bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Metropolitan Areas
Authors: Kübler Daniel 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
Today, more than 80 per cent of the Swiss population live in an urban environment. Metropolitan areas, i.e. functionally integrated city-regions that have sprawled into the countryside, have become the dominant form of human settlement in Switzerland. This chapter focuses on the implications of these spatial realities for the Swiss political system, particularly for the institutions and practices of federalism. The first part reiterates the emergence of metropolitan areas and discusses the increasing disparities between functional and institutional territories that they imply. The second part focuses on the governance issues related to the high institutional fragmentation of Swiss metropolitan areas. The third part discusses strategies aimed at addressing these issues, and their relations to three different theoretical models: the metropolitan reform approach, the public choice approach, and the so-called new regionalism. The conclusion summarizes the main aspects of this discussion and points to three fundamental questions that urban and metropolitan policies in Switzerland will need to address in the near future: the democratic deficit, rising cross-level interdependencies, and the tensions between international competitiveness and regional solidarity.
Federal Administration
Authors: Varone Frédéric , Giauque David 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
This chapter focuses on the Swiss federal administration and its role in agenda-setting, decision-making, policy implementation, and providing an interface between elected politicians, interest groups, and citizens; it begins with an outline of the federal administration and its evolution over time and notes the ministerial structures of the federal administration. The history of administrative reforms is retraced through a discussion regarding ‘New Public Management’. Then, the Swiss administration is placed in an international perspective. Finally, the chapter presents the human resource management issues that the federal administration has faced since the ending of the permanent status of civil servants. The concluding section highlights four upcoming challenges related to the organization and management of the Swiss federal administration.
Social Movements
Authors: Giugni Marco 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
This chapter discusses the state of research on social movements in Switzerland. Following a common approach in the field, social movements are defined as informal networks of actors with a collective identity, mobilizing around conflicting issues through different forms of protest. The chapter first characterizes the context in which movements in Switzerland operate, describing the structure of political opportunities for the mobilization of social movements in Switzerland. It then discusses the mobilization of a number of movements and movement families, namely traditional movements, new social movements, radical-right movements, global justice movements, and anti-austerity movements. The conclusion summarizes the key aspects discussed in the chapter, also with the aim of dismantling certain stereotypes according to which the Swiss are not very inclined to take to the streets. The chapter shows that, while social movement research in Switzerland was characterized in the early 1990s as a marginal field of research in an underdeveloped social science community, this is no longer true today, as a growing body of works has focused on social movements in Switzerland during the last thirty years.
Switzerland’s Position in Europe and the World
Authors: Bernauer Thomas , Walter Stefanie 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
Global economic integration and global political restraint—this fine balance has characterized Switzerland’s relationship with the international community since the Swiss federal state was founded in 1848. Geopolitical change and crises, globalization, and the European integration process, however, have increasingly challenged this traditional model of Swiss foreign relations. With its entry into the UN (2002) and two sets of bilateral treaties with the EU (2000, 2005) Switzerland has taken significant steps towards a stronger political involvement in the international arena, even if a clear majority of Swiss voters, parliament, and the government remain opposed to EU membership. This chapter situates Switzerland in the global economy and in international politics. It begins by contextualizing Switzerland in its international environment and comparing it with its neighbours as well as some additional countries. The chapter then shows that Switzerland is one of the most ‘globalized’, i.e., most open countries in the world. Finally, it shows that the political system of Switzerland has slowly but noticeably reacted to European as well as the global political and economic changes of the recent past. Nevertheless, in respect of foreign policy, voters remain divided into two camps; these camps view the implications of increasing integration into the European and global arena very differently, in particular with regard to the consequences for sovereignty, neutrality, federalism, and direct democracy. This division generates considerable political controversies about the challenges Switzerland faces.
National Elections
Authors: Lutz Georg , Tresch Anke 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
The remarkable stability of national elections in Switzerland for over sixty years after the introduction of proportional representation in 1919 came to an end with the rise of the right-wing populist Swiss People’s Party (SVP) in the mid-1990s. Overall, party affiliation—and hence stability of the electoral choice—has declined significantly. As a result, situational factors, like issue salience, issue positioning, and long- and short-term campaign priorities, have become significant for electoral choice. These changes have also intensified competition among parties, which have begun to centralize their election campaigns and deploy new campaign techniques. Yet, turnout remains low despite these changes: since 1979, turnout in National Council elections has been below 50 per cent. This is due to the complexity of the electoral system and the high frequency of votes in Switzerland’s direct-democratic system.
