Impacts of Courts on Policy Implementation in a Federal State: Evidence from Disability Insurance in Switzerland

Karin Byland,Roy Gava,Frédéric Varone

doi:10.5334/ssas.86

Karin Byland, Roy Gava + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5334/ssas.86

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Abstract

Swiss cantons have extensive autonomy in implementing federal laws. This leads to heterogeneity in cantonal practices and policy outputs. This article explores the extent to which courts contribute to the convergence of cantonal outputs. It focuses on the disability insurance benefits granted by cantonal administrations, and on the related judicial rulings by cantonal courts and the Federal Supreme Court. The findings suggest that judgments of the Federal Supreme Court have a limited but positive impact on the harmonization of cantonal outputs when a major policy change is implemented.

Highlights

To what extent do court rulings harmonize policy implementation by subnational entities? To address this question, the article combines insights from the judicial implementation and executive federalism literatures
A quantitative approach is applied to measure the provision of disability insurance benefits of the 26 Swiss cantons, and to assess how court decisions affect the convergence of cantonal policy outputs
To illustrate how the administrative and judicial procedures are organized, we examine the three successive decisions on which the award of DIB depends: the overall number of claims filed with the cantonal disability offices, the cantonal courts, and the Federal Supreme Court (FSC).210Consider, for instance, the year 2008: (1) 325,073 assured persons (AP) applied for disability insurance benefits to the CDO in the 26 cantons

Summary

Introduction

To illustrate how the administrative and judicial procedures are organized, we examine the three successive decisions on which the award of DIB depends: the overall number of claims filed with the cantonal disability offices, the cantonal courts, and the FSC (per year).210Consider, for instance, the year 2008 (see Figure 2): (1) 325,073 assured persons (AP) applied for disability insurance benefits to the CDO in the 26 cantons. The important question is, if and to what extent the courts affect these implementation disparities and how far they contribute to the harmonization of policy outputs across subnational units

Horizontal venue shift: impacts of cantonal courts?

Vertical venue shift: impacts of the Federal Supreme Court?

Scope of legislative changes: deterrence and learning effects?

Findings

Conclusion