The Europeanisation of Swiss Decision-Making in Comparative
Perspective: From Outlier to Normal Case?
Alexandre Afonso, Marie-Christine Fontana & Yannis Papadopoulos
Word count : 2906
Introduction
Switzerland is often considered as an anomaly in the middle of Europe, with its set of
bizarre political institutions preventing it from joining the European Union. In many
respects, the institution of direct democracy and the obligation to ratify each EU-related
decision via compulsory referendums have made the emergence of a “permissive
consensus” over European integration very difficult. While the de-politicisation of EU
matters has been understood as a condition for the pursuit of the integration process
(Hooghe & Marks 2009: 5), the imperatives of direct democracy have made this depoliticisation almost impossible in Switzerland. Direct democracy created a “constraining
dissensus”, as coined by Hooghe and Marks, right from the start. It is for instance striking
to note that despite its non-membership, the EU was a more politicised subject in
Switzerland than in France, the UK, Germany or Austria (Hutter & Grande 2013: 37).
Both inside and outside Switzerland, the Swiss bilateral way has been criticized by some
and considered an alternative to full adhesion by others. What tends to be neglected is that
Switzerland has to adapt to a number of European regulations and directives without
having a direct say in them. The Eurozone crisis may have actually increased this tendency
even more, as cash-strapped EU countries have exerted ever more pressure on
Switzerland in a number of domains, as recent developments in banking secrecy
demonstrate (Steinlin & Trampusch 2012). Nevertheless, as it is becoming ever more
difficult for Switzerland to maintain its special position in Europe while more countries
are turning to Switzerland to renegotiate their relationship with the EU, these broader
debates have emphasised the need to compare the domestic impact of European
integration in Switzerland and in other countries. Is the impact of European integration in
Switzerland really different from that of full members? How can we assess whether the EU
is really a cause of domestic developments? This contribution presents the main findings
of a comparative research project carried out between 2005 and 2009 which precisely
sought to answer these questions (Afonso & Papadopoulos 2013; Afonso 2010, 2012,
2013; Afonso et al. 2010; Fontana 2009, 2011a; 2011b; Fontana et al. 2008).
As emphasised by Sciarini, Varone and Gava in the introduction of this debate, a number of
analyses have been carried out over the last 15 years on the impact of Europeanisation on
the Swiss political system. However, our project was the only one with an explicit
comparative focus, as it compared Switzerland with a number of small European states
(Austria, Belgium, and Ireland) in a number of policy domains. Our contribution is
structured as follows. First, we outline the main approach and findings of the research
project, and then discuss two major aspects of the research project: the comparability of
EU impacts in Switzerland and elsewhere, and the question of causality in EU research,
notably with respect to different forms of Europeanisation.
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Assessing Europeanisation Effects in a Comparative Perspective
The main objective of the project “The impact of internationalization on Swiss policy
processes in comparative perspective”1 was to assess the impact of European integration
on patterns of decision-making in small European states, and more precisely on the
patterns of cooperation between governments and organized interests (social
concertation) in the decision-making process. In many respects, the literature provided
ambiguous expectations as to this impact. On the one hand, following Katzenstein’s (1984,
1985, 2003) classic analysis of internationalization in small European states,
Europeanisation was expected to strengthen incentives for governments to involve
organized interests, and particularly trade unions and employers, in policymaking. This
could happen through various causal mechanisms. First, as shown by the increase in social
pacts some observers witnessed in the 1990s (Fajertag & Pochet 2000; Hancke & Rhodes
2005), European integration has been understood as a strong force for domestic
concertation because of the economic constraints it imposes on governments. Second, as
argued by Schmidt (2006), the “semi-pluralist” interest intermediation process that
prevails at EU level tends to spill over at the domestic level, as shown by research
conducted in the area of social policy (Falkner & Leiber 2004). On the other hand,
following Moravcik’s (1994) or Milwards’s (1999) hypotheses, the EU has been believed to
strengthen domestic governments who take directly part in international negotiations at
the expense of other domestic actors. In this perspective, European integration should
weaken concertation with organized interests and favour unilateral government action
instead.