Foreign Policy
Authors: Goetschel Laurent 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
Swiss foreign policy has been characterized by neutrality and direct democracy. Both promoted rather passive and slow motion foreign relations of the historically small country, guardian of the alpine passes, in the centre of Western Europe. The emergence of collective security at the global level and of regional integration in Europe challenged the traditional orientation and functioning mode of Swiss foreign policy. Furthermore, the rise of new global values generated additional stakeholders, interested in foreign policy at the national level, beyond the traditional dominant economic actors. These developments caused major shifts in expectations towards foreign policy and prompted still ongoing discussions on its general orientation. While the country will not abandon neutrality or join the European Union anytime soon, it has started to take on further institutional responsibilities as best symbolized by its first time membership in the UN Security Council in the years 2023/24. Swiss foreign policy will be characterized by a stronger international presence. Its profile is, however, still subject to negotiations.
Security Policy and Politics
Authors: Wenger Andreas 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
Switzerland’s security policy has broadened and deepened considerably since the end of the Cold War. The general threat perception and the strategic and operational response to it by a variety of actors have changed fundamentally. Current threat concepts emphasize the unpredictability and multifaceted nature of the threat situation, which arise from the large number of potentially relevant governmental, semi-governmental, and non-governmental sources of threat that extend beyond the military domain. Responding appropriately to this broad concept also requires a wide variety of security policy instruments and tools deployed by a complex web of actors from the government, society, and the private sector, who also interact with each other on several levels. This leads not only to a more pluralistic approach, but also to numerous interfaces with other policy fields and, ultimately, to numerous conflicts of objectives in terms of coherence, coordination, implementation, and legitimacy. The chapter discusses the challenges that arise against this background and shows how contemporary security policy has evolved and steadily changed to adapt to these challenges. Special focus is placed on the different actor constellations in Swiss security politics at the various levels and their relevant expertise. The final section outlines open questions and possible future developments that have arisen in the context of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Education Policy
Authors: Giudici Anja , Emmenegger Patrick 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
Education policy is often regarded as the last bastion of Swiss federalism. However, in the last few decades, this policy field has been profoundly reshaped on the backdrop of intra- and international competition and mobility as well as the rise of knowledge-based economies and educational testing. This chapter characterizes Swiss education politics and policy on three key dimensions—its comparative centralization, standardization, and stratification. Building on this analytical description, this chapter shows that the different orientations of vocational and general education—with the former being oriented primarily towards upskilling, and the latter being perceived more in redistributive and enculturation terms—have produced distinctive cleavages and coalitions, thus leading to different developments in terms of governance, institutional reconfigurations, and future challenges.
Migration Policy
Authors: Lavenex Sandra 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
With more than a third of Switzerland’s resident population having an immigration background, asylum and immigration policy occupy a central stage in Swiss politics. Originally addressed in a rather narrow manner as a matter of the ‘foreigner’s police’, and regulated by corporatist ties between employer federations, the Unions, and Swiss authorities, migration policy has turned into a highly politicized cross-departmental concern. Today, both economic and humanitarian migration policies are heavily shaped by Switzerland’s association to the European Union. In exchange for its association to the European single market, Switzerland has had to defend the principle of free movement of persons for EU/EFTA citizens against the backdrop of direct-democratic initiatives. At the same time, Switzerland benefits from the EU’s endeavours to fight irregular immigration and to allocate responsibility for the examination of asylum claims via its association to the Schengen and Dublin frameworks. Beyond the EU, Switzerland has also played a prominent role in promoting international cooperation on migration. However, the Swiss government has faced difficulties reconciling its humanitarian posture in multilateral settings with the xenophobic constraints at home.
