Les parlementaires suisses entre démocratisation et professionnalisation, 1910–2000

L'analyse du profil sociographique des élites politiques, notamment des parlementaires, a été largement délaissée en Suisse depuis les années 1970. En outre, la Suisse n'a pas été retenue par les récents travaux comparatifs portant sur différents parlements européens. Cet article vise, d'une part, à mettre en perspective comparée le cas suisse, et d'autre part, à prolonger les études réalisées durant les années 1970. À partir de l'analyse sociographique de cinq cohortes de parlementaires fédéraux (1910, 1937, 1957, 1980, 2000) durant le 20ième siècle, nous mettons en évidence l'évolution de la composition du Parlement sous l'angle de sa démocratisation et de sa professionnalisation récente. Nos résultats permettent de mettre en évidence les spécificités du Parlement helvétique en comparaison européenne. Celles‐ci tiennent d'abord à la prédominance de la catégorie des indépendants, notamment des avocats, ainsi qu'à une sous‐représentation des salariés du secteur public. Les parlementaires suisses se caractérisent également par un plus fort ancrage local et par une longévité parlementaire très élevée.     

Unifying and Multiplying the People: The Strategy of Ambiguity in National-Populist Discourse within a Cross-Border Area

Abstract

National-populist parties display a discourse based on the defense of the national integrity. However, in the current European context, these parties have to deal with an increasing cultural heterogeneity, new forms of citizenship, and multi-scaling arenas. How does national-populism develop its narratives in these settings? The paper elaborates a framework for understanding the way in which ambiguity is included in the discursive strategies of national-populists. Through the Critical Discourse Analysis approach, the contribution will focus on the analysis of the discourses produced by three parties located at the Swiss-Italian border at the time of the referendum campaign for the 2014 Swiss initiative “Against Mass Immigration.”     

The Outcry of the Periphery? An Analysis of Ticino's No to Immigration

When the popular initiative “against mass immigration” was accepted by the Swiss people and cantons on 9 February 2014, Ticino had by far the highest approval rate. The Italian‐speaking canton thus once more confirmed its singular position, assumed since the 1990s, on popular votes regarding immigration and foreign policy. This seems to be indicative of wider crises and changes in both the economic and political spheres that have favoured the emergence of a political opposition between centre and periphery. The results of a survey among 1400 citizens of Ticino after the vote of 9 February confirm this. In essence, on top of the question of immigration, the vote was influenced by a fearful perception of Ticino as a “double periphery” vis‐à‐vis both Berne and Lombardy.     

La Lega dei Ticinesi: Vers l'intégration?

L'objectif de cet article est de rendre compte du processus d'intégration de la Lega dei Ticinesi dans la démocratie de concordance. Le processus d'intégration de ce mouvement populiste se manifeste au niveau organisationnel, des formes d'action, mais aussi sur le plan de la participation au système politique et des rapports qu'elle établit avec le premier parti du canton. Ainsi, à l'intérieur de la Ligue, une aile pragmatique s'est développée à côté de l'aile radicale originaire. Toutefois, ce processus d'intégration présente ses limites dans la structure du parti qui laisse toujours beaucoup de marge d'action au président de la Lega, dans la nature de la coalition gouvernementale et dans les incertitudes liées à perception de la crise économique du canton.     

The Effects of University Patenting and Licensing on Downstream R&D Investment and Social Welfare

A central argument behind the Bayh-Dole Act presumed that firms had no incentives to invest in downstream R&D aimed at developing university inventions committed to the public domain. The empirical evidence on university patenting and licensing is partly at odds with the premises of this argument. Non-exclusive licensing of university patents has been common and lucrative, and in the area of biomedical technologies university patents and licensing restrictions may be a hindrance to downstream R&D, rather than a stimulus. The paper presents a model of R&D competition based on a university invention where appropriability conditions are defined by the patentability of downstream innovations and imitation opportunities. A comparison of equilibria under “open access” to university inventions and under “university patenting” shows that only under restrictive conditions the latter regime results in increased R&D investment and social welfare. In general, university licensing royalties are therefore a poor gauge of social welfare gains from university patenting. This is an extensive revision of the paper “University Patents, R&D Competition, and Social Welfare” presented at the conference on University Spin-Offs at the Université du Québec à Montréal on February 27th, 2004. I would like to thank the conference participants and a referee from the journal for useful comments and suggestions.     

Regionalist Protest through Shared Rule? Peripherality and the Use of Cantonal Initiatives in Switzerland

In this article, we are interested in the extent to which federalism is able to deal with peripheral protest through shared rule channels. Shared rule as a key dimension of federal states has not thus far received adequate academic attention. Empirically, we analyse the use of all cantonal initiatives in Switzerland over the past 25 years as a particular instrument of shared rule, subsequently focusing on two peripheral regions with successful regionalist parties, Ticino and Geneva. We find that regionalist parties contribute towards radicalizing peripheral demands in search of attention from the centre. This leads to the mainstreaming of peripheral demands by pulling other parties along. We conclude that shared rule properly designed gives even the most peripheral regions a voice in national decisions, but that regionalist parties may also use shared rule instruments to mobilize their electorate at home to fight their non-regionalist competitors.     

Right-wing populism against diploma democracy. The evolution of parliamentary elites in Austria,Italy, and Switzerland

Are the sociological profiles of radical right-wing populist parties' (RRPPs) representatives really unlike those of their counterparts in mainstream parties? Once RRPPs occupy positions of legislative power for an extended period, do their MPs' profiles increasingly converge with those of more mainstream parties? This paper examines three right-wing parties in Austria, Italy, and Switzerland (FPÖ, LEGA, and SVP), and shows how RRPPs' MPs persistently contrast the “diploma democracy”, that is the increasingly dominant high-educated trend in political representation. Inspired by the current scholarship's diachronic and comparative perspectives of political elites and MPs, the analysis focuses trends since the 1980s.