Is Swiss Democracy Exportable?

Tages Anzeiger (Zurich, Switzerland)

Markus Somm

August 29, 2002

Translated by Sara Kupfer

Background

Direct Democracy: An American journalist has dealt with Switzerland. Switzerland’s system of direct democracy fascinates him so much that he concludes that the United States should imitate it.

Is Swiss democracy exportable?

It is said that direct democracy only works in a small country like Switzerland. An American author thinks differently: also the United States could benefit from studying the Swiss model.

By Markus Somm

It rarely occurs that an American author deals with Switzerland – and if so, the end result often is more mythological than informative. Foreigners often depict the country in such vague terms that natives are unable to recognize anything new. This fall, a book will be published in the United States that is free from such shortcomings and instead presents a surprisingly accurate portrait of Switzerland. The title of the book is Direct Democracy in Switzerland, and Gregory Fossedal is the name of the author. A former journalist for the Wall Street Journal, he now heads a new think tank in Washington that seeks, among other things, to advocate direct democracy in the United States. It is thus not surprising that Fossedal is interested in Switzerland considering that no other country in the world has so thoroughly democratized its political system on the national level. The United States is the only other country where similar democratic reforms have been institutionalized, but only in a number of single states, not in Washington itself.

The Swiss Way.

After careful research in Switzerland, Fossedal does not conclude that direct democracy in Switzerland is a political aberration. On the contrary. The author is impressed and increasingly convinced that the U.S. urgently needs to imitate the Swiss experiment. Only this way can American citizens’ growing dissatisfaction with politics be contained. Unlike former Swiss Ambassador to the United States Alfred Defago, who told Fossedal that direct democracy can only be practiced in Switzerland, Fossedal believes that the system is exportable.

Despite this ideological bias, the author takes a serious effort to understand in detail what so much fascinates him. This is why Fossedal’s book also makes for a rewarding read for the Swiss reading public. Like many American publicists, Fossedal writes with wit, fluency, and without sounding intimidating. It is a pleasure to follow the foreign ethnologist on his journey through Switzerland. For example, he describes the happenings in the House of Parliament: the building, which the average Swiss enters with a mixture of pride and shy reverence, looks for the American more like a communal city council. To his own surprise, Fossedal observes that security checks obviously do not seem to be necessary (the visit occurred before the deadly shooting in Zug – in the meantime, this has changed). And he is bemused by the fact that many members of parliament hang out in the hallways in a sweater rather than a suit. The book is full of such anecdotes. Fossedal brilliantly combines reportage and analysis, statistics and history, historical retrospectives and predictions for the future. Quite obviously, behind the politically minded researcher hides a former journalist. At first glance, it seems that Fossedal is interested in almost everything that can be observed in Switzerland; however, his narrative always find back to the theme of direct democracy. Looking at different areas of Swiss politics, he investigates the way in which this rare system plays itself out and compares it with the experiences of other countries, especially the United States. Even Swiss citizens thus can gain entirely new insights into their country.

An example is Fossedal’s treatment of taxation policy: In a convincing and well-informed manner, the author explains his American readership why Switzerland still has low fiscal quotas – despite frequent citizen complaints, they have remained low compared to other countries. Taxes continue to be moderate because Swiss voters have to sanction almost every tax raise at the polls. In all other democracies, political elites can negotiate tax raises among themselves – which has the tendency of leading to higher taxation. Decisions to raise taxes always are controversial, and every lobbyist of the country gathers in Washington to put pressure on representatives during tax debates. In the end, however, it is politicians who decide whether they want to grant more money to the government on which they themselves depend.

Perverse Effects

In the United States, Fossedal believes, the final decision-making power of politicians has perverse effects: Because Americans (like the Swiss) traditionally are tax-weary, politicians of both parties try to make emotional appeals to voters. Depending on the interests presented by a particular party, the concerns of one interest group are denounced as extravagant while the needs of another group are presented as indispensable. Nobody is interested in details, voters are hardly being informed and instead are being charged with emotions because citizens do not have the power to decide the outcome of the debate themselves. In short: instead of having to explain the need for a tax raise or tax cut to their citizens, as Swiss politicians have to if they want to get reelected, American politicians strategically appeal to a diffuse popular dislike of government. In the end, however, citizens are left feeling deceived, Fossedal finds. In Switzerland, by contrast, he was impressed by the degree in which even moderately educated people are knowledgeable about tax issues. And nobody complained. Although every Swiss believes that they are paying too many taxes, they would never want to trade with the Germans or the Americans. Fossedal carefully elucidates how direct democracy leads to decisions that are much better accepted and understood by individual citizens than it is the case in representational democracies. Besides, he refutes one of the most stubborn prejudices about direct democracies: that citizens tend to give in to populist demagogues and make irrational decisions, such as starving their own government. If necessary, even the Swiss have voted for tax increases – it just costs the politician more to convince citizens. By no means does this process undermine the quality of a political decision – on the contrary.

Another example that critics have often used to demonstrate the dangers of the system of direct democracy is the highly contentious issue of immigration policy. It is sometimes said that the majority oppresses the minority with the ballot. This fear is not entirely misplaced. Switzerland, however, may have the advantage of not being a genuine nation state with an overwhelming majority. Fossedal thus again succeeds in elucidating another important effect that the system of direct democracy has produced in Switzerland. Although in the past thirty years, the Swiss have voted on numerous initiatives seeking to limit the number of immigrants, reason has always prevailed – motivated either by economic or humanitarian considerations. The Swiss people always ended up rejecting radical measure in immigration policy; hence, the fear of the populists remains largely unfounded. Above all, however, Fossedal highlights that the right to introduce initiatives gives those people who feel threatened by immigrants a fair chance. In contrast to many other European countries, nobody in Switzerland can complain about not having enough of a say in politics.

Unreasonable Democracy

Will American citizens and politicians come to share Fossedal’s enthusiasm for the Swiss way of direct democracy anytime soon? Hardly so. At this moment, promoters of direct democracy are having quite a hard time. Both major political parties only have a moderate interest in changing the system. Why should the elites take away their own power? In the past years, skepticism about direct democracy has become particularly widespread in left-liberal circles – especially in California, which together with Oregon resembles the Swiss model the most. Both popular initiative and the referendum are practiced in the Golden State. Although the fight for more popular involvement in the political decision making process originated with the Left shortly before World War I, it is the Right that since the 1970s has set out to use the popular initiative to upset the government.

This, at least, is the way the American journalist Peter Schrag sees it, who a couple of years ago wrote a shocking account of the state of democracy in California. With the passing of the famous proposition 13 in 1978, the Tax Revolt movement, which was made up of people who felt that the tax burden has reached a breaking point, achieved an important political victory. The popular initiative, which targeted the estate tax, was accepted by a large majority of citizens. It had consequences: For one, the tax rebels paved the way for Ronald Reagan’s ascendancy to the White House. For another, Schrag believes, it deprived the state of California of important resources in the long term. Schrag attributes the decline of Californian public schools and infrastructure to this development.

Thus, is direct democracy harmful after all? Whatever seems to hold true for California certainly doesn’t apply to Switzerland – as most Swiss citizens will attest to . This is not because the Swiss are politically more mature but because the system works, Fossedal convincingly shows. Californian democracy distinguishes itself from the Swiss system in important respects (see below). Seen this way, the Swiss can only hope that Fossedal’s book is also being red in California and not only in Switzerland.