What kind of democracy should Switzerland promote?

Switzerland’s form of direct democracy is admired around the world. But political scientist Daniel Bochsler argues that the country’s system of referendums and people’s initiatives should not be the model guiding its promotion of democracy abroad.

Promoting democracy worldwide is one of the cornerstones of Swiss foreign policy. It is written into Article 54 of the Federal Constitution. Nine out of ten Swiss people support the idea of Switzerland promoting democracy through its foreign policy, according to a surveyExternal link. Yet Switzerland’s own understanding of democracy is so unusual, it raises the question of whether the country is actually suited to the task.

Democracy can have many different meanings. The concept is so elastic that even North Korea officially styles itself the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”, and Viktor Orbán claimed he was building an “illiberal democracy”, which served as ideological cover to undermine media freedom and judicial independence in Hungary. Even beyond such misleading labels, the principles and rules of a democracy vary widely from country to country. For a foreign policy aimed at promoting democracy, this raises another question: what kind of democracy should Switzerland promote?

The Swiss public has a clear answer to this question, but its understanding of democracy is unique. The European Social Survey, Europe’s largest sociological survey, examined how people in 36 countries understand the core principles of democracy. Switzerland stood out for its distinctly unusual view. First and foremost, they are very pleased with their democracy. Furthermore, in four out of 15 detailed questions and across two survey waves, it became clear just how differently the Swiss prioritise goals and principles compared to most other Europeans.

>>What exactly does the Swiss Democracy Promotion Programme do? Read our article on the subject:

The two sides of Swiss exceptionalism

The Swiss view of democracy differs from that of most other Europeans in two ways. The survey asked what respondents believe defines a genuine democracy, not how they describe their own political system. On the one hand, Swiss respondents associate democracy with public debate prior to political decisions, referendums and people’s initiatives. On the other hand, they place less weight than most other Europeans on representative institutions such as elections and political parties.

For Swiss respondents, the ability to elect and remove a government is not at the heart of democracy. Most strikingly, they value direct democratic rights more highly than elections or the principles of representative democracy. This is not the case anywhere else in Europe.

One might think that, when the Swiss hear the word democracy, they picture the Landsgemeinde open-air assemblies in cantons Glarus or Appenzell Inner Rhodes, where citizens debate and decide matters directly and where parties play only a secondary role. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this conception of democracy is strongest in the parts of German-speaking Switzerland where the Landsgemeinde assemblies are still held. The understanding of democracy in Italian-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland is closer to the European average.

Switzerland is held together by institutions

Direct democracy has served Switzerland well – perhaps in ways many Swiss people do not even recognise. The country has no single shared language or religion. What binds it together are its institutions, such as the three or four Sundays a year when Swiss voters cast ballots on referendums and initiatives. This democratic exercise regularly highlights the country’s political divisions, but it also brings political camps together in shifting alliances that cut across party lines. And if we are to believe two economistsExternal link, direct democracy may even make the Swiss happier.

But how can this understanding of democracy be used to promote democracy elsewhere? Can a country promote democracy abroad on the basis of a constitutional system built around a collegial government, referendum votes with counterproposals and tie-break questions, and disputes over when a proposal does or does not also require a majority of the cantons to pass?

Almost no country in the world has copied Switzerland’s model of democracy. Uruguay is the exception, and its Swiss-inspired institutions date back more than a century. They were not the result of Swiss foreign policy or democracy promotion. They were created by Uruguay’s president, José Batlle y Ordóñez, who had taken a trip to learn about Switzerland and later designed the country’s constitution.

Swiss democracy promotion is a balancing act

Switzerland’s tradition of direct democracy is recognised around the world and often admired. One difficulty is that it tends to resonate most with populists. Leaders such as Hugo Chávez and Ilham Aliyev have claimed that direct democracy should take precedence over electoral processes. They have used pseudo-referendums to legitimise constitutional changes that subvert democracy. In both Venezuela and Azerbaijan, these leaders used Switzerland’s model of constitutional referendums to lend legitimacy to their authoritarian manoeuvres.

>>Read our background article on referendums around the world, which examines the role of referendums in authoritarian states:

The distinctively Swiss view of democracy leads to dilemmas in Switzerland’s democracy work abroad and raises doubts about whether the Swiss system can work elsewhere.

Constitution drafters around the world are likely to be even more sceptical than the general public about importing Swiss-style direct democracy. At most, they tend to see a place for it at the local level, where they can complement representative institutions rather than replace them.

Switzerland’s real strength in its pro-democracy foreign policy may lie elsewhere. Promoting federalism and helping multiethnic or post-conflict countries build democratic institutions have produced positive results, for example in Nepal or Colombia.

>>Our article on Swiss peacebuilding in Nepal:

Switzerland’s strongest hand may be in supporting civil society and free media, both of which are essential foundations of democracy and played a central role in shaping its own history. It is not unusual for a country to present different strengths abroad than at home. In the export of Swiss democracy, it is no different.

Exporting democracy means treading carefully. It requires political actors to recognise that democracy has more than one legitimate form. Swiss democracy promoters must answer to voters at home while taking into account the challenges and democratic expectations of the countries they are trying to support.

Edited by Benjamin von Wyl. Adapted from German by David Kelso Kaufher/ts

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Swissinfo.

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