The Swiss A Political Nation PDF

Swiss Political Science Review 17(4): 394416 doi:10.1111/j.1662-6370.2011.02029.
The Swiss: A Political Nation?
Beatrice Eugster and Oliver Strijbis

University of St. Gallen and University of Hamburg
Abstract: Proponents of constitutional patriotism advocate the promotion of a political national

identity. Whether a national identity founded on common political values is viable, however, remains
a matter of dispute. The Swiss nation is one of the few empirical cases cited by those who argue that
a political national identity can be a sucient guarantor of institutional stability and social coher-
ence; indeed, Switzerland is widely regarded as a prototype of the political nation. The aim of our
analysis is to empirically test this claim. In doing so, we rely on classical typologies of national iden-
tity. We propose to use a more nely graded typology than the usual dichotomies, however one
which allows for combined types and to focus on individual perceptions of national identity at the
mass- and elite-levels. The empirical analysis of whether the Swiss nation can correctly be classied
as a political nation draws on data from mass and MP surveys. Our conclusion is that the Swiss
imagine their nation in both political and cultural terms, and the essence of their cultural identity is
Swiss linguistic pluralism and regional diversity.
Keywords: Switzerland, national identity, members of parliament, constitutional patriotism, sur-

vey data
Introduction
Switzerland is widely perceived as a prototypical political nation (e.g. Habermas 1994
[1990], 642; Shabani 2002, 426f.; Theiler 2004, 644). Swiss identity, common wisdom claims,
is based on common appreciation of political values such as direct democracy, neutrality
and federalism. Yet the countrys main dimension of political conict in recent years has
been cultural demarcation (Kriesi et al. 2008). How is it possible in a prototypically politi-
cal nation that the most signicant political ghts are about whether or not the nation
should be culturally open? Our paper tries to solve this puzzle by proposing that the narra-
tive of the Swiss as a political nation falls short. It neglects, we argue, the fact that the Swiss
also imagine themselves in cultural terms.
The question of whether or not Switzerland is a political nation has important implica-
tions for ongoing debates about the prospect of a European nation and the future of
national identity in immigration societies. At the centre of this debate stands the question
of whether constitutional patriotism is sucient for state integrity and national solidarity
(e.g. Habermas 1998a, 117) or whether a common cultural identity is necessary (e.g. Hun-
tington 2004, 19). According to Habermas, in multi-cultural societies a political national
identity that does not rely on a common language or ethnicity can provide an alternative
means of national solidarity. A national identity based on nationally specic interpretations
of constitutional principles can take the place originally occupied by cultural or ethnic
nationalism (e.g. Cronin 2003).
Critics of this proposition question whether a purely political national identity can
become the object of attachment and identication; they also ask whether nationally specic
2011 Swiss Political Science Association

A comparative analysis between citizens and elites 395
interpretations of constitutional principles do not presuppose a common national culture

(see for instance the discussions in Markell 2000; Muller 2006; Baumeister 2007). This
debate raises the empirical question of whether instances of purely political national identity
in fact exist or whether identication with constitutional principles always occurs in tandem
with attachment to elements of cultural or ethnic national identity. The case of Switzerland
is central to this debate, as the Swiss nation is often cited as an example of a well-function-
ing political nation in a multicultural setting.
In order to make an empirical test of whether the Swiss nation can be considered political
or not, one must rely on a distinction between political and other national identities. The
classical distinctions between political and cultural (as well as civic and ethnic) nations have
recently been criticised on several grounds. In our theoretical chapter we will elaborate on
these criticisms, and explain how we have adapted the classical typologies in such a way as
to make the categories less ambiguous and to allow us to conceptualise various imagina-
tions of national identity within the same nation. We conclude that, with these amend-
ments, the classical typologies remain useful in empirically testing claims about Swiss
national identity.
Empirically, this paper contributes to the literature on Swiss national identity in two
ways. First, we complement the existing empirical evidence with analysis of survey data.
Most studies in this eld have analysed the emergence of Swiss national identity using his-
torical analysis (e.g. Kohn 1956; Deutsch 1976; Froidevaux 1997; Stojanovic 2003). The
few empirical studies that rely on representative surveys to appraise popular conceptions
of national identity take the political character of Swiss national identity as given and use
national identity as an independent variable to explain electoral results or attitudes toward
European integration (e.g. Kriesi 2002; Christin and Trechsel 2002). A qualitative analysis
of interviews with Swiss local politicians has shown that decision-makers are proud not
only of Swiss political characteristics, e.g. direct democracy, but also of cultural aspects
of national identity such as cultural diversity (Helbling 2008, 119122). With our empiri-
cal analysis we assess whether the conventional wisdom of an overwhelmingly political
national identity is valid or whether cultural and ethnic elements play an equally impor-
tant role.
Second, we consider perceptions of national identity among the political elite alongside
those of the masses. Studies to date have focused either on the role of the elite in the crea-
tion of national identity during the formation of the Swiss nation-state (e.g. Im Hof, 1991;
Marchal 1992) or on popular conceptions of national identity expressed through participa-
tion in specic political rituals (e.g. Bendix 1992; Torriani 2002). A systematic account of
elite and mass conceptions of Swiss national identity, however, is lacking. In order to ll
this gap, we analyse data from the Swiss Eurobarometer 2003 and a new survey of members
of parliament from the year 2010.
Our main nding is that Switzerlands elite and its masses embrace a similar conception
of national identity, one which is both political and cultural. The cultural dimension of
Swiss identity is, however, not linguistic or religious monism of the sort often associated
with cultural nationalism. Instead, the essence of Swiss cultural identity is pride in linguistic
pluralism and regional diversity. To be sure, this does not mean that the Swiss embrace
multiculturalism cultural pluralism is neatly restricted to the native cultures. The result
that Swiss national identity is based on political features and cultural pluralism suggests
that the Swiss are not a purely political nation. Rather, the case of Switzerland provides a
feasible model for the construction of cultural national identities in culturally diverse poli-
ties such as the European Union.
2011 Swiss Political Science Association Swiss Political Science Review (2011) Vol. 17(4): 394416
396 Beatrice Eugster and Oliver Strijbis
A mono-national state (almost) by denition

