Europeanization? Two Logics of Change of Policy-Making Patterns in Switzerland

Abstract

This article is based on a comparison of changes of policy-making patterns in Switzerland between the strongly Europeanized sector of economic regulatory policy (in spite of Switzerland not being a EU member state) and the weakly Europeanized sector of social policy (as a control case). We observe in both sectors the erosion of the traditional Swiss concensual pattern that was used to imply a strong influence for the interest groups at the expense both of the executive and of parties of the legislature. Co-operative procedures lost their influence for different reasons: in the case of economic regulatory policy their integrative role was considered as an obstacle to reform, and in the case of social policy it was undermined by a higher level of conflict. Also process change meant more technocratic policy making in the first case, and an increased influence of parliamentary politics in the second. Two “causal narratives” emphasize the distinctiveness of the logic of change in each policy sector.