Just came across this post 2 years later and I think it’s the best writeup on political developments in Switzerland I’ve seen on the internet.
Some clever organizational and system design alleviated or outright avoided many of the common pitfalls of electoral democracy, and federations. I wonder if this could be extended to other federated countries?
Hard to say, but one problem I see is that strong regional identity that powers the political processes in federations cannot be created by fiat. If you turn a centralized country to federation by passing such law it would continue to work as a centralized country. Maybe in 100-200 years regional identity, regional elites, specific regional interests would emerge, but it won’t be tomorrow. Same, although maybe in a lesser extent, I think, applies to already federated countries and “making them even more federated”.
Just came across this post 2 years later and I think it’s the best writeup on political developments in Switzerland I’ve seen on the internet.
Some clever organizational and system design alleviated or outright avoided many of the common pitfalls of electoral democracy, and federations. I wonder if this could be extended to other federated countries?
Hard to say, but one problem I see is that strong regional identity that powers the political processes in federations cannot be created by fiat. If you turn a centralized country to federation by passing such law it would continue to work as a centralized country. Maybe in 100-200 years regional identity, regional elites, specific regional interests would emerge, but it won’t be tomorrow. Same, although maybe in a lesser extent, I think, applies to already federated countries and “making them even more federated”.