In many ways, the project drew on previous work on the Swiss case (Fischer 2005; Fischer
et al. 2002; Sciarini et al. 2004; Häusermann et al. 2004a, b; Mach et al. 2003). It sought to
assess whether the findings of previous research were still valid for Switzerland, and
whether the mechanisms of adaptation were similar in other countries. The methodology
used in the research project was comparative both across countries and policy sectors
(Haverland 2006). In order to assess whether the EU had a causal impact on patterns of
decision-making we not only compared Switzerland with other EU countries, but also
compared policy sectors with different degrees of Europeanisation within countries,
namely the regulation of the free movement of workers, electricity liberalisation,
competition law reform (strongly Europeanised), occupational pensions, and
unemployment protection policy (weakly Europeanised). Concretely, the empirical
analysis sought to test whether there was systematic variation in patterns of involvement
of organized interests between strongly- and weakly-Europeanised policy sectors.
Following Haverland (2006), we drew on the assumption that the causal impact of the EU
can best be assessed by comparing sectors where the “EU factor” is both absent and
present. In the following sections, we outline the main results of the research project
structured around two dimensions: first, the differences and similarities between
Europeanisation impacts in Switzerland and in similar countries, and second, the question
of causality with respect to different types of Europeanisation (direct or indirect).
Are Europeanisation effects different in Switzerland?
What are the effects on Europeanisation in Switzerland? And are they different from
effects in similar member states? Previous research on the impact of Europe on
policymaking processes in Switzerland has yielded somewhat ambiguous results. While
Mach et al. (2003) found that Europeanisation in the area of regulatory reforms allowed
http://www.nccr-democracy.uzh.ch/research/research-phase-1/module2/ip4/ip-4-the-impactof-internationalization-on-swiss-policy-processes-in-comparative-perspective
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for less inclusive patterns of policymaking, Sciarini et al. (2004) found fairly extensive
patterns of participation of organized interests, particularly in the domain of the free
movement of workers. In many ways, the results of the project tend to confirm this nonsystematic trend, both for Switzerland and European member-states: while Fontana
(2011a; 2011b) found less inclusive patterns of policymaking in electricity liberalization
and competition law reforms in Belgium and Switzerland, Afonso (2013) and Afonso and
Papadopoulos (2013) found both inclusive (in Switzerland and Ireland) and exclusive (in
Austria) decision-making processes in the domain of free movement of workers. Hence,
none of the main hypotheses on the impact of Europeanisation on concertation – either in
the direction of a strengthening or of a weakening – applied consistently across cases and
countries, showing that the impact of Europeanisation is ultimately mediated by domestic
factors. In general, both in Switzerland and elsewhere, domestic factors such as party
coalitions and actor strategies appear as major mediating factors. Europeanisation per se,
as will be argued in the next section, cannot be considered a sufficient cause for one or the
other outcome.
In spite of its non-membership and peculiar political institutions, however, many features
observed in Swiss decision-making processes could also be observed elsewhere if one
thinks in terms of functional equivalents (Fontana et al. 2008). The regulation of the free
movement of workers, probably the most prominent aspect of the bilateral relationships
between Switzerland and the EU, is a case in point. Indeed, the pattern of labour market
opening and re-regulation observed in Switzerland through the so-called “flanking
measures” negotiated between trade unions and employers could also be observed in
Ireland, a country where “social partnership” has played a prominent role until the
economic crisis that broke out in 2008 (Afonso 2012). In Switzerland, an extensive
concertation procedure was put in place in order to buy the support of trade unions for
the liberalization of labour migration policy (Afonso 2013: 132-153; Fischer et al. 2002).
In this context, Swiss trade unions could use their veto power to trigger a concertation
procedure and push for further regulation of the labour market as a side-payment. In
Ireland, trade unions similarly used their veto power as negotiating partners in social
partnership agreements to seek similar regulation measures designed to protect Irish
wages in the context of labour mobility. After the Irish labour market was opened for
workers of new EU countries in 2004, trade unions threatened not to negotiate a new
social partnership agreement on wage increases that was considered important for
employers. Similar to Switzerland, both employers and governments were forced to
provide guarantees to trade unions in terms of protections against wage dumping, even if
the actual regulatory reach of the agreement in Ireland was substantially weaker.
