EU referendums in context: What can we learn from the Swiss case?

Abstract

The rising number of referendums on EU matters, such as the Brexit and the Catalonian independence votes, highlight the increasing importance of referendums as a problem‐solving mechanism in the EU. We argue that the Swiss case provides essential insights into understanding the dynamics behind referendums, which are often lacking when referendums are called for in the EU. Referendums in EU member states on EU matters differ substantially from those in the Swiss context. Nevertheless, proponents of more direct democratic decision‐making regularly cite the Swiss example. Our systematic analysis of why referendums are called, how they unfold and their effects in the EU and Switzerland reveals that the EU polity lacks the crucial conditions that embed direct democracy within the wider political and institutional system. The comparative perspective offers fundamental insights into the preconditions required for direct democracy to function and its limitations in the EU.

Integration, functional differentiation and problem‐solving in multilevel governance

“…How can different theoretical and empirical approaches produce cumulative knowledge about integration, functional differentiation and problem‐solving in multilevel settings? Accordingly, the contributions engage in theory‐building on multilevel governance by comparing the EU and other cases (Ege ; Heidbreder et al ; Tosun et al ), different policy sectors (Ege ), or by combining new and innovative theoretical perspectives (Maggetti and Trein ). Thereby, the symposium aims, on the one hand, to advance our current understanding of policy‐making in the EU, and, on the other, to improve our cumulative knowledge of the potential and limits of the problem‐solving capacity of multilevel governance arrangements.…”

“…The articles in this symposium start from the EU as the prototypical case of multilevel governance and then embark on a comparative analysis of different articulations of the relationship between multilevelness and problem‐solving in other contexts. The settings analysed in this symposium vary in terms of the functional differentiation of the respective multilevel governance system (Maggetti and Choer Moraes ; Tosun and Hartung ), such as federal states (Heidbreder et al ) and international organizations (IO) (Ege ). This comparative approach allows for a wide‐ranging investigation into the challenges of problem‐solving in multilevel governance settings.…”

Learning from the Commission case: The comparative study of management change in international public administrations

“…Despite being related to more traditional concepts of performance, administrative problem‐solving goes beyond effectiveness and efficiency (Trein et al ). It has a distinct focus on policy outputs and refers to an IPA's capacity to engage in cooperative efforts with policy‐makers to generate solutions that are expected to be collectively beneficial in making a contribution to solve the policy problem at hand (see also Heidbreder et al ; Maggetti and Trein ; Thomann et al ). This capacity has long been found to be key to the work of the ‘international civil service’ (Biermann and Siebenhüner ; Langrod ) and makes questions of management change particularly relevant for the study of IPAs.…”

Problem‐Solving Capacity in Multilevel Settings

“…Forss & Magro, 2016;H€ ubner, 2016). Unsurprisingly, the Brexit is a topic in the second special issue (Heidbreder, Stadelmann-Steffen, Thomann & Sager, 2019) as well as in the present one (Fossum, 2019). The symposium in this issue of European Policy Analysis takes yet another step backward in the policy cycle and focuses on the characteristics of policy problems that matter for the problem-solving capacity of multilevel systems.…”

“…Como era de esperar, el Brexit es un tema en el segundo n umero especial (Heidbreder et al 2019), as ı como en el presente (Fossum 2019). El simposio en este n umero de European Policy Analysis da un paso m as hacia atr as en el ciclo de las pol ıticas y se centra en las caracter ısticas de los problemas de pol ıticas que son importantes para la capacidad de resoluci on de problemas de los sistemas multinivel.…”