Metropolitan Governance in Switzerland: Finally Some New Regionalism?

Abstract

Questions of metropolitan governance were not on the agenda in Switzerland for decades. Swiss metropolitan areas are highly fragmented and the political entities rather compete than cooperate. Scholars therefore argued that Switzerland followed the idea of the public choice approach in metropolitan governance. However, recent changes indicate a move towards the ideas of the new regionalism approach. There are a few amalgamations of communes that took place recently and the federal state has installed an agglomeration program with financial incentives for cooperation schemes in metropolitan areas. The article looks at the overall picture of recent trends in Swiss metropolitan areas and especially at the installation of the 'Verein Metropolitanraum Zurich'. I conclude that these recent trends are rather first attempts to implement aspects of metropolitan governance into a static federal system than part of a major restructuring of it.