Integration Policy
Authors: Manatschal Anita 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
This chapter examines Swiss integration policy from an international comparative perspective and assesses its evolution through a historical lens. In line with international trends, a gradual improvement in the social and economic rights of legally resident foreigners can be observed, which facilitated access to the Swiss labour market, family reunification, or social benefits. Resistance towards these trends is concentrated in the realms of political and cultural rights. Formal requirements to acquire Swiss citizenship remain high, and the country continues to hold an assimilationist understanding of integration, with only scarce concessions to cultural pluralism. This restrictive policy orientation reflects for instance in the considerable share of third-generation non-Swiss citizens, meaning grandchildren of immigrants, who still hold no Swiss passport. Right-wing populist parties such as the Swiss People’s Party nurture this restrictive impetus, and profit from the instruments of direct democracy to translate it into policies. Since the early 2000s, this strategy has been increasingly successful, as documented by the adoption of the minaret ban (2009), the initiative against mass immigration (2014), or the face disclosure initiative (2021) at the polls. From a structural perspective, similarly to other federations, policies regulating the political, socio-economic, and cultural-religious inclusion of non-citizen residents in the country evolved in a bottom-up manner. Although a more proactive stance in this field was developed at the national level over the last two decades, cantons and municipalities retain significant authority for their own approaches to the implementation as well as the formulation of integration policy.
Family Policy
Authors: Häusermann Silja , Bürgisser Reto 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
Family policy has become an increasingly important policy area in Switzerland since the 1990s. Benefits and services to families have undergone profound transformations. Some reforms became possible because family policy was increasingly defined not only as social policy but also as social investment policy promoting employment and human capital formation. This ambiguity enabled reforms to be supported by heterogeneous reform coalitions, even if long-term coalitions remain unstable and depend on the specific reform proposal. Despite these changes, Swiss family policy is still underdeveloped and falls behind that of other continental European countries. Government spending on family policy is low by international standards, and the use of formal childcare is strongly stratified by income. Important factors contributing to this slow pace of family policy modernization in Switzerland are the decentralized distribution of competences with different levels of government and the use of various direct democratic instruments to prevent or delay reform initiatives at different levels of governance. Moreover, the party system’s increasing political polarization slows down reform efforts and undermines reform coalitions between socially progressive and economically liberal forces. In the face of these challenges, the adaptation of family policy to changing social and economic needs has become a litmus test for the reform capacity of the Swiss welfare state.
Direct Democracy
Authors: Stadelmann-Steffen Isabelle , Leemann Lucas 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
Direct democracy—instruments that allow for citizens’ direct participation in legislative politics—is one of the corner stones of the Swiss political system. The chapter starts with a descriptive exercise of illustrating the historic emergence of direct-democratic institutions in Switzerland, how the institutions were introduced, and how access to these instruments was made easier over time. Apart from this de jure perspective, it also looks at the de facto use of these institutions over the last 170 years and shows that the use of the different institutions follows different patterns. Building on the descriptive part, it turns to the direct and indirect effects of direct democracy on the working of representative democracy. Direct-democratic institutions disperse power by either adding a potential veto player (e.g., the optional referendum) or by extending the set of actors that have agenda-setting power (e.g., initiative). There is a discussion of how the presence of these institutions alters the rationale of political actors and by doing so affects political processes and outcomes. In the last part of the chapter, the discussion broadens the geographic focus and compares direct-democratic institutions in Swiss cantons with direct-democratic institutions in subnational units in Germany and Austria as well as in states in the US. The chapter concludes with an outlook on the future prospects of direct democracy, namely how the working of these institutions could be affected by increasing societal polarization and by the digital transformation.
Parliament
Authors: Bailer Stefanie , Bütikofer Sarah 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
The chapter on the Swiss parliament offers an introduction of the institutional characteristics and functioning of the National Council and the Council of States, the two parliamentary chambers of the Swiss parliament. It elaborates how the Swiss parliamentarians are elected and discusses the composition and functions of this parliament. The specificities of this system, characterized by two equally powerful chambers, part-time national parliamentarians, very few administrative resources, and a lack of transparency in party and campaign financing, are outlined and explained in detail. In addition, the chapter measures the power of the Swiss parliament with an institutional power index based on its formal rights and compares the result with qualitative estimates of parliamentary and political experts to provide an encompassing estimate of the power of parliament. As two key developments that are particularly characteristic for this parliament in recent years, the increase in professionalization and the growing influence of interest groups and how they impact the Federal Assembly are discussed.