Debates about countries being national or multinational, and minorities being ethnic or
national, often devolve into debates on terminological rather than substantial theoretical
and empirical issues. As a consequence, many political scientists have simply despaired of
oering explicit understandings of nation and national identity (Greenfeld 1999, 45). For
the sake of clarity, we will nevertheless circumscribe our use of these essentially contested
concepts, keeping in mind that such denitions necessarily remain to some degree ambigu-
ous.1 A nation, for instance, is understood as a group of people who perceive themselves as
belonging to a certain state. This means that a nation is an imagined community (Ander-
son 1983) because it is a community of subjective self-identication and in contrast to
other imagined communities it imagines itself in relation to a state (e.g. Miller 1995).
For purposes of classication, therefore, it does not matter whether this state actually exists
or merely constitutes a political goal the community strives for.
National identity contains the dimensions of salience and content. While the salience of
the identity refers to the degree to which individuals identify with the nation, the content of
the identity refers to the quality of this imagined community.2 Consequently, in order to
grasp the content of national identity, we focus on the mental representations of individuals
rather than on political institutions. Our focus is not on citizenship regimes; these have been
shown to be inuenced by the content of national identity (Brubaker 1992), but should not
be equated with the latter.
Understanding national identity as the self-perception of belonging to a state, we arrive
at an understanding of the Swiss as one nation. Although this is the dominant view today
among Swiss historians and political scientists, arguments for understanding Switzerland as
a multinational state can be traced back to the 19th century, when the importance of cul-
tural features (e.g. a common language) as dening characteristics of a nation emerged
(Kohn 1956, 90). Since then the idea of the Swiss nation as a multinational state has per-
sisted (see Deutsch 1976, 63; Abizadeh 2002; Bhattacharyya 2007). Kymlicka (1995, 18), for
example, labels Switzerland the most multinational country because the dierent language
regions do not share the same language (and, therefore, the same culture).3
The classication of Switzerland as a multinational state, however, is often based on the
assumption that a common language constitutes the basis of a nation and therefore multi-
lingual can simply be equated with multinational (for a critical discussion see Dardanelli
forthcoming). Other authors emphasize that language can be more than a cultural element
and claim that a common language is crucial for a constitutional democracy because it facil-
itates communication among citizens in the political process (Ipperciel 2007). Thus Switzer-
1
We follow the argument of Davis (2005, in particular chapters 2 and 3) that it is impossible to give clear-cut de-
nitions as this would require the denition of all concepts used in the denition, leading to an innite regress of def-
initions.
2
What we call salience of national identity is often understood among psychologists as strength of nationalism or
nationalist sentiment. It is sometimes distinguished from patriotism, which, in contrast to nationalism, is under-
stood as an identication that allows for critical reection upon ones nation. These understandings are further-
more distinct from a sociological one, which understands nationalism as an ideology advocating that the state and
the nation should be congruent (e.g. Gellner 1983, 3).
3
Kymlicka (1995, 11) denes a nation as a historical community, more or less institutionally complete, occupying
a given territory or homeland, sharing a distinct language and culture and uses this term as synonymous with
culture.
Table 1: Salience of identities among Swiss language groups
French speakers Italian speakers German speakers Total
How close do you feel to Switzerland?

Very close 43.4 40.5 46.8 45.9
Close 42.8 46.0 47.9 46.8
Not very close 10.4 10.8 5.2 6.4
Not close at all 3.5 2.7 0.1 0.9
N 173 37 725 935
Notes: Only Swiss citizens, respondents with non-national language as rst language were coded
according to second language, Romansh speakers (N = 2) also.
Source: Swiss Eurobarometer 2003.
land is dened as multinational not ipso facto because it is multilingual, but because the
dierent linguistic groups do not share a common public space.
Countering the argument that Switzerland is a multi-national country, several authors
defend the notion that the Swiss case represents a true nation-state (Hobsbawm 1992, 65;
see also Mill 1977 [1865], 546; Renan 1896 [1882], 893; McRoberts 2001; Stojanovic 2003;
Dardanelli forthcoming). Historical analysis shows that since the foundation of the Helvetic
Republic in 1789 Switzerland has followed a rather typical process of nation-building in
which language has played a subordinated role (Stojanovic 2003). Confronted with the cul-
tural refutation of the existence of a Swiss nation in the 19th century, Swiss elites and intel-
lectuals such as Gottfried Keller accentuated love of freedom and an attachment to the
territory (mainly the Alps) as distinctive Swiss characteristics, in lieu of common ancestors
or language (Kohn 1956, 93). These symbols and myths helped to form both the idea and
the ocial realization of a single Swiss nation despite language divisions (e.g. Kriesi and
Trechsel 2008; Im Hof 1991; Marchal 1992), and they were prevalent not only among intel-
lectuals but also among ordinary citizens (Stojanovic 2003).
Evidence from recent surveys has repeatedly shown that the Swiss linguistic communities
neither perceive themselves as distinct nations nor identify themselves primarily with their
linguistic groups, but identify with Switzerland as a whole (e.g. Kriesi et al. 1996; Stojanovic
2003). The ISSP survey data presented here conrms this evidence. Table 1 shows that a
large plurality of the population, 45.9%, is strongly attached to the Swiss nation. This
attachment does not vary widely across language groups. The dierence is only 3.4%
between French and German speakers and 6.3% between Italian and German speakers. In
all language groups the share of respondents that feel at least close to Switzerland is over
85%. This result conrms our reasoning: if a nation is understood as a group that imagines
itself as congruent to a state, there is only one Swiss national identity shared by the large
majority of the Swiss citizens.
Categorising national identities

