Swiss Security Research Articles

Neutralność Szwajcarii

SWITZERLAND’S NEUTRALITY: DIMENSIONS OF THE SECURITY OF A NEUTRAL STATE The aim of the article is to present the unique concept of Switzerland’s security as a neutral state and the most important points in the process of its evolution. For this purpose, the most important stages of shaping the concept of security and defense policy of the state, legal bases and an attempt to define what are currently the pillars of Switzerland’s defense and security will be presented. One of the important points to deal with this topic are the current international events related to the pandemic and the armed conflict in Ukraine and the position of Switzerland as a neutral state, which is an interpretation of the shaping of the contemporary concept of Swiss security in the changing balance of power. In the preparation of this article, the analysis of reports, studies, publications and existing documents was used, as well as the historical, institutional and legal approach as well as elements of system analysis.

Parsing Pegasus: An Infrastructural Approach to the Relationship between Technology and Swiss Security Politics

AbstractHow do technologies matter for security politics? This article introduces the kind of arguments an infrastructural approach would focus its answer on. It illustrates how the approach would work by focussing on how the spyware Pegasus developed by the Israeli company NSO matters for Swiss security politics. It follows the infrastructural approach showing how and why it would tend to three things primarily: the politics of the infrastructures Pegasus is inscribed in, the politics of the processes of infrastructuring the software generates and the infrapolitics that sustain and transform these processes and infrastructures. The article also discusses the strengths and weaknesses of infrastructural approaches, underlining that since they are relational, processual and radically open epistemologically and ontologically, infrastructural approaches are suitable for opening new agendas, re‐problematising and re‐imagining the politics of security technologies. They are less suited for studies premised on a fixed understanding of the politics of security technology.

Hyper‐Securitization, Everyday Security Practice and Technification: Cyber‐Security Logics in Switzerland

AbstractThis contribution to the SPSR debate about technology and security in Switzerland looks at how and by whom cyber‐security is constructed in Swiss security politics. Using three securitization logics as developed by reflexive Security Studies – hyper‐securitization, everyday security practices, and technification – it illustrates how Swiss actors have sorted out roles and responsibilities over the years. The article suggests that all three logics are present in the political process, but that ‘technification’ – a way to construct the issue as reliant upon technical knowledge and the supposition that this serves a political and normatively neutral agenda – is currently the dominant one. For democratic politics, technification is a big challenge. Assigning an issue to the technical realm has a depoliticizing influence and makes contestation from those with less technical expertise very hard.

Is centralisation the right way to go? The case of internal security policy reforms in Switzerland in the light of community policing

Looking from the angle of the allocation of tasks between cantons and municipalities in Switzerland, this article analyses how security reforms tend to concentrate police institutions at the cantonal level and eliminate local police in order to improve efficiency. As the shift to centralisation is being implemented through consensus-building, cities claim to be special cases and succeed in conserving their local police. The analysis focuses on two cantonal reforms through qualitative data. The results show that institutional changes have led to three main arrangements after reform: the centralisation of police (the municipalities buy the services of the cantonal police); regionalisation (several municipalities implement their policing activities together); and decentralisation (the city conserves its local police). In regard to which arrangement produces the best impact, an evaluation of the perception of actors (citizens and police) shows that the police’s work and the feeling of security are better in a decentralised setting. Points for practitioners Political issues are at the centre of reforms that aim for a new distribution of responsibilities between levels of public authorities in the Swiss security sector. They can strongly influence the new arrangements introduced by reform. Even if cantonal decision-makers have solid arguments to centralise a task, the power of municipalities is stronger. This leads to an asymmetric federalism, where cities can maintain their police and municipalities have to buy cantonal police services. As the decentralised option is better evaluated by citizens and the police, centralisation reforms are difficult to implement where there is a tradition of local police.

Swiss 2014 presidency of OSCE: 'Security community in the service of citizens'

OSCE Presidency made it possible for Switzerland to confirm in practice its peaceful policy and to be jointly engaged in the European security policy. Specifically, the Swiss commitment to the OSCE Presidency is compatible with the basic ideas of Swiss security policy: security through cooperation. The orientation for dialogue and consensus - two fundamental principles of cooperation in the OSCE - are the most important features of Swiss politics. That is exactly why Switzerland made efforts to be good 'builder of bridges' in the OSCE - to find common answers for common challenges. This text was published in the Swiss Army's magazine Military Power Revue No. 1/2014, pp. 12-21, under the original title Schweizer OSZE-Vorsitz 2014: 'Eine Sicherheitsgemeinschaft im Dienste der Menschen schaffen'.

The Idiosyncrasies of Contemporary Swiss Security Policy and Practice: A Strategic Culture-Based Explanation

The peculiarities of Swiss security policy since the end of the Cold War are best explained not through Switzerland's structural position but through its unique strategic culture. Compared to other European neutrals, there are three particular idiosyncratic expressions of Switzerland's neutrality: strict adherence to institutional non-alignment in Swiss foreign and security policy; the Swiss army's militia principle; and the Swiss system of civil defence. Given their relative persistence despite radical changes in the strategic environment, these idiosyncrasies deserve more research attention and more theoretical scrutiny. This article argues that an examination of Swiss strategic culture, based on historical and identity narratives as well as public opinion, best explains the puzzle of distinctiveness. The article highlights the importance of the vernacular in conceptualizations of strategic culture, and explores the explanatory utility of strategic culture compared to explanations based on realist or institutional factors derived from rationalist theories. Strategic culture reveals current constraints imposed upon policymakers as well as ideological resources available for new directions in security policy. This analysis shows there is little room within Swiss strategic culture for a transformation of security policy, but there are opportunities for a discursive transformation of Swiss identity and strategic culture that allow for a better use of strategic and military resources.

