Federalism in Switzerland

1988 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vernon Bogdanor
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Striking Feature ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Scientist ◽  
General Impression ◽  
Swiss Cantons

‘FEDERALISM’, CLAIMED THE SWISS PHILOSOPHER, DENIS DE Rougemont, ‘rests upon the love of complexity, by contrast with the brutal simplicity which characterises the totalitarian spirit’. It would be hard to deny that complexity is the most striking feature of federal government in Switzerland. To comprehend it fully, one would have to analyse the history, politics and atmosphere of each of the twenty-six cantons, for each is a political system in itself; and there is no such animal as a ‘typical’ canton. Political scientists have studied one or two cantons in some depth, and there are also impressionistic accounts of cantonal life, but there is no really satisfactory comparative analysis of the cantons as a whole. Further, many Swiss cantons are ‘closed' societies, difficult for the foreigner to penetrate and not easily accessible to the academic inquirer. The political scientist needs to acquire the skills of the anthropologist in addition to those of the analyst of political institutions if he is to make headway. It is difficult, therefore, to give anything more than a very general impression of the principles lying behind federal government in Switzerland, an impression which is bound to be, to some degree at least, misleading. For of no country more than Switzerland is it more correct to say that the truth lies in the minute particulars and not in generalities.The complexity of Swiss federalism is a consequence of the fact that the Swiss have embraced more completely than any other democracy that essential principle, the leitmotiv, of federalism — the sharing of power. Switzerland is indeed an extreme example of federalism, just as it is an extreme example of the application of the principles of democracy and of neutrality in foreign affairs.

Division de pouvoir et intégration social: de Montesquieu à la crise actuelle du parlementarisme

1968 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-269
Author(s):  
André Vachet
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
Social Division ◽  
Western Democracy ◽  
Vital Forces

Division of power and social integrationExplanation of some of the recent challenges to western democracy may be found in a re-examination of Montesquieu's thought. Here we find the theory of the separation of power to be far more complex than is implied in the simple divisions of legislature, executive, and judiciary. For Montesquieu, the separation of power is more a social division than a political or juridical one. He contemplated returning the organs of political power to various social forces, e.g. monarchy, aristocracy, and bourgeoisie, and that then the self-assertion of forces would be restrained by the resistance of other social groups. The realization of its goals would require every important social group to integrate itself both to society and to the state and to seek its goals through realization of the general good.Since Montesquieu's time, political structures would seem to have been very little changed even though social structures have been greatly altered by the rise of economic powers. Political institutions have been losing touch with the vital forces of society and these have had to find other channels of expression. The personalization of power, the rise of the executive, violence, and increasing paternalism may be viewed as phenomena of compensation by which attempts are being made to bridge the gap between the structures of political power and those of a society which has been restructured.Revigoration of parliamentary democracy would seem to require that all vital social forces be reintegrated into the political system and be given meaningful channels of political expression. Failure to make such changes opens the way to identification of the political powers with technocracy and the increasing general use of violence in the resolution of social problems.

Inestabilidad política y presidencialismo en México

1994 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rogelio Hernández Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Partido Revolucionario Institucional

This article analyzes the principal political acts of the Carlos Salinas administration--elections, the removal of state governors, and the reforms of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI)--and their consequences on the political system. Such measures, far from being democratic improvements, have accentuated presidencialismo at the expense of political institutions.

scholarly journals Understanding Curtiss-Wright

2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 653-715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward A. Purcell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Striking Feature

The most striking feature of the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. is its language asserting an independent and exclusive executive foreign affairs power. As “the sole organ of the federal government in the field of foreign relations,” the Court declared, the executive holds “very delicate, plenary and exclusive power” that “does not require as a basis for its exercise an act of Congress.” From the day the case was decided, it has stood as a preeminent authority for those who would magnify the constitutional role of the president by proclaiming the independent and unchecked nature of the executive's foreign affairs power.

Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy

1959 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seymour Martin Lipset
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Political Legitimacy ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
The Political ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Existence And Stability ◽  
Political Philosopher ◽  
Determinants Of Action

The conditions associated with the existence and stability of democratic society have been a leading concern of political philosophy. In this paper the problem is attacked from a sociological and behavioral standpoint, by presenting a number of hypotheses concerning some social requisites for democracy, and by discussing some of the data available to test these hypotheses. In its concern with conditions—values, social institutions, historical events—external to the political system itself which sustain different general types of political systems, the paper moves outside the generally recognized province of political sociology. This growing field has dealt largely with the internal analysis of organizations with political goals, or with the determinants of action within various political institutions, such as parties, government agencies, or the electoral process. It has in the main left to the political philosopher the larger concern with the relations of the total political system to society as a whole.

Dimensions of Political Alienation

1970 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
pp. 389-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ada W. Finifter
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
System Stability ◽  
Civic Culture ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Marked Rise ◽  
Citizen Support ◽  
The Individual

In recent years there has emerged in this country a radical questioning and rejection of established political institutions unparalleled since the Civil War in its intensity and scope. One objective indicator of this trend since World War II is the marked rise in voluntary renunciation of American citizenship, an act which represents the formal and final estrangement of the individual from his former political ties. Available evidence suggests that estrangement from the polity is also widespread in countries throughout the world as fundamental questions are being raised about the legitimacy of political institutions and political leadership.Attitudes toward the political system have long been a concern of political scientists. Major orienting theories of the political system suggest that citizen support plays a crucial role in determining the structure and processes of political systems. Almond and Verba, for example, use the concept “civic culture” to refer to a complex mix of attitudes and behaviors considered to be conducive to democratic government. Easton underscores the fundamental importance of attitudes for system stability, focusing especially on “diffuse support” as a prerequisite for the integration of political systems. He suggests that “(w)here the input of support falls below [a certain] minimum, the persistence of any kind of system will be endangered. A system will finally succumb unless it adopts measures to cope with the stress.”The conversion of these general theoretical ideas into systematic empirical theory requires further rigorous and comprehensive analyses of types of citizen support and the development of empirical indicators for this domain.

