THE INTERACTION BETWEEN DIRECT AND REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY IN SWITZERLAND

Georg Lutz

Theoretical debates about direct and representative democracy tend to be based on unrealistic assumptions about how direct democracy and sometimes how representative democracy works. This article explores the interaction between direct and representative democracy in Switzerland, where direct democracy is an essential part of everyday politics. We show that the key actors of the representative system governments, parliaments and parties play a central role in the direct democratic process too. Political actors adapt to the direct democratic challenge and manage to control the direct democratic process to a great extent. Looking at the possible effects of direct democracy on the representative system, we show that direct democracy does not necessarily weaken parties; direct democracy in combination with the relative strength of the different parties is responsible for the oversized coalition government that exists in Switzerland since 1959 and that policy-making becomes less predictable for the political elites. However there are arguments that single policies tend to be more in favour of the median voter than in a pure representative system.

Introduction
The interest in direct democracy has increased in recent years for several reasons. Cain et.al. (2003) for example see direct democracy as a means of overcoming the shortfalls of representative democracy such as declining turnout and increasing dissatisfaction with parties, politicians and governments (Dalton 2002; Norris 1999). Recent referendums on European integration in a number of countries have also stimulated the debate about the pros and cons of direct democracy (Hug 2003). There is, however, still little agreement as to whether direct democracy is a blessing for democracies or whether it makes democracies more vulnerable to populist and shortsighted policies because direct democratic decisions place too many demands on ordinary citizens. Debates pitting direct democracy against representative democracy often revolve around ideological perspectives. Most critics of direct democracy argue that voters are not competent to decide on complex issues (Sartori 1997). They criticise the lack of accountability in direct democratic decisions, the weakening of legislatures or the lack of minority rights protection. Supporters of direct democracy tend to highlight strongly potential positives such as citizens emancipation, increased voter awareness or even that direct democracy makes people happier (Kaufmann et al. 2004). Many of the debates are based on rather unrealistic assumptions about how both direct and representative democracy work. In order to assess the functioning and the possible impact of direct democracy, one has to take into account at least two aspects. Representation, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2006
ISSN 0034-4893 print/1749-4001 online/06/010045-13 2006 McDougall Trust, London DOI: 10.1080/00344890600583776

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Theoretically elections and representative democracy are supposed to be the playground of political parties, while direct democracy gives citizens direct influence. Direct democracy, however, has always coexisted with representative democracy; there are interactions between these two institutional elements of democracy, and especially between the political actors in both forms of democratic decision-making. Direct democracy is never as direct as some theorists see it, and with hardly any exception the direct democratic process is mediated by parties and governments at various stages. Furthermore, to assess direct democracy one has to have a point of reference, and this point of reference needs to be representative democracy. Evaluation of direct democracy can hardly be made on its own, it has to be made in comparison with pure representative systems. For example to question voter competence in popular votes, one has to compare it with the problem of voter competence in representative democracy or with the competence of elected officials. If one finds a lack of protection for minority rights in direct democracy, the protection for minority rights in representative democracy has also to be considered. The aim of this article is to show how direct and representative democracy are linked in Switzerland, where direct democracy structures and even dominates public political life to a great extent. I will look at the roles of key actors in government, parliament and the parties. Furthermore I will discuss the impact of direct democracy on the representative democratic system, such as the impact on parties, the impact on government formation and policy. Switzerland is an ideal case to study the interaction between representative and direct democracy because of the high number of popular votes at the national level every year. Other countries such as Italy and Ireland have direct democratic decisions on a regular basis too (Scarrow 2003): however, direct democracy is much more a part of everyday political life in national politics in Switzerland.

Representative and Direct Democracy in Switzerland The History of Political Institutions in Switzerland
Modern Swiss political institutions were established in 1848 after a short civil war as representative institutions with strong federal elements. The main elements of the representative system remain in place today. The parliament has two chambers, one representing the people (the National Council) and one representing the 26 cantons (the Council of States). The government, consisting of seven members with equal power, is elected by the two chambers in a joint session at the beginning of each term. Elections take place in multi-member electoral districts for the National Council in three rounds, where candidates needed an absolute majority in the first two rounds and a simple majority in the third round until 1919. The most significant change in the representative institutions was the introduction of proportional representation in 1919 for the election of the National Council (see Lutz 2004), which brought one-party dominance to an immediate end. Direct democracy was not introduced as an important institutional element in 1848. Although the first Swiss constitution of 1848 already stipulated that every constitutional change proposed by the parliament had to be approved by a popular vote, it was not the intention to change the constitution on a regular basis. The first vote after the new

