NATURE OF SWISS FEDERATION

Regional & Federal Studies, 2005

This article outlines the modern historical evolution of the Swiss political system and describes the main features of its contemporary federalism. In particular, it focuses on how the division of competences and the distribution of power have changed over time, on the factors which have driven these changes, leading to a description of the current situation created by these developments. It then compares the Swiss experience with that of the European Union and draws some lessons from this for the debate on the evolution of the European Union and, in particular, on the adoption and the ratification of the Constitutional Treaty. Although it emphasizes the role of historical experiences and of political culture in shaping Swiss federalism and the difficulties, if not the impossibility, of replicating them in the European context, it concludes that the EU could learn from Switzerland but may not do so.

With the recent emergence of large-scale transnational migrant workers, diversity has become a entral issue in domestic and international politics. Debates among academics, politicians, and the general public over the accommodation of diversity have revealed both challenges and opportunities for federal countries facing demands that minorities have equal rights, protection, and full participation in the public sphere. Not all federal countries have the same configuration of diversity and different institutional responses and strategies can be observed in the twelve federal countries considered: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Nigeria, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States of America.

Since the year 2000, Switzerland has had a totally revised constitution. The main changes deal with issues of federalism. Globalization has and will have strong centralizing effects, although localization might trigger emotional and nationalistic reactions within the different ethnic communities of Switzerland. Swiss Federalism builds on the traditional and to a certain extent also the modern diversities. Since middle age the Swiss Confederation has always been enriched and challenged by economic, religious, cultural and linguistic diversities. Since the foundation of Switzerland as a state of modernity in 1848 the constitution has been more than 100 times modified with specific provisions. It has centralized some of the powers and compensated the loss of self-rule with more shared rule and thus given cantons more possibilities to participate within the federal decision making process. The growing mobility of people and the important percentage of foreigners living in Switzerland (20 percent) are additional challenges to the already existing but constitutionally provided diversity. This paper will explain the new constitution within this framework of the modern federalism. In particular, it focuses on the specificity of Swiss constitution, its framework and the new balance between self-rule and shared rule and recent developments. Key words: Switzerland, constitution, federalism, cantons, Self-rule.

A mere six years after the ratification of the “Articles of Confederation,” the framework that gave the original thirteen states of the soon to be United States of America a legitimate fundament against which to fight their foreign colonizers, and which accorded them status as sovereign, independent and free, the central bearers of rights, the drafted United States Constitution of 1787, opens, not with referring to the lawfulness of the same states, but with, “We the People of the United States,” thus effectively installing the people as the central principle from which the lawfulness of the Constitution emanates. The wording of the Preamble had been altered during the constitutional convention in Philadelphia from May to September 1787, reaching an in-between step (with the wording: “We the People of the States of [listing the thirteen states] […]”) between the Preamble of the “Articles of Confederation” (which read: “We, the undersigned, the Delegates of the States affixed to our names […]”), and what would be its final version. It is important to notice here that although the Preamble of the “Articles of Confederation” anticipates the wording of the preamble of the United States Constitution of 1878, the distinction between “We […] the Delegates of the States” and “We the People of the Unites States” is significant. In the first case, “the People” is completely absent. Represented through their delegates, the states have been made fully present. In the second case, it is “the People” in their own right who take centre stage, in the virtue of them (and not the states) having alienable rights that legitimize the drawing up of a new, legally binding constitution. Thus, they have been released from their role as delegates of the states and now appear in their own right.

Since the year 2000, Switzerland has had a totally revised constitution. The main changes deal with issues of federalism. Globalization has and will have strong centralizing effects, although localization might trigger emotional and nationalistic reactions within the different ethnic communities of Switzerland. Swiss Federalism builds on the traditional and to a certain extent also the modern diversities. Since middle age the Swiss Confederation has always been enriched and challenged by economic, religious, cultural and linguistic diversities. Since the foundation of Switzerland as a state of modernity in 1848 the constitution has been more than 100 times modified with specific provisions. It has centralized some of the powers and compensated the loss of self-rule with more shared rule and thus given cantons more possibilities to participate within the federal decision making process. The growing mobility of people and the important percentage of foreigners living in Switzerland (20 percent) are additional challenges to the already existing but constitutionally provided diversity. This paper will explain the new constitution within this framework of the modern federalism. In particular, it focuses on the specificity of Swiss constitution, its framework and the new balance between self-rule and shared rule and recent developments.

The American Political Science Review, 1975

TERRITORIAL ORGANIZATION OF EUROPEAN STATES. FEDERALISM, REGIONALISM, UNITARISM, 2011

This book is devoted to territorial structures of the contemporary European states perceived through the issues of federalism, regionalism and unitarism. Over recent decades in Europe we can observe two tendencies concerning the aforementioned issues. On the one hand, it is decentralisation of modern democratic states as well as overlapping actions of various political and ethnic movements seeking to gain its own political space: sovereignty, autonomy or independence within the framework of territorial self–government. On the other hand, we can notice a progressive European integration embracing increasingly broader circles, ' rst within the framework of the European Communities, and in the framework of the European Union1. The objective of this publication is presenting solutions concerning territorial systems in some selected European states: Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Poland and the United Kingdom. The selection of these states is justi' ed by their rich experience in the historical evolution and the origins of their current solutions in the territorial structure, as well as the peculiarity of their modern constitutional solutions.