When politics does matter: Explaining the reactions of Swiss municipalities to the “amalgamation wave”. Stefano Calciolari, PhD Assistant Professor in Health Care Management Faculty of Economics, Università della Svizzera italiana Via G. Buffi 13, CH 6904, Lugano, Switzerland e-mail:
[email protected] Daniela Cristofoli, PhD Assistant Professor in Public Management Faculty of Economics, Università della Svizzera italiana Via G. Buffi 13, CH 6904, Lugano, Switzerland e-mail:
[email protected] Laura Maccio PhD students in Public Management Faculty of Economics, Università della Svizzera italiana Via G. Buffi 13, CH 6904, Lugano, Switzerland e-mail:
[email protected] “When politics does matters: Explaining the reactions of Swiss municipalities at amalgamation wave. Introduction Switzerland is a federalist country in the core of Europe. It is made up of 26 Cantons and approximately 2,500 municipalities. About 55% of the municipalities have less than 1,000 inhabitants and only eight municipalities have more than 500,000 inhabitants (Swiss Federal Statistical Office, 2010). Swiss municipalities are very different from the social, cultural and political standpoints (Steiner 2000). However, each one is responsible for providing a wide range of public services, for instance: education during the compulsory time of schooling, social services, utilities and waste disposal, local police, granting of civil rights and internal organization of the civil authorities, etc. During the 90s, the growing citizen demand for high quality services and the strict budget constraints of many municipalities (Ladner and Steiner 1998) raised a political debate on how to ensure effective and efficient fulfilment of municipal tasks. In this debate, amalgamation emerged as a “panacea” to handle the financial distress faced by many Swiss municipalities and often considered due to their small size (Dafflon 2001; Ladner 2001; Soguel 2001).