
Direct Democracy in Switzerland - kyleblarson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland#Direct_democracy
======
stretchwithme
I've been a fan of the Swiss system for quite a while. The citizens don't
merely get to make public comment on what the government does; they can create
a referendum and overrule it. They use proportional representation too, as do
many democracies.

And the cantons are cool. A part of a canton can leave the canton, join
another or make a new one. It rarely happens, but the fact that it can
probably helps keep the canton government on its toes. And canton boundaries
are probably more organic than many of the US states.

~~~
shafyy
I don't know the actual laws, but I would argue that a canton leaving and
joining another canton is as easy/hard as it's in the US.

Source: I'm Swiss.

~~~
Kalium
Making a state from part of another state requires the consent of both state
legislatures and Congress (Article IV, Section 3). Pretty much any border
change of a state requires at the approval of both Congress and all affected
state legislatures. Note that this leaves executive branches out entirely.

Not sure how it works in Switzerland, though a quick look at Wikipedia
suggests plebiscites can be involved. National plebiscites don't really exist
in the US.

~~~
stretchwithme
If my reading of 1999 constitution is correct, the canton(s) involved must
approve and a majority of Swiss voters and a majority of the cantons. It does
not have to be approved by the Federal Assembly.

"Any change in the number of Cantons requires the consent of the citizens and
the Cantons concerned together with the consent of the People and the
Cantons."

[https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-
compilation/19995395/...](https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-
compilation/19995395/index.html)

Not sure that is any easier than getting Congress to approve such a change.
But such changes have happened in Switzerland and the only one that's happened
in the US was due to most of Virginia seceding at the start of the Civil War.
Of course, Switzerland is much older.

~~~
microtherion
_But such changes have happened in Switzerland_

Exactly ONE new canton got created by a referendum process. It took 30 years
to get to a referendum, accompanied by everything from acts of terror to
threats of foreign intervention. And today, 40 years later, we're still trying
to sort out the exact boundaries.

Surely, it was pretty successful by international separatist standards, but it
still was a hard slog.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_separatism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jurassic_separatism)

~~~
shafyy
Yeah exactly that's my point. The parent made it sound like it happens every
other year.

------
sischoel
One should also consider that the Swiss people refused to grant women voting
rights on a federal level in 1959 and only did so in 1971. One region in
Switzerland still refused to grant them this right until they where corrected
by the Swiss supreme court in 1991.

Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_Switzerl...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_Switzerland)

~~~
swissthrowaway
In Switzerland, women are still second-class citizens. They're supposed to
stay home and raise the kids. Day cares are full with the kids of expats,
Swiss kids to the playground with their mothers.

~~~
toasterlovin
Glad to know you think raising children isn't important work.

~~~
DanBC
If it was seen as important work they'd be paid for it and it wouldn't have
such an impact on their careers.

~~~
repolfx
One reason salaries are high in Switzerland is the men are expected to support
an entire family off one salary. If you really want to you can consider the
"free" housing, food, heating, car etc as payment to the woman, although that
seems unnecessarily materialistic.

As for impact on career, this is again a matter of perspective. If parenting
is skilled work then arguably raising children is a second career. We don't
normally classify parenting as a career but that's just a matter of
terminology.

------
eloff
I think you'd have to fix the educational system in the US before you could
have meaningful direct democracy. Any form of democracy, be it
representational or direct is only as good as the people that make it up. The
more directly you empower the people, the more directly their opinions and
ideas will be expressed in the country's laws.

The average person is woefully prepared to judge laws on their merits, be it
economic laws or otherwise. They're arguably better prepared in Switzerland,
but still not great compared to experts in the field. If you look to Africa,
you can see what a mess you can make when your average person is not educated
well at all. Democracy is often described as the best of a lot of bad options,
but there's also a big variance in how well it works.

~~~
door5
Africa is a mess because of relentless Western imperialism, not because of
"too much democracy".

It's rather elitist to say that more educated (AKA richer) citizens make
"better" political decisions than less educated (AKA poorer) citizens. They
both make decisions with relatively similar amounts of clarity in their
respective class interests.

~~~
im3w1l
> Africa is a mess because of relentless Western imperialism

That's one hypothesis but there are many things it can't explain. We could
compare African countries that were colonized to African countries that were
not colonized. The hypothesis predicts a big difference but is there?

We could compare non-African countries that were colonized to African
countries that were colonized. Hypothesis predicts a small difference, is
there?

~~~
door5
Imperialism continued after the end of formal colonization, and takes place
even in countries that weren't formally colonized. Capitalism and imperialism
are global systems that affect every nation on Earth, there is no unaffected
country to compare to.

~~~
toasterlovin
But there was a time _before_ colonialism. And the comparisons for sub-Saharan
Africa don't look that great that way either.

