Parliamentary Work – More pain than pleasure? A Comparative Analysis of the Swiss Cantons regarding the Determinants of Legislative Turnover

The composition of a parliament does not only change after elections but also through retirement of MP during a legislative period. In Switzerland little is known systematically about legislative turnover in general. This contribution tries to fill up the lack of systematic data regarding legislative turnover on a sub-national level for the Swiss cantonal parliaments. Why should be bother about legislative turnover? Starting from the classical theoretical debates on the concept of democracy the extent of legislative turnover is crucial for two reasons. First, legislative turnover is a fundamental topic in the study of political science because it is a significant factor in the evaluation of accessibility of structures, recruitment of candidates, circulation of elites and policy change (Matland/Studlar 2004). Second, alternates are not legitimized by democratic elections for their mandate. Citizens have thus no possibility to express their preferences. The loss of legitimization and disenchantment with politics are the consequence (Anderson/Thorson 1984; Darcy/Choike 1986; Matland/Studlar 2004). The paper presents preliminary comparative data on regular and non-regular turnover between 1990 and 2011 for 10 Swiss cantons both on the macro (cantonal) and micro (individual) level. The contribution investigates on the determinants of legislative turnover between the Swiss cantons. It is assumed that institutional determinants (e.g. voting system), but also politico-cultural (e.g. parties' nomination strategies, the different understanding of democracy in the French-, Italian- and German-speaking regions of Switzerland), socio-demographic and -economic (e.g. MPs occupation structure) actors can explain differences in turnover rates between the analyzed cantons.