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Abstract
In Switzerland, there are 26 systems of cantonal decentralisation because regulating municipal autonomy is an exclusively cantonal competency. Existing measures of local autonomy/cantonal decentralisation are confined to measuring the real or perceived distribution of functions. Alternatively, they weigh expenditures (Dafflon Citation1992) or tax revenues (Dlabac and Schaub Citationforthcoming) of municipalities against those of the canton. Complementing these indices, this paper additionally measures the politics dimension of cantonal decentralisation. Seven aspects are measured: intra-cantonal regionalism, cumul des mandats (double tenure of cantonal MP and mayoral office), territorial quotas for legislative and executive elections, direct local representation and lobbying, party decentralisation, the number and size of constituencies, and direct democracy (communal referendum and initiative). This results in a ranking of all 26 cantons as regards the politics of local autonomy within their political systems. The measure will help scholars to test assumptions held for decentralisation in general, be it as a dependent (explaining decentralisation) or as an independent variable (decentralisation—so what?), within but also beyond the Swiss context.
Notes
The 26 cantons are, in alphabetical order: Aargau (abbreviated as AG), *Appenzell Inner-Rhodes (AI) and *Appenzell Outer-Rhodes (AR), *Basel-City (BS) and *Basel-Countryside (BL), Berne (BE), Fribourg (FR), Geneva (GE), Glarus (GL), Grisons (GR), Jura (JU), Lucerne (LU), Neuchâtel (NE), *Nidwald (NW) and *Obwald (OW), Schaffhausen (SH), Schwyz (SZ), Solothurn (SO), St Gall (SG), Thurgau (TG), Ticino (TI), Uri (UR), Valais (VS), Vaud (VD), Zug (ZG) and Zurich (ZH) (* = half-cantons).
See also: http://www.badac.ch (base de Données des Cantons et de Villes Suisse).
See BADAC website (http://www.badac.ch).
Swiss Federal Office of Statistics (http://www.bfs.admin.ch).
See PARLINE (Parliaments online), the database of the Inter-Parliamentary Union: http://www.ipu.org/parline.
In the ensuing popular vote of February 2009, 54 per cent of the Jura people said No to the new law (“Les Jurassiens ne veulent pas de la nouvelle loi cadre sur la gestion des eaux”, Radio Fréquence Jura, 8 February 2009, at http://www.rfj.ch/rfj/Actualite/Regionale (last accessed 26 February 2011).
It is very common for mayors to speak on the behalf of ‘their’ municipality, explicitly or implicitly, by being announced as “the president of the municipality XY”; see Mueller, Citation2007.