Eawag_08815
Political decision-making in Switzerland. The consensus model under pressure
Pascal Sciarini, Manuel Fischer, Denise Traber
To be published in 2015 by Palgrave Macmillan, Series “ Challenges to Democracy in the 21st
Century”
Book abstract
The Swiss consensus democracy has considerably changed over the last decades, as a result of
Europeanization, institutional reforms and the transformation of the party system. Based on a
rich collection of data covering the 11 most important decision-making processes of the 20012006 period, this book uncovers these changes. As in other small European states, it observes
the decline of corporatist policy-making and rise of partisan politics in parliament in domestic
politics, and the strengthening of bureaucratic policy-making in Europeanized or federalist
processes. Beyond these general trends, the book also reveals the diversity of power, conflict
and cooperation structures across policy processes, and it pinpoints the related explanatory
factors. The conclusion is that Switzerland has moved away from the ideal-type of the
consensus democracy. Conflict has overall increased, coalitions have become more unstable
and policy outputs less predictable. Yet these changes represent not only challenges to
consensus politics, but also opportunities in terms of innovation.
Chapters
1 Introduction
Pascal Sciarini
2 From corporatism to bureaucratic and partisan politics: changes in decision-making
processes over time
Pascal Sciarini
Using Kriesi's (1980) pioneering work as a reference point, Chapter 2 offers a systematic
comparison of the characteristics of decision-making processes in the early 1970s and early
2000s. In line with changes taking place in other small European, corporatist-like democracies
such as Austria, the Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands, the analysis shows a decline
of corporatist policy-making in the preparatory phase of legislation and a strengthening of
parliament. The chapter also reveals substantial differences across the 11 decision-making
cases, leading to a fourfold categorization of processes. The decline of the preparatory phase
and the reinforcement of parliament hold especially in domestic processes and in indirectly
Europeanized processes. In directly Europeanized processes and in domestic processes
regarding federalist issues, bureaucratic policy-making takes the lead.
3 More power balance, less consensus: changes in decision-making structures over time
Pascal Sciarini
Relying again on a comparison with Kriesi's (1980) study, Chapter 3 analyses the changes in
decision-making structures that have taken place between the early 1970s and the early 2000s.
The results highlight dramatic changes with respect to both power and conflict. First, there
has been a power rebalance between governing parties and interest groups, in favor of the
former. State executives have remained equally important, and have even been reinforced by
direct Europeanization. Second, conflict has increased and its nature has changed: while the
left-right divide is still crucial, it is now complemented by a new conflict regarding the
desired level of openness/closedness of the country. This notwithstanding, cooperation
between actors in general and interpenetration between state and non-state actors in particular
is as close as it used to be.
4 Looking beneath the surface: differences in decision-making structures across
processes
Manuel Fischer
Decision-making structures not only vary between countries, but also within countries across
policy domains and processes. Chapter 4 presents a fine-grained analysis of the different
decision-making structures in the 11 most important decision-making processes of the early
2000s. This is particularly appropriate in the Swiss system, as no fix coalitions of government
and opposition exist. Decision-making cases are described based on the dimensions of power
relations and the type of interaction between coalitions and a four-fold typology. Results show
that decision-making structures indeed vary between cases. Actors were able to form a
dominant coalition in a majority of cases, which suggests that the Swiss political system still
enjoys a broad integration capacity. Yet, a majority of cases also presents conflictual relations
between coalitions, pointing towards increased conflict.
5 Dominance, competition, compromise or consensus? Explaining decision-making
structures
Manuel Fischer
The varying decision-making structures across the 11 processes raise the question of how to
explain this variation. Chapter 5 claims that the institutional and policy context influences
both the power relations and type of interaction between coalitions. It looks at the effect of
Europeanization, federalism, the policy type and the openness of the pre-parliamentary phase.
Results show that either an open pre-parliamentary phase or a high degree of Europeanization
lead actors to form dominant coalitions, while domestic, non-federalist,
redistributive/regulative and closed processes lead to a power balance between competing
coalitions. Similar conditions explain conflictive interactions between coalitions, whereas
federalist, constitutive/distributive and open processes foster a consensual type of interaction.
The analysis confirms the important role of both Europeanization and the design of the preparliamentary phase of Swiss decision-making processes.
