Sovereignty from Below. Switzerland in the International Environment
Oliver Zimmer
«Does the Elite Have a Future?»
Beat Kappeler
«A Good Majority Rule is a Shared Rule»
The saying goes: “Fortune favors the brave”. Or rather: Sometimes luck is on your side. Thus, the 51st Economic Conference of the Progress Foundation took place on an almost perfect date. Firstly, May 31, 2021, was the first day, after many months of restrictive coronavirus measures, that events with up to 100 people could be held again. Secondly, just five days earlier, the Federal Council made the ‘historic’ decision to end negotiations with the EU on a framework agreement. The conference topic ‘Bottom-up Sovereignty: Switzerland in the International Environment’ could not have been more timely.
Oliver Zimmer, Professor of Modern European History at Oxford, highlighted the temptation and danger of epistocracy, the rule of the elite, like Plato’s philosopher-king state, for democracy. He sees this tendency particularly in the EU. Democracies need elites, but they must be humble and truly open to discussion, Zimmer said. The publicist Beat Kappeler advocated for a democracy where the majority principle is not exaggerated but broken in many ways, such as cantonal majorities, the ability to cross out, split one’s vote, and cumulate on electoral lists, the refrain of dissolving parliament and calling of new elections by the government, and the ability of the government, the parliament, and voters to influence legislation through referendums.
The panel discussion then focused on how Switzerland and its institutions have performed in dealing with the pandemic and whether these institutions have led us down a wrong and harmful path regarding relations with the EU. The participants, including the speakers, jurist and NZZ domestic editor Katharina Fontana, and the president of the Progress Foundation, Gerhard Schwarz, largely agreed that what is needed now is great composure; activism and panic should be avoided. Switzerland has many strengths and advantages, but it should not overestimate itself.”
Professor of Modern European History, University of Oxford
Democracies, and particularly liberal democracies, cannot do without the input of responsible elites. In fact, as a power-sharing mechanism democracy is unlikely to survive without elites who are willing to defend it, not only on grounds of self-interest but out of a sense of communal loyalty and civic duty. The question, therefore, is not if democracy can do without elites. The question, rather, is what kind of elite can sustain democracy, conceived as an institution endowing communities – what in German we call Gemeinwesen – with political legitimacy and meaning.
This, at any rate, is the question I am going to address in my brief talk. My answer is that living democracies depend on elites committing to a particular social epistemology, a particular way of processing the world around them: Above all, they need to accept that they have no privileged access to the truth; and that, in politics, the search for truth involves a contest between different legitimate perceptions, ideas, values, and interests. What I argue here does not amount to cultural relativism, as is often claimed by today’s numerous critics of participatory democracy. What it amounts to is an acceptance of one’s own limitations, coupled with the awareness that democracy needs to reflect different life experiences.
Yet it is exactly this attitude – that in politics truth emerges from contentious debate among people who disagree on important issues – that is now frequently called into question. It is being undermined by an epistocratic culture that ascribes truth to a sphere of abstract, and often highly normative, deduction; a sphere that is located outside of politics and social experience. Bearing some similarity to Plato’s philosopher kings, epistocracy can thus be defined as the rule of the knowers. It is rooted in the belief that, by virtue of their superior education and enlightened liberal mindset, elites enjoy privileged access to the truth; and that this justifies their claim to holding greater power than a conventional liberal democracy – based on universal suffrage and majority voting – could legitimately afford them.
As a political vision, epistocracy has long played an important role. We encounter it at the dawn of modern mass democracy, when leading republican figures in both the US and France (including James Madison and Abbé Sieyès) advocated restrictions to democratic participation not only on functional grounds, but also because they trusted members of their own milieu more than they trusted those from different social backgrounds and walks of life.
We currently witness a return of this epistocratic mindset. Within academia, authors such as Bryan Caplan and Scott Althaus have questioned the virtue of mass democracy. Democracy, so they have maintained, fails to deliver progressive outcomes. The most influential recent proponent of this line of argument is probably the US-philosopher Jason Brennan. In his bestselling book, Against Democracy Brennan argues that democracy is intrinsically unjust because it grants power to incompetent citizens. To prevent this, Brennan proposes a restriction of the franchise through “a voter qualification exam akin to a driver exam.”
What carries even greater weight than the endorsement of epistocracy by academics and portions of the media is its silent embedding within supranational institutions. The institutions of the European Union, for example, invest more trust in a triumvirate of technocrats, judges and other unelected executives than in politicians elected by ordinary citizens. Another political field that is defined by the same epistocratic vision concerns global agreements in areas such as migration or taxation. Commonly known as ‘soft law’ which (as its proponents never tyre of reassuring us) lacks direct legal effect, these agreements serve to buttress a narrative of global justice that now carries considerable moral clout.
