Swiss parliamentary party groups have undergone a process of professionalization over the course of the last few decades. Swiss parties increasingly resemble party groups in established and more professionalized Western European parliamentary systems. Party unity has increased and party leaderships have started using instruments to strengthen party unity, in view of which party group members increasingly accept behavioural rules and norms. Our analysis suggests that Swiss parties have professionalized over the course of the last thirty years, and we demonstrate that this change has resulted from the ideological polarization in the Swiss political landscape, and conscious effort on the part of Swiss party group leaders. Thus, we contribute to the on-going debate about party change and the question of what drives the development of parties. The development of the Swiss parties is documented using data from three parliamentary surveys from the last thirty years, and two interview rounds with party group leaders, their staff and political experts.

In the 2019 Swiss federal elections, women's representation increased more than at any time before, reaching an all-time high at 42%. In this article, we offer several explanations for this. First, in almost all parties, the percentage of female candidates was significantly larger than in the previous elections. Second, on average female candidates held better positions on party lists, both compared to men and to the previous election. Third, in 2019 (but not in 2015) women were about one percentage-point more likely to be elected than men, controlling for many relevant factors. Fourth, about one third of the surge was linked to the fact that parties that won seats in 2019 (the Greens, especially) had more women on their lists compared to the parties that lost seats.Fifth, in 2019 voters (women in particular) perceived female candidates as more fit for a political office compared to 2015. ZusammenfassungBei den eidgenössischen Wahlen 2019 ist der Frauenanteil so stark gestiegen wie nie zuvor und hat mit 42% ein Allzeithoch erreicht. In diesem Artikel diskutieren wir mehrere Erklärungen dafür. Erstens war der Anteil an weiblichen Kandidatinnen in fast allen Parteien deutlich höher als bei den vorherigen Wahlen. Zweitens hatten Kandidatinnen im Durchschnitt bessere Positionen auf den Parteilisten inne, sowohl im Vergleich zu Männern als auch im Vergleich zurThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

675-689) started to assess how knowledge about the sequence of votes may help us to understand the legislative process in more detail. Many of these analyses are, however, predicated on quite important assumptions regarding the forward-looking capacities of MPs. In this paper, this more recent literature is drawn on and brought to bear on an analysis of two bills adopted in the Swiss parliament. Having detailed information available on MPs' preferences over various options voted upon, it is possible to test whether MPs behave strategically, and to what degree they are capable of anticipating the way forward through the agenda tree. Evidence is found that MPs behave strategically, but their foresight is not as perfect as one would expect from theoretical models.

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