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constitution took place about 20 years later in 1866, on ten different proposal for constitutional change. With a new and extensive revision of the constitution in 1874, the optional referendum was introduced, allowing challenges to every law adopted by parliament. When a group collected at least 30,000 signatures a popular vote on the law had to take place. In 1891 direct democracy was further expanded. Through collecting 50,000 signatures any group was allowed to propose any partial change to the constitution with hardly any restrictions on what could become the subject of an initiative. The introduction of direct democracy in an already established representative system seems to be a paradox, because the representative institutions need to agree on such a change. Because popular votes tend to diminish the power of the representative institutions and bring uncertainty and additional political actors into the decision-making process, representative institutions are not likely to agree to such changes. Furthermore, a right once given to the citizens cannot easily be taken away. So why has direct democracy been established as such an important element of the decision-making process at the national level in Switzerland? Historically, in several cantons elements of direct democracy existed before 1848. In some of the smaller cantons, legislation was made by the citizens directly in an open gathering (Landsgemeinde), normally once a year. From the 1830s the radical democratic movement become stronger in many cantons; one of their demands was the introduction of direct legislation. Several cantons introduced some form of direct legislation before the optional referendum was introduced at the national level (Vatter 2002). Competition between the major political parties played a decisive role in the introduction of direct democracy. Until the late nineteenth century the Swiss party system consisted of two parties, the dominant Liberal Party, which controlled the government until the introduction of proportional representation in 1919, and the minority Conservative Party. Not surprisingly, the Conservative Party favoured the introduction of new popular rights, while the majority of the Liberal Party was against it, since it would diminish the partys power and make the decision-making process more difficult to control. However, due to a split in the Liberal party a minority of the radical democratic wing was in favour of the new rights there was a majority in parliament in favour of introducing the new direct democratic rights. Looking at the issue from the reverse angle, direct democracy played an essential role in the formation of a national party structure (Gruner 1977). In the nineteenth century, parties at the national level were rather loose coalitions that formed mainly around party groups in the national parliament. Direct democracy forced the parties to form strong party structures at the national level because it became necessary to run national campaigns. The process of introducing direct democracy in Switzerland differed from that of other countries, especially the US states. At the end of the nineteenth century dissatisfaction with representative democracy grew in the US because of a widespread public feeling that legislatures were corrupted by special interests. Referring to the introduction of direct democracy in Switzerland, the US political reform movement postulated the introduction of direct democratic decision-making as a means to limit the power of legislative assemblies and the influence of special interests (Goebel 2002; see also Tolbert and Smith in this issue). Due to the history of the introduction of direct democracy, the role of parties in direct democracy developed quite differently. While in the US states direct policy voting

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undermined the influence of parties, in Switzerland and a few other countries direct democracy coexisted with parties and legislatures (Budge 2001). In the aftermath of the introduction, the new democratic rights were mainly used by minority parties first by the Conservative Party and around the turn of the century by the growing socialist movement as a tool to influence decision-making. This example shows that the relation between parties and direct democracy depends both on the historical process of the introduction of the new rights and, even more importantly, on how the different systems of direct democracy work in detail, which will be discussed in the next section.

Forms and Procedures of Direct Democracy in Switzerland

There are many forms of direct democracy, and they vary depending on the form, role and possible influence of different political actors. In Switzerland three different forms of direct democracy exist today. They can be classified according to two main dimensions: the source of the proposition and the initiation of the vote (Kriesi 2005) see Table 1.

N N

Compulsory referendum: Constitutional changes can be proposed by the government and the parliament and have to pass a vote in both chambers of parliament before a compulsory popular vote takes place. Optional referendum: Any political group by collecting 50,000 signatures in 90 days can challenge a law passed by a parliamentary majority and force a referendum. These two forms of popular vote have the character of a decision-controlling veto instrument. The issues themselves and the detailed legal regulations of a law are subject to the legislative procedure while only the entire law, not just parts of it, can be challenged. Popular initiatives: In a third form, the popular initiative, any group can force a partial constitutional change by collecting 100,000 signatures in 18 months.1 In these cases the agenda is not set by the government but by the group that launches the initiative. However the government and parliament are not entirely excluded. The government declares in all cases its position on the proposal in most cases negative and the parliament debates the issue and votes on it in a parliamentary vote which is communicated as a recommendation to the voters. Furthermore the parliament can make a counter-proposal to an initiative. Counter-proposals are usually made when the government and the parliament see the initiative as a threat because it might be too radical but recognise that the issue itself as important. Counter-proposals tend to be less radical than the initiatives. Counter-proposals are often made for strategic reasons. Counter-proposals can be indirect in a law that then is subject to an optional referendum or direct in that they also propose a constitutional change and prompt a
TABLE 1 Classification of direct democratic institutions in Switzerland
Source of proposition Government Initiation of vote Required by constitution Initiated through collection of signatures Compulsory referendum Optional referendum (50,000 signatures) Popular initiative (100,000 signatures) Citizens

