The Swiss governance model of oversized coalitions as a remedy to several threats to democracy

Following the research strategy of the Problems of Democracy and Possible Solutions (PoDS) Network—which aims to link rigorous analyses of threats to democracy with reflections on potential remedies—this contribution examines whether democratic governance could be redesigned along the lines of the Swiss model. This model has been described as an “oversized coalition”: if the smallest coalition partner withdraws, the remaining parties still retain a majority (Milic & Vatter 2013). Over the past 55 years, the Swiss governing Federal Council (Bundesrat) has represented, on average, 74% of the electorate, compared with 40% represented in the British government and 53% in the German. -- From a philosophical perspective, these numbers reflect a fundamental contrast between two democratic paradigms. On the one hand are constitutions that inspire adversarial party competition, and on the other hand is the Swiss constitution which structurally combines electoral competition with incentives to collaborate among as many political parties as possible in the government. -- In my presentation, I will argue that such collaborative governance may offer promising responses to several threats facing contemporary democracies: pernicious polarization (McCoy & Somer 2019); citizens’ growing sense that “we are losing control of the forces that govern our lives” (Sandel 2022); democracies’ diminishing capacity to address serious yet contested policy problems; and the erosion of trust in democratic institutions.