The Swiss Skepticism About Ballot Initiatives

Joe Mathews — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:22:00 -0400

The Swiss prefer referenda to ballot initiatives. Referenda -- that is, a measure to reverse an act of the parliament -- are successful most of the time. That is, the public approves a new law. But the Swiss are deeply skeptical of initiatives -- that is, an effort to impose a new constitutional amendment directly, without input from Parliament. Less than 10 percent of Swiss initiatives are approved by voters. While American direct democracy favors the initiative, Swiss direct democracy is kinder to the referendum.

Even when initiatives pass here, they often are not implemented. I visited with Alf Arnold (photo above), originator of the Alpine Initiative, which is considered a success in Swiss politics. That initiative was approved by the people in 1994; in an effort to reduce pollution, noise and traffic in the Alps, it mandates a "modal shift" in transportation through the range, from trucks to rail. But Arnold expressed frustration at the government's failure to implement the measure. When I asked him whether he would sponsor an initiative if he did it over again, he said he wasn't sure. He even suggested that he was thinking of sponsoring an initiative to eliminate the initiative from the Swiss constitution -- if only to launch a national discussion about the difficulties of implementation.

Initiatives are hard to implement everywhere. A few years back, several researchers wrote a book called Stealing the Initiative, that looked at how initiatives approved by the people in California often are invalidated by the courts, or ignored by elected officials.