156 Michael Howlett and Andrea Migone'Watts, R L. (1989) FÂzratite Fàeralism; A Comparotite Ano.lysis. Research Paper 26 Kings-

ton, Institqte of lntergovernmental Relations, Queen's UniversityVogel, D. (1986) N4t1ofl4l Styles of Regulatiot Ewironmilt^l Policy in Ctredt BîitLiî 4nÀ. the

IJflitzd Str':tes. Ith^ca: Cornell University Press.Zysmn, l. (1994) Flow Institutions Create Flistorically Rooted Tmjectories of Growth.

brÀustiul anà Corporate Ch&Lge. 3, îo. 7: 243-283.

Policy style(s) inSwitzerlandUnder stress

Yannis Papadopoulosand Martino Maggetti

I

lntroduction

switzerland wâs not incruded in poricy stytes in western Ewope edted.by Je.emy Richardson and first published in 1982, but how can'rhe Swiss poliricalsystem ofthe 1970s and 1980s be described? Deutsch (1976) presenred swir-Terland as a paradigmatic case ofpolitical integration and, in his comparativework, Lijphart (1984: Zt-32).portrayed it as rhe protorypical case ofa.orrsen_sus demoèrâcy. This followed a long tradition oiworks incruding switze_rlandin the categorieb of '?roporzd.emokratien, (Lehmbruch 1907)i and ..conso-ciational" polities (Liiphaît

}969; Sreiner 1974), or emphasizing rhe coopera_tive 'dimension of swiss policy-making by highlighting its corporatist iraits(Katzenstein 1985). Such a wayof thinking about politics and policy-making isreflecteô in the term of "Konkordanz" that is us.à i' s*ir, ..,.ryday politicaljargon.

'Konkordanz" means that the main social and poritical actôrs have a say indecision-making, and that they display " .oop.r"tirr. attitude, negotiate witheach other, and reach compromises. Such a principle that can be considered asa

-sort of "accommoda ;.g informal rule,, (Hetrmke and Levitsky 2006) is parr

of the prevairing political cukure and may be a product of actors' sociali-atorr.

158 Yannis Papadopoulos and Martino Maggetti

Nwertheless, we are also in presence of a rational conduct dictated by thevertical and horizontal fragmentation of power (federalism and multiparrygoveinment), as well as by the multiple veto points of the Swiss political system -independence between the executive and the legislature, symmetric bicamer-aljsm, and direct democracy (the most distinctive feaorre in the Swiss policyprocess) - that act as institutional constraints conducive to cooperative behav-iour ("Konkordanz.zw'ànge": Neidhart 1970). Among them, the "shadov/' ofthe referendum over legislation is usually considered as the major driver lead-ing to rhe inclusion - through participation in government or consultation inpolicy-making - of actors perceived as able to exercise a "blackmailing" Powerby threatening with a referendum against unwelcome reforms (Papadopoulos2001).

How do these features relate to the concept ofpolicy style and allow charac-terizing the Swiss policy style and its evolution over time? Following the origi-nal conceptualizadon Presented in the volume Policy Styles hwesternEuroge, a

policy style is a system-level "standard operating procedure" for making andimplementing policies in a given country (Richardson 1982: 2). This questionis specifically framed from the perspective of the relationships that govern-ments establish with collective actors that are relevant for policy-making. Thekey dimensions resulting in cross-country variations in policy styles that wereidentified by Richardson and colleagues correspond 1o an anticipatory versusreactive problem-solving capacity and to a consensual relationship between thegovernmerf and organized groups in society as opposed to an impositionalrelationship.

