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2016 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

5. Unequal Representation in Switzerland

verfasst von : Jan Rosset

Erschienen in: Economic Inequality and Political Representation in Switzerland

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This chapter analyses whether the policy preferences of citizens systematically vary with their income; whether a bias in representation can be found across income groups in the relevant policy domains; and whether differences in policy congruence between poor and rich citizens can be explained by their levels of political participation and information. The empirical analyses demonstrate that regarding the policy domains in which the preferences of citizens are clearly linked to economic divides – redistribution and social security in particular – members of the Federal Assembly have policy preferences that are less in favour of the state’s intervention in the economy than are the opinions of citizens. The under-representation of the opinions of relatively poor citizens, and of those in the middle of the income distribution, can only partially be explained by differences in political participation and political information across income groups.

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Vorheriges Kapitel Empirical Study of Unequal Representation in Switzerland: Towards an Analytical Framework

Nächstes Kapitel Unequal Representation by Parties: Explanations Based on the Elites’ Side of the Representation Process

These, like all the questions asked in the Selects survey, were asked in one of the following three national languages: German, French and Italian. The original versions of the questions are available on the website: www.selects.ch. These questions were asked of citizens in the supplementary survey carried out by mail, of which 2291 persons answered either by mail or online.

Please note that treating this scale as an ordinal variable and using the Gamma (γ) as a measure of association between variables instead of the eta square presented in Table 5.1 yields the same results.

The interval of each category corresponds to 1000 CHF (e.g., category 2: 2000–3000) up to the 10th category, for which it is 2000 (10,000–12,000 CHF). Beyond the general difficulty of using data based on reported income, the use of data about household income causes criticism because depending on the size of the household, a certain income might be associated with very different actual means at a household’s disposal. Determining the income thirtiles based on household income divided by the number of individuals in the household (or by the log of the number of household members) does not alter the results.

One of the reasons for focusing on the lower house of the parliament in this chapter is the lower response rate among candidates elected to the Council of States. Only 22 out of the 46 elected representatives answered the questionnaire as compared to 124 out of 200 in the case of the National Council. Despite the low number of Councillors of states who answered the questionnaire there are no significant differences between the median position of the National Council and the Council of States on the policies that are included in the study.

It has to be noted, however, that using the unweighted sample in which MPs of left parties, and especially the Green Party, are overrepresented as compared to their actual seat share, does not substantially alter our findings. Using the unweighted sample, the median position of the parliament is slightly more in favour of social security (0.04-point difference on our scale) and also more in favor of redistribution (0.28-point difference). Even then, the median policy position of the National Council remains markedly less supportive of the welfare state than is the median voter.

For other examples of the use of interpolated medians for the purpose of linking elites’ and citizens’ policy positions see, for instance, Kim and Fording (1998, pp. 79–80).

The reported household incomes are likely underestimated. Although the mean gross household income in Switzerland was about 8900 CHF in 2007 (source: Federal Statistical Office), a majority of the survey respondents reported a monthly income below 7000 CHF. Despite this important difference, we consider that this underestimation was not specific to particular income groups but randomly distributed throughout the sample. To make substantial sense of what these income levels represent, one can compare them to what is considered by Swiss households to be the minimal monthly income to make ends meet. In 2007, the average of responses to the Swiss Household Panel on this question was 5146 CHF (source: SHP 2007 survey).

I used the sweighttot variable included in the Selects data.

The complete list of questions is the following : “How many parties are represented in the Federal Council?”; “What is the name of the current president of the Swiss Confederation?”; “How many signatures are required to launch an initiative”; “How many National Council members are from Respondent’s canton?”; “What party received the highest number of seats in the National Council?”.

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Rosset, J., Lutz, G., & Kissau, K. (forthcoming). Representation of political opinions: Is the structuring pattern of policy preferences the same for citizens and elites? In M. Bühlmann, & J. Fivaz (Eds.), Political representation. Roles, representatives and the represented. London: Routledge.

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Titel: Unequal Representation in Switzerland
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_5