DIRECT DEMOCRACY IN SWITZERLAND compulsory referendum on the same date as the initiative. The function of a counterproposal is usually to decrease the likelihood of an initiative passing. Often it leads to a withdrawal of the original initiative if its major issues are adopted in the counter proposal.

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The Interactions Between the Representative and the Direct Democratic System The Role of Government and Parliament in Direct Democracy
The process of legislation in Switzerland can be divided into three different stages: a pre-parliamentary phase, a parliamentary phase and a post-parliamentary phase. Based on a parliamentary motion or a government request, the government proposes a partial or total revision of a law or a partial constitutional change. In this pre-parliamentary stage the government drafts a first version, and organizes expert hearings. This first proposal becomes subject to a broad consultation process prior to the parliamentary stage. In the consultation process parties, the cantons and other stakeholders can express their opinion on the first draft. With the governments submission of the revised draft of the proposal to the parliament, the parliamentary phase begins. Following committee discussions, plenary sessions of the two chambers decide on the final version of a bill. Once approved by both chambers, the post-parliamentary phase starts. For constitutional changes a popular vote takes place in any case, and the government decides the date of the ballot. For optional referendums, the government sets a date once the required number of signatures is handed in time. For initiatives, the government writes a report and makes a suggestion on behalf of the parliament as to whether the latter should adopt or reject an initiative (with very few exceptions the government proposes rejection). The parliament then debates the issue and may make a counter-proposal. After the parliamentary vote, which has the significance of a recommendation, the government sets a date for the popular vote. During the campaign the governments role is to inform the citizens rather than actively to campaign for or against a proposal. The government is not allowed to spend any public money on a campaign. Nevertheless the government has the opportunity to make its view known to the public. A government information brochure about the issues at stake is distributed, together with the ballot paper, to every household. The government also gets broadcasting time on national television (political advertising is otherwise not permitted).

The Role of Parties

Parties are involved in direct democracy at various stages. First they are involved in the pre-parliamentary consultation process. Parties as well as the cantons and major interest groups are included in all consultations. Other interest groups are allowed to participate in the consultation process when an issue is within their primary sphere of interest. The influence of the parties in changing the propositions at this stage has not been measured, but it is likely that the government takes the party position into serious consideration because otherwise the proposal will be changed in parliament (Blaser 2003). As in any other democracy, the parliament is the main arena for political decision-making

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and majorities have to be found in legislative procedures in order to pass proposals for constitutional change and the revision of laws. There is a need to collect signatures in two of the three forms of direct democracy in Switzerland, for initiatives and for optional referendums. Signature collection needs knowledge, logistics and resources. Resourcing means a certain amount of money and, even more importantly, volunteers who are willing to collect signatures for many hours.2 Only groups with a high level of organisation at the national level tend to fulfil these conditions. Unfortunately, in many cases it is hard to determine who the driving force behind an initiative is. Legally an initiative is launched by a group of individuals who form a committee. It is very common for most of the members of a committee to be well-known politicians, although often it is unclear who finances an initiative. For optional referendums it is even more difficult to determine who is behind the referendum, because a postal address is sufficient in order to organise signature collection there is no need to have identifiable persons. While it is not always clear who finances signature collection there is no control of the money flow in politics in Switzerland, either for elections or popular votes media coverage normally reveals who are the main driving forces behind a signature collection. Table 2 shows who has launched initiatives between 1891 and 1991. Most frequently parties have been the driving force behind initiatives, followed by interest groups. Not all parties launch initiatives to the same extent. At the national level most of the initiatives have been launched by the Social Democratic Party, followed by smaller left groups. It is common for governmental parties to launch referendums and initiatives too, most frequently the Social Democrats. Another study looked at the cantonal level (Vatter 2002) and found that between 1979 and 1996 about 37 per cent of the initiatives and referendums were launched by parties, followed by short term ad hoc committees (30 per cent), usually consisting of several parties. Some 20 per cent were initiated by interest groups and the remainder by parties in combination with interest groups; rarely by individuals, new social movements and others. There is variation between parties too; most frequently left parties are behind an initiative or optional referendum. There are several reasons why parties are so dominant in the direct democratic process. One of them is that they have advantages in collecting signatures. They are established national organisations with a base of party members who are potential volunteer collectors. Furthermore they have a store of knowledge about the process. Most
TABLE 2 Organisations that have launched initiatives 18911991
Initiator of an initiative Interest groups Political parties Ad hoc groups with party affinity Other ad hoc groups Other Total Source: Wili 1991 % 24.9 33.5 14.6 20.0 7.0 100 N 46 62 27 37 13 185