These differences arise from the mechanics of institutionai settings andfrom the policy paradigms that orient the behaviour ofthe political actors thatpopulate - and could also reshape - institutions. Policy styles go through pathdependent trajectories that can however change over time (cf- the introductionto this voiume) in a way that is usuaily incremental but potentially transfor-mative in the long run (Streeck and Thelen 2005). The Present book refinesthe originai typology of policy styles with the goal of updating it in front ofcurrent trends, such as the intcrnationalizetion and increased complexity ofpolicy-making, by putting forward a slightly modified version of the consen-sus/imposition distinction, presented as a continuum in the inclusiveness ofdecision-making. The other category of the two-by-rwo rypology posits a newdistinction, that is, whether a prominent role irr policy-making is assigned tobureaucrats and experts or, resPectively, to'politicians and the public, wherebythe former denotes a more secluded and technocratic, and the latter a moreopen and politicized policy style.

In that regard, it is worth noting that Switzerland would have shared thereactive /consensus cell in the original typology along with the UK, while it is

now considered in the introduc.io.r.o ,h". #':jÏ:[t;::;::J:category where inclusiveness and politicians/the pubric ale more prominent,together with the US. This makes sense in theiight of the..Konkordanz,,norm mentioned'above, according to which th. policy process is not onlyinclusive and geared towards consensus-oriented àecision_making, but also,and as a consequence, relatively slow and capable of only small adjustments(Kriesi and rrechsel 2008). Howevea the frst conceptualizatiorrofpolicystyles did not include a crucial dimension that would have arlowed research-ers to discriminate between the Swiss and the British case, the formal con_centradon ofpower, which is traditionarly low in switzerrand and high in theur(_(Kriesi et al. 2006: 346), mairtly due to differences in the cenrralizarionof the political system and in the number of veto points. As we are going tosee, the new.typology also captures Swiss policy_making style imperfectlyinasmuch as inclusiveness is at the same time we"ker and larger than in thepast, the role of the public adminisrrarion is not negligible, and that of thepublic not new.

Thg question to be answered is hence double: the extent to which the Swisspolicy style evolved since the early 1980s and whether ,h. ,y;"gy;;;;make sense ofit - which also evolved over time _ provides an accurate descrip-tion of dre current situation, With these go"l, in mind, the p..r.r,t .h"pt""discusses the Swiss case with respect to trie inclusiveness and the consensus-oriented nature ofthe policy process, and, respectively, as regards the role ofdifferent arenas and actors in policy_making, à*.$, the federal governmentand its bureaucracy, political parties and the parliament, and th" prrbiic at la"ge.

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Swiss traditional policy style

Scholars in the 1 980s tended ro be critical about the impactin terms ofoutputs ofthe consensual policy style and the search for compromise in Switzerland: sucha style was considered sloq inimical to the development of synoptic visions,and was thought to reduce the steering and reform capacity ofthe politicalsystem, and generate a delicit in terms ofproblem-solving due to the search forlowest common denominator solutions (Linder tgBZ: joji Schmid 1983: 8s).Economists in particular estimated that policy blockade and immobilism werean indirect consequence ofthe shadow ofthe referendum: it empowers mainly,entrenched interests and short-term rent-seeking actors who gain strong bar-

, gaining positions thanks to their blackmailing power (Boiner er a_1. 1990). Toto the original rypology ofpolicy styles, according to these autleors theSwiss policy-style generated (at best) reactive policy outputs and

reforms below functional necessttles.

160 Yannis Papadopoulos and Martino Maggetti

Moreover, the idyilic picture of a Swiss 'pluralist heaven' was stronglyput into question, ifnot contradicted, by empirical studies such as Kriesi'sseminal work on the major federal decision-making processes in the secondhalfofthe 1970s. Using a reputational method, the author found that politicalpoweilwas concentrated in a handful ofactors belonging to the decisional"core". Key actors in this highly integrated and closed policy communityincluded - apart from the federal executive - the right-wing liberal Freisinnig-Demokratische Partei (FDP)2 and the major business associations; otherpolitical parties, the parliament and trade unions were systematically mar-ginalized (Kriesi 1980).