From Armed Neutrality to External Dependence: Swiss Security in the 21stCentury

Abstract: Historically, Swiss identity was founded on beliefs in federalism, direct democracy and armed neutrality. Given continued popular support for autonomous self‐defense in an era of transnational threats, it is worth examining whether a small economically interdependent state, such as Switzerland, is single‐handedly capable of providing for its own security. To preview our conclusions, every facet of Switzerland’s security, whether against military threats, terrorism or natural disasters, today benefits from substantial international inputs. At base, Switzerland’s increasing security dependence has been driven by the following dynamics: 1) the general development of institutionalized international cooperation; 2) the evolving nature of the threats Switzerland faces; and 3) political efforts to “securitize” issues not hitherto considered as security problems. Because Swiss security dependence owes more to broad structural factors than deliberate choices, policymakers would be better off embracing this reality by proactively using international organizations to address transnational challenges.

Beyond Exceptionalism? New Security Conceptions in Contemporary Switzerland

Switzerland's traditional, military-centred and isolationist Cold War policies began to be vehemently contested in the 1990s. However, since the early 2000s, debates on security policy and foreign affairs have gradually lost public salience, and recent popular votes suggest increasingly consistent support both for a broader conception of national security and a more internationalist interpretation of neutrality. Have Switzerland's traditional policy frameworks thus been overcome? Investigating elite positions, this article argues that indeed, conventional disputes between military and civilian understandings of security have been transcended recently, as Swiss policy-makers settled for a remarkably broad and non-traditional conception of national security. At the same time, the article also argues, the perception of increasingly global security challenges has started to provide powerful rationales against traditional Swiss isolationism. By showing the processes through which Swiss security conceptions have been reformulated into a new dominant elite agreement, the article points out how Switzerland has slowly come to embrace security in European terms – not least also thanks to its new focus on non-traditional security agendas.

Swiss Security Policy Hearings 2009 - Neutrality and its Discontents

Testimony at the Swiss Security Policy hearings, April 17, 2009. In Switzerland, terms such as 'integral neutrality' and 'active neutrality' have been adopted in political discourse. However, I am not sure this is helpful in clarifying the meaning of neutrality and, to an outsider at least, this appears to be hanging political policies on legal clothes hooks. Everyone in Switzerland seems to agree that neutrality is important and vital, but everyone seems to understand the term differently. Speaking as a lawyer, I would therefore separate the legal concept of neutrality from political policies which we might term, for example, 'isolationism' or 'engagement'. For your security you should have a security policy and not a neutrality policy. I would accept that international armed conflict in Europe is unlikely, but to rule it out completely seems to be a mistake. An important part of conflict resolution and peacebuilding is a military component. Given the extensive involvement of Switzerland in mediation and humanitarian assistance, these efforts would be best supported by robust military support. From an efficiency perspective, it would therefore seem to make sense for Switzerland to play a role in that, so that its efforts are not wasted.

INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION REVISITED: TRANSACTION COSTS, THE SWISS CONFEDERATION OF 1815, AND BEYOND

This study makes use of a political economy/rational choice framework to shed light on the nature of cooperative security arrangements in the international environment. It argues that states choose among security arrangements with varying degrees of structural commitment and that two factors are crucial in explaining the degree of institutionalization elected—the level of threat in the international system and the magnitude of transaction costs. Since there is no common metric, like price, to ascertain the degree of transaction costs that allies are confronted with, the study relies on three proxy measures: uncertainty, heterogeneity, and asset specificity. Focusing on Swiss security provisions at the end of the Napoleonic Wars and drawing on the findings of two security arrangements examined in a larger study—the German Confederation of 1815 and the founding of NATO—the analysis shows that, when exposed to serious external threat and high transaction costs, states give rise to sophisticated, binding security structures. To demonstrate the broad applicability of the transaction costs framework, the concluding section sketches recent integrative moves within the European Union.

Swiss Security Return Performance and the Investment Horizon

Investors often hold foreign securities in order to diversify their portfolios. This raises the issue of whether there are unique risks associated with long-term investments in non-domestic securities. The authors investigate the empirical relationship between the Sharpe ratio and the investment horizon for portfolios of Swiss stocks and bonds and then compare these results to U.S. stock and bond portfolios. Sharpe ratios are calculated for holding periods of one to 25 years under the contrasting assumptions that returns are independent or auto-correlated. The results for Swiss securities are very similar to those for U.S. securities. Under independent returns, bonds outperform stocks for longer time horizons, while for auto-correlated returns, equities outperform bonds for all holding periods. <b>TOPICS:</b>Portfolio construction, developed, performance measurement

Neutrality and Security Policy as Components of the Swiss Model

IT IS NOT SO EASY TO DETECT THE SPECIFIC FEATURES OF THE Helvetian model in the Switzerland of today. They should rather be sought in what has made Switzerland what it is in seven centuries of the association of different communities, often disunited, fiercely determined to maintain their own sovereignty and independence. Switzerland was born from the conviction that only a system of collective security would in the long term assure to each community the liberty to which all aspired. It was a double liberty: that which was threatened by external aggression, and that which had to be preserved against interference from those which one was committed to succour. For, in binding themselves, from the second half of the thirteenth century, by successive treaties of alliance, the first confederated cantons in no way surrendered their own liberties.The system of collective security thus set up in the thirteenth century was the cornerstone on which Switzerland was built, its spinal column. The engagements formed in the pact of 1291 were set out in a few lines, and are still valid seven centuries later. They have certainly enabled the Confederation to stand up to external danger almost until the end of the Ancien Régime in 1798. It is these secular experiences in matters of collective security which have inspired and, after many changes, fashioned modern Swiss security policy.