While the regulation of free movement of workers both in Switzerland and Ireland shows
inclusive patterns of policymaking, electricity liberalization in Switzerland and Belgium
demonstrates how a European regulation can be used to exclude some actors, namely the
unions, from policymaking. In both countries, a pro-liberalization coalition of the
government, right-wing parties, and business associations negotiated a reform, while
more skeptical left-wing parties and in particular unions were only marginally involved.
This exclusive process was facilitated in both countries by the fact that the pro-European
unions did not oppose the reform fundamentally, they only asked for more re-regulation
of the electricity sector. Thus, they could not credibly threaten to block the reform, despite
the veto points displayed by the two political systems.2
However, the Swiss electricity liberalization reform was finally rejected. The unions changed their
position and opposed the reform fundamentally by launching an eventually successful referendum.
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These cases show how Europeanisation can vary across sectors and countries, depending
on prevailing domestic power relationships, cleavages and veto powers, but not so much
on EU membership (Afonso 2010, Afonso et al. 2010, Fontana 2011). The limited
explanatory power of Swiss non-membership and the importance of different cleavage
patterns to determine patterns of inclusion and exclusion are particularly well illustrated
in the following two cases (Afonso 2010, Afonso et al. 2010): When right-parties are
united, inclusion patterns tend to be weak because right-wing majorities do not need
trade unions and social democrats to build parliamentary majorities. This was the case in
the weakly Europeanised reform of the unemployment insurance in Switzerland. When
right-wing parties are divided between a pro-bilateral coalition (FDP and CVP) and a
Eurosceptic wing (a majority of the SVP), however, inclusion patterns tend to be greater
because pro-bilateral right-wing parties need trade unions and social democrats to build
parliamentary majorities. This could be observed in the case of the strongly Europeanised
regulation of free movement of workers. Thus, in this case, it was the specific pattern of
party fragmentation in Switzerland combined with its importance rather than its nonmembership or the “direct” nature of Europeanisation per se that influenced decisionmaking patterns.
Is the EU really a cause of domestic developments?
A prominent question of earlier research on the Europeanisation of Swiss decision-making
was the differential impact of “direct” and “indirect” forms of Europeanisation. Sciarini et
al. (2004), for instance, compared cases that derived directly from bilateral negotiations
between the EU and Switzerland (such as the free movement of workers already
mentioned) and others where Switzerland adapted autonomously (such as the
liberalization of telecommunications). Our comparative project compared not only direct
and indirect Europeanisation in Switzerland, and thus in different policy sectors. We also
compared direct and indirect Europeanisation in the same policy sector across countries,
such as electricity liberalization in Belgium (direct) and Switzerland (indirect
Europeanisation). This approach made it possible to investigate whether patterns of
decision-making in regulatory policy are less inclusive because of the “indirect” nature of
Europeanisation, or because of the specific features of this policy field. In many ways,
comparative evidence points to the latter, as relatively similar features could be observed
in similar policy fields across countries. As similar policy sectors tend to be populated by
similar interests and actors across different countries, there may be quite consistent
patterns of policymaking within policy fields, which may also be reinforced by diffusion
effects.
Finally, an important possibly hidden factor which may override Europeanisation is
politicization. The comparative empirical analysis has shown that decision-making
processes tend to be more inclusive when issues are politically very salient. This does not
necessarily happen automatically, but after political actors manage to politicize issues in a
way that can be damageable for the electoral or referendum prospects of the government.
For instance, a working group on the strengthening of the flanking measures to the free
movement of workers was established only after trade unions made clear that they were
ready to support a referendum against free movement if guarantees for the protection of
Swiss wages were not provided. The government, by contrast, was ready to extend the
free movement of workers to new countries without necessarily strengthening labour
market protection. Along similar lines, in Ireland, re-regulation measures were introduced
after a vivid political campaign whereby trade unions strived to place the issue of job
displacement on the agenda. A media analysis showed that the government triggered a
concertation process after media attention to this issue peaked. In many ways, this was a
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proof that politicization only impacts on decision-making processes insofar as it is used by
political actors, be it in Switzerland or abroad.
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