In addition, signs of polarization were not absent from political life,despite the existence since 1959 of a stable grand coalition federal govern-ment with a proportional representation of the four major parties (FDP, thesociaiist SP, the Christian-democratic CVR and the agrarian-conservativeSVP)-] The lengthy and inclusive decision-making Process is expected toproduce convergence: indeed, the governmental parties largely shared thesame positions in parliamentary votes, but it appeared that in case of a ref-erendum they were more strongly sPlit than in the initial decision-makingphases (same for the conv.ergence between the major business and tradeunions), mainly due to a cleavage between Left and Right. Contrary to'expectations, homogeneity increased towards the end of the process withinthe Left and the Right camp, whereas it decreased between them (Lehner1984: 32). Between l97o and 1987, the governmental Parties appeared unitedin slightly more than half of the referendum votes, while a LefcRight cleav-age that split them took place in about 307o ofthe referendum votes'a In addi-tion, minor parties that were not part of the federal government - especiallythose of the nationalist Right - were successful in drawing voters' suPportfor theit voting recommendations much beyond their (small) electoral con-stituencies (Hug 1994: 773-174). This "reservoir" prefigured the rise oftheSVP r*'hich, shifting from an agrarian-conservative to a national-PoPulistparty, continuously increased its score since 1987 (fourth in terms of elec-toral strength with 11% ôf the vote) and beèameinzoo3 the first party in theNational Council, reaching 29.470 of the vote in2Ol5. Actually, it seems thatpolarization in the direct democratic phase was subject to cyclical fluctua-tions in the 1970s and 1980s: the voting recommendations ofthe liberal FDPand the SP converged in75o/o ofvotesinTgTl-1975, but only in 56% thereofinl975-1979 (and just 48% in 19S3-1957); similarly, the proportion of legisla-tive acts that was challenged by a referendum was just 9o/o in l97l-l975,bttincreased to 44vo iî 1975-1979 (and was thereafter reduced again), and theproportion ofconstitutional and legislative bills that failed in a referendumincreased ftom 13o/o to 38o/o itr the same periods, to decrease anew in thesubsequent periods (Papadopoulos 1994: 213)'

. Policy style(s) in Switzerland 161Policy style(s) today

In this section, we wourd rike to highlight changes in policy styre related to themore promineât role of the Federal Aisembly in decision-making, and to rhemuch higher degree of partisan polarization than in the past. We also aim toshow how the system retains irs policy-making capacity in spite of the blockingPotential ofpolarization that adds now to the existence ofrhe institutional veclpoint of direct democracy.

Parlîamentariza:tîon

Kriesit study has been replicated and extended in different ways mole thanthirty years later. Sciarini er al. (z01ja) studied the el.rren most important(according ro experrs'judgments) decision-making processes at federal ievelbetween 2001 and 2006. They found a number oi i-porr"rr, changes côm_pared with the end of rhe 1970s (Sciarini er al. Z0t5a: 51ff.): the .toÀ,, of thesystem remains small and cohesive, there ale stil mâny intef actions betweenpublic and non-public actors, but the federal execurive and state agencies playan even more crucial role, and the (reputational) power of the goyernmen_tal parties increases to the detriment of the power of interest jroups;r thepeak business associarion "Economiesuisse,, is the oniy interesig.oup rhatretains a high policy influence, whereas smail business and farmers, associa_tions, as well as trade unioas, rose influence. In his dissertation on the sameprocesses,'Fischer (2012) comes to nuanced conciusions with regard to thedegree ofconflict, although the ratter has increased: he observes a conflictualprocess in most cases, but also three cases of'tonsensus" and five cases w.itha "hegemonic" coaLition whose dominance is not threatened in spite of theexistence of conflict' Furthermore, the winning coaLitions are issue-specific,so that there are no permanent winners and losers in the decision-makingsystem. Notwithstanding the existence of a significant ievel of conflict, thesystem retains its integrative capacity. This may seem surprising in a period ofhigh partisan polarization (see the next section in rhis chapter;, and thereforea more detailed explanation ofthe current poricy dynamics at federar rever isnecessary.