The relation between state and nation is not imagined as accidental; they are perceived to
be related through characteristics that make it possible to distinguish one particular nation
from others. These characteristics need not be objective markers like language and religious
denomination, but can be purely subjective (common will, values, beliefs, etc.). Further-
more, it does not matter whether or how the imagined characteristics are related to histori-
cal reality. They can be based upon invented traditions (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1992),
Figure 1: Types of national identity
myths of common descent (Smith 1986) and the like. They do, however, need to contain
an image of the content of national identity which makes their particular nation unique and
justies its right to its own state.
There is a long tradition in political science of categorising the content of these national
identities into dierent types (Brubaker 1999). In particular, the distinctions between politi-
cal vs. cultural and civic vs. ethnic have remained in wide use until today (Nieguth 1999).4
In the civic vs. ethnic distinction, the civic category includes political and cultural values,
while the ethnic category refers to a narrow understanding of ethnicity essentially, per-
ceptions of common descent. In the political vs. cultural distinction, on the other hand, the
political category is rather limited while cultural refers to a broad set of features that
range from everyday culture to imaginations of common ancestry. Both dichotomies have
been criticised for generating one category that is too narrow (the ethnic and political cate-
gories) and one that is too broad (the civic and cultural categories) to meaningfully describe
variation across nations. The critique that the ethnic and political categories are too narrow
is based on the observation that their cells are notably under-populated (see Brubaker 1999,
6061). Whether or not this criticism is valid depends largely on the assumption that a cate-
gory that contains very few cases is theoretically not relevant. In light of the importance of
the question of whether a political national identity is possible, we think that this assump-
tion is questionable, and this criticism invalid.
The corollary criticism that the civic and cultural categories are too broad and need rene-
ment is more serious. The classical typologies might be combined (without doing much harm
to their original meanings) by combining the overlapping ethnic vs. civic and cultural vs.
political dichotomies, creating three types of national identity. These can be distinguished as:
a political, a cultural, and an ethnic identity (see also Kymlicka 1999; Nieguth 1999; Nielsen
1999). As depicted in Figure 1 this is achieved by dividing the civic category (in the ethnic vs.
civic distinction) into political and a cultural categories, and by dividing the cultural category
(in the cultural vs. political dichotomy) into ethnic and cultural categories. This division only
makes sense, of course, if the cultural category in the new typology is used in a narrow sense
4
Among the more recent references, Greenfeld (1992) on the political vs. cultural distinction and Smith (1991) on
the civic vs. ethnic distinction have probably been the most inuential.
and does not include ethnicity. This means that what we call here the cultural national identity
refers to cultural characteristics which are perceived not as inherited but as acquirable. These
include language and religion, but also common values such as a Protestant work ethic, sin-
cerity, generosity, hospitality, etc. if they are imagined by a majority to be characteristic of
the national community. Although such a cultural national identity asks a lot of those who
would assimilate to it, assimilation is not by denition impossible. Note that in the context of
culturally diverse nations such a cultural national characteristic might also be pride in the
specic national cultural pluralism. In such cases, assimilation means to adapt to one of the
national cultures and embrace the idea of cultural pluralism.
This is dierent from the ethnic national identity. In the ethnic national conception, the
nation is perceived as a group of people sharing the same ancestors, which means that
national identity is inherited and cannot be acquired by newcomers. This is not to say that
ethnic groups are in fact essential categories, merely that people share an understanding of
them as such (Gil-White 1999). Special emphasis is placed on phenotypes and other markers
commonly perceived as related to hereditary descent (Chandra 2006). Although it is true
that ethnicity is a socially constructed category and therefore malleable, individuals that do
not belong to the ethnic community cannot assimilate to it by their own eorts. Assimila-
tion is possible only if the society at large redenes the boundaries of its ethnic categories.
A political national identity refers to constitutional patriotism. It indicates that people
imagine the nation as a community sharing the same political values, produced and rein-
forced by participating in the same political process. These values can refer to the political
system of a country, its political culture or its role in the world. The content of such a
national identity consists of a distinctive interpretation of those constitutional principles
that are equally embodied in other republican constitutions such as popular sovereignty
and human rights in light of its own national history (Habermas 1998b, 408).
Having adapted the dichotomous categorisations into a triptych does not mean that we
have addressed all the criticisms raised against such typologies. There remain at least three
serious issues.5 First, it has been argued that national identity always contains ethnic and
cultural elements. Jenkins (1997, 15), for instance, argues that the national [is] to be
understood as historically and contextually specic social construction on the basic ethnic
theme (see also Helbling 2008, 34f.). According to this narrow understanding of nation,
which requires more than the shared belief of belonging to the same state, a (purely) politi-
cal national identity is ruled out by denition. But even if we argue that nation and ethnic
group should conceptually be separated, it remains an open question whether a social group
can imagine itself as belonging to one state without perceiving itself as possessing a com-
mon cultural and or ethnic identity.
Second, it has been argued that every national identity contains various elements at the
same time. The criticism is that there is always variation within nations concerning the con-
tent of national identity. Although individuals identify themselves with the same nation, it
does not follow that they share the same image of that nations common characteristics
(Gellner 1983; Keane 1994; MacCormick 1996; Bonikowski 2011). This observation might
be regarded as a critique of the undervaluation of heterogeneity within collective actors
under these typologies. This pitfall has been widely acknowledged, and conrmed in numer-
ous studies of nationalist discourses, frameworks, etc. of sub-national actors. It is not
always clear whether these studies implicitly suggest that, being aware of heterogeneity at
5
We do not address the criticism that the typologies are normative (among those see Yack 1999; Brown 1999;
Kuzio 2002).
the individual level, we should not aggregate at the state-wide level, or whether they are
merely intended as corrective or complementary to macro-sociological categories. But even
if one believes in the merits of macro-sociological analysis, the problem of aggregating indi-
viduals conceptions of the nation remains a serious one.
A straightforward solution to the aggregation problem is to think of nations as belonging
more or less to a certain type. If the intention, however, is to inform ideal-type theory it may
in some cases make more sense to aggregate into clear-cut types. Such is the case in our refer-
ence to the Habermasian proposition of constitutional patriotism. Because the theory of
constitutional patriotism raises the question of the existence of political nations, we need an
aggregation rule that tells us when an empirical case is pure enough to be classied as a politi-
cal nation. As a conservative rule, we might therefore consider as macro-level elements of the
national identity only those elements that are the common denominators of individuals per-
ceptions. In other words, we should understand the national identity as only those features of
a nations common identity on which a large majority of its members agree.
The reality of heterogeneous perceptions of national identity at the individual level also
raises the question of whether political, cultural and ethnic conceptions of nationhood are
mutually exclusive or mutually reinforcing (Janmaat 2006, 51). The empirical evidence from
representative surveys (Hjerm 1998a; 1998b; Jones and Smith 2001; Janmaat 2006) suggests
that citizens do make a distinction between an amalgam of political and cultural features of
national identity (the civic category) on the one hand and a perception of their nation as
an ethnic community on the other. Although the survey items divide two underlying dimen-
sions in a very similar way across countries, they are not necessarily substitutes; indeed, the
emergence of two dimensions in the empirical analysis might be due to common agreement
on one set of features (e.g. the political and cultural elements), and corresponding disagree-
ment regarding other features (e.g. ethnicity).
The fact that distinctive conceptions of the content of national identity coexist within the
nation (i.e. are not mutually exclusive) supports the plausibility of combinations of types of
national identity. These are categorized by combining the three types of national identity
into four new types: ethno-cultural, ethno-political, cultural-political and encompassing.
Altogether, this produces seven types of national identity, along with the possibility that
national identity is not salient at all (Figure 1). In addition to the pure types (consisting of
only one category), the ethno-cultural category is congruent with what has been described
as the cultural type in the cultural vs. political distinction; the cultural-political category
can be understood as the civic type in the civic vs. ethnic distinction.
An additional third option emerges: the ethno-political type. This is a particularly inter-
esting type for the Swiss case because cultural diversity might lead one to hypothesise that
the political content of the national identity is accompanied by an image of a people with
common ancestors but no common culture. Finally, the encompassing type would provide
a model for those who maintain that citizens do not make distinctions about the content of
national identity. Such theorists might consider important everything that could be seen as
a distinction between the members of one nation and those of another.
The third serious criticism of the classical typologies comes from social constructivists,
who point out that both the salience and the content of (national) identity are uid and
contextual.6 According to Huddy (2001, 147), this perception is often derived from social
6
For a discussion of weak social constructivist notions of identity against hard (allegedly) essentialist notions of
identity see Brubaker and Cooper (2000, 614). See also Brubaker (1996, 56) for a typical critique of hard notions
of ethnic identity.
identity theory. Whether or not observations pertaining to social identities can be applied
to political identities remains a matter of dispute. In his review of the crossover from social
identity theory to political identity theory, Huddy (2001, 147.) suggests not only that the
uidity of social identities has been overestimated, but also that political identities are con-
siderably more stable (see also Hjerm 2003, 416). Empirically, the notion of uidity is
often further contradicted by observation of remarkable stability in the answers to survey
questions over time, a result to which we will return in the empirical section.
In this context, it is also interesting to note that instrumentalists often assume that elites
identities are more stable than those of the mass of citizens.7 According to this perspective,
the identities of the masses are situational and contextual to political struggles among the
elites, who alone possess stable preferences. If in fact the preferences of elites provide a rela-
tively stable foundation from which to inuence the preferences of the masses, it makes
sense to pay particular attention to the conceptions of national identity at the elite level,
and derive from them statements about national identity beyond the immediate context.
In this chapter we have amended the classical typology in such a way as to make the cate-
gories less ambiguous, allow for all combinations of types and include a category for those
that do not identify with a nation at all. Furthermore, we have pointed to the potential ben-
ets of looking at both the masses and the elites. These steps are, of course, not enough to
counter entirely the criticism that this kind of deductive research imposes categories on the
actors rather than identifying actual cognitive schemes used in everyday life, a valid point
to which we will return in the conclusion. They do, however, allow for a potentially greater
diversity of perceptions of national identity than the classical typologies used to date. At
the same time, they allow us to make use of surveys with representative sampling in order
to investigate national identity for the Swiss citizenry as a whole. This will be our aim in
the next section.
Swiss national identity

