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The Swiss and their politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Dusan Sidjanski
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Extract

THE SWISS AND THEIR POLITICS: THIS TOPIC HAS ALREADY BEEN AND still is of concern to many citizens as well as to social scientists. Although it has been the subject of several studies, it has however never generated any empirical research using opinion polls. This has now been done. This study is part of a series based on the results of an opinion poll – the first in Switzerland – carried out in the spring of 1972. The survey was designed to elicit the Swiss citizens’ image of the country's democratic system as well as their attitudes toward important issues. It consisted of a questionnaire lasting about one hour and it was given to 1,917 male and female voters selected by scientific methods which guarantee their representativeness.

Type
Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , 01 July 1976 , pp. 294 - 321
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1976

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References

* Extract from the forthcoming collective work by Sidjanski, D., Roig, C., Kerr, H., Inglehart, R. and Nicola, J., Les Suisses et la pofitique, Bern-Frankfurt/M, Peter Lang, 1975 Google Scholar (in English).

1 This survey was carried out by the Political Science Department of the University of Geneva with the support of the Swiss Fund for Scientific Research in collaboration with the Psychological Institute of the University of Zurich. The field work was done by the Konso Institute of Basel.

2 H. Kerr and G. Kalton, ‘Meinungsforschung und Stichprobeverfahren in der Schweiz,’Quartahhefte zur Markt‐ und Sozialanalyse, March‐April 1973.

3 A. Lijphart, ‘Linguistic Fragmentation and Other Dimensions of Cleavage’, AISP, Montreal, August 1973; Kerr, H., Switzerland: Social Cleavages and Partisan Conflict, London and Beverley Hills: Sage Publications, 1974 Google Scholar.

4 La Suisse, pp. 22, 109, 110 esp.

5 La Suisse, p. 22.

6 Furthermore the Swiss voter gives more importance to elections at the local level and the two forms taken together ‐ election and referendum ‐ gain in importance at the federal level.

7 The term is that of Dahl, Robert, Polyarchy, Participation and Opposition, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1971, esp. p. 84 Google Scholar.

8 See my Présentation des premiers résullats de l’enquête suisse, 1974.

9 Boltanski, Luc, Le Bonheur suisse, Les Editions de Minuit, Paris, 1966 Google Scholar.