25. Local State-Society Relations in Switzerland

The chapter on Switzerland presents some of the few institutionalized forms of local state-society networks, since local state-society relations in this highly decentralized country tend to rest upon informal exchange and practices of direct democratic participation. Two widespread exceptions are local school committees and local tourism organizations, where such networks include municipal executive councilors as well as societal representatives of the citizenry, parents and school professionals, and/or the business community respectively. While consultative school committees introduced in three French-speaking cantons can be considered as self-reflective bodies with limited autonomy and relevance, more traditional school boards as well as local tourism organizations reflect the consociational political culture that is ubiquitous also in the many informal ways of policy-making in Switzerland.