"Let's Talk Cash": Cantons' Interests and the Reform of Swiss Federalism

Cappelletti, Fabio; Fischer, Manuel; Sciarini, Pascal (2014). "Let's Talk Cash": Cantons' Interests and the Reform of Swiss Federalism. Regional and Federal Studies, 24(1), pp. 1-20. Taylor & Francis 10.1080/13597566.2013.808627

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In 2004 the Swiss people accepted a new equalization scheme and a new distribution of competences between the federal state and the cantons. It was argued that the reform was successful because of the capacity of veto-players to overcome their interests and adopt a ‘problem-solving’ interaction mode. We propose a different interpretation and argue that distributive issues and the accommodation of actors' interests crucially mattered. We identify three mechanisms that contribute to a successful reform, i.e. package-deals, side-payments and the downsizing of the reform. Our in-depth, mainly qualitative study of both the content of the reform and related decision-making process supports the pertinence of these strategies for the explanation of the successful reform of Swiss federalism.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Institute of Political Science

UniBE Contributor:

Fischer, Manuel (B)

Subjects:

300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology > 320 Political science

ISSN:

1359-7566

Publisher:

Taylor & Francis

Language:

English

Submitter:

Manuel Fischer

Date Deposited:

25 Mar 2015 09:23

Last Modified:

29 Mar 2023 23:34

Publisher DOI:

10.1080/13597566.2013.808627

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/65476

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