economy, a sustainable fiscal position, a comparatively sustainable welfare state, and moderate and stable levels of income inequality. The flexible labor market has maintained full employment, with high employment rates for both men and women. Youth and long-term unemployment rates remain low. These outcomes have resulted in an absence of deep social divisions and marginalization (among Swiss citizens).

Notwithstanding these successes, notable shortcomings have persisted:

1) The country has failed to develop a sustainable relationship with the European Union, an entity on which it depends in many respects. The European Union insists on rules that allow for the smooth updating of bilateral treaties and an efficient process of adjudication should conflicts arise. In January 2024, there were signs that a new compromise could be in sight – if a support coalition could be built, a difficult task domestically. A solution that “squares the circle” – that is, that preserves national sovereignty while maintaining the benefits of European integration – must be found. Moreover, this must be acceptable in a popular vote.

2) Climate policy is a crucial field in which Switzerland has failed to make swift and significant progress. In a popular vote on June 18, 2023, the people accepted a target of net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050. However, this goal needs to be implemented by effective policies. A major setback in this regard occurred in 2021, when a CO2 law was rejected in a popular vote. Consequently, the government proposed a highly watered down CO2 law that avoids any new levies on CO2. It was accepted in principle – and further watered down – in both houses of parliament in the fall of 2023, in part with view toward a very likely new popular vote.

3) While encompassing reforms of the pension system were previously rejected in popular votes, a more limited reform was accepted in a popular vote on September 25, 2022. This is a temporary measure to mitigate the short-term effects of the long-term demographic change. However, it does not solve two major conflicts in the field of pensions. The first conflict relates to the relative size of the three pillars. The political left intends to strengthen the first pillar, which is highly redistributive and mainly concerned with combating poverty in old age, which still exists to a considerable extent in Switzerland. This strategy implies increased social contributions (absent a major economic boom), which would translate into a growing tax wedge or higher indirect taxes. There will be a popular vote on such a project in 2024. As a consequence, the relative importance of the second pillar – with benefits proportional to previous contributions – will decrease. This is against the interests of the major centrist parties and also of the private financial institutions that administer these large funds. The second conflict relates to intergenerational fairness and sustainability. In the interest of sustainability, either benefits have to be cut, or taxes and contributions or the effective average age of retirement must be increased. There are many thinkable combinations of these strategies across the three pillars of the pension system, and the final combination needs to be accepted by the people in a popular vote. However, given the experiences in past pension reforms, a decision in favor of the (unsustainable) status quo is very likely.

4) There are significant shortcomings in the field of social justice and the ability to reconcile work and family life. Switzerland lags behind in terms of the social and political integration of foreigners – even though one-quarter of the population holds foreign citizenship, and produces at least one-quarter of the gross domestic product. Children from lower-class families face considerable problems of upward social and educational mobility. Women suffer from a lack of affordable childcare opportunities when trying to reconcile work and family. Structural and nonintentional institutional racism – defined as systematic or durable mechanisms operating within organizations or society as a whole (Mugglin et al. 2022: 21) – is an overlooked issue.

5) Likewise, health policy faces major challenges. Costs are rising, and the political system lacks a clear strategy to curb this growth process. At the same time, health insurance premiums are increasing, and families with low to medium incomes find it difficult to pay their health insurance bills. This leads to inequalities in health access. It in turn raises the question of whether the system of competing mutual funds with parallel administrations is sustainable, and whether the liberal model of flat rate per capita premiums – albeit weakened by subsidies for low-income earners – can still be defended. The healthcare system lacks sustainability regarding its governance, environmental durability and low focus on prevention policies.

6) The historical pattern of decision-making in postwar Switzerland consisted of efficient negotiations and compromises between the political elites (consociationalism or “Konkordanz”) and a smooth integration of capital and labor in the design and implementation of economic and social policy (neocorporatism). Arguably this Swiss “winning formula” has been undermined by political polarization – pitting the national-populist Swiss People’s Party against the moderate bourgeois block and the green-left parties – and by the organizational and political weakening of the interest organizations representing capital and labor.

7) The system of direct democracy succeeds in giving citizens the feeling that they have a say in government policies. This system is one of the major reasons why Swiss citizens are far more satisfied with the way democracy works in their country than their European neighbors. Recent research has found in particular that “direct democracy is not generally related to more satisfied people but rather closes the ‘satisfaction-gap’ between electoral winners and losers” (Leemann and Stadelmann 2022).

However, the system of direct democracy also demonstrates serious shortcomings. Among them is the likelihood that voters will approve constitutional amendments that cannot be literally implemented on legal or economic grounds, or that they block reform even when the need for change is urgent. The problem of decisions that contradict international law or contracts, however, is largely mitigated by the large discretion for interpretation during the implementation process.

Major recent examples are the reform gridlocks with regard to European integration, pension systems and climate policy. While there are certainly good arguments as to why institutionally driven slowness in decision-making can be an advantage with regard to avoiding mistakes others have made, it is also obvious that slowness can become dangerous, for example in the cases of delayed environmental action or insufficiently adjusted pension systems.

Citations:

Leemann, Lucas, and Isabelle Stadelmann-Steffen. 2022. “Satisfaction With Democracy: When Government by the People Brings Electoral Losers and Winners Together.” Comparative Political Studies 55: 93-121. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00104140211024302

Mugglin, Leonie, Denise Efionayi, Didier Ruedin, and Gianni D’Amato. 2022. Racisme structurel en Suisse: un état des lieux de la recherche et de ses résultats. Neuchâtel: University of Neuchâtel.

Obinger, Herbert. 2023. “An Outside Perspective on Swiss Politics. How Successful is Switzerland’s Political System?” In The Oxford Handbook of Swiss Politics, eds. Patrick Emmenegger, Flavia Fossati, Silja Häusermann, Yannis Papadopoulos, Pascal Sciarini, and Adrian Vatter. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 795–810 https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780192871787.013.41