scholarly journals Ozo title institution in Igbo land in relation to politics in Nigeria: A comparative analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-108
Author(s):  
Innocent Ogbonna Nweke
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
The Political ◽  
X Rays ◽  
Cultural Approach ◽  
The People ◽  
Land Politics ◽  
The Individual

Politics, they said is a dirty game. One tends to disagree with this assertion because man is a political being and everything man does is all about politics. It depends on the intention, and how each plays his or her own. Ozo title is one of the political institutions in Igbo land. It will be worthy to mention that the Ozo title meant in this paper is the primordial or original Ozo title in Igbo land and not the adulterated Ozo title today. It is one of the institutions that helps in governance, controls different sectors of the Igbo man’s life and equally checkmates the excesses in the land. This work tries to look at the politics in the Nigerian setting and that of the Igbo land as being championed by Ozo title men. It x-rays their day-to-day activities and compares them. The work equally will be able to evaluate the two. During the evaluation, it was discovered that politics is not dirty, it was also discovered that since the Ozo title men play this politics and play it very well, it now boils down on the makeup of the individual and the intentions of the people in it. It however suggests that the Nigerian leaders or politicians should look at the Ozo title institution and what it is for the Igbo man and borrow a leaf from them. The paper uses socio-cultural approach in the work. The paper finally warns that the Ozo title as used in this study is the primodial one and not the adulterated one. Thus, if the politicians in Nigerian today borrow from the Ozo title men in Igbo land, politics in Nigeria will be a better and an interesting one. Key words: Ozo title, Igbo land, Leadership, Politics, Nigeria

scholarly journals Political culture as a factor of civilized lobbying establishment in contemporary Russia

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 135-150
Author(s):  
N. V. Karpova
Keyword(s):  
Political Culture ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Legal Foundations ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Representation Of Interests ◽  
The Impact

The article is devoted to the study of civilized lobbyism formation in contemporary Russia in the context of the political culture peculiarities. The author explains the use of the concept of “civilized lobbyism” from the standpoint of the presence of various interpretations of lobbying in political science, which prevents a clear separation of legitimate and illegitimate forms of interests’ representation, while the object of research is primarily the legal technologies of influence on power. Political culture is regarded as one of the subjective factors determining the functioning of the mechanisms of interests’ representation in the political system, as well as the specifics of lobbying activities in each particular state. The influence of political culture on the process of lobbying in Russia is analyzed not only at the level of political orientations and behavior of individuals and groups, but also at the level of institutional structures. To study the impact of the political culture on the formation of social practices of lobbying, the author refers to the institutional concept of D. North, in which the mechanism of functioning of social and political institutions is revealed through the correlation of formal and informal rules, norms, attitudes and behaviours. In the context of the development of the democratic representation of interests in contemporary Russia particular attention is given to the problem of preserving and dominating historically established authoritarian orientations in the relations of society and power, as well as the traditions of paternalism and clientellism. However, the author believes that it is not correct to reduce the influence from the political culture mostly to the national traditions. It is concluded that the fundamental condition for the development of civilized lobbying in present day Russia is the is the parallel formation of legal foundations and the corresponding matrix of political culture, both at the level of subjects of lobbying relations and at the level of interests’ representation institutions.

scholarly journals Types of Political Consciousness and Behavior of Russian Women

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-33
Author(s):  
Еlena Аnatolievna Kranzeeva
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Correlation Analysis ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
The Political ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Political Consciousness ◽  
Independent Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
And Behavior

The relevance of studying political consciousness and behavior is determined by the contradictions of sociopolitical processes in society. Political con-sciousness as a reflection of social groups’ attitude to the sociopolitical structure and development of the country, various political institutions in sociolo-gy has been studied quite widely. However, the au-thor notes that the political consciousness and be-havior of women has extremely rarely been the sub-ject of independent analysis. The purpose is to study and describe the types of political conscious-ness and behavior of women in modern Russia. A comparative analysis of age, education, settlement, socio-professional, reproductive characteristics in-fluence on women's political consciousness is car-ried out based on empirical data from the World Val-ues Survey (WVS). Using correlation analysis, the author identifies four analytically constructed types of political consciousness and behavior of women: efficient, activist, massificated, absentee types. In conclusion, it is shown that the political conscious-ness and behavior of women is an independent sub-ject of sociological analysis.

scholarly journals Democratic institutes in the countries of the Arab East: features of development and transformation

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 29-34
Author(s):  
Islam Almughid
Keyword(s):  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political System ◽  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Interests ◽  
Democratic Transformation ◽  
Former Ussr

The article examines the leading centers of democratic transformation in Arab countries and the formation of an institutional base for democratization processes. It is emphasized that the parameters of the political system of the Arab East are comparable to the some countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the countries of the former USSR, which reveals a problem beyond the limits of purely regional research. The attention has been focused on the socio-cultural specificities of the Arab countries as a factor requiring special attention to consider the social environment of the political system, which affects the organization of power and the specifics of political participation. It is noted that such traditional democratic institutions as active political participation, political leadership, and public activity should be considered through the prism of the traditional guidance of political Islam. It is argued that attempts to realize their own model of modernization of the political system are faced with the failure of political institutions. It is substantiated that in the Arabian countries the level of representation and realization of social interests of citizens has proved to be insufficient. The importance of the national Arab model of political adaptation of society to the conditions of globalization is considered.

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