Political Decision-Making in Switzerland

The Consensus Model under Pressure

P. Sciarini, M. Fischer, D. Traber

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137508607
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This in-depth study of the decision-making processes of the early 2000s shows that the Swiss consensus democracy has changed considerably. Power relations have transformed, conflict has increased, coalitions have become more unstable and outputs less predictable. Yet these challenges to consensus politics provide opportunities for innovation.

1

Introduction

Pascal Sciarini

Introduction

In the comparative politics literature, Switzerland stands alone as a country with a high level of political stability, resilient consociational and corporatist institutions, and a political culture oriented towards integration, accommodation and negotiation between actors. It is not a coincidence that Switzerland was considered a prototype of consensus by Lijphart’s (1999) influential categorization of democracies. On both the horizontal dimension (‘executive-parties’ or ‘joint-power’) and the vertical dimension (‘federal-unitary’ or ‘divided-power’) of his typology, Switzerland came closest to the ideal-type of consensus.¹ Similarly, in his famous study on small European states in world markets, Katzenstein (1984; 1985) portrayed Switzerland as the paradigmatic case of ‘liberal democratic corporatism’. He argued that the country’s economic openness and vulnerability favored the emergence of corporatist arrangements between the state, interest groups, and political parties, thus fostering consensus. Finally, Switzerland also belonged to a core group of culturally divided countries in which amicable agreements and accommodative policy-making dominated among the party elite. It was, consequently, labelled as a ‘consociational’ (Lijphart 1977; Steiner 1974), ‘negotiation’ (Lehmbruch 1996; Neidhart 1970), or ‘proportional’ (Lehmbruch 1967) democracy.

Recent studies from Swiss scholars have highlighted some changes, but have not fundamentally questioned this classic view. Reanalyzing Lijphart’s typology with different indicators, Vatter (2008; 2009) finds that Switzerland has moved from an ‘extreme’ to a ‘normal’ case of consensus, meaning that the country is still highly consensual on the ‘federal-unitary’ dimension but no longer as exceptionally consensual as previously on the ‘executive-parties’ dimension.² Similarly, Armingeon (2011) argues that Swiss corporatism has proved highly resilient from a comparative perspective. Since Switzerland leaned most towards the liberal variant of corporatism, so the argument goes, it was less affected than other countries by pressures towards deregulation and liberalization. Arguing along similar lines, Sciarini and Hug (1999) suggest that of the four West European countries originally cited as examples of consociationalism (Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland), Switzerland fitted the original model the least, but it is also the country where elements of consociational decision-making have persisted the longest.

However, by focusing on institutions or structural aspects, these studies are not well suited to detect more finely-grained changes in the day-to-day politics. Consequently, such studies tend to overlook the magnitude of these changes. Studies that examine ‘rules-in-use’ more closely rather than focusing on ‘rules-in-form’ may lead to different results (Papadopoulos 2011: 226).³ In any case, the high stability of the Swiss political system emphasized by existing studies is at odds with the dramatic changes the country has faced during recent decades. Economic slowdown and a related rise in unemployment and public deficits, globalization and Europeanization, the mediatization of politics and transformation of the party system have arguably all had substantial effects on Swiss politics. The main purpose of this book is to show these effects and offer an up-to-date, theoretically informed view of political decision-making in Switzerland at the beginning of the 21st century. Looking through the analytical lenses of institutions, power, cooperation and conflict in decision-making processes will enable us to evaluate whether and to what extent the ‘consensus model’ has really been affected. Our claim is that this model has changed to a far greater extent than usually maintained – or that institutional stability would suggest.

The evolution of Swiss federalism is a case in point (Wälti 1996). While the institutions of Swiss federalism remained unchanged since 1848 up to the early 2000s, both power relations and the modes of operation between the federal state and the cantons have been profoundly transformed. On the one hand, the progressive – but far-reaching – transfer of decision-making competences from the cantons to the central state has tilted the balance of power in favor of the latter (Linder 2012). Even if Switzerland is still one of the most federalist and decentralized countries in the world (Lijphart 1999; Thorlakson 2003), the federal state decides on a far wider range of policy domains compared to 150 years ago. On the other hand, the implementation of federal laws has been increasingly delegated to cantons as a result of Swiss ‘executive federalism’ (Braun 2003; Wälti 1996).⁴