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critical is that parties have limited resources in Switzerland; they depend entirely on private funding from individuals and companies, but raising funds is easier for parties for issue-specific campaigns rather than for financing party activities. Parties can have different motivations for launching an initiative or referendum. First, and most important, minority parties in the legislative process can try to win a majority through a popular vote. That is one of the reasons why the strength of the left parties is one of the strongest predictors of the frequency of initiatives and referendums in the cantons (Vatter 2002), and many initiatives and optional referendums are launched by the left.3. However, other parties use direct democracy too if they lose in parliament. Secondly, parties may launch an initiative or an optional referendums because they want to force a public debate and/or influence the public agenda, although they know that they will very likely lose the vote. Connected to that is a third reason: more and more frequently parties use direct democracy as a mobilising tool for electoral campaigns. Launching an initiative can show the voters that the party is actively doing something to change policies, and it can put issues favourable for the party on the electoral campaign agenda. Last but not least, parties use initiatives and referendums to mobilise their own members and activists between elections. In the final, post-parliamentary, phase of the direct democratic process parties are even more dominant than during the pre-parliamentary phase. Parties propose to the voters how to vote on every issue and their recommendations are communicated in the media. In campaigns, established politicians are predominant in the media. Many of the campaigns are managed by the party secretariats. There is anyway a strong personal linkage between the major interest groups and political parties. Because being an MP at the national level is only a part-time job, many national politicians are involved in an interest group in one way or another, and key figures in many major interest groups are members of the national parliament.

The Impact of Direct Democracy Impacts on parties

One of the key questions that has been discussed theoretically is whether direct democracy weakens political parties or not (see Budge, this issue). The overall feeling is that political parties are weakened through direct democracy (Kobach 1993). The main argument is that direct democracy de-monopolises the role of parties in the process of interest articulation and interest mediation (Neidhart 1986). According to von Beyme (1982), direct democracy in Switzerland has favoured interest organisations rather than political parties. The arguments on the negative impact on parties can be summarised as ndle 1999): follows (Ladner and Bra

N N N N

Direct democracy forces broad consensus beyond political parties. Interest groups are more directly integrated into policy-making than in representative democracy. Direct democracy introduces greater conflict between parties because they are forced to decide constantly on political issues. Direct democracy puts excessive demands on parties that have limited resources anyway. They lack money and professional staff to constantly engage in political campaigns. Direct democracy diminishes parties because the important questions are decided directly by the voters anyway.

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However there are counter arguments too:

N N N N

According to Papadopoulos (1991), direct democracy leads to a greater openness of the political system for smaller parties in particular. Direct democracy gives parties a public platform for their ideas and helps them to set the agenda. Not surprisingly in Switzerland many parties launch initiatives around elections as a mean to influence the campaign agenda. While elections only take place every four years, direct democracy helps to maintain a high level of activity. Campaigning can be a good motive for mobilising party members between elections. Last but not least, direct democracy can give parties a greater role in interest mediation, since parliaments are the main arena where interest mediation takes place, and parties play the central role in this process.

Empirical studies measuring the effect of direct democracy on political parties are ndle (1999), in a comparison between direct democracy and party rare. Ladner and Bra strength in Swiss cantons, conclude that direct democracy strengthens rather than weakens political parties. They find a positive correlation between the number of popular votes and the professionalisation of parties and formalised membership. Furthermore they find a positive correlation between the number of non-governmental parties and the frequency of popular votes as well as between the number of parties and electoral volatility and the number of popular votes. Vatter (2002) comes to similar conclusions and finds an additional correlation between the strength of green parties and the number of popular votes in a canton.