~~~
jyounker
Sub-Saharan Africa had some pretty advanced and successful civilizations
before colonialism.

~~~
toasterlovin
Such as? All that I'm aware of is Ethiopia and you could make a pretty good
case that that's primarily because of Ethiopia's proximity to the Dar al-
Islam.

------
namlem
Not really the best way of going about this sort of thing. Voting in elections
and referendums is fraught problems and unhealthy incentive structures.
Sortition, via the formation of citizens' assemblies, is a superior model of
democracy. Leaving decisions up to a representative random sample of the
population allows the assembly to carefully consider and debate issues and
form a consensus. Whereas elected officials are incentivized not to compromise
or plan for the long term and voters are usually poorly informed.

------
somada141
I lived in Zurich, Switzerland for ca. 5 years and I am a huge fan of their
system.

One may argue that the very same system allowed for seemingly ‘insensitive’ or
‘misguided’ legislation. In my time there (2009-2014) a referendum allowed the
Swiss to preclude minarets from being erected, while another referendum was
voted against allowing the Swiss to freely smoke in public areas such as train
stations (last I checked you can still smoke in the Zurich Hauptbahnhof
platforms right up to entering your train).

Nonetheless, while I don't agree with some of the decisions made, democracy is
literally about granting the citizenry the ability to rule themselves and IMHO
this is how it should be. Granted, such a system may lead to bigoted decision-
making but if that's what the people want it should be what they get.

------
buboard
I like that they also vote whether they want taxes:

[https://lenews.ch/2018/03/02/switzerland-votes-this-
weekend-...](https://lenews.ch/2018/03/02/switzerland-votes-this-weekend-on-
federal-tax-and-broadcasting-fee/)

------
swissthrowaway
Direct democracy in Switzerland is a good way to distract the population with
futile issues ( [https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/24/europe/cow-horn-
referendu...](https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/24/europe/cow-horn-referendum-
scli-intl/index.html) ) while the oligarchy does its dirty business (
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-grenades/swiss-
set-...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-grenades/swiss-set-to-ease-
arms-export-rules-despite-syria-grenades-report-idUSKCN1LJ1I9) ), and - at the
same time - giving the impression that the people are actually in control, but
they're not. The parliament can and will interpret people's will (
[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/switzerland-...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/switzerland-
immigration-referendum-result-reduce-water-down-protect-eu-relationship-
migrant-a7476801.html) ).

~~~
Leherenn
On the last issue, the problem is that it's pretty much impossible to enact
the exact people's will because it is not consistent.

Just have a look at the latest vote on EU ties. They want to keep the economic
benefits but to restrict foreign workers, except the EU is never going to
accept that. It's like the British, they want the cake and eat it too. The
people can have their dream and vote on whatever they want and express
themselves, and that's great, but at some point someone has to go back to
reality and make compromises.

I would argue it is the parliament job to transform the people's will into
realistic laws. At this point, the parliament could either water it down or go
full Brexit. The latest vote just confirmed it took the "correct" decision by
watering it down.

~~~
repolfx
The Swiss people's will is entirely consistent. There is nothing strange or
unusual about having both immigration controls and trade. That is in fact
entirely normal anywhere outside of Europe.

The EU bureaucracy's near-fanatical, unbending approach to what it wants
doesn't make anything different "inconsistent", "a dream", "unrealistic" or
"not reality". That's the sort of attitude that is inflaming serious anti-EU
tensions across all of Europe and will eventually cause either the EU to crush
European democracy itself, or the EU to collapse chaotically.

Indeed, the "watering down" you mention was a violation of the Swiss
constitution and has led to quite serious political tensions, including a new
referendum that's trying again to force the political class to actually
implement referendums the EU doesn't like.

------
csours
Change my view: This only works with small, homogenous populations.

~~~
intellectronica
Homogeneous?! Switzerland is a confederacy and home to three distinct
linguistic/cultural populations.

~~~
labster
Compared to the United States, this is _very_ homogeneous.

~~~
1wd
Statistics disagree:

    
    
        Rank Country 	Ethnic Fractionalization Index 	Cultural Diversity Index 
        63 	 Switzerland 	0.575 	0.418
        85 	 United States 	0.491 	0.271
        159  North Korea 	0.002 	0.002
    
        Ethnic, Linguistic and Religious Fractionalization
         Switzerland 	0.531400 	0.544100 	0.608300
         United States 	0.490100 	0.564700 	0.824100
         Korea, North 	0.002000 	0.002100 	0.660400
    

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_et...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_ethnic_and_cultural_diversity_level)

~~~
labster
Statistics don't represent the whole story. How many indigenous groups are in
Switzerland? How many language _families_ are native to Switzerland? By my
count, two, where in the United States it is over twenty. When's the last time
Switzerland had a civil war (I mean, war between the cantons)? Is there a
deeply ingrained bias against other Swiss depending only on how they look?

Even in the supposedly mainstream culture, I have almost nothing in common
with "Red Tribe" Americans. Just because we share a language, ethnic identity,
and religious category does not mean we are homogenous by any means. I often
have much more in common with people of a different ethnicity and religion
than those statistics would indicate.

