Direct Democracy in Switzerland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland#Direct_democracy

by kyleblarson • 8 years ago

84 101 8 years ago

en.wikipedia.org

I've been a fan of the Swiss system for quite a while. The citizens don't merely get to make public comment on what the government does; they can create a referendum and overrule it. They use proportional representation too, as do many democracies.

And the cantons are cool. A part of a canton can leave the canton, join another or make a new one. It rarely happens, but the fact that it can probably helps keep the canton government on its toes. And canton boundaries are probably more organic than many of the US states.

shafyy2• 8 years ago

I don't know the actual laws, but I would argue that a canton leaving and joining another canton is as easy/hard as it's in the US.

Source: I'm Swiss.

Kalium• 8 years ago

Making a state from part of another state requires the consent of both state legislatures and Congress (Article IV, Section 3). Pretty much any border change of a state requires at the approval of both Congress and all affected state legislatures. Note that this leaves executive branches out entirely.

Not sure how it works in Switzerland, though a quick look at Wikipedia suggests plebiscites can be involved. National plebiscites don't really exist in the US.

wbl• 8 years ago

How did that work out for California?

_nalply• 8 years ago

There was a plebiscite for a small city in the Jura mountains whether they want to stay in the Canton of Bern or change to the Canton of Jura. The city was in favor of changing. However some irregularities were discovered and the outcome declared invalid by judge. The city has been ordered to redo the plebiscite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moutier

(please read the ninth paragraph or the last one before the section Geography)

eloff3• 8 years ago

I think you'd have to fix the educational system in the US before you could have meaningful direct democracy. Any form of democracy, be it representational or direct is only as good as the people that make it up. The more directly you empower the people, the more directly their opinions and ideas will be expressed in the country's laws.

The average person is woefully prepared to judge laws on their merits, be it economic laws or otherwise. They're arguably better prepared in Switzerland, but still not great compared to experts in the field. If you look to Africa, you can see what a mess you can make when your average person is not educated well at all. Democracy is often described as the best of a lot of bad options, but there's also a big variance in how well it works.

door56• 8 years ago

Africa is a mess because of relentless Western imperialism, not because of "too much democracy".

It's rather elitist to say that more educated (AKA richer) citizens make "better" political decisions than less educated (AKA poorer) citizens. They both make decisions with relatively similar amounts of clarity in their respective class interests.

virmundi6• 8 years ago

I'm sorry, but this is just foolish. It's like saying, "It's elitist to say that more educated engineers make better products than less educated one." One of the reasons the US wanted to have people read, why we made it part of public school, is to have an informed, i.e. educated, citizenry.

int_19h2• 8 years ago

Democracy leading to tyranny of the majority in form of a popularly approved authoritarian leader is unfortunately common, and not just in Africa - I'm from a country that walked that path as well. I don't know if it's because Western liberal democracies are more educated, or because their political culture evolved certain safeguards over time, but there clearly is a difference, and it's not elitist to point it out.

eloff3• 8 years ago

It's not elitist, it's reality. Do you really think uneducated people can make decisions requiring deep knowledge across many complex domains as well as well-educated people? That's tautologically false. Even well-educated people are pretty lost outside their own domain.

The kind of everybody is equal mentality that must underlie such a statement boggles my mind. It's an attitude that is shockingly disconnected from the real world. We may as well be talking about Santa Claus.

im3w1l• 8 years ago

Africa is a mess because of relentless Western imperialism

That's one hypothesis but there are many things it can't explain. We could compare African countries that were colonized to African countries that were not colonized. The hypothesis predicts a big difference but is there?

We could compare non-African countries that were colonized to African countries that were colonized. Hypothesis predicts a small difference, is there?

solidsnack90003• 8 years ago

If it's education in a technical sense you're probably right; it's more about having some kind of institution where people learn to think politically and historically.

Democracy by itself is not necessarily a stable institution. In the absence of a strong social commitment to rule of law and an effective and disciplined state, it doesn't work. The path that some societies took to get to this state did involve education, and in particular literacy, to a fair degree.

Africa is a mess due to western imperialism but failed democracy is a different topic than that: because most societies started off in some kind of mess, either in disarray, or in a state of tyranny. We don't have any examples of states going directly from tribal societies to functioning democracies with rule of law in one, peaceable step. Looking only at the west, it took centuries of violent conflict.

namlem2• 8 years ago

Africa is a mess for a number of reasons. Western imperialism is probably the biggest, but there are plenty of other. Tons of deadly parasites and diseases and a general lack of good arable land in most places are also significant factors.

lewisinc• 8 years ago

Point number one: agreed, Western Imperialism.