Let us start be reminding that a direct consequence of the referendumthreat is the development of a sophisticated anj frequently decisive pre-parliamentary phase leading to early compromises in the policy process andpredefining the scope ofparliamentary debates and thereby pot.y ooapor.(Neidhart 1970: 266ff.). The anticipation of a possibre referendum induceipolicymakers to elaborate pre-parliamentary procedures to include all rel_evant actors and limit the potential for conflict. This phase was considered as

1é2 Yannis Papadopoulos and Martino Maggetti

the Swiss functional equivalent ofneo-corporatist arrangements: most nota-bly, extra-parliamentary committees, comPosed of executive members of theadministration, representatives of business associations and trade unions,cantonal officials, and external experts, would serve as forums for compromise-building, and their outputs were subsequently endorsed by the governmentand ratified in parliament without any major amendments. More recently,the frequency of reliance on, and impact ol extra-parliamentary committeesdeclined, both due to their reduced ability to forge compromises in a periodofpolarization, agd to the professionalization ofthe bureaucracy that devel-oped its own in-house exPertise. Their number decreased ftorn 373 in 1979

to 119 in 2017 and, while 37olo of legislative acts were PrePared in such commit-tees (with a higher frequency for the most important ones) during thetg7l-1976 legisiative period, this percentage dropped 10 1870 in 1995-L999,and ro l4o/o in 1999-2006 (Sciarini 2oll'. 794). Further, the composition ofsv1la-parliamentary committees became more pluralist, and technocraticexpertise gained weight to the detriment of interest representation. Thesetrends have been interpreted as a weakening ofthe neo-corPoratist traits inthe policy-making system, and similar trends have been observed in Nôrdiccountries such as Norway and Denmark (Rommetvedt 2005; Christiansenet al. 2018).

On the other.hand, the proportion of formal consultations-(usually inwritten form) ofparties, gtouPs, cantons and stakeholders has increased:they took place for 39o/o of legislative âcts in 1971-1976, 46Vo thereof in19 g 5 -lg g g, arid 49 Vo in 19 9 9 -20 0 6 (Sciarini 20i 1 : 19 4 ff .). However, in spiteof thât, it is more generally the influence of the whole pre-parliamentaryphase over policy outcomes that is llow to some extent Put into question:78o/o petcerfi of the interviewees in Kriesi's survey considered this phaseas more important compared with the parliamentary phase, as opposedto 610/oit a recent survey by Sciarini etaI. (2015à'.35)- As a matter of fact,a process (re)parliamentarisation took place, with the Federal Assembly"emancipating" itself from the Federal Council (government). This can be

explained by more ideological politics, but above ali by the professional-ization of the pârliament that, following some imPortarit reforms in the1990s such as the creation of permanent committees that allow thecialization ofMPs on policy issues, benefits now from additionalin terms of expertise. One can consider for example as signs of a

mentary emPowerment the fact that the impulse for legislationmore frequently from the Federal Assembly than in the Past (Vatter2g7-2g8), that the parliament rejects more governmental biils2015) - although such bills resist more than in the US presidential(Schwarz et al. 2011) and the ProPortion of amended drafts has

stable (ust over 40%) since the beginning ofthe 1990s (Vatter 2016a: 300) -

policy style(s) in Switerland 163that rhe lobbying arena has now largely shifted ro the parliamenr (Eichen_berget 2OI7).

Polarization

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instance Kriesi 2015), rhe lafter is largery due to rhe erectorar rise ofthe nationarist-populisr SVp. This has been clearly Àvàred by the a...t ."at rg f*opean inregra_tion and by migration issues, that made *r. svpt antiiu and ànti-immigrantsdiscourse increasingly appealing ro swiss voters. obviousry the European andthe migration iszue also enta' an ..orromi. dim.nsion qirainly related to the lib-eralization of the labor market), but concems relared io ia.nUry "nd ,o*..igrrtyclearly impacted on the svpt success. Furthermo..,-,t. t t t., *ediatization ofpolitics - by no means a phenomenon confined to Swirzed;d _ s;ryJ;;;forcing factor: Landerer (2015) showed through À.rr,