~~~
1wd
I'm sure you are right.

I don't know anything about language families native to Switzerland.

The census in Switzerland counts over 40 main languages spoken in Switzerland.
64% German.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Switzerland#Other...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Switzerland#Other_languages)

In the US the census only counts 32 languages spoken at home. 70% English
only.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States)

Probably these are not comparable and this doesn't really prove anything.

> When's the last time Switzerland had a civil war

1847, but I don't understand how that's relevant.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderbund_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderbund_War)

> Is there a deeply ingrained bias against other Swiss depending only on how
> they look?

Sadly, yes. Immigrating and becoming Swiss is difficult, but it does happen.
Swiss with a migration background suffer a higher rate of racial
discrimination.

[https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/de/home/statistiken/bevoelkerun...](https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/de/home/statistiken/bevoelkerung/migration-
integration/integrationindikatoren/indikatoren/erfahrung.html)

I don't know how this compares to the US.

------
virmundi
To repeat: The South always had enough votes to keep slavery legal. Direct
democracy is literally mob rule. The reason the Constitution had the 3/5
phrasing for slaves is not that the ciswhite males thought blacks were less
than people, they didn't want the South to get even more votes through their
slaves than they already had. They knew the only way to get rid of the
peculiar institution was to vote it out (or go to war, but they didn't want
that).

This is this the reason that the Founders didn't pick it. It is mob rule.
[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-friedman/the-
founding-...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-friedman/the-founding-
fathers-never-meant-to-create_b_13051196.html)

The general concept of the Republic is that it balances the terrors that all
other governments impose. Through the representatives, the people trained in
statecraft, the passions of the masses should be calmed. It's the hardest to
corrupt. It's the most likely to survive deaths. If you had a perfect king,
giving him absolute power is a no-brainer. The trouble is a) that's near
impossible, and b) when he dies how do prevent a non-perfect king from ruling
absolutely?

We see this with budget deficits in California. Direct democracy allows ballot
initiatives without the need to secure funding. The masses vote for wonderful,
expensive things, but they don't say how to pay. The leaves the general budget
scrambling for scraps to cover the cost.

~~~
asituop
Switzerland is the exact proof that what you say about masses voting for the
expensive things is not always true. For e.g they had a "votation" on minimum
wage, and people refused because the proposed minimum wage was too high. They
had the maturity/long-term vision of refusing such a proposal. But in other
countries/context I agree with you, try to do that for e.g in France and I'm
pretty sure people would instantly vote yes to such a proposition without
caring about the consequences.

Maybe when you ask people often what they want they become responsible (like
in Switzerland) while if you never ask people what they think, the rare times
where you'll ask them through referendum, they'll go for the extreme/expensive
because they want to express how frustrated of not being listened to they are.

~~~
notahacker
It doesn't need to be "always true" for a tendency to produce conflicting
objectives no sane legislator would ever choose (and making them much more
difficult to repeal) to be a potentially crippling weakness of direct
democracy.

Perhaps experience with being consulted is why the Swiss appear relatively
sanguine about a referendum vote to impose quotas on all immigration being
creatively reinterpreted by its trade-prioritising government as just
introducing job preferences for Swiss nationals in times of high unemployment
and tightening residency permit criteria. That's certainly a course of action
which would be expected to create much more unease in other parts of Europe;
the furore over whether prioritising Single Market alignment in the UK's
future relationship with the EU over an assumed preference for immigration
restrictions that wasn't even on the relevant referendum ballot paper is a
notable contrast. But I'd imagine there were aspects of the Swiss political
psyche other than "maturity", "long term vision" or experience with
referendums which made them relatively unenthusiastic about an impractically-
high UBI proposal, high minimum holiday entitlement and supremacy of Swiss law
over international law and relatively enthusiastic about banning minarets,
allowing greater surveillance powers and [until remarkably recently in some
cantons] restricting the franchise to men. Californians certainly don't have a
particular shortage of referendums either.

~~~
asituop
You made the generalization that people will always vote for shiny and
expensive stuff, I gave you an example it is not always the case. I never said
direct-democracy is a bullet proof system that always ends up deciding
reasonable laws. Taking the case of surveillance law as a failure of direct
democracy is not relevant as a majority of non-direct democracies countries
passed far more privacy invasive surveillance laws around the same period