6 Coalition formation in parliament and during the policy process
Manuel Fischer and Denise Traber
Building coalitions is an important means for actors to influence decision-making processes,
especially in the Swiss political system where veto points in general and direct democracy in
particular push actors to create large coalitions. Chapter 6 compares two types of coalitions
for each process, looks at which actors are in which coalitions, and identifies the most
important conflict lines. First, policy process coalitions inform about alliances between
parties, interest groups, and state actors. While center-right coalitions against the left hold in a
majority of cases, center-left coalitions against the conservative right are also frequent. State
actors do most often not play a neutral role, but side with either coalition. Second, the analysis
of parliamentary coalitions revealed important variations in the coalition structure within one
single decision-making process, which further adds to the instability of coalitions in political
decision-making.
7 Europeanization, institutional changes and differential empowerment
Manuel Fischer, Pascal Sciarini, and Denise Traber
Europeanization is a major driver of changes in Swiss decision-making processes. It not only
influences substantive policies, but also the design of decision-making processes and the
power- and conflict structure among actors. Chapter 7 studies whether and to what extent
changes in decision-making processes brought about Europeanization account for the
differential empowerment between state actors, interest groups and political parties.
Participation patterns of actors in different phases of the decision-making process suggest that
state actors benefit from the high importance of the inner-administrative phase in
Europeanized processes. Similarly, the fairly strong power of interest groups in Europeanized
processes can also partly be traced back to their participation in the inner-administrative
phase. Political parties, by contrast, suffer from the lower importance of the parliamentary
phase in Europeanized processes.
8 'Going public': the mediatization of decision-making processes
Manuel Fischer and Pascal Sciarini
The media play an increasingly important role for political decision-making. This means that
political actors need to communicate with the media and the public in order to gain support
for their policy plans and to influence decision-making. Chapter 8 analyzes media coverage
and actors' media-related activities on the level of both processes and actors. We first find that
important and Europeanized processes are most strongly covered by the media, whereas the
level of conflict has surprisingly no influence on the level of media coverage. Second, media
attention increases along a decision-making process and culminates during the referendum
phase, if a popular vote takes place. Third, while all actors basically prefer participating in
process venues than influencing the process through the media and public, especially leftwing parties and public interest groups need to rely on media-related activities.
9 Who is influential and why? The determinants of reputational power
Manuel Fischer and Pascal Sciarini
Power is one of the most important concepts of political science. Powerful actors are able to
influence political decision-making. Contrary to this relatively simple consequence of
political power, explaining why a given actor is deemed powerful is a challenge. Chapter 9
shows that actors' centrality in the collaboration network, their level of participation in the
phases of the decision-making process, their formal authority and their media-related
activities, all account to some extent for their reputational power. Yet, interesting detailed
differences appear between a simple measure of power and a more demanding one, and
between the four types of decision-making processes. Moreover, peak economic associations
do no longer dominate Swiss politics. State actors, by contrast, are very powerful, while
government parties always belong to the powerful actors, but rarely appear as the most
powerful ones.
10 Who is successful and who is not? Actors' satisfaction with the policy output
Denise Traber
Chapter 10 looks at the satisfaction with policy outputs among different types of organizations
that participate in political decision-making processes. It studies two aspects of satisfaction
with the output: perceived consensus and preference attainment. It provides three main
conclusions: first, business interest groups, center right parties and cantonal actors are most
satisfied with the policy output, second, the degree of participation in one process matters
much less than the frequency of participation. Actors that participate regularly are in general
more satisfied. Third, while not the focus of the analysis, the findings indicate that the
decision-making context is important. When there is a high level of conflict present in
decision-making, it is more difficult to find a policy compromise, even if actors participate
intensely.
11 Reactive, slow and… innovative? Decision-making structures and policy outputs
Manuel Fischer
The interest of studying decision-making structures mainly rests on the assumption that they
can explain the outputs of decision-making processes. Especially in Switzerland, known for a
low innovation capacity, the degree of innovation is a crucial aspect of policy outputs. Based
on a comparison of the 11 processes, Chapter 11 examines the influence of the type of
interaction between coalitions, their power relations, and the number of actor in the decisionmaking structure on the degree of innovation of policy outputs. Contrary to the traditional
view of Swiss politics, a majority of processes lead to innovative policy outputs. Either a
dominant coalition and conflictive relations, or consensual relations and a small number of
actors favor the production of innovative solutions. Further, external pressure from the
European Union seems crucial to foster innovation in contemporary Switzerland.
12 Conclusion
Pascal Sciarini