Trusting bankers: continuity and Change in Swiss banking policy

Abstract

Swiss banking regulation is often depicted by its strong private governance arrangements and relatively low state intervention. This thesis adopts an issue attention approach to explain why banking regulatory reform is most of the time characterized by policy continuity and, only occasionally, by major policy change. This dissertation argues and shows that rare episodes of major policy change can be linked to equally rare “ruptures” in the way actors and the Swiss political system allocate attention to banking issues. Theoretically, the study proposes an original combination of the Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (Baumgartner and Jones 1993) and the Quiet Politics Framework (Culpepper 2011). Methodologically, it combines process-tracing with qualitative comparisons and relies on a triangulation of sources (official documents, quantitative and qualitative press analysis and expert interviews). Empirically, it traces four banking regulatory issues for the period 1977-2013: money laundering, tax evasion, dormant accounts and deposit protection.