The Swiss System of Direct Democracy and How It Compares to the U.S.

California and Switzerland share a love of direct democracy. The Swiss leader explains how her country has avoided some of the excesses of the initiative process. Excerpt from the program on October 6, 2010.

CORINA CASANOVA, Federal Chancellor, Switzerland

Despite similarities, there are some interesting differences between the respective democratic rights in the two states, Switzerland and ... California.

In California, democratic rights have become established as rights to counterbalance distrusted authorities. Though it would be legally possible, there are no preliminary considerations of popular initiatives in the political institutions, and their debate in government has never become an established procedure. By the same token, the authorities never work out counterproposals [to referenda]. If proposals are forthcoming, they are the result of popular initiative of opposition groups in the civil society.

Thus California popular initiatives could be considered relatively confrontational and not aimed at achieving consensus and compromise. Also, they are never withdrawn, and they are completely successful in a third of all cases.

Contradictions in the law due to the adoption of several opposition initiatives are avoided through a system in which the highest number of yes votes decides.

In Switzerland, on the other hand, thanks to the referendum, a strong culture of consensus has developed. There is usually an institutionalized search for a compromise. This usually means that the authorities draw up direct counterproposals to most popular initiatives at constitutional level. Similarly, at statutory level, they draw up indirect counterproposals. The counterproposals address the same concerns that led to the popular initiative in the first place, but they do so normally at the subsidiary statutory level. In practical terms, this means that behind the scenes, initiative committees and the authorities engage in a process of bargaining that may be hard but also is fair.

As a result, of the 58 popular initiatives dealt with in Switzerland in the past 15 years, no less than in 36 cases, there was an indirect counterproposal, and in a further five, a direct counterproposal; 11 popular initiatives were ultimately withdrawn. While in California, a third of all initiatives are approved by the people, in Switzerland, just under 10 percent win popular approval.

The culture whereby the authorities attempt to accommodate the concerns expressed in popular initiatives often heads off a direct showdown. The initiative committees are often satisfied [enough] with the response of the institutions to address their concerns that they eventually withdraw their request. This concept – the possibility of withdrawing a popular initiative – was developed in Switzerland shortly before the introduction of democratic rights in California. The essential consequence of this cultural difference is that considerably longer periods of time are allotted in Switzerland for the handling of popular initiatives.

Moreover, the federal chancellery manages to avoid the situation in which two contradictory popular initiatives or other bills are put to a referendum at the same time. This is achieved without exercising any special powers, but simply by conducting an early analysis of the initiative and the concern that created them, and by alerting the politicians to them. The result is that no internal contradictions can ever occur within the legal system. This is important, because in Switzerland popular initiatives, if they are accepted, always result in constitutional amendments.

Often, Switzerland is regarded as the cradle of direct democracy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It is true to say that Switzerland has influenced some constitutional developments overseas – in California, not to mention Uruguay and Australia. Often these developments have been based on personal connections that Swiss people had with the country concerned.

But in the case of the U.S. and California, the opposite applies. The Swiss constitutional reality of the 19th century was decisively influenced by American political thinkers and their experiences. They helped to originate the federal concept that enabled Switzerland to reshape the federalist referendum into direct democratic rights, while preserving freedom. For, as we know in both of our countries, federalism brings freedom.

So it is no longer a surprise that despite the enormous difference in size between the U.S. and Switzerland – or California – [they] have enjoyed a comparable degree of political stability, albeit by using slightly different strategies.