The classical understanding of Swiss national identity is a political one, based on a common
appreciation of neutrality, federalism and direct democracy (Hilty 1875, 29; Linder 2005,
30.; Kriesi and Trechsel 2008, 11). According to this view, it is an attachment to these fun-
damental political institutions and values that unites Swiss citizens, and therefore comprises
the core of Swiss national identity. But the argument that a purely political national identity
does not rise to the necessary pitch of emotional attachment has also been raised in the
Swiss case.
Centlivres and Schnapper (1991, 157f.), for example, argue that Helvetic citizenship is
congruent with a voluntaristic political conception of national identity, while at the can-
tonal and communal level an ethnic idea of the community, in which individuals share the
same culture, is predominant (see also Kriesi 2007). Others maintain that national identity
need not necessarily contain a cultural dimension, but that politically connoted invented
myths about glorious ancestors can be tied to a wholly rational political identity (Renan
1889; Kriesi and Trechsel 2008).
To ordain myths as political, however, is problematic. Myths (and other articulations of
political ritual and national symbolism) are most accurately understood as forms that trans-
mit an image of national identity; their meanings are therefore dependent on contextualiza-
7
For reviews on instrumental approaches to nationalism see for instance Brubaker (1998, 289292) and Breuilly
(1994, 409411).
tion (Zimmer 2003).8 An example of this is the accentuation of the alpine landscape as a
distinctive characteristic of Swiss national identity, an area for the projection of myths,
memories and virtues (Kaufmann and Zimmer 1998, 486).
The Alps provide meaning as the place where in 1291 the three founding members of the
confederation (Eidgenossen) came together as equally free men to conrm their alliance
against foreign invasion. In this context, the Alps are associated with the tradition of direct
democracy and therefore convey a clear political meaning. This discourse, linking direct
democracy to the heritage of general assemblies (Landsgemeinde) in the Alpine cantons,
was also a feature of the democratic movement in the second half of the 19th century
(Kriesi and Trechsel 2008, 11).
Furthermore, the Alps have also been considered the cradle of the homo alpinus helveti-
cus, the supposed true ancestor of the Swiss race (e.g. Mottier 2000; 2008; Kreis 1992). In
this context, the Swiss mountain landscape refers to the origins of the Swiss population
and, hence, to an ethnic understanding of national identity. In the beginning of the 20th
century this narrative was prevalent until the Swiss state distanced itself from it after the
Second World War (Mottier 2000).
Finally, the Alps, and especially the alpine community, have been related to common
Swiss values such as diligence, humility and order (Berthoud 2001). Mountains were alleged
to have a purifying eect on human beings (Zimmer 1998, 654f.). In contrast to the polit-
ical interpretation of the landscape, values are not projected onto but rather derived from
the Alps; schoolbooks, for example, were often used to transmit Alpine values (Helbling
1994). Although the landscape is perceived to have an inuence on its inhabitants, this
interpretation cannot properly be related to ethnicity because these values are not based
upon common descent but rather are acquired, and therefore reect a cultural conception
of national identity.
The studies cited above and the example of the alpine landscape emphasise that the same
symbols can be interpreted in dierent ways and that signicant intra-national variation in
such interpretations is possible. From just these examples, it seems that political elements
alone do not comprise Swiss national identity rather, cultural and ethnic elements register
as well. Yet despite these insights, the Swiss nation is usually classied as a political nation.
In order to take into account variance in understandings of the same national identity, we
propose to rely on individuals actual conceptions of the nation and aggregate them to clas-
sify the Swiss case.
To test the hypothesis that the Swiss have internalised a political image of national iden-
tity, we use two dierent data sources. For the conceptions of national identity among the
mass of citizens we rely on the data collected in the Swiss Eurobarometer 2003; the views of
the political elite are measured with data from the Comparative MP Survey9, conducted
among members of parliament (MPs) in the year 2010.10
8
Here we disagree also with authors who classify these symbols a priori as elements of the ethnic conception of
national identity (e.g. Froidevaux 1997).
9
The Comparative MP Survey is part of the PartiRep (Participation & Representation) research project, an Inter-
university Attraction Pole funded by the Belgian Science Policy, which analyses changing patterns of participation
and representation in modern democracies. The survey was carried out in 15 countries and 60 parliaments between
2009 and 2010 (for further information see www.partirep.eu).
10
The time gap of seven years might call the comparability of the two surveys into question. Because we believe
that perceptions of national identity among the respondents, and in particular among the political elite (see the dis-
cussion above), remain rather stable, we believe that general comparisons can be made.
The Swiss Eurobarometer 2003 includes questions from the International Social Survey
Program as well as some questions about specically Swiss characteristics such as Swiss
political institutions. The sample contains 1037 respondents out of which 942 Swiss citizens
were selected.11 In contrast to most MP surveys, the Comparative MP Survey was con-
ducted not only at the federal but also at the regional level. A larger sample of the political
elite was therefore surveyed, with the advantageous eect of generating a large N (496 MPs
lled out the questionnaire). The fact that the low response rate for Switzerland (18%) is
still somewhat higher than the rate for the same survey conducted in other countries reects
the reality that non-responses are a general problem of elite surveys. The fact that in
Switzerland the representatives from all regional (i.e. cantonal) parliaments were included
instead of just a selection thereof (as in other surveys from the PartiRep project) precluded
the possibility of face-to-face interviews. Furthermore, although the response rate is by
most measures low, the fact that 18% of our clearly delimited population participated in
the survey allows for very ecient weighting, rendering the sample largely representative. In
order to correct for the non-response bias, the sample was weighted with information on
MPs party aliations and cantonal aliations.12
