An Ever Closer Union? The Nationalisation of Political Parties in Switzerland, 1991-2015

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

  • Daniel Bochsler
  • Sean Mueller
  • Julian Bernauer
The contribution of this research note is a systematic description of levels of party nationalisation in Switzerland, using results from the elections to the Swiss National Council between 1991 and 2015. Party nationalisation is understood as the territorial homogeneity of a party's electoral performance and measured using the inverted and standardised Gini index. Our results indicate a trend towards more nationalisation in the Swiss party system over the time period covered, and distinct patterns for single parties. The SVP and the GLP have made big leaps towards stronger nationalisation, with the former closing in on the levels of the SP and the FDP, while the CVP remains a weakly nationalised party, considering its size.
Original languageEnglish
Article number4
JournalSwiss Political Science Review
Volume22
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)29-40
Number of pages12
ISSN1424-7755
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2016

ID: 171627188