In addition to the identification of changes over time, we also aim to highlight the diversity of policy-making in contemporary Switzerland. Studies that focus on the political system as a whole and disregard variations across policy processes or sectors have been criticized for being overly general. The increasing complexity of policy problems has led to a strong functional differentiation of public policies. As a result, differences between policy domains can be more important than differences between countries (Atkinson and Coleman 1989; Knoke et al. 1996; Kriesi et al. 2006a). This also holds true in Switzerland, where the type of policy network and the line-up of partisan coalitions varies from one policy domain to the next (Kriesi and Trechsel 2008; Linder 2012; Schwarz and Linder 2006). This calls for a more disaggregated view and for a comparative analysis of decision-making processes and structures across sectors.

The empirical material analyzed in this book stems from an in-depth study of the 11 most important decision-making processes during the period 2001–06.⁵ Our research builds on a similar study conducted in the 1970s (Kriesi 1980; 1982), which has strongly influenced the classic view on Swiss political decision-making. The next section summarizes this classic view and pinpoints the main changes that Switzerland has faced during the last 30 years, and that call for an update. The research design and data collected is then presented, with an introduction to the 11 most important decision-making processes of the early 2000s. The last section provides an overview of the book chapters.

Political decision-making in Switzerland

According to the ‘policy cycle’ perspective (Hogwood and Gunn 1984; Jones 1970), policies are developed through a multi-stage process that starts with the initiation phase, proceeds with the preparation and decision phases, and ends with the implementation and evaluation phases. In this book, we focus on the decision-making phase, which includes the initiation phase (political recognition of a problem and agenda-setting), the preparation (or pre-parliamentary) phase and the decision phase (parliamentary and referendum phase). We disregard the implementation and evaluations phases.

During decision-making processes, state and non-state actors alike express their policy preferences and attempt to influence the policy output. To that end, they form coalitions that interact, compete, fight and possibly compromise. Any decision-making process thus gives rise to a specific decision-making structure, whose characteristics vary according to the political actors involved and any interactions among them. In keeping with the policy network literature (Henry 2011; Knoke et al. 1996; Kriesi and Adam 2007; Kriesi et al. 2006a),⁶ our conception of decision-making structures comprises three dimensions, namely the power, collaboration and conflict structures among actors or coalitions of actors. While being parsimonious, this threefold conception helps to model complex policy-making and integrates both its formal and informal features.

In his path-breaking study, Kriesi (1980) analyzed the 13 most important decision-making processes of the years 1971–76. However, Kriesi was not primarily interested in these processes per se. His ultimate goal was to provide a comprehensive view of Swiss politics, and he considered these most important processes as representative of the decision-making processes more broadly. Similarly, he was not so much interested in a comparative analysis of the power and conflict structure across the 13 decision-making processes, but rather in the overall and overarching structure emerging from these cases.

Regarding first decision-making processes, Kriesi’s (1980: 588–602) central finding was the overriding importance of the pre-parliamentary (preparatory) phase of legislation, and more especially the two earliest sub-phases: the elaboration of a draft proposal and the extra-parliamentary committees comprising representatives of interest groups, administration and cantons. The parliamentary phase was overall much less important than the pre-parliamentary phase. While the Swiss Parliament was formally decisive, it did not modify the content of bills and acted mainly as a rubber stamp assembly, endorsing the compromises found in the pre-parliamentary phase (ibid.: 589, 607–08).

It is true that from a comparative perspective, Switzerland was not a unique case with respect to the importance of pre-parliamentary consultation. Similarly, the weakness of parliament was not Swiss-specific. The integration of non-state actors – and more especially of interest groups – in political decision-making through an extensive preparatory phase was also at work in other small European, corporatist-like democracies such as Austria or the Scandinavian countries (Christiansen and Rommetvedt 1999; Gerlich 1992). However, the Swiss Parliament was further weakened by three specific factors (Kriesi and Trechsel 2008): direct democracy, the ‘militia’ system and the impossibility of Parliament dismissing government (see Chapter 2).