The Impact on Government Formation

The grand coalition that includes the four major Swiss parties has existed since 1959. The formation of the grand coalition is closely linked to direct democracy, especially the optional referendums. According to Neidhart (1970), the constant threat of a referendum was decisive for the establishment of the model of negotiation democracy (translated into consensus or consociational democracy by Lijphart 1984 and others). In order to minimise the risks in the policy-making process, major interests with the capacity to launch and win an optional referendum needed to be included in the decision-making process at various steps, such as pre-parliamentary consultations and in government. In order to increase the probability that a proposal adopted by parliament will pass the popular vote, oversized coalitions need to be formed. The pattern of party composition has made it necessary to include all four parties: none of the four main parties have ever had a dominant position, and with very few exceptions no party has ever won more than 25 per cent of the votes. Every coalition in parliament has always needed more than two parties and no coalition with three parties has ever had more than around 55 per cent of the votes in parliament. This is not enough to gain stable majorities on policy issues that cannot be challenged successfully in parliament. A further reason to include the major party is that parties in government are partly responsible for policy-making. This does not stop any of the parties challenging a law, but it makes it impossible to use the referendum as a tool of constant opposition.

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The Impact on Policies

One of the requirements of representation is that the policy preferences of the representatives should match the policy preferences of the people, or as Pitkin (1967) puts it, representatives should be acting in the interest of the represented, in a manner responsive to them. We know that this is not always the case in representative democracy. Only a limited number of issues can be relevant for voters in elections, and voters may have to choose parties that do not reflect some of their preferences because there is no party that reflects all the individual voters preferences. Direct democracy offers a good opportunity to study direct policy congruence between elites and voters because we can study the real behaviour of voters and elites instead of having to rely on general policy preferences measured in opinion polls. The impact on policies is when the citizens who participate are asked to decide on a policy proposal. Because of the prior decision-making process in the representative system, the outcome of the votes is a test of the representativeness of parliament and government. A disagreement obviously takes place when a majority decision of parliament is challenged successfully in a referendum (see Table 3). This is the case when a compulsory or an optional vote is not approved by the people, because there would not have been a popular vote without a majority decision in parliament. In about 25 per cent of compulsory referendums the people have not followed the decision of the parliament; about 50 per cent of optional referendums are not successful, which means that a bill is finally rejected by the people. However this figure is partly misleading. Only 7 per cent of the 2,108 bills that could have become the subject of a referendum and hence a popular vote were challenged between 1874 and 2003 (Linder 2005). If about half of these bills are rejected it means that only about 3.5 per cent of the bills that have passed the parliament are not approved by the people; the other 96.5 per cent of proposals are not challenged or not successfully challenged. Overall, these disapproval figures for optional referendum seem to be relatively low, although that says nothing about the importance of the rejected proposals. It could well be that among the 3.5 per cent of rejected bills are the most important bills, while the approved or unchallenged bills are of minor importance. Direct democracy might also influence the decision-making of the representative institutions indirectly. The interests of the larger pressure groups, the cantons and/or the major parties forces that have the capacity to launch referendums and initiatives or that could be very influential in a campaign have especially to be taken into account (Papadopoulos 2001). Although it is difficult to measure how policy outcomes would have been with or without direct democracy (for a methodological discussion, see Gerber and Hug 2001), studies suggest that direct democracy is positively related to some
TABLE 3 Forms of direct democracy in Switzerland and approval rate 18482005
Total Compulsory referendums Optional referendums Initiatives Counter-proposals 205 152 159 15 approved 152 79 14 6 % approved 74.1 52.0 8.8 40.0 rejected 53 73 145 9 % rejected 25.9 48.0 91.2 60.0

Source: Federal Office of Statistics, Neucha tel, Switzerland.

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macro-economic indicators such as low state budgets, low budget deficits or low tax levels ssner et.al. 1999; Vatter 2002). At least for some policies, direct (Freitag et.al. 2003; Kirchga democracy seems to lead to policies closer to the median voter than purely representative systems (Hug 2004). However, there are more negative views on the indirect effects too. According to Immergut (1992), referendums have a status quo bias, and legislatures tend to have a preference for strong interest groups in direct democracy when mediating between different interests. While nobody disagrees that strong and well-organised special interests have a greater impact in direct democracy, it would nevertheless need to be proven that they had a smaller influence in purely representative systems.