However (ignoring the ad hominem), I don't agree with your second point that a more education citizen will not necessarily make better decisions than less educated ones. Obviously everyone will make decisions that benefit themselves, but only with Education can someone understand the ramifications of their decisions in a broader context. Many political situations have little-to-no effect on an individual in the short-term, so making a decision (since it's not based on personal gain) must be based on something else. I would argue that something would be an individual's understanding of the impact on society in general - an understanding that a "good education" is supposed to cultivate.

microtherion5• 8 years ago

While in representative democracies, decisions get made by "experts in the field" like [checks notes...] washed up reality TV hosts with a career defined by bankruptcy and white collar crime.

ksec• 8 years ago

It is not only about Education in terms of knowledge in specific domains either, it is more about the population being able to some sort of critical thinking, which is more of an ideal than reality.

One of the reason why I think it didn't work out so well in poorest countries. I think they will need 10 to 20 years of Well placed Educational structure before Representative Democracy being used as a political system, and then hopefully moving to Direct Democracy.

csours• 8 years ago

Change my view: This only works with small, homogenous populations.

intellectronica• 8 years ago

Homogeneous?! Switzerland is a confederacy and home to three distinct linguistic/cultural populations.

cyann• 8 years ago

4 official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romansh_language

labster2• 8 years ago

Compared to the United States, this is very homogeneous.

refurb• 8 years ago

Three distinct European cultures.

totfz• 8 years ago

White and Christian, white and Christian, and white and Christian. That's all that matters. :)

buboard5• 8 years ago

I don't believe it s their homogeneity, besides, different languages, quite different cultures, mountainous divides etc, it's all very different. But, they share the values of fierce independence . Even the (rich) foreigners who choose to make it their home seem to do so .

asituop3• 8 years ago

Switzerland is very heterogeneous in terms of language and mentality. The Röstigraben is clearly not a myth. However people accept those very high differences because it's economically going really great in Switzerland. (But of the day the economy is down, I think tensions might really explode, French vs German speaking have really different mentalities)

s3nnyy• 8 years ago

How is the economy down? Looks pretty up here in Zurich.

knock on wood

solidsnack90003• 8 years ago

Even today, Europe is far more diverse than the US in the sense that culture doesn't travel far: traveling a few hours by train in any direction from where you were born could easily put you in a place where you don't speak the language and where cultural practices, while nominally Christian, were markedly different with regards to dates and times, things people ate, what counted as legitimate use of a public place and so on. The US is much more homogeneous than Europe with regards to these kinds of criterion, which in practice greatly impacts government administration.

Switzerland is like this but turned up a notch -- an hour's travel by train is usually enough to land in areas with mutually incomprehensible spoken languages, even when they are both nominally German.

virmundi6• 8 years ago

To repeat: The South always had enough votes to keep slavery legal. Direct democracy is literally mob rule. The reason the Constitution had the 3/5 phrasing for slaves is not that the ciswhite males thought blacks were less than people, they didn't want the South to get even more votes through their slaves than they already had. They knew the only way to get rid of the peculiar institution was to vote it out (or go to war, but they didn't want that).

This is this the reason that the Founders didn't pick it. It is mob rule. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-friedman/the-founding-...

The general concept of the Republic is that it balances the terrors that all other governments impose. Through the representatives, the people trained in statecraft, the passions of the masses should be calmed. It's the hardest to corrupt. It's the most likely to survive deaths. If you had a perfect king, giving him absolute power is a no-brainer. The trouble is a) that's near impossible, and b) when he dies how do prevent a non-perfect king from ruling absolutely?

We see this with budget deficits in California. Direct democracy allows ballot initiatives without the need to secure funding. The masses vote for wonderful, expensive things, but they don't say how to pay. The leaves the general budget scrambling for scraps to cover the cost.

jrobn2• 8 years ago

Except when the voting mechanisms that elect those representatives is badly broken and easily gamed, i.e. gerrymandering districts in the US.

There are a lot of things that are a problem with the way the US government is set up. 1) The Senate is a questionable insitution born out of a bad compromise with the size of colonies at the time. 2) Our average House Representive is representing 375,000 people. It should be much, much lower than that. 3) There are NO spending limits on political campaigns and that the US considers corporations as “people”. 4) Supreme Court judges have life terms. They should have longer terms than senators but not for life (15 years?). The people of a nation change, yet parties can push through politcally motivated or judges that strike down or uphold laws that maybe the population doesn’t want anymore! 5) It’s become almost impossible to change the constitution with Amendments due to only having two parties and the fall of bi-partisanship.

virmundi6• 8 years ago

While I agree, or at least am willing to hear more about various points, none argue for a direct democracy.

For a direct democracy you need a small population that is homogeneous in at least outlook if not in race. The countries that come closest to it are largely a single race.

I also think that republican forms of government collapse when you get 100+ million. The US has been straining for sometime to hold itself together. More and more people feel divided. If it wasn't for the inherent weakness to outside attack, I'd prefer to see the US divide into regional countries that are better able to manage themselves.

