A delicate export: how Swiss foreign policy promotes democracy

A polling station in Skopje during 2024 elections: Switzerland has supported the parliament in North Macedonia on administrative and legal issues for 15 years. Ognen Teofilovski / Reuters

A quarter of a century ago, Switzerland gave itself a mandate to promote democracy globally. In 2025, the goal remains – but the world is a lot more authoritarian.

In 2010, journalist Anne Applebaum took aim at a “silly argument” which had been doing the rounds since the US invasion of Iraq. “The subsequent failure of Iraq to metamorphose overnight into the Switzerland of the Middle East is cited as an example of why democracy should never be pushed or promoted at all,” Applebaum complainedExternal link in the Washington Post.

The reference to Switzerland was a bit fanciful; nobody would have expected a US military intervention to suddenly turn Baghdad into Bern. At the same time, it revealed a truism about the Swiss global image as a rich, stable, multilingual, and highly democratic country. Why shouldn’t it be held up as a model to emulate?

Good governance or new governments

From Switzerland itself, the tone is rarely so self-promotional. In 1999, as part of a general constitutional overhaul, the country pledged to promote democracy abroad (article 54External link). Even at the time, the new mandate didn’t cause much fuss: it was already a foreign policy goal in the 1990s, and didn’t feature heavily in debates around the public vote on the constitutional revision, which was accepted by 59% of voters.

Since then, the approach has remained pragmatic. Most of what Switzerland does for democracy tends to fall under the heading and budget of development aid: support for peacebuilding in Colombia, for example, or for women’s financial literacy in Arab countries, or digital administration in UkraineExternal link – all things “not far from democracy promotion, but which avoid the term”, says Daniel Bochsler from the Central European University.

When it does engage in more political work, at least publicly, it can seem modest in scale – such as teaching Japanese studentsExternal link about Swiss direct democracy tools.

Meanwhile, judging success or failure is difficultExternal link for democracy promotion in general. Diplomats are by nature discreet, and things like anti-corruption projects don’t tend to lead directly to regime change. And Switzerland is just one of various actors trying to either boost democracy abroad, or to undermine it.

Success or not? In Bhutan, decades of Swiss engagement helped the transition to democracy; less so in Tajikistan:

Not a major export

Bochsler says there are a few reasons why democracy as an export product has never caught up with the staple clichés of chocolate and watches – and why the foreign ministry has been politically cautious when it comes to promoting the Swiss model.

One classic cause for restraint is an ambivalence about whether the Swiss system of direct democracy – frequent public votes and referendums – is exportable in the first place.

Is it? The rise of populism and declining trust in democracy have sparked calls for direct votes in other countries in recent years, as well as occasional interest in the Swiss modelExternal link. But it’s a tricky balance. Researchers often cite direct democracy as a factor of Swiss stability. The worry is that it might destabilise representative systems elsewhere, depending on how it’s implemented. Bochsler also notes that “it’s often in demand in places where rulers want to legitimise authoritarianism – by using a referendum to change the constitution, or to overrule the parliament”.

Swiss-style direct democracy – an extension of popular rights or a tool for populist disruption? The case of the AfD:

Another factor is neutrality, which means foreign policymakers tend to “tread carefully and balance and counterbalance Swiss positioning in the international arena”, Swiss diplomat Simon Geissbühler wrote in 2023External link. Geissbühler also noted that the whole idea of democracy promotion was “contaminated” by military interventions in the late 1990s and early 2000s – leading to the kinds of misgivings which Appelbaum had mentioned. Meanwhile, he wrote, Switzerland only has “limited influence” compared with big powers, both diplomatically and financially: it spent CHF250 million ($305 million) on democracy and governance projects in 2024; the US spends $3 billion annually.