Decision-making processes were further depicted as reactive, slow and reform-adverse (Kriesi 1980: 635ff). First, processes were initiated only under considerable external pressures arising from economic shocks or citizens’ demands. This reactive character expressed itself through the adoption of several urgent federal decrees prepared by state bureaucracies in close cooperation with interest groups. Second, owing to ‘institutional redundancy’ (Ossipow 1994) and high inclusiveness, the duration of decision-making processes was very high (five years on average) (Poitry 1989). Third, despite their length, policy processes did not result in major reforms. Minor and incremental policy changes were much more likely. Both the lack of leadership from the Federal Council (the executive branch of Swiss government), along with the weakness of the Left and divisions within the dominant right-wing political parties, accounted for the reactive character of political decision-making and for its low reform capacity.

Decision-making structures leaned towards corporatism (Katzenstein 1984; 1985; Lehmbruch 1979; Schmitter 1974). The power structure was highly concentrated around a small number of collective actors, among which were the peak economic associations, the Federal Council, the main state agencies and three of the four governing parties,⁷ which controlled a variety of decision-making processes. Economic interest groups and – to a lesser extent – state agencies were highly influential overall. The Federal Council held the most central position in the cooperation structure, but mainly acted as a mediator. At that time, the well-functioning social partnership between employers’ associations and trade unions in the pre-parliamentary phase substantially contributed to the dominance of interest groups over political parties (Kriesi 1980: 390, 589 and 691). The close cooperation between the main interest groups, state agencies and political parties at the core of the decision-making structure was also fully in line with the corporatist model. In fact, the high degree of interpenetration between interest groups and the federal administration on the one hand, and between interest groups and political parties on the other, was the most striking aspect of the collaboration structure (ibid.: 359; 1982: 155).

However, some other important characteristics contradicted the corporatist model. First, power was unevenly balanced between economic associations and right-wing parties, on the one hand, and trade unions and left-wing parties, on the other, with the former being both more numerous and more powerful than the latter (ibid.: 693–97). Similarly, trade unions and the Social Democratic Party were not as highly integrated in the collaboration structure as their rightist counterparts (ibid.: 359, 693). Second, the functional fragmentation and weakness of the state was also at odds with corporatism, since it hindered political exchange across sectors.

From a comparative perspective, interest groups in general and peak economic associations in particular were especially powerful in Switzerland (Katzenstein 1985). This was due to their early organization on the national level in the second half of the 19th century (Mach 2007: 361). When Swiss politics started to develop after the first full revision of the Federal Constitution in 1874, peak associations – and most noticeably the Vorort representing the export-oriented sectors of the economy (later relabeled economiesuisse) – were already organized, and thus benefitted from a strategic advantage.

The central state’s weakness further strengthened the position of interest groups. The central state was insufficiently developed to take on new tasks. This favored the self-organization of economic interests and the expansion of state interventionism à la Suisse (Mach 2007: 362–64). As a result of the so-called ‘functional subsidiarity’ principle, a liberal mode of development prevailed in Switzerland (Hotz 1979): state intervention took place only if private organizations could not solve problems on their own. On the other hand, the Federal Council delegated public tasks to peak associations and supported them financially (ibid.: 364).

Finally, direct democratic institutions, and more especially the facultative referendum, also played a role by fostering the development of the pre-parliamentary phase in the first half of the 20th century (Neidhart 1970). The risk of failure at the end of the decision-making process led to the institutionalization of pre-parliamentary procedures such as extra-parliamentary committees and consultation procedures, which help actors to compromise at an early stage of decision-making processes. Powerful int...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction
• 2  From Corporatism to Bureaucratic and Partisan Politics: Changes in Decision-Making Processes over Time
• 3  More Power Balance, Less Consensus: Changes in Decision-Making Structures over Time
• 4  Looking beneath the Surface: Differences in Decision-Making Structures across Processes
• 5  Dominance, Competition, Compromise or Consensus? Explaining Decision-making Structures
• 6  Coalition Formation in Parliament and during the Policy Process
• 7  Europeanization, Institutional Changes and Differential Empowerment
• 8  Going Public: The Mediatization of Decision-making Processes
• 9  Who Is Influential and Why? The Determinants of Reputational Power
• 10  Who is Successful and Who Is Not? Actors Satisfaction with the Policy Output
• 11  Reactive, Slow andInnovative? Decision-Making Structures and Policy Outputs
• 12  Conclusion
• Appendix
• References
• Index