For example, a $15 hourly wage would bankrupt rural Florida. We hear more and more about that at a Congressional level. The same is true for most of the rural areas of the country. A better answer is for the States to move to minimum wages that fit their territories.

asituop3• 8 years ago

Switzerland is the exact proof that what you say about masses voting for the expensive things is not always true. For e.g they had a "votation" on minimum wage, and people refused because the proposed minimum wage was too high. They had the maturity/long-term vision of refusing such a proposal. But in other countries/context I agree with you, try to do that for e.g in France and I'm pretty sure people would instantly vote yes to such a proposition without caring about the consequences.

Maybe when you ask people often what they want they become responsible (like in Switzerland) while if you never ask people what they think, the rare times where you'll ask them through referendum, they'll go for the extreme/expensive because they want to express how frustrated of not being listened to they are.

notahacker• 8 years ago

It doesn't need to be "always true" for a tendency to produce conflicting objectives no sane legislator would ever choose (and making them much more difficult to repeal) to be a potentially crippling weakness of direct democracy.

Perhaps experience with being consulted is why the Swiss appear relatively sanguine about a referendum vote to impose quotas on all immigration being creatively reinterpreted by its trade-prioritising government as just introducing job preferences for Swiss nationals in times of high unemployment and tightening residency permit criteria. That's certainly a course of action which would be expected to create much more unease in other parts of Europe; the furore over whether prioritising Single Market alignment in the UK's future relationship with the EU over an assumed preference for immigration restrictions that wasn't even on the relevant referendum ballot paper is a notable contrast. But I'd imagine there were aspects of the Swiss political psyche other than "maturity", "long term vision" or experience with referendums which made them relatively unenthusiastic about an impractically-high UBI proposal, high minimum holiday entitlement and supremacy of Swiss law over international law and relatively enthusiastic about banning minarets, allowing greater surveillance powers and [until remarkably recently in some cantons] restricting the franchise to men. Californians certainly don't have a particular shortage of referendums either.

microtherion5• 8 years ago

The South always had enough votes to keep slavery legal.

Enough white votes, maybe, and trying to exclude people from the franchise is still a powerful strain in US politics.

This is this the reason that the Founders didn't pick it. It is mob rule.

I can think of other reasons why a group of propertied males would think that government by a group of propertied males was optimal...

What I find particularly dumb about the US political system is that the founders consciously patterned many of its elements (mutually blocking institutions, vetoes, senators, indirect representation, unequal representation) directly after the Roman Republic, while being perfectly aware how THAT turned out (Increasing institutional gridlock, increasing reward for violating norms, escalating violence, eventually leading to 1500 years of monarchy).

We see this with budget deficits in California.

Excellent! Now explain budget deficits in Kansas, or federal deficits in the US, for that matter.

virmundi6• 8 years ago

Excellent! Now explain budget deficits in Kansas, or federal deficits in the US, for that matter.

Extremes in ideals. Kansas cut their tax base too much without cutting their spending accordingly. With the US most of its the process of taking on massive amounts of debt under a pseuodo-socialist/capitalist system of welfare programs. 80% of the US budget goes towards paying for welfare programs: medicare/medicaid, social security, and debt payments that came from mostly spending on the welfare programs. The Republicans never slash, or kill the programs. The democrats always expand them without correcting the tax issues. For example, when Obama had the majority of Congress, he did not seek to raise the cap on SS taxes past the existing 120-130k line where it is today. Increasing the line, while also limiting payouts to an income of 120k, would pay for the program. What I mean by this is that there should be no cap, but the system will only pay out a maximum regardless of how much you paid in.

Essentially both parties fail to observe the logical outcome of their philosophies. The Republicans are for a small government and a large military, which isn't really contradictory. The military is a specific power of the US government under the Constitution. The trouble with them is that they don't actually pursue the process of paring down the government. The Democrats are for large government. Their problem is they don't pursue the tax side the way they should. They need to increase taxes on the poor like the Scandinavian countries. In Finland, the average person pays 30-40% of their income to the State. They don't have a progressive tax system like we do. The Democrats don't pursue this. As a result, they go into debt.

A direct democracy doesn't protect against this. Look at recent Florida elections. There is less than a 1% difference between the gubernatorial candidates. Should the 49.9901 get ruled by the other side?

Enough white votes, maybe, and trying to exclude people from the franchise is still a powerful strain in US politics.

The South didn't have, and knew it would only loose ground, to the Northern votes if it only leaned on its white population. The first industrial revolution was growing the North even in the early days of the Constitutional system. The South needed the white Democrats, at least the precursor, once the cotton gin was invented to support slavery. Before the gin, slave labor didn't help that much. Cotton was too expensive due to manual labor. With the gin, all those bails of cotton that usually rotted in the fields were useful and valuable as long as you had the labor to get them out in time. The northern bankers made the funding available to purchase the slaves and extend the cotton trade.