"rr"fyri. that the mediacover fwice as much the acriviries of svp anà sp rhan trrose of the center-rightpardes (FDP and CVp); admi*edly SVp and Sp are electorally stronger than rheother parties, but inærviews with Mps also show at., p".u".rr.orarians belong-iqg to svP and to sp have betær integrated the importàce of the media role andldont lore consciously ..selÊmediaization, r#;;:;;; ;;;.;;J;;'haturaf' component ofthe political landscape (f_*i.r.. zOfS;.. As to the Left-fught cleavaç, and as already nored, ir has been presenrintermittently in the past despite the .oor.rrrr"l ,r.,ure of Swiss democracy.Data on parliamentary behaviour are available ooÇ rr.. 1995., Figure 8.3

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Poliry style(s) in Switzerland 167shows the cleavage structure in parliamentary votes (lst Chamber: NationalCouncil) during the lggi-lggg iegislative period. About twenty years ago, themost frequent cleavage - in about 45%o ofvores _ was berween Lefr- (Sp) andRight-wing (CVPIFDp and SVp) governmental parries, even if they were parrof the same federal executive. In such a configuration, the Left *", prrt i'minority. The configuration with all governmental parties united followedsecond, appearing in about a quarter ofthe votes. This is not much, and wouldbe inconceivable for a parliamentary system where the incumbent govern_mental coaiition is responsible towards the parliament. Two other noticeablepatterns were an opposition between Left_oÊCenter (Sp and CVp) and Right-of-Center (FDP and SVP) governmental parties (in about 15% ofvotes), andthe opposition between the svP - inarcdicarization process in rhe r990s - andall other three governmental parties (sp, cvp and FDp) rhat was visible inslightly more rhan iOyo ofvores. Hence, in the second part ofthe 1990s rhegovernmental parries were seldom united in parliament, and the social_dem_ocratic Left frequently counted among rhe losers ofthe parliamentary phaseof policy-making.

If we look now into the parliamentary vores in ZOtt-ZO7:l (Figure 8.4), thesituation has changed substantially. The Left-fught cleavage conrinues to bethe most importanr one, albeit less prominently than in rhe pasr (it occurs inabout one third ofthe votes). The governmental parties are even less unitedthan in the past: in less than l5olo ofthe cases. A crucial change is the muchmore frequent isolation of the svp: about rwo timei more than in r.995-1999(in about a quarter ofthe votes). As a result ofits radicalization and its trans_ôrmation into a national-populist party, the svp lost influence in parliament.Interestrngly, this happened despire irs considerable electoral gains, rhat are inall likelihood due to the same rransformation. Finaliy the social-democraticLeft is now slightly less isolated than in the past, even though its electoral scoredecreased in the recent years.' In the direct democraric phase (e.g., optional referendums) that may followthe parliamentary one,10 in the 1970s and 19g0s the governmental parties often(although by far not aiways) appeared united, while a Left-Right split occurred.less frequently. This is not to say that partisan polarization was absent, but ithad ups and downs (see above). The siruation has dramatically changed in thelast decades: between 1gg5 andzOIT a Left-fught cleavage among governmen-tal parties took place in 43o/o ofvotes, whiie the proportion ofvotes with allgovernmental parties united dropped to a mere 16%.n Figure 8.5 shows themore significant trends in the course ofthe last two decades: although cyciescontinue to be present, the overall picture shows an incréasing prevalenceof the Left-Right cleavage and of the opposition berween svp and the other

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As we havè seen, the Swiss parry system counts among the most polarized,while Switzerland continues to be, even though less pràminently than in rhePast' a consensus-sryle democracy; this siruation can be described with the