The cuts by the Trump Administration to USAID will have a big impact on democracy support as well as global health and development. Jam Sta Rosa / Keystone

Shifting times

In 2025, many of these obstacles look even bigger. Democracy has been losing out to autocracy worldwide, while the support from its traditional bastion is uncertain. In February 2025, Donald Trump moved to slash virtually all of the US’s annualExternal link funding for global democracy. Other donors, including the Netherlands and UK, are also cutting down on aid – as is Switzerland itself. Meanwhile, since the Russian attack on Ukraine, the country has been debating how to adapt its policy of neutrality to the new geopolitical reality.

swissinfo.ch/kr

Yet as this has played out, Switzerland has also been – at least rhetorically – taking what sounds like a more political stance on democracy. The 2024-2027 foreign policy strategy named it as a top priority for which the country should “sharpen its profile”. And in May 2025, in the midst of Trump’s overhauls, it published its first ever “democracy guidelinesExternal link”: a strategic document of how it wants to help “safeguard the democratic world”.

Ariadna Pop, head of the democracy section at the foreign ministry, says the guidelines are about, among other things, “clarifying what Switzerland already does, while also developing a few new tools”. They split democracy work into two areas: diplomatic efforts (political and multilateral dialogue to support democratic narratives) and institution-building and support (the type of governance work which the country has long been involved in).

Backsliding and prioritising

Pop also says the guidelines account for new realities. “Twenty-five years ago, the goal was to help authoritarian countries transition to democracy,” she says. Now, it’s about “protecting” what’s already in place. In the jargon, this means efforts to prevent “backsliding” – a chipping away of standards in already-established democracies.

As a result, the approach is arguably less ambitious, but more targeted. “Closed autocracies” are no longer a priority, Pop says – there’s not much point helping to organise elections when a strongman is guaranteed to win. Rather, there will be “more political work with a more restricted group of countries”.

For example, in several Eastern European countries, Switzerland is working to counter negative narratives about the judiciary and to improve the way in which it communicates about its work. In Costa Rica – a solid liberal democracyExternal link – young politicians receive Swiss-led training in democratic norms and leadership. The guidelines also mention the dynamic-sounding “Rapid Action Teams”: Swiss specialists who could spring into action to help a country with constitutional reforms or organising a referendum – but, as Pop stresses, only when the country itself asks.

Global shake-up

Whether the new approach can have an impact remains to be seen. The Rapid Action Teams have not yet received any missions. The dilemma of whether or not to continue with development-level support in dictatorships also remains, as do the choices about where to focus limited resources.

Bangladesh, a target destination for Swiss democracy promotion, could fall victim to cuts in development aid:

Meanwhile the US pullback, even if it hasn’t directly scuppered any Swiss projects, has shaken the whole field of democracy promotion to its core, analysts say.

Only last year, Switzerland had positioned itself as a close partner to US efforts. Now, among states still keen to push democracy, developing such partnerships has become harder, explains Julia Leininger of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS). “There are still efforts to build alliances, but they are getting smaller, while authoritarian alliances are getting bigger – and are gaining legitimacy,” she says.

Former US President Joe Biden addressing world leaders at the US-led Summit for Democracy in 2023. Patrick Semansky / Keystone

One alternative leader in the field could be the European Union and its member states. They won’t be able to fill the US funding vacuum, Leininger cautions. However, the 2021-founded “Team Europe Democracy”, which brings together the work of 14 EU member states and various foundations, is a “good example of how to combine working level and strategic level thinking”, Leininger says. Switzerland has also participated here as an observer.

Voices beyond the West

In coming years, Pop says the idea would be to broaden democracy support beyond the classic Western-led model to include more voices from outside the traditional power centres. The current uncertainty, she reckons, could be an opportunity to do just that.

According to Leininger, some countries are in fact glad to see the end of US-led democracy support in their backyards. But she also reckons a global reorientation faces hurdles. In the past, European hopes that big democracies like Brazil or India would also become big global promoters of it have not panned out. “It turned out that these regional powers tried to be neutral in their foreign policy,” she says. India, for another thing, is now classified as an “electoral autocracy”, she adds.

Meanwhile, expanding the field also raises questions about what democracy is in the first place – and what the core of promoting it would be. In general, Leininger reckons, the big contention right now is not simply democracy versus autocracy, but rather, “who gets to interpret what democracy actually is”.

Edited by Benjamin von Wyl/ds