In order to have a complete understanding of the politics of immigration in Switzerland, it is crucial to realize the impact direct democracy has in shaping public policy and public opinion. Hanspeter Kriesi and Alexander Trechsel, two prominent Swiss political scientists, consider direct democracy not only to be the “most crucial institution of the Swiss political system” but also the most developed system of its kind in the world, both in terms of significance and in terms of sheer numbers. Swiss voters took part in 321 referendums between 1960 and 2003, over seven per year on average, by far the most numerous of the 47 nations in the Council of Europe. The importance of direct democracy in ensuring the continued salience of the immigration debate in Switzerland and its impact on attitudes towards immigration results from its role as “a truly system-formative device, greatly impacting on party competition, government, Parliament, the legislative process and policy making at all levels of the federal state.” This section outlines the structure and workings of direct democracy in Switzerland followed by an evaluation of its use and impact on the Swiss political system, particularly the ever-present debate on immigration policy.
There are four major elements that together form the core of Swiss direct democracy: mandatory referendums for constitutional amendments, optional referendums, as well as popular initiatives and their counter-proposals. As previously mentioned with regards to the 1992 referendum on joining the European Economic Area, mandatory referendums occur because “any amendment of the Constitution” is subject “to the approval of a double majority of both the people and the cantons.” This requirement was first ...
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According to Daniel Tichenor, author of Dividing Lines, immigration policy change can be explained by ideas, institutions, and interests. While each of these players significantly impact immigration politics, institutions seem to hold the most importance compared to ideas and interests. The power of institutional actors, such as the government, the business elites, and the labor force, have been the leading players in all immigration reform. Immigrants, Tichenor argues, “have proven capable of influencing the electoral calculations of party leaders and individual candidates, recasting how established interest groups define their policy goals, building new ethnic organizations to influence government actions, and even contributing directly
Without a doubt, the European continent has been through a lot over the last few decades. From World War 2, to the iron grip of Soviet Russia on half of the continent, many problems have arisen and been dealt with. Unfortunately, Europe has had a rough few years when it comes to the somewhat newer issue of immigration and immigrant groups. While some countries have managed immigration better than others, nations such as France and Italy have had their fair share of problems and continue to pass legislation that is flawed and draws criticism from other countries. The issue has gotten better in recent years, and various European countries have made great progress towards their immigration policies. In addition, various ethnic groups have been the target of government profiling and discrimination. Most notably the Romani people, who have faced discrimination for hundreds of years and continue to do so at the hands of various Eastern and Western European governments. The many setbacks and gains towards immigration are more clearly visible when looked at on a case-by-case basis, such as the individual policies of Italy, France, and the European Union as a whole.
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In the publication Language and social identity by John J. Gumperz, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, Gumperez discusses communicative characteristics of modern society and the way in which they correspond to societal and ethical elements of identity by accumulating research on interactive communication between ethnographically differing groups. He states, “The study of language as interactional discourse demonstrates that these parameters are not constants that can be taken for granted but are communicatively produced. Therefore to understand issues of identity and how they affect and are affected by social , political, and ethnic divisions we need to gain insights into the communicative processes by which they arise,” (Gumperz 1). Language is the voice in which identity is spoken. Without it, the separations of identity he discusses in this publication would be unclear and disconnected as language is the element that guides them all together in a palpable
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Jill Stein stated “We create refugees, and then our Democratic Party, together with the Republicans, who are also a party to this, are criminalizing them and sending them back, inhumanely.”(8) she describes the refugee crisis through a third party perspective. Because the main voices on this issue are mainly democrat or republican, a third party view is an interesting take on this issue. The Syrian refugees has had an enormous effect on Europe and will continue to call in the morals of major world powers. Many factors have caused this issue so the crisis is more complex than it appears. Many of the countries directly and indirectly affected have put into place policies and a system in order to deal with this issue. The policies have helped
More specific arguments originate from the participatory theory of democracy and the critique of a lack of responsiveness and legitimacy of representative (party) democracy. The two sets of democratic institutions are distinguished by basic features of direct participation: (1) direct democracy focuses on specific issues, in contrast to voting on candidates and general programs for long terms of office, and (2) citizens themselves act as decision makers rather than delegating these powers. Like electoral systems, a variety of procedural forms, designs, and regulations are likely to influence processes and outcome. One must also keep in mind that direct-democratic processes cannot operate in isolation but are always linked to the structures of an overall political system that includes major representative institutions. Thus, interactions between the two types of institutions will be an important challenge for analysis. For instance, as George Tsebelis notes, referendum voters can be seen as an additional veto player. Some authors contend that direct democracy may undermine representative democracy, while others focus on the deliberative functions for a democratic public sphere and the capacity for integrating citizens in the democratic process. One can also assume that basic
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To commence this discussion, it is first essential to establish an understanding surrounding the role of language in relation to national identity. Theoretically, the more power language has in this relation, the more powerful language planning may be when creating a national identity. However, the role language plays in this respect is somewhat problematic to define and has proven to be a debatable topic among nationalists, sociologists and sociolinguists. For instance, May demonstrates that ‘sociological commentators, unlike sociolinguists, have generally been loath to apportion a prominent role to language in the explanation of minority ethnic and national identity claims’ (2001: 8). Consequently emulating distaste from sociologists to credit language with significant power in a national identity. In a similar sense, de Vries notes that, in relation to a language community, ‘social scientists have generally ignored the systemic properties of language’ (1991: 39), thus, concurrently suggesting with May, a disagreement from the social sciences over the role of language in terms of identity and national identity. Similarly, circa the French revolution, the concept
Because it could be quite complicated to look at the EU model from a point of classical democratic nation-state, it seems to be reasonable to discuss this problem, not by abstract reasoning, but by focusing on a concrete case. European Union is the best case available, which in recent decades has developed into a new type of political system with enormous consequences on democracy and governance in its member states. Despite repeated attempts for major institutional reforms, this system is likely to persist in its basic structures for the future and is unlikely to develop into a federal state or to disintegrate into a classic international organization. The present state of democracy and governance in the EU is therefore worth to be analyzed, as it is not a mere transitory state.
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