Comment by lwkl
5 years ago
What I like most about the Swiss political system is the federal council. Seven people share the duties of the head of state and government. They each lead federal department like a ministers. The members are elected by the united federal assembly. The big parties split the seats proportional to their seats in parliament. The role of president rotates among the members of the federal council and is limited to one year at a time. The president is just first among equals and doesn‘t have any power over the other members of the federal council.
I think this is great for the politics in Switzerland everyone from left to right is represented in the executive and you can‘t just blame the other party for the problems during their terms. This forces the parties to compromise and the opposition based on the issues and not only the party membership.
What stops these 7 members forming two coalitions and having it regress to a two-party polarization?
Cultural divisions along linguistic, religious and political fronts. That’s why the Cantons have so much autonomy. The Swiss Federal government has a much smaller much less high stakes political portfolio because the largest points of controversy, like naturalization, are handled by referendum at the Cantonal rather than the Federal level.
The Federal Council is also elected by the legislature, the Federal Assembly, with the precise composition negotiated through Parliamentary procedure. Every member of the Council has parties to answer to, more so than a directly elected individual with a mandate that can appeal directly to voters and have more popularity than the party backing them. As Swiss culture is far from monolithic, all Federal politics has to be conducted within a coalition. This is true in America as well, it’s just the coalitions are formed under the auspices of the political parties when they form their platforms, which is why it causes problems when you have a directly elected President that is more popular than the party that nominated him.
There’s a lot of lessons here for America, but we wouldn’t be able to transplant the Swiss system here without heavy modification. For example, almost the entirety of the referendum process described in the original article could have been a description of California’s ballot initiative process, with only minor differences in details and processes, and I would argue has been to the detriment of the State of California.
> ... and I would argue has been to the detriment of the State of California.
I am suspicious of all of California's policies, your opinions and the apparent link between direct democracy and material success (Switzerland and California both being synonymous with outrageous wealth).
If the US just tried direct democracy without heavy modification the complaints would be thunderously louder than they are now. No question. The oligarchs would be furious and the media would never shut up. What would actually happen on the ground is unclear.
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Civic understanding is just much different; the 7 seats aren't actually allocated proportionally through a legal mechanism, the parliament just voluntarily chooses to keep the balance in the executive. If they were willing to violate that they could form a coalition in the parliment and actually take all 7 seats of the executive.
Firstly, a councillor is supported by a party. If you don't have the support of your party anymore, you are gone. Secondly, a federal councillar is "above" the party. You are representing first the federal council and not the party towards the public (i.e. a federal councillor represents the opinion of the federal council and not that one of his party).
What stops the parties from forming coalitions?
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A couple of the things, why this just doesn't make much sense to do:
- Except on specific topics, the different parties don't actually agree on much. E.g. during the last cycle the center-right to right parties had the majority in parliament, but they barely got anything trough in four years
- Besides having the role of head of state being shared among 7 people, the federal government also has much less power compared to other countries. Most domestic things happen at a canton (state) and municipal level.
- Basically everything that the council decides, or parliament for that matter, can and often is challenged via popular referendums.
If you don't establish the coalitions trough the entire system they will be pretty much useless. Also because of direct democracy, I think political discourse more often centers around the issues being voted on, rather than the parties and coalitions.
That is what in my opinion is the strength of the Swiss political system. It is very hard for someone, be that a person or party to obtain enough power to really cause long lasting damage. The other side of this coin of course is, that any change will happen extremely slowly. Which can be both good and bad
that's something I never understood about US politics, what prevented Sanders from creating its own party for the US election and not run for the democratic primaries?
The primary attribute of American politics that encourages a two party system is what’s known as “first past the post” elections.
America’s two main parties have changed over the years (remember the Whigs?), so the existence of a two-party system cannot be attributed purely to control exerted by the current two parties.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger%27s_law.
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CGP Grey - The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained (section The Spoiler Effect): https://youtu.be/s7tWHJfhiyo?t=300
http://enwp.org/Ralph_Nader#Spoiler_controversy
He easily could but would end up taking votes from the Democrats, thus helping his opponent in the process. The American system doesn’t work well with third-party candidates and mostly incentivizes against them; see the 1992 election for a recent example.
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Two things:
1. The media would ignore him if he did. He wouldn't get to take part in any of the debates, and most people would have no idea he was even running.
2. It might not even be possible for him to get on the ballot in most states as a third-party candidate. Election laws make it nearly impossible for third parties to get on the ballot in many states. In the last 20 years, the Green Party has never managed to get on the ballot in more than 45 states. In 2004, they only managed to get on the ballot in half the states. The Democratic party fights tooth and nail to keep them off the ballot (just like the Republican party fights to keep the Libertarians off the ballot). Because almost all the local and state election officials and judges are Democrats and Republicans, the deck is stacked against third parties.
Finally, Sanders would be viewed as a spoiler, robbing votes from the Democratic party. Most people would feel like they would be throwing their votes away.
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He's a Democrat senator and got Biden to essentially support most of his platform. Running as an independent or 3rd party would be political suicide and wouldn't help his agenda.
But aside from that most countries have a single process to get on the ballot country-wide. In US you'd have to navigate this process for each state.
I'm sure Bernie could pull that off. But it is definitely the reason you see many fewer randoms making a dent.
Also if you consider the way primaries work in both parties it's way more transparent and approachable than most other places. Many major parties around the world don't have a primary process at all. And even when they do it's usually limited to insiders. So if you want to change things you're almost forced to create a party by default.
If you couldn't make it in a primary of a party that's closer to your beliefs than the general population - how can you expect to make it on a national level?
Presumably the proportional representation part of what he said empowers a team which has even 14% of the vote and so being independent is way more powerful than glomming together (where you’re likely to lose supporters who don’t like the guy you decided to get in bed with and you’re not likely to gain any new supporters).
And all deliberations of the Federal Council are kept secret, partially to reduce partisanship. But with all parties in there, transparency is at at least adequate levels.
What I like best about the Federal Council is Alain Berset, our current health minister. That guy rocks!
The guy who introduced a public transport mask requirement after the epidemic is over? Rocks isn't the word I'd use.
We will see if it's over after summer holidays ok?
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If you like like the Swiss federal council, you might also find interesting the San Marinese political system with the two captains.