Power and Conflict in the Swiss Political Elite: An Aggregation of Existing Network Analyses

Abstract

Since Kriesi's (1980) pioneering work no study has attempted to provide an overall picture of power configuration among the Swiss political elite. To fill this gap we aggregate recent network analyses carried out in various policy domains. Based on meta‐hypotheses regarding the likely effects of the contextual changes that have taken place during the last thirty years, we compare the structure of the Swiss political elite existing in the 1970s to that of the last decade with respect to reputational power, collaboration and conflict. Our results suggest that important transformations have indeed occurred. Thus, both political parties and some specific state bodies could increase their power, whereas most interest groups have lost some. While the internationalization of politics has overall had the expected effects with respect to the power structure and to conflict among political parties, it did not lead to the hypothesized, new conflict among interest groups.