Swiss politics and political institutions: 5. Party system and parties Prof. Dr. Andreas Ladner iMPA 2013

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Module 1 1.Society and History 2.Federalism and Municipalities 3.Government and Parliament 4.Direct Democracy 5.Party system and Parties 6.What about the citizens?

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Party systems = a set of one (?) two or more parties. (see China, US and CH) There is more about a party system than the number of parties!

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | How to explain the existence of party systems?  Institutional theories  Historic theories on crises and transformation  Theories of modernization

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Lipset/Rokkan (1967): two revolutions and four cleavages national and industrial revolution: Centre – Periphery, State – Church, Owner – Worker, Industry - Land

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | The four cleavages  Centre – Periphery: The division between elites in the urban areas, and those in more outlying areas. (Liberals – Christian Democrats)  State – Church: A division between religious and secular voters. (Liberals – Christian Democrats)  Owner – Worker - A class cleavage, causing the formation of parties of the left and parties of the right. Sometimes it is argued that this cleavage represents a conflict between the rich and poor. (Liberals – Social Democrats)  Land – Industry - Continued state exercise of control over tariffs (customs) against freedom of control for industrial enterprise. (Liberals – Swiss People’s Party)

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Remember? Cross-cutting Cleavages French speaking, Catholics, poor German speaking, protestants, rich F G rich poor cath. prot.

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Frozen Party System – These: "... the party systems of the 1960's reflect, with a few but significant exceptions the cleavage structures of the 1920's. This is a crucial characteristics of Western competitive politics in the age of "high mass consumption": the party alternatives, and in remarkably many cases the party organizations, are older than the majorities of the national electorates.” (Lipset/Rokkan 1967: 50)

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Kirchheimer (1965: 32) suggest a slightly different concept: the catch-all party  Ideology and cleavages lose their importance  Party leaders become more important  Party members become less important  The party is mainly interested in votes

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Characteristics of party systems  Number of parties  Volatility  Type of parties

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | „Effective number of parties “ Laakso/Taagepera (1979) : pi is the percentage of votes of a party.

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | The fragmentation of the Swiss party system compared

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | „Volatility“ Pedersen (1979) : n is the number of parties, vit is the percentage of votes of party i at time t and vi(t+1) the percentage of votes of party i at time t + 1..

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Increasing volatility

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | What kind of parties? The big parties 1919 – % 19.5 % 15.8 % 14.6 % 9.6 %

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | What kind of parties? The small parties

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | High polarization of the Swiss party system

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Swiss parties

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Four „older“ ones and a rather „new“ party  Social Democrats: Social security, solidarity, openness, environment  Radicals: knowledge, openness, fairness, growth, against bureaucracy  Christian Democrats: attractive business location, family, social security  Swiss People‘s Party: Against European integration, against immigration, lower tax burden  Greens: climate protection, reorganisation of the economy along more environmental lines, the strengthening of social institution and an active policy of peace

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | The emergence of the Swiss parties  Organisations of the citizens entitled to vote („Children of the popular rights“)  Bottom-up: first organisation in the cantons  National party organisation –Social Democrats (1888) –Liberal Party (1894) –Christian Democrats (1912) –Swiss People’s Party (1936) –Greens (1983)

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Party organisations Rather weak and small. Parties belong to the civil society. –No constitutional recognition (Art. 137, since 2000) –Interest groups (and social movements) play an important role; consultation process opens the decision making process, direct democracy –Weak national party organisation, limited resources, low number of professional staff, heterogenous

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Party members Quelle: Gunzinger 2008

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Average membership fees (in sFr.)

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Internal funding cantonal parties (percentages)

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| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Number of professional staff (national parties) Vgl. Seminararbeit von Michael Bühler 2006

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Ideological heterogeneity

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Candates National Election: Social Democrats and Swiss People‘ s Party

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Candidates: Liberals, Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, Swiss People‘s Party, Green liberals, Greens

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Political Differences among the MPs of the different Parties

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| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Seven policy dimensions and 28 questions  Wirtschaftliche Liberalisierung = economic liberalization  Restriktive Finanzpolitik = restrictive financial policy  Justiz und Innere Sicherheit = law and order  Restriktive Einwanderungspolitik = restrictive immigration policy  Umweltschutz = pro environment  Ausbau des Sozialstaates = pro welfare state  Liberale Gesellschaft = liberal society

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Party families (1)

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Party families (2)

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Homogeneity of the different party families

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Liberal parties (Switzerland and Germany )

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Liberal parties (GB, NL, DK)

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Christian Democrats (Switzerland and Germany)

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Union pour une majorité populaire (France)

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Green parties (CH, Germany and Austria)

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Social Democrats in Switzerland and Germany

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Labour (Engl.), PS (France) und SAP (Sweden)

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | Swiss People‘s Party, FPOe und Vlaams Belang

| ©IDHEAP – | | 23/09/2015 | SVP and PVV (Geert Wilders)