Figure 8'5 Evolution of party coaritions in referendum votes: % per regisrative period

expression "polarisierte Konkordan/' (Lindet ZO17:464-465). How can thisbe erplained? The explanation runs through rhe existence of -Kon_

the partisan dnd interest group dynamics may have_changedin a centrifugal direction, institurions are however particularly "sticky,, and

to impose their stfucfural constraints. As a result, there is a decou-berween the logic of politics and the logic of policy-maLing:r2 bargaining

compromise have become more dif{icult in a polarized system, yer rheyinescapable to avoid policy blockade. Bochsler et al. (2015: 485) nore in rhar

the existence of 'ân increasing mismatch between polarized politicaland interest groups on the one hand and an institutional framework

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170 Yannis Papadopoulos and Martino Maggetti

Take coalition behaviour in parliament: we have seen that there are two mainpatterns, with the first one mirroring a Left-Right cleavage (SVP-FDP-CVP vsSP), and the second one being associated with the isolation ofthe nationalist-populist SVP (SP-FDP-CVP vs SVP). Convergence emoûg the governmentalparties is now usually Limited to threè of them, with the fourth one - usuailythe ' pole" parties SP or SVP - being isolated. However, this suffices to achieve a

majoricy in the National Council and to overcome thus the parliamentary vetopoint. As shown by data from the last completed legislative period (Figure 8.6)'the "bourgeois" block is able to defeat the Left in parliament, and when theSVP is isoiated, this party cannot do much against the dominance of the othergovernmental parties. Moreover, the study of imPortant decision-making pro-cesses by Sciarini et aI- (2015a: 219ff.) suggests that not only blockade can be

overcome, but also that a significant amount ofpolicy innovation - contraryto the standard description ofthe Swiss political system - is possible, providedthat decision-makers prove able to design a Process that favours consensusbetween competing advocacy coalitions and relies on a smali set of actors.

On the other hand, such a configuration of "variable geometry" allows topreserve much of the potential of "negotiation' democracy since it does not

Policy style(s) in Switzerland 171generare any stuctural losers- The center_right parties FDp and CVp havelost much of their parliameûtary srrengrh: in the National council they heldalmost half(93) ofthe 200 sears in t987, andonly 60 since the 2015 election.However, they co-ntinue to be pivotar as they can coaresce either with the sp orwith the svP' and as a result steadily remain on the winning site in Boo/o to goyoof the votes.r3 The SVp has dramadcally increased its parliamentary represen_tation: from 2i MPs in 1987 ro 65 iî207i. As already noted however, due to itsradicalization it counts no.w less frequently among the winners in parLiament.Even less successful is the Sp, whose parliam.rrt"ry ..pa.r.rraation remainedfairly stable. Nevertheiess, both the svp and the sp rerirain on the winning sidein about 600lo ofthe votes, due to the partial abiliry ofeach ofthese p"rj.r,ocoalesce with the other major parties.

Nowadays the parry system follows a tripolar logic Sp, SVp, and the fre_quently overlapping in their positions FDp and CVp. Such a tripolar logic is theconsequence ofan increasing degree ofporarization rerated to the .orrràrid"tiooof rwo major structural cleavages, the social-economic and the social-culturarone. At the same time, tripolariry allows coping with polarization. To a largeextent the FDP and CVp continue to be ..Kônigsmacher,;despite

their significÀ, electoral losses, since they can arternativery coaresce with the sp or rhe fvp.

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Moreover, one should not forget that the Federal assembiy is a bicamerallegislature. The second Chamber (Council of States) is more consensual rhan

fust Chamber. Although the Left-Right cleavage is also the most frequentthe four major governmental parties appear united more frequentlySVP is seldom isolated (Vatrer 2016a: 334). It is aiso known thar the

electoral system in that Chamber favours the representation ofperties to the detriment of those of the'poles,,. As a result, FDp and

have suffered fewer losses in elections to the Council of States and aretherein: in 1991 they held together 34 out of46 seats, and con_

to control together a majority of 26 seats after the 2015 election.la In sum,oniy they retain a pivotal role in the National Council, but cannot either be

circumvented as veto players in the Council ofStates, which has exactlysame competencies as the first Chamber (perfect bicameralism). In spite ofsweeping changes in the electoral scene, such a configuration injects a dose

stability in policy-making.