Both surveys contain items that are usually associated with the political, cultural or eth-
nic types of national identity.13 The questions on the political identity typically refer to
direct democracy and neutrality, while the question about the importance of Swiss ancestry
clearly relates to an ethnic understanding. Measuring the cultural content of Swiss national
identity is more dicult, especially with the Swiss Eurobarometer 2003, because no one of
the nations high cultures with its corresponding language can be considered the Swiss
national culture. Instead, the cultural and linguistic pluralism of the country is itself per-
ceived as characteristic of the Swiss national culture.
This emphasis on linguistic diversity as a constitutive element of the Swiss identity has
become increasingly relevant over time. Although awareness of Swiss linguistic diversity led
to the introduction of the language paragraph in the Swiss constitution of 1848, it played
only a minor role in national identity at that time (Godel and Acklin Muji 2004, 118;
Linder 2005, 29). Since the 1930s, however, linguistic diversity as an element of national
identity has become increasingly important, culminating in the public discourse about the
renewal of the constitutional language paragraph in 1996 (Coray 2004, 248, 382; see also
Koller 1998 9, 73; Demont-Heinrich 2005, 71). Consequently, linguistic diversity has
recently been emphasized as an important element of Swiss identity by several authors (e.g.
Stevenson 1990, 130; Steinberg 1996, 128; Koller 2000, 563; Barbour 2002, 162; Kagi-
Diener 2008, 92.).
11
The response rate of the Swiss Eurobarometer 2003 is 30.2 %. The survey includes 432 male and 462 female
respondents with an average age of 50.7 years (SD = 17.1) and an average full-time education of 11.4 years
(SD = 3.5; see also Table 6).
12
An explorative analysis showed that party aliation in centre-right parties (CVP, Liberals, SVP) and identica-
tion with the Swiss Francophone language community are particularly strong predictors of non-response. To
account for the party aliation bias, the major parties with more than 2% of all MPs at the cantonal and
national level have been selected (SVP, Liberals, CVP, SPS, Greens, BDP, EVP). Weight has been calculated by
dividing the proportion of MPs per party to all MPs that lled out the questionnaire (sample proportion) by the
proportion of all MPs per party to all MPs (population proportion). Based on the new distribution of MPs
weighted by party aliation, the cantonal weight has been calculated accordingly. Both weights have been multi-
plied to obtain the nal weighting variable.
13
See Tables 2 and 3 for the exact wording of the original questions.
Furthermore, multiple surveys underline the importance of linguistic and cultural diver-
sity to the Swiss. In a survey conducted in the 1970s among army recruits about Switzer-
lands mission in the world, the most frequent choice of German-Swiss respondents was
the example of linguistic and cultural coexistence to the world (McRae 1998, 110).14 A
representative study among Swiss citizens in 1997 found that 72% of the respondents con-
sidered linguistic diversity an important Swiss characteristic, comparable to direct democ-
racy (75%) and neutrality (59%) (Suter 1998, 139). The importance of linguistic diversity
has also been conrmed in a recent survey (Gfs 2009; for similar ndings among Swiss local
politicians see Helbling 2008, 119).15
In the MP survey, the importance of linguistic and (more generally) cultural diversity is
clearly recognized in questions on the value of linguistic, cultural, cantonal and regional
diversity. Cultural (and in particular linguistic) diversity is less directly measured in the
Swiss Eurobarometer 2003. The item to be able to speak an ocial language probably
comes closest but leaves some room open for interpretation (see Hjerm 1998a, 459; Jones
and Smith 2001, 49; Janmaat 2006, 56).
On the one hand, the ability to speak a national language can be understood as a funda-
mental condition for participation in the political process (Baubock 1996; Erk 2003). If lan-
guage is framed as an indicator of integration into the political community, it should be
classied as a political element of national identity. On the other hand, linguistic compe-
tence may also be seen as an ascribed characteristic by relating the national language to
national culture, as is usually the case in the literature on nationalism (e.g. Anderson 1983;
Kymlicka 1995). In this sense, the command of a national language can also be interpreted
as a means to access culture, history and tradition and hence a cultural aspect of national
identity. Watts (1996, 136f.), for example, highlights the role of language in Swiss national
identity to create and propagate social reality in the form of myths promoting national
unity. If the item is understood in this context, it can be attributed to the cultural dimension
of national identity.
The diculty of attributing any one item to entire categories, as in the case of language,
calls for the combination of multiple items. In order to infer from the items the underlying
dimensions of the content of national identity (as perceived by the respondents), we use
exploratory factor analysis.16 The results of the factor analysis should allow us to determine
whether our rened typology accurately describes the types of national identity that exist
within the Swiss nation, or whether Swiss citizens distinguish along lines other than those
we propose.
As Table 2 shows, Swiss citizens distinguish between three dierent underlying dimen-
sions of national identity. On the rst factor, the importance of having Swiss ancestry in
order to be truly Swiss loads highest, followed by items that refer to birth in Switzerland,
length of time living in the country, professing a Christian religion, and having Swiss citi-
zenship. This factor relates quite nicely to what we call the ethnic type of national identity
14
French-speaking Swiss, however, more often described a humanitarian or democratic mission (McRae 1998,
110). This nding seems to indicate that the importance of linguistic diversity among citizens is mainly a concern of
German-speaking Swiss.
15
When respondents were asked about elements of pride in Swiss politics, coexistence of dierent linguistic
groups ranked third after independence and neutrality with 88% of the respondents being at least proud of lin-
guistic diversity (51% very proud and 37% quite proud).
16
Principal-component factor analysis with promax rotation, which allows dimensions to be correlated, has been
used. We excluded the item feel nationality because it cannot be clearly assigned to a particular type of identity
(see Heath et al. 2009, 308).
Table 2: Factor analysis for content of national identity among Swiss citizens
Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3

