Switzerland and the European Union


Book Description

This book demonstrates the range, depth and complexity of Switzerland’s developing relations with Europe and provides detailed and up-to-date information on Switzerland itself.




Switzerland--European Union


Book Description

This study explains in an accessible manner the key elements of the relationship between the Swiss Confederation and the European Union. The author begins by summarizing the main steps in this special and evolving relationship which has long oscillated between membership and marginalization. He also guides us expertly through the thickets of referendums (no fewer than fourteen from 1972 to the time of writing!) in which Swiss citizens have been given the opportunity to pass judgment on the European question. Finally and perhaps most importantly, this volume explains why the Swiss still oppose joining the European Union. It examines the thorny questions of identity, reservations on policy matters (preserving neutrality, direct democracy and Swiss style federalism), not to mention doubts regarding the economy, which have done so much to shape public opinion and the official strategy of the Swiss Confederation. Paradoxically, the closer Switzerland gets to the EU through bilateral agreements, the more distant prospects of joining the EU seem to become. This is the conundrum at the heart of the relationship between the Swiss Confederation and the European Union which is expertly explored in this volume.




Switzerland and the European Union


Book Description




Economic Policy in Switzerland


Book Description

Switzerland is at the centre of Europe, but is not part of the European Union. Its specific policy concerns are often less known than for other countries but might offer an alternative model to integration. This collection from some of the best academic economists in Switzerland covers monetary economics, competition, health care, environmental and housing policies, as well as aspects related to unemployment insurance, gender discrimination, poverty, and privatization to provide a comprehensive survey of the Swiss economy.




Social Dynamics in Swiss Society


Book Description

Using longitudinal data from the Swiss Household Panel to zoom in on continuity and change in the life course, this open access book describes how the lives of the Swiss population have changed in terms of health, family circumstances, work, political participation, and migration over the last sixteen years. What are the different trajectories in terms of mobility, health, wealth, and family constellations? What are the drivers behind all these changes over time and in the life course? And what are the implications for inequality in society and for social policy? The Swiss Household Panel is a unique ongoing longitudinal survey that has followed a large sample of Swiss households since 1999. The data provide the rare opportunity to go beyond a snapshot of contemporary Swiss society and give insight into the processes in people’s lives and in society that lie behind recent developments.




Why Switzerland?


Book Description

Revised and completely updated edition of Jonathan Steinberg's classic account of Switzerland's unique political and economic system. Why Switzerland? examines the complicated voting system that allows citizens to add, strike out, or vote more than once for candidates, with extremely complicated systems of proportional representation; a collective and consensual executive leadership in both state and church; and the creation of the Swiss idea of citizenship, with tolerance of differences of language and religion, and a perfectionist bureaucracy which regulates the well-ordered society. This third edition tries to test the flexibility of the Swiss way of politics in the globalized world, social media, the huge expansion of money in world circulation and the vast tsunamis of capital which threaten to swamp it. Can the complex machinery that has maintained Swiss institutions for centuries survive globalization, neo-liberalism and mass migration from poor countries to rich ones?




Small States Inside and Outside the European Union


Book Description

Small States in and outside the European Union offers a broad overview of the small states problematic in Europe. It touches upon definition issues, history, security policy, neutrality, EU institutional aspects and also includes contributors from Central and Eastern European countries. It presents a thorough analysis of different scenarios for EU institutional reform and their repercussions on the influence of small member states. The comparative results are visualized in tables. The work contains several contributions from practitioners who give insight into policy games and issues of national sensitivity not usually covered by purely scholarly publications. The European environment has changed dramatically through the processes of regional integration and rising interdependence. Relations between European states both inside and outside the EU are governed as never before by rules, norms, and fixed procedures. The book investigates the consequences of these developments on the foreign and security policy of small states. Academics and professionals from Austria, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland, as well as from the European Commission and the Council of Ministers, elaborate on these issues. Institutional regulations and traditional power politics as well as the foreign and security policy traditions of the states concerned, including the question of neutrality, are investigated. In addition, the book identifies the main interests of small states in today's Europe and offers an overview of different strategies these states apply in the realm of foreign and security policy. The book is interesting for the case studies it offers as well as for the reflections it contains regarding fundamental questions of the essence of statehood in today's Europe.




Democratic Deficit?


Book Description

Is the European Union democratic? Much has been written claiming that the EU's institutions and policymaking processes are insufficiently accountable to, and representative of, the European electorate. In Democratic Deficit?, Thomas D. Zweifel offers a provocative new treatment of the concept of democracy in the EU. The work provides a rigorous, comparative examination of the European Union and the federal democracies of Switzerland and the United States. Drawing upon established, quantifiable scales of democracy, the study demonstrates that the EU's decision-making and regulatory processes do not show a democratic deficit greater than that of the bureaucracies of most liberal democracies and finds that in certain policy areas liberal democracies may even benefit from adopting EU practices. Supported by two case studies comparing regulatory policymaking in action across the three polities, Zweifel's work will prove to be a valuable and thought-provoking addition to the debate about European governance and the increasingly important role of transnational and supranational organizations.




The New Industrial Policy of the European Union


Book Description

The main objective of this book has been to carry out research into the definition of industrial policy and its goals; to evaluate previously-introduced policies and instruments; and to identify the future challenges for and features of a modern EU industrial policy. A modern industrial policy is seen as a non-traditional policy towards the industrial sector, based not necessarily on only the elimination of market failures (within the sectoral and/or horizontal approaches), but rather on the expanding the scope of industrial economic activities within the framework of both the pre- and post-fabrication stages. The book targets three market segments: academics; policy and decision-makers at the EU, national and regional level, as well as business practitioners. It includes a wide-ranging analysis of different spheres of industrial policies conducted within the European Union, making it of interest to an international audience. Each chapter also offers detailed and valuable comments, as well as conclusions that can be generally applied, ensuring the book’s universality. The book presents the results of a research project conducted in the Collegium of World Economy at the Warsaw School of Economics.




Negotiating Unity and Diversity in the European Union


Book Description

This book explores how the European Union has been responding to the challenge of diversity. In doing so, it considers the EU as a complex polity that has found novel ways for accommodating diversity. Much of the literature on the EU seeks to identify it as a unique case of cooperation between states that moves past classic international cooperation. This volume argues that in order to understand the EU’s effort in managing the diversity among its members and citizens it is more effective to look at the EU as a state. While acknowledging that the EU lacks key aspects of statehood, the authors show that looking at the EU efforts to balance diversity and unity through the lens of state policy is a fruitful way to understand the Union. Instead of conceptualising the EU as being incomparable and unique which is neither an international organisation nor a state, the book argues that EU can be understood as a polity that shares many approaches and strategies with complex and diverse states. As such, its effort to build political structures to accommodate diversity offers lessons to other such polities. The experience of the EU contributes to the understanding of how states and other polities can respond to challenges of diversity, including both the diversity of constituent units or of sub-national groups and identities.