cy-m aking capacity despite the veto pointrect democracy

constraints force political actors to negotiare in spite ofpolariza_and tripolarity allows coping with it. However, one should also consider

potential role of direct democracy as a veto point, Remember the situation

172 Yannis Papadopoulos and Martino Maggetti

in the 1970s and 1980s, where - before the rise of the SVP - marginal tradition-alist and renophobic parties were able to mobilize voters in referendums muchbeyond their limited electoral constituencies. Remember also rhat in the face ofreferendums the governmental parties only exceptionally appear unired. Onecould expect the direct democratic phase - similarly to polarization - to limitthe policy-making capacity of the system. However, poiitical elites have man-aged not only to cope with poiarization, but also to "tame" the destabilizingpotential of direct democracy. How is it so?

Svriss citizens are strongly attached to direct democratic insrruments(Christin and Trechsel 2002), and direct democracy is a core "myth" consti-tutive of Swiss "Verfassungspatriotismus". This is not to say however thatpolitical elites do nothing to prevent, whenever possible, referendum votes totake place - by coopting in government parties that gain a reputation as suc-cessful players in direct democracy, by formulating more moderate counter-projects to citizens' initiatives, and by taking irto account the preferences ofopponents when drafting legislation- or to prevent e negative outcome whena vote is mandatory, as in constitutional amendments and in major interna-tional treaties (Papadopoulos 2001). Consequently, despite the proliferationofthe advocacy groups and coalitions that claim access to the political agendaand the polarization of politics, one cannot talk about an explosion in theuse of direct democratic instruments. Obviously the "supply" of initiativesand referendum requests is not completely elastic: making use ofreferendumdevices requires investing resources, and organized actors have no otherchoice than filtering demands. However, it is noticeable that theofbills that are challenged by referendum remains contrary to expectationsstable and low; much below 10%o. Moreover, in a proportion of about twoof three optional referendums that took place since the formation of theparty" government in 1959 the challenged bills have been accepted byers. As to popular initiatives, their number bas indeed skyrocketed since1970s. This is however mainly due to the fragmentation of societaland they should also be considered as negotiatior tools, since theirnents often expect from public authorities an indirect and partialto their claims. Besides, in a context of highmediatization where visibilitynecessary, they are incr,easingly used for selÊpromotion - including byestablished parties that could use instead the parliamentary venue totheir goals. Furthermore, their overall success rate barely exceeds 10

Finaliy, there have been numerous pieces oflegislation that required a

datory referendum, but about 75o/o of tltem have been accepted, despitehigher threshold ofconcurrent majorities (ofvoters and cantons). Suchislation became less frequent in the last two decades, reflecting perhapsinability of parties in a more polarized pariiament to find majoritiesmajor issues.ls

8,7 C,ongfuence between parliamentary decision and outcome ofr vote (1995-mid-2017)

Policy style(s) in Switzerland 173

sPB swnCW.IDPSVP sP.cvtmf

N- 29

SPOPmPSVP st'CvpyrhltPsvP c!?svP flnfDP SIFOISVP

174 Yannis Papadopoulos and Martino Maggetti

yield the anticipated retums, the overall level of conformiry with parties' vot-ing recommendations is high. In other words, voters rypically cast â vote thatis congruent with the recommendation of their preferred parry although thisdoes not necessarily mean that they "follow" such a recommendation explicrtly(sometimes they dont even know.it). Figure 8.s, based on the VOXIVOTO zur-veys that are carried out on every federal referendum vote, shows that at leaSt

707o ofvoters of all governmental parties cast the vote their preferred partywould like them to cast.