The founders were more afraid of direct democracy that led to the Athenians getting pushed to the sea when a demagogue rose to power due to sweet words. Again, unless you require a supermajority for all votes, direct democracy is easily swayed by political hacks like Colbert or Catiline.

buboard5• 8 years ago

I like that they also vote whether they want taxes:

https://lenews.ch/2018/03/02/switzerland-votes-this-weekend-...

swissthrowaway5• 8 years ago

Direct democracy in Switzerland is a good way to distract the population with futile issues ( https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/24/europe/cow-horn-referendu... ) while the oligarchy does its dirty business ( https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-grenades/swiss-set-... ), and - at the same time - giving the impression that the people are actually in control, but they're not. The parliament can and will interpret people's will ( https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/switzerland-... ).

Leherenn• 8 years ago

On the last issue, the problem is that it's pretty much impossible to enact the exact people's will because it is not consistent.

Just have a look at the latest vote on EU ties. They want to keep the economic benefits but to restrict foreign workers, except the EU is never going to accept that. It's like the British, they want the cake and eat it too. The people can have their dream and vote on whatever they want and express themselves, and that's great, but at some point someone has to go back to reality and make compromises.

I would argue it is the parliament job to transform the people's will into realistic laws. At this point, the parliament could either water it down or go full Brexit. The latest vote just confirmed it took the "correct" decision by watering it down.

repolfx5• 8 years ago

The Swiss people's will is entirely consistent. There is nothing strange or unusual about having both immigration controls and trade. That is in fact entirely normal anywhere outside of Europe.

The EU bureaucracy's near-fanatical, unbending approach to what it wants doesn't make anything different "inconsistent", "a dream", "unrealistic" or "not reality". That's the sort of attitude that is inflaming serious anti-EU tensions across all of Europe and will eventually cause either the EU to crush European democracy itself, or the EU to collapse chaotically.

Indeed, the "watering down" you mention was a violation of the Swiss constitution and has led to quite serious political tensions, including a new referendum that's trying again to force the political class to actually implement referendums the EU doesn't like.

microtherion5• 8 years ago

There were referenda trying to suppress that "dirty business", but they failed. I'm not happy with that fact, but the voters DID have a choice.

bornabox3• 8 years ago

That's how democracy works. The parliament is chosen by the people as well. Sometimes interpretation is necessary, as the referendums are vague or well written. Still better to be able to voice one's opinion. What's the alternative?

sischoel• 8 years ago

One should also consider that the Swiss people refused to grant women voting rights on a federal level in 1959 and only did so in 1971. One region in Switzerland still refused to grant them this right until they where corrected by the Swiss supreme court in 1991.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_Switzerl...

swissthrowaway5• 8 years ago

In Switzerland, women are still second-class citizens. They're supposed to stay home and raise the kids. Day cares are full with the kids of expats, Swiss kids to the playground with their mothers.

_bfhp• 8 years ago

That's really sad to hear. Any pointers to English-speaking and/or prominent Swiss women's rights voices would be appreciated!

cylinder2• 8 years ago

Ah yes poor women spending time with their children rather than slaving away pushing meaningless paper for MegaCorp. Shit life eh?

toasterlovin7• 8 years ago

Glad to know you think raising children isn't important work.

tonyedgecombe• 8 years ago

How did we get to the state where staying home and raising kids is regarded so poorly.

snarfybarfy• 8 years ago

I don't think they are second class citizen. I think that a lot of Swiss women are more privileged than their spouses.

A woman with kids can choose whether to stay at home or work (full or part time at their discretion) and plenty of women choose to be stay at home mums.

No such choice is given to most fathers.

namlem2• 8 years ago

Not really the best way of going about this sort of thing. Voting in elections and referendums is fraught problems and unhealthy incentive structures. Sortition, via the formation of citizens' assemblies, is a superior model of democracy. Leaving decisions up to a representative random sample of the population allows the assembly to carefully consider and debate issues and form a consensus. Whereas elected officials are incentivized not to compromise or plan for the long term and voters are usually poorly informed.

somada141• 8 years ago

I lived in Zurich, Switzerland for ca. 5 years and I am a huge fan of their system.

One may argue that the very same system allowed for seemingly ‘insensitive’ or ‘misguided’ legislation. In my time there (2009-2014) a referendum allowed the Swiss to preclude minarets from being erected, while another referendum was voted against allowing the Swiss to freely smoke in public areas such as train stations (last I checked you can still smoke in the Zurich Hauptbahnhof platforms right up to entering your train).

Nonetheless, while I don't agree with some of the decisions made, democracy is literally about granting the citizenry the ability to rule themselves and IMHO this is how it should be. Granted, such a system may lead to bigoted decision-making but if that's what the people want it should be what they get.

Direct Democracy in Switzerland

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