Variable (ethnic) (political) (cultural)
Have Swiss ancestry1 0.84

Born in Switzerland1 0.82
Spend most time of life in Switzerland1 0.71
Being Christian1 0.71
Have the Swiss citizenship1 0.64
Importance of federalism2 0.87
Importance of direct democracy2 0.84
Importance of neutrality2 0.70
Respect institutions & laws of Switzerland1 0.83
Able to speak one of the national language1 0.80
% of variance explained 0.745
Eigenvalue 3.65 1.48 1.13
N 821
Notes: Principal-component analysis with promax rotation. Cut-o point: 0.4. Original wording of
questions: 1Some people say the following things are important for being truly Swiss. Others say not.
2
Would you say that you are proud that Switzerland features these three political institutions?
because elements that are largely determined through descent load on this factor. The fact
that the item on religion also loads on this factor, however, suggests that this category is
somewhat broader than the ethnic category in our typology, or that religion is perceived as
concomitant with birth. The loading of the last item on this dimension, having Swiss citi-
zenship, can be explained by Switzerlands citizenship regime, an ethnic-assimilation type
which sets high barriers for immigrants to access the political community (Helbling and
Kriesi 2004; Koopmans et al. 2005; Waldrauch 2007; for dierent results, cf. Tilley et al.
2008; Jones and Smith 2001).
The second factor includes items that refer to the importance of political institutions to
Swiss national identity. On this factor, the item about pride in federalism displays the high-
est factor loading, followed by pride in direct democracy and neutrality, respectively. This
factor can clearly be associated with the political type of national identity.
On the third factor load the questions on the importance of prociency in a national lan-
guage and respect for Swiss laws and institutions to qualifying as truly Swiss. As discussed
above, it is not entirely clear whether these items are best understood as referring to the
national culture or reecting the importance of being able to participate in the national
political community. The item respect institutions and laws is problematic, in that it does
not directly relate to the content of national identity (see above). The fact that it loads
together with the language item suggests that it is related not only to compliance with regu-
lations, but also to cultural norms to which foreigners must conform. Swiss federal law, for
instance, requires foreigners to be familiar with the Swiss way of life, customs and man-
ners in order to become Swiss citizens (see Koopmans et al. 2005, 53). This cultural inter-
pretation is also supported by the fact that these items do not load with those referring to
the political content of Swiss identity.
Table 3: Factor analysis for content of Swiss identity among members of parliament
Variable Factor 1 (only factor)
Ancestry1 0.77
Traditions and customs 0.76
Neutrality 0.68
Cantonal and regional diversity 0.68
Federalism 0.64
Linguistic and cultural diversity 0.51
Direct democracy 0.45
% of variance explained 0.423
Eigenvalue 2.96
N 486
Notes: Principal-component analysis with promax rotation. 1Question: How important do you think
are the following aspects of Swiss identity?
Source: Comparative MP Survey 2010.
The factor analysis for the members of parliament paints a dierent picture. As Table 3
shows, factor analysis of this data generates only one factor. This means that the Swiss par-
liamentarians make little distinction between the dierent contents of national identity and
perceive Swiss identity along the lines of our encompassing type. In other words, the parlia-
mentarians mainly vary in the importance they attach to the aggregate aspects of Swiss
identity, not in the relative importance of dierent features of Swiss identity.
Hence, while the data suggesting distinctions among the Swiss citizenry between the three
types of national identity seems to validate those who insist on classical typologies of
national identity, the lack of such distinctions made by the political elite tells another story.
The two results, however, may seem more dierent on paper than they are in reality. In
order to judge whether the distinctions between contents of national identity are signicant
in quantitative terms, we need to analyse how salient and widespread the identication with
each type of national identity is. This is particularly important for the common denomina-
tor understanding of national identity because observation of the existence of dierent
types of national identity tells us little about their prevalence. It is possible, for instance, for
two distinct dimensions of national identity to be perceived as so important that they
should each be considered elements of the national identity. Consequently, we seek to ana-
lyse the distribution of the factor scores and interpret them in absolute terms. Such an anal-
ysis is made possible by calculating factor scores for each respondent (and dimension)
consisting of the mean score of all items that load on a particular dimension (see Di Stefano
et al. 2009, 3). Since the same scale was used for all items, the factor scores can furthermore
be interpreted in close relation to the original scale.17
Analyzing the factor scores for the citizen survey, we nd that the cultural type of
national identity is the most widely held (see Table 4). The mean factor score for the cul-
tural dimension is about 3.4, which indicates that the prevalence of cultural perceptions of
national identity is on average between very important and fairly important. The low stan-
dard deviation further indicates that there is near-unanimity in the importance attached to
17
We assign each item to one dimension by applying the cut-o value of 0.4. The scale contains the same options
for all items: 1 = not at all, 2 = not very, 3 = fairly, 4 = very.
Table 4: Factor scores for identity types among citizens and members of parliament
Identity dimension N Mean Std. Dev.
Citizens:
All1
Ethnic identity (factor 1) 821 2.66 0.72
Political identity (factor 2) 821 3.08 0.63
Cultural identity (factor 3) 821 3.39 0.50
German speakers
French speakers
Italian speakers
Members of parliament:
All
Encompassing identity (factor 1) 496 3.20 0.48
German speakers
French speakers
Italian speakers
Notes: 1Two respondents could not be attributed to one of the three language groups.
Sources: Swiss Eurobarometer 2003 and Comparative MP Survey 2010.
regional as well as linguistic and cultural diversity for Swiss national identity. Somewhat
lower, but in absolute terms still high, is the mean value for the political dimension of
national identity (3.1), showing that direct democracy, federalism and neutrality should also
be considered elements of Swiss national identity. Only on the ethnic dimension do citizens
score clearly lower (2.7) and the relatively high standard deviation shows that there is little
consensus on this dimension.
That citizens distinguish between cultural and political features of national identity (see
Table 2), but value both as fairly-to-very important (see Table 4), is no contradiction. It
rather shows that our ability to distinguish between a political and a cultural dimension of
national identity is mainly the result of dierences in the valorisation of these features as
very or fairly important. A large majority of Swiss citizens value both cultural and political
elements of national identity, from which we infer that a large majority of Swiss citizens
have internalized a political-cultural type of national identity. The fact that the variance is
not equal among all dimensions of identity, but that there is much more disagreement on
the ethnic dimension, shows that people not only dier in the content of their national iden-
tity, but also make qualitative distinctions between elements of the content of Swiss iden-
Table 5: Distribution of national identity types among citizens per language region (in percent)
National identity All citizens German-speaking French-speaking Italian-speaking
Non-nationalists 3.7 3.0 6.9 2.9

