Understanding Switzerland's Governance Model: A Comprehensive Overview


Book Description

Understanding Switzerland's Governance Model: A Comprehensive Overview" is an informative ebook that delves into the intricacies of Switzerland's unique system of governance. This ebook provides readers with a thorough understanding of the Swiss political structure, historical context, key government institutions, and policy domains that shape the country's governance model. The ebook begins with a preface, setting the stage for the exploration of Switzerland's governance model. It highlights the importance of understanding Switzerland's political landscape and its implications for both citizens and international observers. The ebook then provides a brief overview of the contents, offering a glimpse into the topics covered in subsequent chapters. This serves as a roadmap for readers, allowing them to anticipate the breadth and depth of information to come. The chapters included in the ebook are as follows: Introduction to Switzerland's Governance Model: Overview of Switzerland's political system and governance principles Explanation of the federal structure and the division of powers Key features that distinguish Switzerland's governance model The Swiss Confederation - A Historical Perspective: Historical context and the formation of the Swiss Confederation Evolution of Switzerland's governance model over time Insights into the cultural, linguistic, and regional diversity of Switzerland The Swiss Federal Government - At the Apex: Detailed examination of the Swiss Federal Government's structure and functions Roles and responsibilities of the President, Federal Council, and Federal Administration Overview of decision-making processes and intergovernmental coordination The Federal Chancellery - A Hub of Administrative Support: Understanding the role and significance of the Federal Chancellery Administrative support provided to the Federal Council and Federal Administration The Chancellery's role in ensuring the smooth functioning of Switzerland's governance Key Ministries and their Mandates: Overview of essential ministries within the Swiss Federal Government Detailed examination of their respective mandates and policy areas Insights into the ministries' roles in shaping and implementing government policies The Swiss Parliament: Explanation of the structure and functions of the Swiss Parliament Role of the National Council and the Council of States in the legislative process Overview of parliamentary elections, political parties, and representation The Cantons - Linking the Federal and Local: Understanding the role and significance of cantonal governments Relationship between the federal government and the cantons Overview of cantonal governance structures and decision-making processes The Swiss Model of Direct Democracy: In-depth exploration of Switzerland's unique system of direct democracy Overview of referendums, initiatives, and popular participation in decision-making Implications of direct democracy on Switzerland's governance and policy outcomes Swiss Foreign Policy: Overview of Switzerland's approach to foreign policy Examination of Switzerland's neutrality and international relations Insights into Switzerland's role in global governance and diplomacy Education, Healthcare, and Social Services: Examination of Switzerland's education system, healthcare provision, and social services Overview of policies and institutions responsible for these sectors Insights into Switzerland's approach to ensuring high-quality public services The Swiss Economic Model: Understanding Switzerland's economic model and its key characteristics Overview of Switzerland's economic sectors and their contributions Insights into Switzerland's approach to innovation, entrepreneurship, and sustainable growth The ebook concludes with a summary, highlighting the key insights gained from exploring Switzerland's governance model. It emphasizes the strengths and challenges of the Swiss system and its implications for governance and policymaking. "Understanding Switzerland's Governance Model" provides readers with a comprehensive and insightful overview of Switzerland's unique political and governance framework. It serves as an indispensable resource for individuals seeking a deeper understanding of Switzerland's governance, history, institutions, and policy domains




Swiss Public Administration


Book Description

Swiss citizens approve of their government and the way democracy is practiced; they trust the authorities and are satisfied with the range of services Swiss governments provide. This is quite unusual when compared to other countries. This open access book provides insight into the organization and the functioning of the Swiss state. It claims that, beyond politics, institutions and public administration, there are other factors which make a country successful. The authors argue that Switzerland is an interesting case, from a theoretical, scientific and a more practice-oriented perspective. While confronted with the same challenges as other countries, Switzerland offers different solutions, some of which work astonishingly well.




Understanding Smart Cities: A Tool for Smart Government or an Industrial Trick?


Book Description

This book investigates the role of smart cities in the broader context of urban innovation and e-government, identifies what a smart city is in practice and highlights their importance to the welfare of society. The book offers specific, measurable, and action-oriented public sector planning and management principles and ideas for smart governance in the era of global urbanization and innovation to help with the challenges in maintaining the democratic system of checks and balances as well as the division of powers in a highly interconnected world. The book will be of interest researchers, practitioners, students, and public sector IT professionals that work within innovation management, public administration, urban technologies and urban innovation, and public local administration studies.




Swiss Made


Book Description

Why has Switzerland - a tiny, land-locked country with few natural advantages - become so successful for so long at so many things? In banking, pharmaceuticals, machinery, even textiles, Swiss companies rank alongside the biggest and most powerful global competitors. How did they get there? How do they continue to refresh themselves? Does the Swiss 'Sonderfall' (special case) provide lessons others can learn and benefit from? Can the Swiss continue to perform in a hyper-competitive global economy? Swiss Made offers answers to these and many other questions about the country as it describes the origins, structures and characteristics of the most important Swiss companies. The authors suggest success is due to a large degree to sound entrepreneurial thinking and an openness to new ideas. And they venture a surprising forecast on the country's ability to keep pace in an age of globalisation.




The Handbook of Credit Risk Management


Book Description

A comprehensive guide to credit risk management The Handbook of Credit Risk Management presents a comprehensive overview of the practice of credit risk management for a large institution. It is a guide for professionals and students wanting a deeper understanding of how to manage credit exposures. The Handbook provides a detailed roadmap for managing beyond the financial analysis of individual transactions and counterparties. Written in a straightforward and accessible style, the authors outline how to manage a portfolio of credit exposures--from origination and assessment of credit fundamentals to hedging and pricing. The Handbook is relevant for corporations, pension funds, endowments, asset managers, banks and insurance companies alike. Covers the four essential aspects of credit risk management: Origination, Credit Risk Assessment, Portfolio Management and Risk Transfer. Provides ample references to and examples of credit market services as a resource for those readers having credit risk responsibilities. Designed for busy professionals as well as finance, risk management and MBA students. As financial transactions grow more complex, proactive management of credit portfolios is no longer optional for an institution, but a matter of survival.




