Author: P. Sciarini
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137508604
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 494
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Book Description
This in-depth study of the decision-making processes of the early 2000s shows that the Swiss consensus democracy has changed considerably. Power relations have transformed, conflict has increased, coalitions have become more unstable and outputs less predictable. Yet these challenges to consensus politics provide opportunities for innovation.
Author: Wolf Linder
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780230231894
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272
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Book Description
An updated third edition of this authoriative analysis of Swiss democracy, the institutions of federalism, and consensus democracy through political power sharing. Linder analyses the scope and limits of citizen's participation in direct democracy, which distinguishes Switzerland from most parliamentary systems.
Author: Ernst Baltensperger
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108191444
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 267
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Book Description
This book describes the remarkable path which led to the Swiss Franc becoming the strong international currency that it is today. Ernst Baltensperger and Peter Kugler use Swiss monetary history to provide valuable insights into a number of issues concerning the organization and development of monetary institutions and currency that shaped the structure of financial markets and affected the economic course of a country in important ways. They investigate a number of topics, including the functioning of a world without a central bank, the role of competition and monopoly in money and banking, the functioning of monetary unions, monetary policy of small open economies under fixed and flexible exchange rates, the stability of money demand and supply under different monetary regimes, and the monetary and macroeconomic effects of Swiss Banking and Finance. Swiss Monetary History since the Early 19th Century illustrates the value of monetary history for understanding financial markets and macroeconomics today.
Author: Damir Skenderovic
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1845459482
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 489
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Book Description
There has been a tendency amongst scholars to view Switzerland as a unique case, and comparative scholarship on the radical right has therefore shown little interest in the country. Yet, as the author convincingly argues, there is little justification for maintaining the notion of Swiss exceptionalism, and excluding the Swiss radical right from cross-national research. His book presents the first comprehensive study of the development of the radical right in Switzerland since the end of the Second World War and therefore fills a significant gap in our knowledge. It examines the role that parties and political entrepreneurs of the populist right, intellectuals and publications of the New Right, as well as propagandists and militant groups of the extreme right assume in Swiss politics and society. The author shows that post-war Switzerland has had an electorally and discursively important radical right since the 1960s that has exhibited continuity and persistence in its organizations and activities. Recently, this has resulted in the consolidation of a diverse Swiss radical right that is now established at various levels within the political and public arena.
Author: Ben Reilly
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309519101
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 73
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Book Description
This paper is one of a series being prepared for the National Research Council's Committee on International Conflict Resolution. The committee was organized in late 1995 to respond to a growing need for prevention, management, and resolution of violent conflict in the international arena, a concern about the changing nature and context of such conflict in the post-Cold War era, and a recent expansion of knowledge in the field. The committee's main goal is to advance the practice of conflict resolution by using the methods and critical attitude of science to examine the effectiveness of various techniques and concepts that have been advanced for preventing, managing, and resolving international conflicts. The committee's research agenda has been designed to supplement the work of other groups, particularly the Carnegie Corporation of New York's Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, which issued its final report in December 1997. The committee has identified a number of specific techniques and concepts of current interest to policy practitioners and has asked leading specialists on each one to carefully review and analyze available knowledge and to summarize what is known about the conditions under which each is or is not effective. These papers present the results of their work.
Author: Hanspeter Kriesi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521606318
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
Despite Switzerland's small size, its political system is one of the most complex and fascinating among contemporary democracies. The rich, complex mixture of centuries-old institutions and the refined political arrangements that exist today constitute a veritable laboratory for social scientists and their students. Often presented as the paradigmatic case of political integration, consensus democracy and multinational federalism, the Swiss model has become a benchmark case for analyses in comparative politics, political behaviour and other related fields. Written by two leading experts on Swiss politics, this book presents a definitive overview for scholars and students interested in Switzerland's political system at the beginning of the twenty-first century. By focusing on its intricacies but also taking in larger issues of general interest, the broad scope of this study will appeal to all those interested in contemporary European politics and democratic systems.
