Swiss .Ederalism and Congruence

92nep03.qxd 24/10/2003 14:13 Page 50 Swiss ederalism and Congruence JAN ERK This article seeks to expose the discrepancies between the formal institutions and the workings of Swiss federalism. The aim is to show how de jure constitution and de facto practice diverge from one another. The argument is that Swiss federalism has come to reflect the underlying ethno-linguistic divide between the #rench Swiss and German Swiss despite a formal federal system based on 26 cantons. The study pursues a macro- social explanation based on the theory of congruence between ethno-linguistic social structure and political institutions. In particular, focus is on the policy areas of education and media where identity politics are assumed to play an important role. The Swiss federal system is often seen as a success story in terms of the management of ethno-linguistic diversity. Consequently, it is frequently presented as a model which can be exported to other multinational countries.1 This small federation, where four languages and two religions coexist with deep regional economic disparities, seems to have found the key to coexistence and stability; but what part of the Swiss system is to be exported? Is it the federal constitution which carries the answers to the workings of the Swiss federal system, or do the answers lie elsewhere? This article seeks to show that a fuller apprehension of the federal dynamics in Switzerland can be attained by looking at the social structure and not the formal institutions. It is argued that the institutional/ constitutional structure is not a reliable benchmark to grasp the federal patterns at play since the answers to the workings of Swiss federalism tend to lie in the ethno-linguistic structure instead. #ocus is on the discrepancies between the formal institutions and the workings of Swiss federalism. That is to say, the aim of the study is to show how de jure constitution and de facto practice diverge from one another. Evidence shows that Swiss federalism has come to reflect the underlying ethno-linguistic divide between the #rench Swiss and German Swiss despite a formal federal system based on twenty-six cantons. An approach based on the theory of congruence between ethno-linguistic social structure and political institutions might, therefore, be a more fruitful way to understand and Jan Erk, University of Toronto Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol.9, No.2, Summer 2003, pp.5074 PUBLISHED BY #RANK CASS, LONDON 92nep03.qxd 24/10/2003 14:13 Page 51 SWISS #EDERALISM AND CONGRUENCE 51 explain Swiss federalism. An analysis of the Swiss federal system along these lines will follow a brief review of the theoretical foundations of this approach. The article seeks to strengthen the theoretical links between nationalism studies and comparative federalism by undertaking a society- based approach to the study of Swiss federalism. In doing so, the particular focus is on the policy areas of education and media where identity politics are assumed to play an important role. ederalism, Institutions and Society Until the end of the Second World War federalism was seen as somewhat of a second best path towards political existence. In the late nineteenth century, British constitutional theorist A.V. Dicey wrote about the federalization of the British Empire as an inferior alternative to the unity of the Westminster model.2 #ollowing the Great Depression of 1933, the American governments weakness in face of the magnitude of macro-economic problems was attributed to the divided political order of federalism. In his provocatively entitled The Obsolescence of ederalism, British Labour politician and political historian Harold Laski argued that federalism produced weak governments, which were in turn, incapable of dealing with the big questions of industrialization and mass democracy of the twentieth century.3 According to Ronald Watts, prior to 1945, federalism was treated with benign contempt as an incomplete national government or a transitional model of political organization.4 But since the Second World War, federalism has come to be accepted as a potential way to manage diverse societies, and correspondingly, a literature of comparative federalism has emerged dealing with the theoretical and empirical questions of federalism. Theories of federalism share the descriptive lowest common denominator of a political structure where authority is divided among two or more levels of government, but the common theoretical premises do not extend much beyond that. Until the 1950s the study of federalism was the study of federal constitutions. In fact, the very origins of comparative federalism lie in the field of comparative constitutional studies, where a formal legal analysis is employed. The constitutional division of competences between the federal state and the sub-state authorities (provinces, states, cantons, Länder) remained the main focus of comparative federalism for a long time. The most influential work within this tradition has been that of K. C. Wheare.5 Wheares legalistic analysis, which defined federalism as a form of governance where the orders of government are coordinate and independent, has often been quoted as the authoritative definition of a federal system. But there has been a parallel approach employing a society-based perspective. The leading exponent of this idea 92nep03.qxd 24/10/2003 14:13 Page 52 52 NATIONALISM and ETHNIC POLITICS has been a #rench thinker more widely known for his anarchist ideas, Pierre Joseph Proudhon. Pierre Joseph Proudhons Du principe fédératif is one of the earliest examples of sociological federalism.6 Proudhon saw social and economic diversity as the reason for adopting federal political institutions, rather than seeing these institutions as the cause of diversity. Some of the intellectual descendants of Proudhons idea of federalism can be found within the political economy approach to federalism.7 According to this perspective, the socio-economic differences between regions influence the workings of a federal system. But the leading advocate of the sociological approach to federalism is William Livingston. According to Livingston, focus of federalism studies had to be on societal factors rather than formal institutions. This idea was reflected in the notion of federal society, i.e. a social structure with territorially based diversity. Livingston believed that such a federal society was the raison dêtre for federalism. This approach was diametrically opposed to the dominant institutional/constitutional perspective in the study of federalism. Livingston argued that: Institutional devices, both in form and function, are only the surface manifestations of the deeper federal quality of the society that lies beneath the surface. The essence of federalism lies not in the institutional or constitutional structure but in the society itself.8 The notion of federal society appealed to a number of students of federalism who expanded on Livingstons insight. #or example Michael Stein, elaborated on the definition of a federal society: Where a society is constituted of territorially based communities which are clearly differentiated by language and ethnicity, then one can find a federal society.9 Stein believed that factors such as religion, geography and economics reinforced the territorially based ethno-linguistic differences, but it was the ethno-linguistic patterns that were fundamental. The federal society argument was also taken up by Charles D. Tarlton in order to build a dichotomy between symmetrical and asymmetrical federalism: following Livingston, an asymmetrical federal government is one in which political institutions correspond to the real social federalism beneath them.10 Such society-based perspectives on federalism, however, remained a minority in a field dominated by institutionalist approaches. Canadian scholars provided most of the contribution to the literature which stresses the role of institutions in federal systems.11 These approaches often take the federal structure as the independent variable and seek to explain its role in shaping the society and politics. Richard Simeon describes this perspective in the following terms: 92nep03.qxd 24/10/2003 14:13 Page 53 SWISS #EDERALISM AND CONGRUENCE 53 Institutions are not simply the outgrowth or products of the environment and they are not just dependent variables in the political system. They can be seen as independent forces, which have some effects of their own: once established they themselves come to shape and influence the environment.12 The institutionalism in comparative federalism was a part of the broader move towards new institutionalist perspectives in comparative politics.13 The focus of new institutionalism is predominantly comparative and institutions are seen as an intermediate layer constraining and influencing politics. In this respect, new institutionalism is different from the earlier studies which tended to focus on formal structures and constitutions. Emphasis is more on the institutional arrangements that shape political strategies and distribute political power. The new institutionalist logic suggests that political actors try to take advantage of the available channels for political activity. As a result, actors are gradually socialized into the institutions as they form their preferences within these rule-bound settings. Interests, therefore, come to be nested in prevailing institutional arrangements. However, due to its emphasis on continuity, new institutionalism has problems with explaining

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