Research on Cognitive Shortcomings in Comparative Judicial Behaviour
Authors: Braman Eileen 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
This chapter highlights comparative research that implicates the ability of judges to make decisions that are fair, accurate, and that adequately account for various influences in their reasoning processes. Studies detailing mechanisms of ideological influence in legal decision-making, including proportionality standards, analogical reasoning, and the separability of various considerations in legal reasoning, are discussed as well as research on in-group and implicit biases in judgments across national contexts. Experimental and observational findings demonstrate irrelevant considerations, like the content of expressive speech and the character of litigants, can impact the judgments of jurists in both criminal and civil litigation and these are explored. There is also evidence that heuristic strategies relating to hindsight, anchoring and adjustment, and the consideration of base rates can lead to systematic errors and/or bias in judges’ decision-making. Finally, there is research suggesting judges are often unaware of the various influences on their reasoning, and in some instances unwilling to memorialize the importance of certain considerations in their judgments, calling justifications they give for their opinions into question. The chapter concludes with a call for further research into the causes of specific cognitive shortcomings that have been discovered to help identify the debiasing mechanisms that are best suited to address deficiencies in judgment across various decision contexts.
Selecting Judges
Authors: Brashear Tiede Lydia 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
Because judges make influential decisions, understanding how they are selected is paramount. This chapter documents variations in judicial selection worldwide, specifically focusing on how different selection rules allow political and other societal actors to impact the selection process, which could provide such actors with an additional veto point in policy-making. The chapter reviews and categorizes general and specific types of selection mechanisms for 218 constitutional and supreme courts, finding substantial variation in the extent to which certain political actors dominate the process. While a large number of constitutional courts reviewed use a mixed selection mechanism, whereby different political actors choose a specific number of judges, selection dominated by a judicial council or commission is more prevalent for Supreme Courts. However, while it is assumed that judges selected by political actors will favour their selectors in their decisions, the exact design of the selection mechanism as well as the composition of the court and the political context within which it makes decisions may attenuate this expectation. Additional rules and norms related to judicial selection also may influence gender, ethnic, and professional diversity on the court as well as diversity of judicial ideologies or biases. Selection rules viewed in conjunction with other institutional rules and informal practices may undermine the intended effect of selection. The chapter highlights how different selection rules and informal practices influence judicial independence and behaviour and have the potential to allow either for political manipulation or the creation of diverse forums for decision-making.
Measuring Political Preferences
Authors: Epstein Lee , Martin Andrew D. , Quinn Kevin 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
Almost all theories of judicial behaviour ascribe a key role to political preferences. The idea is that the judges want to align the law with their political commitments—whether ideological or partisan. This chapter explores strategies for measuring and estimating the judges’ political preferences. It consists of two major parts: exogenous measures of political preferences (those that are based on information causally prior to any votes cast or other choices the judges make) and endogenous measures (those that depend on revealed behaviour). The authors detail the strengths and weaknesses of the various measures, and offer suggestions for forward movement. Mostly, though, they encourage readers to keep an open mind as to the best ways to measure political preferences in their own applications.
Cumulative Advantage, Intergenerational Reproduction, and Life-Course Mobility
Authors: DiPrete Thomas A. 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
Cumulative advantage (CA) is a mechanism for attainment that arises when past advantages and accomplishments affect future life chances. This chapter reviews the principal features of the CA model. It then considers how the CA model can be elaborated to illuminate institutional mechanisms that may interact with CA processes to affect life-course mobility. The importance of CA mechanisms for life-course mobility depends on the complementarity and substitutability of resources that flow across generations for accomplishment-based resources. Because intergenerational resources may interact with CA processes to affect outcomes, CA is potentially a mechanism that affects intergenerational as well as life-course mobility. A deeper understanding of these mechanisms calls for their study both within specific institutional contexts and as aggregate characteristics of a society’s mobility regime. This paper proposes empirical strategies that respond to this call.
Schools and Juvenile Justice
Authors: Fine Adam D. , Stanek Kayleigh A. , Montes Andrea N. 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
School environments prioritize not just academic achievement but also youth development and socialization. However, the school environment can serve as a catalyst for involving youth in the juvenile justice system. In contemporary schools, students often have contact with legal actors, such as school resource officers or probation officers. Many schools also invest in policies and programs that involve bringing court actors into the school environment to respond to student misbehavior or to be a part of efforts to improve school safety. This chapter discusses the current state of the literature on how schools and the legal system interact, and their combined impact on students’ well-being. Scholars have found that embedding legal actors within schools can disproportionately affect minority students and create a school-to-prison pipeline. Simultaneously, there is little evidence that these initiatives have improved school safety. It concludes with recommendations for advancing research, policy, and practice.