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2016 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

4. Empirical Study of Unequal Representation in Switzerland: Towards an Analytical Framework

verfasst von : Jan Rosset

Erschienen in: Economic Inequality and Political Representation in Switzerland

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

Different methods have been developed to study substantive representation. Research has notably focused on the correlation or on the proximity between preferences of citizens’ and political actors’ positions or public policy. The choice of focusing on one or the other method, as well as the definition of political actors to be taken into account, depends on the researchers’ emphasis on different aspects of representation. It is argued that in the case of Switzerland, where representatives also play a role in shaping citizens preferences in direct democratic votes, an analysis of the congruence in terms of broad policy orientations between citizens and representatives is appropriate to study inequalities in representation. The chapter further elaborates on the definition of groups to be studied and presents the survey data from the Swiss electoral study (Selects) used in the empirical analyses.

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Vorheriges Kapitel Explaining Unequal Representation

Nächstes Kapitel Unequal Representation in Switzerland

Notably the focus of the study on specific aspects of representation (see Eulau and Karps 1977) or the statistical methods employed in the study (see Achen 1977, 1978) have been critically discussed in later work on representation.

It is worth noting that quite different operationalizations of responsiveness are found in the literature. Some studies, like Miller and Stokes, study responsiveness across constituencies. Some others take a time perspective and study how changes in public opinion are correlated with changes in representatives’ stances.

For instance, it is estimated that in Switzerland in the mid-2000s the top 10 % of the income distribution had an income equivalent to 28.7 % of total incomes, the top 1 %, 8.7 % and the 0.01 % – that is 414 households – almost 1 % of all incomes generated in Switzerland (see Schaltegger and Gorgas 2011). The uneven distribution of wealth is even more striking with the wealthiest 10 % of Swiss households having 71.3 % of the total wealth and the richest one thousandth of the population (0.1 %) more than 16 % (see Davies et al. 2008).

This, of course, is not compulsory. However in an overwhelming majority of cases parties do indeed issue voting recommendations.

For the years 1951–2009, only 23 % of compulsory and 35 % of optional referendums have been rejected by the population. Citizens followed the elites even more in the case of popular initiatives, only 7.5 % of which have been accepted (source : Federal Statistical Office).

In the Constitution, members of the National Councils are called “deputies of the people” (députés du peuple, art. 149) while members of the Council of States are named “deputies of cantons” (députés des cantons, art. 150).

This term, not used officially anymore, refers to the cantons of Obwald, Nidwald, Basel-Stadt, Basel-Land, Appenzell Innerrhoden and Appenzell Ausserrhoden. The cantons of Basel and Appenzell split in the nineteenth and sixteenth century respectively, to form the last four aforementioned cantons. The cantons of Obwald and Nidwald have always constituted two separate administrative units, but were given only one representative in the Council of States in the Federal Constitution of 1848, as did the remaining four cantons.

Please note that the required majority differs from one canton to the other. While most cantons require that successful candidates get 50 % of the votes, others have lower thresholds (e.g. Geneva: 33,3 %). The canton of Jura is the only one to use a PR system in the Council of States election.

Historically, only four members of the Federal Council who ran for re-election have not been elected by the parliament. Two of these cases date back to the nineteenth century and two occurred in the years 2000s.

2005 respondents were selected from a national random sample and 2387 additional interviews have been conducted to meet the cantonal representation criteria (about 100 interviewees per canton and about 600 interviewees in Geneva, Ticino and Zurich).

For instance, to take a well-known comparative social survey as an example, the response rates to the five first waves of European Social Survey in Switzerland ranged between 33 and 53 %, while the average for other countries is well above 60 % (source: ESS data, archived at the Norwegian Social Science Data Services – http://ess.nsd.uib.no/).

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Titel: Empirical Study of Unequal Representation in Switzerland: Towards an Analytical Framework
verfasst von: Jan Rosset
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Buch: Economic Inequality and Political Representation in Switzerland
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-27115-6

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-27117-0

Copyright-Jahr: 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-27117-0_4