Disenchanted Swiss Parliament? Electoral Strategies and Coalition Formation

This paper shows how the rise of the Swiss People's Party (SVP) has affected welfare state reforms in Switzerland between the 1990s and the 2000s. In the 1990s, welfare state reforms drew on "modernizing" coalitions between FDP (Liberals), CVP (Christian Democrats) and SP (Social Democrats) combining retrenchment and "recalibration". In the 2000s the FDP and CVP increasingly sided with the SVP in right-wing coalitions pushing retrenchment alone. The article shows that changes in party competition have affected welfare schemes differently, with a policy gridlock in pension reforms, where voters of the SVP do not follow their elites, but unilateral retrenchment in unemployment insurance, where recipients can be portrayed as "underserving".

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How the Populist Radical Right Transformed Swiss Welfare Politics: From Compromises to Polarization

Afonso

Papadopoulos

2015

“…Moreover, survey results on legislative norms reveal that party group members have become more prepared to comply with party rules that ensure their cohesive appearance. Having shown that our dependent variable –an increase in more unified and more compliant party group behaviour exists, we argue that this increase cannot be explained by polarization only (see Traber, ). Next to that, we show that further intended actions by the party group leadership ‐ increased staff, increased finances and stronger disciplinary efforts – contributed to this development.…”

Section: Party Changementioning

confidence: 77%

From Loose Alliances to Professional Political Players: How Swiss Party Groups Changed

Bailer

Bütikofer

2015

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 particular, the Swiss People's Party (SVP), currently Switzerland's largest political party, often rejects compromise politics in favour of a principled defence of values such as national self‐determination and neutrality (cf. Bornschier ; Traber ). These days, even if economic actors are able to find a compromise, they can no longer rely on political parties and the government to follow their recommendations blindly.…”

Section: Economic Vulnerability and Political Decision‐makingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic Vulnerability and Political Responses to International Pressure: Liechtenstein, Switzerland and the Struggle for Banking Secrecy

Eggenberger

Emmenegger

2015

After doggedly opposing any increase in exchange of information on tax matters for several decades, both Liechtenstein and Switzerland have made significant concessions over recent years. However, the two countries have reacted rather differently to international pressure: while Liechtenstein has adopted a more proactive approach, offering far‐reaching bilateral deals to several major economies, Switzerland has been slow to react to international pressure, despite calls for a more proactive strategy by its financial services industry. We suggest that these differences have a range of causes; in Liechtenstein, in particular, the pressure was more evenly distributed, thus allowing the financial services industry to close ranks and use its privileged access to the government to shape the government's response decisively. By contrast, there was internal division in the Swiss financial services industry and it was soon on the back foot in public debate, eventually losing control over the issue.