Conclusion
Switzerland does not serve as a good case to show the negative effects of direct democracy. Direct democracy co-exists well with elements of representative democracy. In both forms we find similar dominant actors. Parties in government and parliament and as political organisations play an important, almost decisive, role in the direct democratic process. They are central at every stage of the process: parties set the policy agenda on most issues, they launch many of the initiatives and referendums and they control the political campaigns. This high level of control is common in countries with direct democracy, with the possible exception of some of the US states. Bowler and Donovans conclusion in a recent paper about the impact of direct democracy on parties in the US states is valid for Switzerland too: Even though direct democracy may have lasting, tangible effects on parties, parties may be able at times to blunt the impact. Possibly even turning aspects of the ballot process to their own ends: parties may in fact adapt to the initiative (Bowler and Donovan 2005, 15). Key actors in the representative system, mainly the parties, react strategically towards different forms of participation, including direct democracy: when forms of participation other than elections become important and likely to influence policy-making they will try to control these forms of participation. In terms of consequences, it becomes generally very difficult to assess adequately the impact of direct democracy, mainly for methodological reasons: there are simply not enough cases with frequent popular votes to conduct meaningful comparative studies between nation states. Many of the positive and negative attributes associated with direct democracy are therefore based on little evidence. One of the main criticisms of direct democracy is the lack of voter competence to decide on policy issues (see Budge, this issue). Indeed, as in any other country, Swiss voters know very little about policies and politics. This, however, is the same whether they vote on policy issues or parties. As they do in elections, voters nevertheless find means of making up their minds on different policy issues, for example through using shortcuts and cues to overcome the information shortfalls. The lack of political knowledge and the problems associated with it are therefore hardly related to direct democracy as such. The argument that in direct democracy the consequences are more severe because they are about concrete policies is not convincing either. Why should a wrong choice on policies, usually between the status quo and a new policy, be more decisive than the wrong vote for a party or an election every four years? Regarding the effect of direct democracy on policies, it is very difficult to make a judgement about the effect of any kind, although it may not be as negative as it is

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sometimes presumed. Switzerland does not seem more vulnerable to populist policies or resistant to reform than any other purely representative democracy, and Switzerland does not fall short in social and economic development. Some effects might nevertheless occur. While Switzerland has always had a clear right-wing majority, the left-wing parties and groups often use referendums and initiatives to challenge the majority position of parliament. Although most of the initiatives and a majority of optional referendums are not successful, where they have been successful they can be important in general or for the specific group. In any case, direct democracy has helped to bring political conflicts into institutional boundaries, because any new political and social movement in Switzerland very soon starts to use direct democracy to set the political agenda or to challenge the establishment. Irrespective of these controversies, direct democracy confronts parties and political elites with a constant reality check. Despite the strong influence of parties in direct democracy, there are many examples where initiatives and referendums have broadened the political elites within parties because key figures in campaigns became elected and direct democracy has helped to form new parties in the last 90 years. New issues were put on the political agenda where in other countries a similar process took much longer. Partially direct democracy takes power away from a small circle of political actors who control the political agenda and dominate the political process, as is the case in some countries with purely representative democracy. Many of the discussions about whether direct democracy should be introduced or in the Swiss case should be reduced in scale are rather artificial. At the national level the introduction of direct democracy is still very rare and where it is introduced, institutional mechanisms guarantee considerable control by parties and governments. The purpose in these cases is to consult the people rather than to give power away (Scarrow 2001). Governments resist giving away power or making policy outcomes less controllable through direct democracy. The fears for political elites are understandable when taking into account the irreversibility of such political reforms. Once introduced, it is very difficult to take away the rights that are given to the citizens, because it is they who would need to agree to a reduction of their rights. Attempts to reform or reduce limit democracy have not so far been successful in Switzerland.

NOTES 1. There are two forms of initiative nowadays. An initiative can propose a concrete change with a written out proposal for the initiative, or it can propose a change on a policy in a certain direction and leave it to the parliament then to decide on the concrete formulation of the change. The latter form has existed since 2002 and is not likely to be used very frequently in the near future. It has not been common yet in Switzerland that professional signature collectors are paid for signatures, although the number of cases where this happens has become more frequent. There has been hardly any volatility between the political blocks in Switzerland for the last 85 years. Since PR was introduced at the national level in 1919 left parties have had around 30 per cent of the vote share nationally.

2.

3.

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