Author: Carol L. Schmid
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520040793
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 214
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Book Description
Schmid discusses this anomaly, concluding that Switzerland remains "united by a self-conscious political definition of nationhood", having developed a system early in its history that has ensured all ethnic and religious groups fair treatment politically, socially, and economically.
Author: Gregory A. Fossedal
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412821742
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310
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Book Description
Only one country in the world--Switzerland--is a direct democracy, in which, to an extent, the people pass their own laws, judge the constitutionality of statutes, and even have written, in effect, their own constitution. In this propitious volume, Gregory Fossedal reports on the politics and social fabric of what James Bryce has called "the nation that has taken the democratic idea to its furthest extent." The lessons Fossedal presents, at a time of dissatisfaction with the role of money and privileged elites in many Western democracies, are at once timely and urgent. In Direct Democracy in Switzerland, Fossedal has developed a shrewd, sensitive overview of Switzerland's high notion of statecraft. He details the reasons for studying Switzerland's distinctive institutions, and explores the origins and development of the ancient Swiss democracy, which reaches back a thousand years. He shows how Switzerland handles the political questions common to all modern societies, such as education, taxes, crime, welfare, the Holocaust. He concludes with the ongoing debate over two very different visions of democracy, direct versus representative. Paolo Dardenelli in Regional and Federal Studies described the book in its cloth edition as offering "many valuable insights into Swiss political life and written in a light, refreshing journalistic style." Amity Shlaes of the Financial Times commented that "Fossedal shines a brilliant spotlight on a form of governancewith lessons for the rest of us. His review of the referendum process there is required reading for lawmakers, political consultants and voters." Gregory A. Fossedal is chairman of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution, a research foundation based near Washington, DC. He is also president and chief investment officer of the Democratic Century Fund and its management company, the Emerging Markets Group. He is author of The Democratic Imperative. Alfred R. Berkeley III is president of the Nasdaq stock market.
Author: Clive H. Church
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317443667
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
Political Change in Switzerland explains the striking recent political developments in Switzerland, an important but surprisingly little known and often misunderstood country, aiming to dissipate prevailing myths about Switzerland in its European context. Firstly, the title provides an analysis of the way the practice and processes of Swiss politics have so dramatically changed over the last 25 years, setting out the differences between outside perceptions and changing Swiss realities. Secondly, it discusses how far the country has moved, from the stability of the post-war period to a new era of uncertainty, in which the so called Sonderfall, or special case, no longer seems to apply. In doing so it analyses the populist movement, centred on the Swiss People’s Party, examining its support and tactical operations, as well as the response of the establishment to the challenges the movement poses, both generally and where key questions of policy on foreigners and the EU are concerned. Finally, the title explains how much of this change is related to Europe, and discusses the prospects for Switzerland, Europe and the EU member states in the light of this new Swiss uncertainty. The way in which globalization has imposed new stresses on Switzerland, both in external policy and social terms, is the key theme of the title. These stresses have, in turn, encouraged the growth of a new populist movement, drawing on social classes previously supportive of other forces, and employing aggressive new tactics, creating a challenge that the establishment has found it hard to counter, so that stability has been compromised. As a result, Switzerland now faces two linked policy challenges, to find ways of accommodating unease about immigration and to devise a realistic and widely acceptable new relationship with the EU. The book’s underlying belief is that these changes have left the country divided and uncertain about its future. This title offers in-depth analysis of Switzerland's domestic and European politics and policies. It is also innovative in trying both to bring out the European roots of recent political changes in Switzerland and of the challenges these pose to the Swiss status quo and for the evolution of the EU and member states such as the United Kingdom. This is a book for those interested in Switzerland, academics, business people, diplomats, journalists and political commentators.
Author: Stephen R. Covey
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451626266
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 482
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Book Description
Outlines a breakthrough approach to conflict resolution and creative problem solving that draws on the techniques of thinkers from a broad range of disciplines to explain how to incorporate diverse viewpoints for win-win solutions.
