Political Parties in Federalist Systems: Canada and Switzerland Compared

The competences in Switzerland are shared at different institutional levels and political arenas. Decision-making powers are divided between the Confederation, the cantons and the municipalities and also involve public or private lobbies, association or experts. This multilevel governance system allows a mixture of cooperation, communication and negotiation that reinforces the Swiss federalism welfare. However, problems of public legitimacy were found by the Transparency International Switzerland in its 2012 National Integrity System report based on 25 European countries: Switzerland lacks jurisdictional regulations on political party financing and lobbies. Consequently, Swiss voters have no access to information about the source of political parties ‘funding or possibility to measure the influence of financially powerful interest groups on political events, creating a general political distrust and a loss of democracy in the decision-making process. A comparative approach will be made between Switzerland and Canada, where party financing regulations are well-established to find innovations perspectives.