Ethnic 0.5 0.5 0.7 0.0
Cultural 20.8 20.6 21.4 20.6
Political 2.8 2.5 4.1 2.9
Ethno-cultural 4.9 5.0 3.5 8.8
Ethno-political 0.7 0.6 1.4 0.0
Political-cultural 35.9 34.7 42.8 29.4
Encompassing 30.7 33.1 19.3 35.3
Total 100 100 100 100
N 821 640 145 34
Notes: To construct dierent types of national identity, we dichotomise the respondents answers on
each item. Responses indicating below the value of 3 were recoded into 0, the others into 1. Then,
we combine these dummies to classify respondents into the resulting eight ideal types of national iden-
tity (see also Figure 1). Individuals in the political-cultural category, for example, score high on the
cultural and political but low on the ethnic dimension.
tity. Because the descriptive statistics do not fully reveal whether the same individuals who
score high on the political factor also consider the cultural dimension equally important, we
construct dierent types of national identity as proposed in Figure 1.18
Table 5 shows that a majority of respondents identify themselves with either a political-
cultural (36%) or an encompassing (31%) understanding of national identity. These
ndings support our hypothesis that Swiss citizens do not have a purely political national
identity, but also place great value on the cultural aspects of national identity. Furthermore,
this result (that the political-cultural type is the common denominator for Swiss citizens) is
unaltered when the distribution of national identity types is considered across dierent lan-
guage regions. Political as well as cultural components of national identity are dominant
across language regions for a majority of citizens. This is not to say that there are no dier-
ences between the language groups. Tables 4 and 5, for instance, illustrate that French-
speaking citizens generally place less emphasis on the ethnic element of national identity
than German and Italian speakers.
Further examination of the data reveals the expected patterns in individual-level charac-
teristics (see Table 6). Respondents belonging to the encompassing type, for instance, are
(compared to those in the political-cultural type) older (56), have spent less time in educa-
tion (10 years) and position themselves more to the right on the left-right axis (5.9) than
those belonging to the political-cultural one.19
As shown above, the political elite made less of a distinction than their fellow citizens
between the importance of ethnic aspects of national identity and that of political and cul-
18
For the construction of dierent types of national identity see the note in Table 5.
19
Because only 53% of all respondents indicate party identication we do not report the results according to party
aliation here (but see Appendix 1). The data shows that over 55% of the respondents feeling close to the SVP
have an encompassing idea of national identity compared to 41% those feeling close to the Liberals or the CVP.
The majority of the SPS sympathisers can be found within the cultural and the political-cultural type of national
identity.
Table 6: Characteristics of citizens by types of national identity
Left-right Gender (% of men) Age Years of education N
Supra subnationalists 4.0 (1.5) 43.3 42.4 (13.3) 11.1 (4.0) 30

Political 4.5 (1.6) 52.2 50.2 (14.1) 12.0 (3.0) 23
Ethnic 5.3 (1.0) 50.0 55.5 (20.2) 14.8 (4.9) 4
Cultural 4.1 (1.8) 48.0 46.8 (14.7) 12.4 (3.7) 171
Ethno-cultural 4.3 (1.8) 32.5 56.0 (18.3) 10.1 (2.2) 40
Ethno-political 5.3 (1.8) 33.3 48.7 (17.5) 9.5 (1.2) 6
Political-cultural 5.3 (1.8) 49.2 48.4 (17.4) 11.9 (3.7) 295
Encompassing 5.9 (1.9) 52.4 56.3 (17.2) 10.3 (2.8) 252
Overall Mean 5.1 (1.9) 51.2 50.7 (17.1) 11.4 (3.5)
Total N 749 821 821 821
Notes: Values refer to means, standard deviations are in parentheses.

tural aspects. As the analysis of the factor scores further shows, most parliamentarians on
average nd all the features listed fairly important, and as the rather low standard deviation
shows, there is considerable agreement on their importance for Swiss national identity (see
Table 4). The result that the political elite ascribes greater value to the ethnic dimension of
national identity than other citizens comes as a surprise, contradicting two recent studies
which arrive the opposite conclusion. Further consideration of this result is merited.20
Elites variations across language groups are again very modest. The dierent features of
national identity are on average considered to be at least fairly important. The only notable
dierence is between German speakers and French speakers: the former place somewhat
more importance on the various aspects of national identity than the latter.
The break down of average scores by item and party aliation shows that there is strong
consensus regarding the association of direct democracy with national identity
(Mean = 3.8, SD = 0.4), in contrast to the importance of ancestry (Mean = 2.6,
SD = 0.9) (see Table 7). Unsurprisingly, the average score of SVP members on this item
(Mean = 3.5, SD = 0.7) is considerably higher than that of the SPS and Greens
(Mean = 2.1; SD = 0.8), with the members of the conservative parties, (CVP, BDP, EVP)
falling in between. Interestingly, even the Liberals embrace cultural elements of national
identity.
In summarizing the results, we want to emphasize that a large majority of both the citi-
zenry and the political elites perceive national identity not only in political terms, but also
in cultural ones. This picture does not change if we compare the distinct language regions.
The data shows that the Swiss, often considered a prototypical political nation, should be
considered instead a political-cultural nation. This result is in line with comparative
research showing that political and cultural features of national identity tend to adhere, and
are not separately distinguished by the citizens (Hjerm 1998a, 1998b; Jones and Smith 2001;
Tilley et al. 2008). But while the data used in comparative research was not particularly sui-
20
De Cillia et al. (2009, 169) have found that culture and ethnicity in Austria are less important in the ocial dis-
course than in the semi-ocial and quasi-private discourses. A study on American national identity in the context
of 9 11 nds that the elite eorts appear to be mobilizing the masses away from ethno-cultural denitions of the
national identity rather than toward them (Schildkraut 2002, 518).
Table 7: Average score on items of national identity of MPs by party
Overall
SVP SPS Liberals CVP Greens BDP EVP Others mean
Ancestry 3.5 (0.7) 2.0 (0.8) 2.7 (0.8) 2.9 (0.7) 2.1 (0.8) 3.0 (0.6) 2.9 (0.7) 2.6 (0.8) 2.6 (0.9)
Traditions and 3.4 (0.7) 2.4 (0.8) 2.9 (0.8) 3.0 (0.7) 2.3 (0.7) 3.1 (0.7) 2.8 (0.5) 2.8 (0.8) 2.8 (0.8)
customs
Neutrality 3.8 (0.4) 2.5 (0.9) 3.2 (0.7) 3.2 (0.7) 2.9 (0.9) 3.4 (0.5) 3.3 (0.7) 3.0 (0.8) 3.1 (0.9)
Cantonal and 3.6 (0.6) 3.0 (0.7) 3.6 (0.6) 3.5 (0.6) 3.1 (0.8) 3.5 (0.7) 3.4 (0.6) 3.1 (0.7) 3.4 (0.7)
regional
diversity
Federalism 3.4 (0.8) 2.7 (0.8) 3.3 (0.8) 3.3 (0.7) 2.8 (0.9) 3.2 (0.8) 2.9 (0.7) 3.1 (0.8) 3.1 (0.8)
Linguistic and 3.4 (0.7) 3.1 (0.7) 3.2 (0.7) 3.1 (0.8) 3.2 (0.7) 3.6 (0.5) 3.3 (0.6) 3.2 (0.7) 3.2 (0.7)
cultural
diversity
Direct 4.0 (0.1) 3.6 (0.5) 3.8 (0.5) 3.8 (0.4) 3.7 (0.5) 3.9 (0.3) 3.9 (0.2) 3.9 (0.3) 3.8 (0.4)
democracy
Total N 81 110 94 75 55 11 19 41 486
Notes: Ranking according to number of MPs in the national parliament.