Actually, the degree ofcongruencebetweenparties andvoters is even higherthan suggested by the data, because it happens sometimes that cantonal sec-

tions issue voting recommendations deviating from those ofthe national Parry'However, Figure 8.8 also shows a high amplitude of the standard deviatiôn forall major parties. This means that voting patterns tend to diverge dependingon the kind ofpartisan cleavage on ttre voting issue (Milic et al. 2ol4i 338-344).In sum, akhough political elites are not able to 'tolonize" direct democracy,they usually do manage to 'tame" its inherent uncertainty and the disruptivepotential that goes with it.

policy style(s) in Switzerland 175Conclusion

The style ofSwiss politics has-undergone a process ofsignificant change in thelast decades by bËcoming far le* a..ommù"tirr.. Hing said thaq one mustalso conclude rhat changes in politics are only partiaUy i..or.a ir, ;;;g;policy-making, mainly due to continuinginstirutional constraints. w.e observetherefore stabiliry within chahge, takin! into account the relative decouplingkT:" the sphere of politics and the iphere of policy-making. In spite of amuch less favorable context due to increasing dirri*, "*oogtJi. _"Ë;;"U"

cal forces, ttre system retains ]ts

policy-makilng capaciry. tt does so precisely byprivileging a less inclusive policy style than inlhe past regarding rt. a.gr; ;fconsent expected by the major pottical parries for the formation of legislative1oa,f:1ion1

whereas lobbying became at the same time more pluralist with thedecline ofpolicy control by corporatist actors. In this sense, the polirical systemloses some of irs peculiarities and becomes more similar to other mukiparrysystems and consensus democracies.

Figure $.8 Proportion of'parties' recommendations,

party sympathizers1996-2017

whose vote is congruent

votes, we have seen that they are by far not inactive and powerless in thedemocratic process. Therefore, it would be exaggerated but not utterlyto consider that "votes count, bgt resources decide" in policy-making

1966:797).surn up, with respect to the proposed typologies of policy sryles, we can

that the Svriss case tends to correqpond nowadays to the ,.consensual/and the public" cell. This is mainly due to the institutional setriog,

l

li

'.

,l

iIiIItIIiIIIIT

'IINtIil

rIF

I{ii

i;l{l:1

J

i

176 Yannis Papadopoulos and Martino Maggetti

especially the shadovr of direct democracy, which empowers the Public and

ât rhe same time creares incentives for consensual policy-making by political eiites. However, the Persistence of this policy style - notwithstanding

some changes outlined above - is at odds with the trajectory of Swiss politics

towards more poiarization and party politics, creating a situation where the

two spheres - politics and policy-making - are increasingly decoupled' Since

institutions do not only shape actors'behaviour, but they also evolve under

the impuision of human agency' the oPen quesdon is whether the growing

tensiotibet*een the two spleres will eventually result in a punôtuation alter-

ing the logic of the political system, or whether the pattern of stability withinchange will endure in the long term'

policy style(s) in Switzerland .t7710 Referendum votes are mandàtory for constitutional amendments and some inter-. . national rreaties, and optional 1on petltion; for leg;i";;;..r.11 Data based on parties' voting recommendations: àw,, carcurations from swissvotes- ^

(www.swissvoæs.ch/page/int"gr"lerd.terrr"t j]-2 :his s^eems_ro be " more generalph"oo*.rron ip"padopouios 2013: 43ff).13 Data from "smartmonitor,.14 In thar chamber it is main{ the Sp that managed to incease significantly its repre-sentation, from three seats in 1991 to rwelve ii zors, mainty thanks to well_knowncandidates that have been abre to attra.,

"o,"r -"J ù"yoJle ..resenoir,, ofthe Lefr15 Dara from the Centre for Research on Direct ;;;.;_y (Czd): www.c2d.chlinner.php?table=continent&subli.rk r"*"=.o*._t.r_i"âro'"o""*,abname=results &menuname =menu &continent= E"r.p. t.;;;;;;= 1 &sraregeo = o

'(ciryge. o=o&level=t (accessed t4 October ZO!T).

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