Yet when all is said and done, epistocrats and populists are bedfellows. Both believe in enjoying privileged access to the truth. While for hard-core populists the truth resides in an unimpeachable Volk, for epistocrats it is the preserve of a university-trained elite. When epistocrats call for more global regulation, populists accuse them of selling out their country for personal gain. When ordinary citizens express concern over a policy of open borders, epistocrats accuse them of behaving like unenlightened twats. In a recent book, the historian Sophie Rosenfeld highlights the affinity between the two camps: “In the end, dyed-in-the-wool populists and technocrats mimic one another in rejecting mediating bodies…, procedural legitimacy, and the very idea that fierce competition among ideas is necessary for arriving at political truth.”
Modern liberal democracies cannot do without elites. Yet if democracy is to survive in more than name, it will need an elite that combines exuberant curiosity with genuine modesty. One that is prepared to accept that the part it can play in shaping political outcomes, albeit vital, is always going to be limited. An elite that knows that political truth resembles the truth that Moses was offered by the God of the Old Testament, who, when asked to reveal his name, replied: “I will be who I will be.”
«A Good Majority Rule is a Shared Rule»
Speech by Beat Kappeler (in German)
Swiss economist, publicist, and author
In democracies, the majority decides. However, this beautiful principle is not fulfilled in Western European parliamentary democracies and, by extension, in the EU. In direct democracies, on the other hand, the accusation of “winner-takes-all,” or the dictatorship of the majority, must be addressed.
In parliamentary democracies, two procedures combine to centralize the course of power in the state: According to the constitution or custom, a government resigns and dissolves the parliament if it suffers a defeat in an important (confidence) vote. To avoid this, governments often exert massive pressure on the voting behavior of parliamentarians, as do opposition parties to overthrow the government. Governments are formed solely by the victorious or coalition party leaderships, who then exert pressure on the voting behavior of elected representatives (party discipline). Sanctions against “dissenters” can include exclusion from the faction and associated committees, expulsion from the party, and impact on candidacy for parliament. In most countries, these candidacies are significantly influenced by party bodies, sometimes formally by delegates, but materially by internal party pressure, often directly by party headquarters (“second tour,” “désistements” in France, and “list positions” in the UK, Italy, Germany).
As a result, power is exercised from above, by party leaderships, rather than being carried upwards by voters through the elected representatives.
A third factor is that parliamentarians, as career politicians, must forego mandates and earnings in society, which is increasingly enforced by party financing laws and the media. Economically, parliamentarians also become dependent on their mandate and behavior.
This cascade of power from party leaderships over “democratic” processes is amplified at the EU level: The EU Council (composed of ministers selected by national parties in various sectors) meets only every few months, and the EU Commission has the sole right to propose legislation. The Council’s decisions are then submitted to national parliaments if necessary, where government and party leaderships assert their influence as mentioned.
Remedies must first involve abandoning the dissolution of parliament. What the voters have ordered should stand. Second, voters should be able to choose candidates – through panachage, striking, and cumulating on lists. This allows each elected representative to rely on their connections in society and the economy and represent these in their voting behavior. Thus, they can oppose party headquarters: “I brought you the seat.” Liberum veto.
Third, parliamentarians should be allowed to remain active outside of politics – transparently, of course.
Even at the EU level, this reversal would have an impact: Commission and Council proposals would be nationally contestable by parliamentarians. They could even announce their stance on EU issues during their own election, allowing voters to express themselves from below.
Spontaneous coalitions for individual resolutions, as seen in Switzerland and the USA, result from such procedures, including cross-party compromises and deals, but the parliaments and governments do not fall. They are each one of the three branches of government and must develop initiatives from “learning curves.”
Direct democracy, in turn, can optimize procedures beyond mere harsh majorities. Federal weighting (cantonal majority, “electors” originally in the USA) serves to mitigate the dictatorship of the majority and strengthen national cohesion. Second, quorums are possible, such as in the Netherlands, where 30% of eligible voters must participate in “consultative” referendums (50% in Italy). Hurdles for submitting a referendum (deadlines, signatures, constitutional review, etc.) are also common.
The third means against “winner-takes-all” is not formal-legislative but provided by practice itself: when referendums and initiatives occur frequently, defeated minorities can re-enter in modified form and coalition. This requires not too strict hurdles for signature collection and, above all, not the sole competence of the government to set a referendum (UK, France). Frequently possible referendums, demanded from “below,” also lead to “learning curves” for governments and parliaments, incorporating concessions into proposals and securing support from referendum-capable groups beforehand (“consultation” in Switzerland). This makes popular rights much more influential, albeit indirectly, on legislation than it appears. It also leads to a more people-centered, less elitist political style overall.
Panel Discussion
Prof Oliver Zimmer
Dr. h.c. Beat Kappeler
Dr. Katharina Fontana, home affairs editor NZZ
Gerhard Schwarz, presidet of the Progress Foundation
Moderation: Mark Dittli, Managing Director and Editor, The Market NZZ