Source: Comparative MP Survey 2010.
ted to the qualication of the political content of national identity, and its results were con-
sequently rather tentative, we were able to replicate the same results for a particularly hard
case with more appropriate data. Our empirical analysis, furthermore, went beyond these
studies because we based our interpretations on mass and elite surveys and provided a solu-
tion for the analysis of factor scores.
Concerning the categorization of national identities, our analysis at least in the case of
Switzerland has also shown that the pertinent question might not be whether citizens per-
ceive the national community more in cultural-political or in ethnic terms. While we demon-
strate a broad consensus on the importance of both political and cultural elements, it
remains open to debate whether ethnicity constitutes an important element of national iden-
tity or not. A consequence of this result is that future research should focus on the distinc-
tion between encompassing and cultural-political types of national identity, i.e. the
distinction between national identities that respectively include or exclude ethnicity as a
constitutive element, rather than on the cultural vs. political and civic vs. ethnic distinc-
tions.
Conclusion
Our goal has been to answer the question of whether the Swiss should be considered a polit-
ical nation. What seemed to be a simple question ultimately required a considerable number
of conceptual and empirical steps. The rst step consisted of making explicit our under-
standing of national identity and establishing that, according to such an understanding,
Switzerland constitutes a mono-national state. Next we developed a more nuanced typology
of national identities, which incorporated recently raised criticisms and allowed us to empir-
ically test the notion of the Swiss political nation. While this typology is more sensitive to
the plurality of perceptions of national identity than former ones, we cannot be sure that
citizens and politicians actually apply the categories placed at their disposition in surveys.
This uncertainty suggests the need for qualitative research that tries to infer the categories
that constitute peoples everyday conception of the Swiss nation.
This method-inherent limitation of our approach, however, does not invalidate our result:
the Swiss are not primarily a political nation. A large majority of Swiss citizens and politi-
cians imagine the Swiss nation in cultural terms as well. The cultural aspect of the Swiss
national identity consists of the perception that the Swiss are a culturally diverse commu-
nity a paradigmatic case of unity in plurality. This Swiss cultural pluralism, however,
should not be confused with multiculturalism, i.e. openness to all cultures. Swiss cultural
pluralism is exclusively limited to native cultures and is characterized by strong delineation
of immigrant cultures.
If Swiss national identity in the early 21st century is based on imagined communities
that are both political and cultural in nature, then advocates of constitutional patriotism
have lost an important exhibit in their case for the feasibility of a purely political nation.
Of course, this is not to say that the idea of constitutional patriotism is not worth propa-
gating. Still, our ndings raise the question of whether the larger political nation under
construction the European Union should put more emphasis on the cultural dimen-
sion. This is arguably a dicult task in such a culturally fragmented community. But as
Switzerland shows, a nation can establish cultural pluralism as the essence of its cultural
identity.
Acknowledgements
Oliver Strijbis was supported by the National Centre for Competence in Research Chal-
lenges to Democracy in the 21st Century. For helpful comments on earlier drafts we would
like to thank Marc Helbling, Nenad Stojanovic, Romain Lachat, Eva Green, as well as two
anonymous reviewers. We would also like to thank Patrick Lengg for his assistance with
the PartiRep survey.
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Appendix 1:
Distribution of citizens regarding feeling close to a specic party by type of national iden-
tity
SVP Liberals CVP SPS Others NA Total
Supra subnationalists 3 5 4 18 30
3.5% 4.1% 5.0% 4.2%
Political 1 3 1 4 2 12 23
1.6% 3.5% 2.5% 3.3% 2.5% 2.8%
Ethnic 1 1 1 1 4
1.6% 1.2% 0.8% 0.2%
Cultural 1 10 3 38 25 94 171
1.6% 11.8% 7.5% 30.9% 31.3% 21.8%
Ethno-cultural 2 1 3 12 1 21 40
3.3% 1.2% 7.5% 9.8% 1.3% 4.9%
Ethno-political 1 1 4 6
1.6% 1.2% 0.9%
Political-cultural 21 31 16 42 30 155 295
34.4% 36.5% 40.0% 34.1% 37.5% 35.9%
Encompassing 34 35 17 21 17 127 252
55.7% 41.2% 42.5% 17.1% 21.3% 29.4%
Total N 61 85 40 123 80 432 821
7.4% 10.4% 4.9% 15.0% 9.7% 52.6%
Notes: Respondents for whom information on feeling close to a specic party not available are inclu-
ded in the column NA.
Beatrice Eugster is a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute of Political Science at the University of St.Gallen. Her
primary research interests include comparative welfare state analysis, migration and citizenship. Address for
correspondence: Beatrice Eugster, Institute of Political Science, University of St.Gallen, Rosenbergstrasse 51, 9000
St. Gallen, Switzerland. Phone: +41 71 224 39 80; E-mail: beatrice.eugster@unisg.ch
Oliver Strijbis is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Hamburg.
His research focuses on ethnic and national identity, elections, and social movements. Address for correspondence:
Oliver Strijbis, Institute of Political Science, University of Hamburg, Allende-Platz 1, 20146 Hamburg, Germany.
Phone: +49 40 42 838 32 33; E-mail: oliver.strijbis@uni-hamburg.de

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Swiss Political Science Review 17(4): 394416 doi:10.1111/j.1662-6370.2011.02029.

The Swiss: A Political Nation?

Beatrice Eugster and Oliver Strijbis

Abstract: Proponents of constitutional patriotism advocate the promotion of a political national

Keywords: Switzerland, national identity, members of parliament, constitutional patriotism, sur-

2011 Swiss Political Science Association

interpretations of constitutional principles do not presuppose a common national culture

A mono-national state (almost) by denition

Table 1: Salience of identities among Swiss language groups

French speakers Italian speakers German speakers Total

How close do you feel to Switzerland?

Categorising national identities

Figure 1: Types of national identity

Swiss national identity

Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3

Have Swiss ancestry1 0.84

Variable Factor 1 (only factor)

Identity dimension N Mean Std. Dev.

National identity All citizens German-speaking French-speaking Italian-speaking

Non-nationalists 3.7 3.0 6.9 2.9

Table 6: Characteristics of citizens by types of national identity

Left-right Gender (% of men) Age Years of education N

Supra subnationalists 4.0 (1.5) 43.3 42.4 (13.3) 11.1 (4.0) 30

Notes: Values refer to means, standard deviations are in parentheses.

Table 7: Average score on items of national identity of MPs by party

Notes: Ranking according to number of MPs in the national parliament.

Bonikowski, B. (2011). Shared Representations of the Nation-State in Thirty Countries: An Inductive

SVP Liberals CVP SPS Others NA Total

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