The Historical Changes and Continuities of Swiss Parliamentary Recruitment

Voter preferences as a source of descriptive (mis)representation by social class

“…Most strikingly, Pilotti (2015) reports that nearly one third of the members of the Swiss parliament were lawyers or entrepreneurs in 2000 and 2010, while large employers and the upper middle class together account for only 13% of the economically active population. Pilotti (2015) also reports that the majority of Swiss MPs have a university degree while university graduates constitute about 28% of the Swiss population as a whole. 7 Based on candidate surveys for the 2007 and 2011 elections to the Swiss parliament (FORS, 2009a(FORS, , 2012a, Figure 1 shows the total number of candidates and the number of successful candidates by income group.…”

“…Comparing available data on the occupational background of members of parliament with Oesch's (2006a) data suggests that descriptive misrepresentation by social class is quite pronounced in the Swiss case. Most strikingly, Pilotti (2015) reports that nearly one third of the members of the Swiss parliament were lawyers or entrepreneurs in 2000 and 2010, while large employers and the upper middle class together account for only 13% of the economically active population. Pilotti (2015) also reports that the majority of Swiss MPs have a university degree while university graduates constitute about 28% of the Swiss population as a whole 7…”

“…Comparing available data on the occupational background of members of parliament with Oesch's ( 2006a ) data suggests that descriptive misrepresentation by social class is quite pronounced in the Swiss case. Most strikingly, Pilotti ( 2015 ) reports that nearly one third of the members of the Swiss parliament were lawyers or entrepreneurs in 2000 and 2010, while large employers and the upper middle class together account for only 13% of the economically active population. Pilotti ( 2015 ) also reports that the majority of Swiss MPs have a university degree while university graduates constitute about 28% of the Swiss population as a whole.…”

“…2222We chose to make the LMC candidate an engineer because the average salary of engineers is lower than that of lawyers and business executives, and we made the UMC candidate a lawyer because lawyer is a more typical occupation among Swiss MPs than business executive (Pilotti, 2015). Respondents' support for a lawyer with a Ph.D. and a salary of CHF 30,000 is not significantly different from their support for a business executive with equal education and salary.…”

Between Occupation and Politics: Legislative Professionalization in the Swiss Cantons

“…This so‐called militia system has recently been widely debated in the media and amongst political scientists (Müller ; Pilotti et al. ; Pilotti ). Several studies have investigated the professionalization of the parliaments showing that the members of parliament (MPs) in the Federal Assembly spend increasingly more time for their parliamentary mandate (Bütikofer ; Hug et al.…”