Swiss direct democracy found to better reflect what citizens want

Clued into voters’ needs? Conferring in the Swiss parliament, December 2025. Keystone / Anthony Anex

If parliament doesn’t reflect what voters want, voters should make policy themselves, say direct democracy advocates. Does this work in practice? Research suggests Switzerland is on the right track.

Of all the headaches facing Western democracies, surely one of the biggest is the perceived gap between what people want and what their parliaments do. Across 24 countries surveyed by PewExternal link in 2023, 74% of respondents said they felt elected officials don’t care what people like them think; 42% said no political party in their country represented their views at all. Meanwhile, studies have shownExternal link that such feelings aren’t just hunches – the concerns of ordinary people often do struggle to get on the political agenda.

Direct democracy, allowing citizens to bypass parliament to vote on policy themselves, is sometimes suggested as a way to bridge this gap. But does it actually do a better job?

In Switzerland, it does, according to recently published researchExternal link by Manuel Wagner from the Goethe University in Frankfurt. Using data on citizen preferences and policy covering almost 50 years, Wagner finds that the political agenda in Switzerland more closely mirrors what average voters care about than in other countries. And while the rich and well-educated still have a bigger impact on policy, their influence is also more constrained than elsewhere.

Keeping the elites in check

Key to this are the two main instruments of Switzerland’s direct democracy – referendums and people’s initiatives. Thanks to the first, which allow legislation to be challenged to a public vote if 50,000 signatures are collected, citizens have big veto power. Unlike in other countries, Wagner tells Swissinfo, “you don’t see many laws being passed that a majority doesn’t agree with. If a policy is really unpopular, it’s just much easier to block it”.

Meanwhile people’s initiatives, which bring ideas to public vote if 100,000 signatures are gathered, ensure a more balanced political agenda. In the US and other European representative democracies, political debates are “strongly skewed toward the affluent and well-educated”, Wagner writes in his research. In Switzerland, it’s more likely to reflect what normal people want to see – because they can shape it.

How Swiss referendums and initiatives work, and how many of them have succeeded over time:

From Covid-19 to tax and immigration

Wagner doesn’t mention concrete examples. But they’re not hard to find. For instance, during Covid-19, the Swiss voted three times on the national pandemic strategy – a unique situation globally, and which some argue helped to coolExternal link the heated politics of the time. The Swiss can also vote on the retirement age; discontent on this in France means people have to take to the streets to make themselves heard. Even tax rates and foreign policy are not off-limits.

Another example is the latest vote on curbing immigration to the country, via the “No to ten million!” initiative brought by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party.

In other European countries, immigration is consistently a top concern of citizens, according to Eurobarometer polls. However, not many European citizens can vote on it. And for some advocates of direct democracy, the fact that the Swiss can have a say means more than just overcoming the gap between elites and citizens: it is also “one of the best guarantors of the stability and cohesion of our country”, People’s Party parliamentarian Nicolas Kolly recently wroteExternal link. And even when initiatives are rejected – which happens most of the time – the sheer act of voting on them can be a unifying moment, as Swiss theatre director Milo Rau has put it.

Populists, parliamentarians, lobbyists

Not everybody sees it so positively. Direct democracy can also become populist or lead to a disregard for the fundamental rights of minorities: the famous example in Switzerland is the 2009 vote to ban the building of minarets. On immigration, too, outsiders can be miffed about Swiss votes. The Financial Times recently wondered if the country’s “referendum habit” tempers populism or rather puts Switzerland “at the mercy of dangerous or frivolous votes, leaving the electorate ever more dissatisfied”.

Wagner also points to another pitfall: in theory, direct democracy can become “another elite instrument for those in power, which can even increase inequality”, he says. Switzerland is also not immune to this. According to his research, while the political agenda reflects what the public cares about, the output side – i.e. laws – is less spectacular. Here, the elite still have a bigger impact. Even in Switzerland direct democracy might be “too weak to eliminate the affluence and education bias in representation”, Wagner’s study writes.

Why is this? One reason is that most Swiss laws are still shaped by parliament, not voters – and parliament, like in other countries, is an elite place which is not lobby-free. Referendums and initiatives aren’t equal access either. Not only are they costly to launch and run; they’re also open to influence. This could be from outside, via deepfakes or disinformation. But it can also be classic interest group campaigning; Wagner quotes a study showingExternal link that the Economiesuisse business federation has won 90% of the referendum campaigns it has led.

Explore the data around how money and donations help to shape Swiss politics:

Lower participation, lower equality?

There’s also turnout. Direct democracy depends on citizens voting – and a balanced outcome depends on a wide cross-section of them doing it. In Switzerland, a low average turnout rate (slightly under 50%) is sometimes downplayed by researchers. But gaps between the participation of social groups could cause problems: given that people with lower levels of education vote much less than others – including because of the complexity of topics – Switzerland could be said to have features of a “middle-class” democracy, researchers including Wolf Linder wrote this yearExternal link.

For Wagner, the next research task on his plate involves a similar topic: how education shapes political attitudes, and how this feeds back into politics.

As for his data on Swiss democracy, this doesn’t touch on turnout rates. But it does suggest that even if the middle-class and elites are more influential politically, they can’t get everything they want. An overarching feature of Swiss politics is a “status quo bias”, his study finds. Largely due to direct democracy, things don’t change fast – and according to the data, at least, this stability is beneficial to all citizens, not just the rich.

Edited by Benjamin von Wyl/ts