William Emmanuel Rappard, Legislative Assemblies: Switzerland

William Emmanuel Rappard’s signed country contribution to an encyclopedia entry, originally published in 1933 and republished in the supplied 1937 version, explains Swiss legislative institutions through their historical origins, constitutional powers, and practical limitations. Moving from the federal settlement of 1848 through electoral arrangements and parliamentary procedure to the cantonal legislatures, it develops a central contrast: the Federal Assembly possesses exceptional formal authority but exercises comparatively modest political independence. Federalism explains its bicameral structure; executive continuity and popular participation explain why constitutional supremacy does not translate into parliamentary dominance.

Rappard presents bicameralism as a settlement between rival understandings of the Swiss polity. Centuries of cantonal independence sustained the demand for a loose confederacy whose constituent states would retain equal representation. Following the brief civil war of 1848, that position remained influential among defeated Catholic cantons and conservative elements in Protestant cantons alike. Their opponents sought democratic equality and national unity, transferring predominant sovereignty from the cantons to the federation and from privileged groups to the people.

The bicameral system was clearly a compromise between these two tendencies.

This compromise institutionalized two bases of representation: equal cantonal representation in the Council of States and population-based representation in the National Council. Rappard treats the American model as a consciously chosen precedent, discussed in Switzerland well before 1848, rather than an influence inferred retrospectively. Yet adaptation mattered as much as imitation: Swiss arrangements were shaped by the conflict between inherited local sovereignty and the democratic nation.

The account of elections shows the settlement’s subsequent development. National Council elections initially operated through manhood suffrage, absolute majorities, and federally defined districts. After unsuccessful attempts in 1900 and 1910, a popular referendum introduced proportional representation in 1918, with each canton forming a district. The 1931 changes extended the legislative term from three to four years and increased the population quota per deputy, reducing membership from 198 to 190. These details reveal how electoral rules redistributed political weight without abandoning population as the representative basis.

All proposals to substitute the population of Swiss nationality for the total population as a basis of representation, which have been put forward from time to time by deputies of rural cantons in an attempt to increase their relative importance, have been defeated.

Rappard thus identifies an apparently technical choice about whom to count as a struggle over the relative power of rural cantons. The Council of States, meanwhile, retained substantial cantonal variation: its members could be selected by secret popular ballot, the Landsgemeinde, or cantonal legislatures, and their terms differed. Federal uniformity coexisted with local control over the constitution of one federal chamber.

The next movement distinguishes the Assembly’s constitutional competence from its actual influence. Beyond legislation, which it shares with the people, the Assembly elects and supervises the Federal Council, grants subsidies and concessions, bears responsibilities concerning the army, and elects a commanding general in wartime. It also settles public-law disputes and judges the constitutionality of its own legislation. These powers make it an institution encompassing executive and judicial duties as well as lawmaking.

Except for the fact that the National Council, being more numerous, dominates the Federal Assembly when in joint session the constitution provides for the absolute equality of the two houses.

Equality requires both chambers to approve legislation and the annual budget; neither has a privileged legislative role. Joint sessions are exceptional and principally serve elections and certain judicial matters. Although the constitution supplies no solution to legislative deadlock, Rappard reports that deadlocks have not proved seriously troublesome. His attention to procedure establishes the conditions within which authority operates: sessions are generally public, government members participate in debates without belonging to either house, and parliamentary initiative normally takes the form of motions asking the government to formulate bills.

The decisive analytical turn comes when Rappard explains why this powerful constitutional body is relatively weak beside foreign parliaments. Federal councillors are, in practice, continually reelected, while legislators are not expected to devote themselves exclusively to parliamentary work. Durable executive office therefore produces an imbalance of expertise: government professionals address legislative amateurs. Few assembly members have past or prospective experience in the federal government, limiting both executive ambition and practical familiarity with administration.

As the Assembly usually includes no former members and but very few future members of the federal government, its function in fact often resembles that of an advisory rather than of a sovereign body.

Government measures are consequently seldom substantially amended or rejected. Popular voting supplies a more resistant check than parliamentary deliberation.

The success of the referendum in Switzerland is both a cause and a consequence of this extreme parliamentary docility.

This reciprocal formulation makes direct democracy part of the explanation of parliamentary weakness, not merely an additional constitutional mechanism. Rappard closes by extending the comparison, with qualifications, to the unicameral cantonal legislatures. Their size, electoral systems, and terms vary, but short sessions accommodate members’ ordinary occupations. The contribution’s enduring analytical value lies in separating legal supremacy from effective political power: representative institutions must be understood through executive tenure, professional expertise, federal diversity, and the electorate’s capacity to intervene directly.