Fundamentals of Enterprise Architecture Management


Book Description

This textbook provides a comprehensive, holistic, scientifically precise, and practically relevant description of Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM). Based on state-of-the-art concepts, it also addresses current trends like disruptive digitization or agile methods. The book is structured in five chapters. The first chapter offers a comprehensive overview of EAM. It addresses questions like: what does EAM mean, what is the history of EAM, why do enterprises need EAM, what are its goals, and how is it related to digitalization? It also includes a short overview of essential EAM standards and literature. The second chapter provides an overview of Enterprise Architecture (EA). It starts with clarifying basic terminology and the difference between EA and EAM. It also gives a short summary of existing EA frameworks and methods for structuring the digital ecosystem into layers and views. The third chapter addresses the strategic and tactical context of the EAM capability in an enterprise. It defines essential terms and parameters in the context of enterprise strategy and tactics as well as the operative, organizational context of EAM. The fourth chapter specifies the detailed goals, processes, functions, artifacts, roles and tools of EAM, building the basis for an EAM process framework that provides a comprehensive overview of EAM processes and functions. Closing the circle, the last chapter describes how to evaluate EAM in an enterprise. It starts by laying out core terminology, like “metric” and “strategic performance measurement system” and ends with a framework that integrates the various measuring areas in the context of EA and EAM. This textbook focuses on two groups: First, EAM scholars, ie bachelor or master students of Business Information Systems, Business Administration or Computer Science. And second, EAM practitioners working in the field of IT strategy or EA who need a reliable, scientifically solid, and practically proven state-of-the-art description of essential EAM methods.




Swiss Energy Governance


Book Description

This open access book gathers the results of an interdisciplinary research project led by the Swiss Competence Centers for Energy Research (SCCER CREST) and jointly implemented by several universities. It identifies political, economic and legal challenges and opportunities in the energy transition from a governance perspective by exploring a variety of tools that allow state, non-state and transnational actors to manage the transition of the energy industry toward less fossil-fuel reliance. When analyzing the roles of these actors, the authors examine not only formal procedures such as political and democratic processes, but also market behavior and societal practices. In other words, the handbook focuses on both the behavior and the positive and normative frameworks of political actors, bureaucracies, courts, international organizations, lobby groups, civil society, economic actors and individuals. The authors subsequently use their findings to formulate specific guidelines for lawmakers and other rule-makers, as well as private and public actors. To do so, they draw on approaches stemming from the legal, political and management sciences.




Safety and Reliability – Safe Societies in a Changing World


Book Description

Safety and Reliability – Safe Societies in a Changing World collects the papers presented at the 28th European Safety and Reliability Conference, ESREL 2018 in Trondheim, Norway, June 17-21, 2018. The contributions cover a wide range of methodologies and application areas for safety and reliability that contribute to safe societies in a changing world. These methodologies and applications include: - foundations of risk and reliability assessment and management - mathematical methods in reliability and safety - risk assessment - risk management - system reliability - uncertainty analysis - digitalization and big data - prognostics and system health management - occupational safety - accident and incident modeling - maintenance modeling and applications - simulation for safety and reliability analysis - dynamic risk and barrier management - organizational factors and safety culture - human factors and human reliability - resilience engineering - structural reliability - natural hazards - security - economic analysis in risk management Safety and Reliability – Safe Societies in a Changing World will be invaluable to academics and professionals working in a wide range of industrial and governmental sectors: offshore oil and gas, nuclear engineering, aeronautics and aerospace, marine transport and engineering, railways, road transport, automotive engineering, civil engineering, critical infrastructures, electrical and electronic engineering, energy production and distribution, environmental engineering, information technology and telecommunications, insurance and finance, manufacturing, marine transport, mechanical engineering, security and protection, and policy making.




Scalable Uncertainty Management


Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Scalable Uncertainty Management, SUM 2016, held in Nice, France, in September 2016. The 18 regular papers and 5 short papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 35 submissions. Papers are solicited in all areas of managing and reasoning with substantial and complex kinds of uncertain, incomplete or inconsistent information. These include (but are not restricted to) applications in decision support systems, risk analysis, machine learning, belief networks, logics of uncertainty, belief revision and update, argumentation, negotiation technologies, semantic web applications, search engines, ontology systems, information fusion, information retrieval, natural language processing, information extraction, image recognition, vision systems, data and text mining, and the consideration of issues such as provenance, trust, heterogeneity, and complexity of data and knowledge.




Supply Chain Management


Book Description

The reference text discusses fundamental principles, planning, sourcing, demand forecasting, and supply forecasting in the field of supply chain management. It further highlights the important aspects of supply chain management such as resource planning, inventory management, quality tools, and documentation in logistics. It demonstrates the issues, barriers, emerging trends, and technological advances in supply chain management. This book: Discusses the principles of resource planning and inventory management in supply chain management. Covers aspects of competing strategies and networking management. Presents case studies highlighting ongoing practices and real-time issues in supply chain management. Highlights the importance of demand and supply forecasting in the field of supply chain management. Explains quality tools, emerging trends, challenges, and barriers in supply chain management. It is written primarily for senior undergraduate and graduate students, and academic researchers in the fields of industrial engineering, production engineering, mechanical engineering, management, supply chain management, and manufacturing engineering.