Where The Referendums Never Stop - A Review of "Why Switzerland?" by Jonathan Steinberg

Why Switzerland? by Jonathan Steinberg is a 1996 non-fiction text that aims to answer the question of why Switzerland culture and political structures are so unique compared to its European neighbours. Why did I read Why Switzerland? that’s simple – I’d always heard that Switzerland was famously decentralised and used referendums all the time, but barely knew anything about the country other than chocolate, clocks and banks so I wanted to find out more. But why Why Switzerland? in particular? That’s even easier, it was the only English language book I could find that covered the topic without being either a travelogue or a very dry political science treatise. It seems that Switzerland, if Glasgow libraries are to be believed, is a rather obscure country. But anyway, onto the review!

Why Switzerland? is in many ways a very old-fashioned attempt at summarising the essence of a country in a book. Its aim is to summarise why Switzerland exists and what makes it uniquely Swiss. It does this by going through it’s seven chapters and exploring Switzerland’s History, Politics, Language, Wealth, Religion and Identity and if this sounds like it could be an entry in an encyclopaedia you would be quite correct. It is first and foremost a primer on the country of Switzerland, though the prose is kept alive by the many anecdotes and interviews contained within its pages.

And it’s these anecdotes and interviews which really elevate the text from being just an out-of-date primer to one worth reading. For Jonathan Steinberg was not a mere researcher writing a primer for your typical 90s businessman out to sell fax machines and information superhighways, but instead was a well-respected historian on Germany who had strong connections via his wife with the country of Switzerland. These connections allowed him to undertake research trips which allowed him not just to explore the country, but to speak with many leading politicians, businesspeople, trade unionists and religious leaders with what seems to be quite a large level of frankness. Far from this being a PR opportunity for Switzerland, the overwhelming feeling about the future was one of extreme anxiety.

Anxiety? Yes, despite Switzerland’s vast wealth in the mid-1990s European expansion combined with the arrival of the post-Cold War order clearly made many in Switzerland’s elite deeply worried about the country’s future. Fears that it’s unique style of governance – cantons and communes fully sovereign apart from where they had agreed to be ruled by the Federal Government – would be undermined by EU regulations, fears that without the Cold War it would be hard to rally citizens around the common Swiss identity and the country would divide along language lines, even fears that nobody really cared about keeping Switzerland unique. For the Scottish reader it’s eerily similar to the “Crises in Scottish Confidence” argument that was made at the time and does make me wonder if a comparative study would bear fruit.

Swiss cantons like to have lots of exclaves!

That being said it’s this tossing and turning about what it means to be Swiss that really makes this a book worth reading. This is a book about identity in a time of change as much as it is one which explains how church-state governance works in Switzerland. (In short, each canton is different – it’s all very complicated though most have state-churches and church taxes, and rather amusingly some state churches have to get members to approve changes of the liturgy via referendum.) And because it’s a book that asks questions about identity, it’s also one that makes the reader think about their own national identity and how power is distributed within their own country. (Yes, this is the part where I mention Scotland)

On the 13th of December 2023, the Scottish Parliament voted infavour of the Council Tax (variation for Unoccupied Dwellings) (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2023 which allowed councils to charge up to double council tax on unoccupied homes. Of course, councils are still forbidden from charging more then double council tax, and if any future leader in Glasgow or Shetland wanted to do so (or a myriad of other things) they would have to ask the Scottish Parliament to grant them the power via legislation.

Meanwhile on the 26^th of November 1989, 35% of Switzerland voted in favour of abolishing the army in a referendum iniatiated by the Socialist Youth of Switzerland who had gathered the 60,000 signatures (or thereabouts) needed to initiate the referendum process.

Now I’m not saying that a) Scotland should become Switzerland or b) we should abolish the army, but I do think the two rather extreme examples do illustrate how power can be deployed in different ways. It’s only by looking at different ways of doing things do we learn about what is possible and not just what is possible via the current structures, and Switzerland is a perfect example of a country that does things differently from the European norm. Reading a book like Why Switzerland? is therefore absolutely worth the endeavour not just because learning things is fun – though it is – but also because it ends up making ask the question “Why Scotland” as well.

 Today's Soundtrack - Switzerland's 1979 Entry to Eurovision "Trödler Und Co"