The Political Culture of Switzerland in Comparative Perspective

Abstract

Abstract This chapter focuses on political culture in Switzerland and in an international comparison. It starts with a discussion on political culture as an object of research, followed by a brief summary of measurement and available data on political culture. Finally, we survey political culture in Switzerland and compare the results with other European countries. Switzerland is especially interesting as an object of investigation, since it consists of three linguistically, culturally, religiously, and regionally different groups and can thus be seen as a microcosm of Europe. Following the research tradition of Almond and Verba, we define political culture as a ‘particular distribution of patterns of orientation toward political objects among the members of the nation’ and investigate attitudes toward the system as a whole (polity culture), attitudes toward the political process (politics culture), and attitudes toward political issues (policy culture). Evaluating survey data, we reach the following two main findings: First, attitudes toward democracy and the political system, as well as toward the institutions and actors in the political process, have been characterized by a high degree of stability in Switzerland over the past decades. Second, our analysis shows that Switzerland has a particularly strong approval of democracy and is characterized by a high degree of trust and political participation compared with other European countries. Switzerland, with its particularly pronounced direct democracy, is thus a haven for a political culture with a great deal of support and trust.