![]() | This ![]() It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
If anyone still maintains this page: I am a student doing a report about Switzerland (Specifically its neutrality during world war two) and I came to wikipedia for quick information on Switzerland's background, specifically its tradition of being neutral in european wars essentially since its invention.
However, I am not permitted to cite wikipedia because of its potential for misinformation and vandalism.
Is it possible for whoever maintains this page to update the External Sources section with the source of this information? Credible books and websites would be appreciated. It may already be too late for me, but people who come to this page later would find it extremely useful. Thanks.-- 141.156.243.233 22:36, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Hi, I am new to Wikipedia and would like to make my first contribution. I have the following I would like to add to the Switzerland direct democracy. After reading some more here, I wonder though if this is a bit too much of an opinion. I just thought it might provide some food for thought. Let me know what you think and, of course, feel free to edit it.
Here is my text:
Whereas most modern democracies are increasingly plagued by a disgruntled and cynical citizenry, it strikes the astute foreigner in Switzerland with what committed seriousness, respect and sense of duty the Swiss partake in their own governance. Switzerland was considerably inspired by the American political system based on checks and balances, a strict separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers, a strong independent central bank directing monetary policy as well as a liberal Constitution guaranteeing broad rights to all people. Its exceptional openness to popular plebiscite, mixed with strong federalism, as described above, managed to, however, (so-far!) maintain a strong sense of faith among the people in the functioning and legitimacy of their governmental institutions. That the country has not slipped into the worst of populism which such an accessible legislative system, (despite some disturbing recent examples to the contrary originating from the extreme right and left of the political spectrum), can be best explained by history and culture.
The Swiss never had royalty and shrugged off their aristocratic heritage well before their European neighbors did. Much as Americans in the United States, they remained highly suspicious of any claim of hereditary lineage and privilege. This, in conjunction with the highly federalized system of governance where not just every Canton but every single County was responsible for its own budgets and expenses such as schools and social welfare, produced early on an environment highly conducive to the emancipation of the common folk and ingrained a concomitant sense of civic responsibility. The broad general admiration and respect that its increasingly successful mercantile classes commanded, combined with an almost instinctive mistrust that the Swiss (and this includes the otherwise more temperamental Latin French and Italian speaking inhabitants) have of emotional excesses, especially with respect to all matters economic and political, served until now to curtail any excessive “irrational exuberances” or “tyrannies of the majorities”. Whereas surrounding continental Europe transitioned from paternalistic monarchies to experimentations with fascist dictatorships or later various degrees of centralized socialism, Switzerland managed to, by and large, stay true to its tradition of liberalism.
This culture of civic responsibility combined with the century old experience of internal negotiation between the various religious and linguistic groups to create a culture based on consensus building. This is epitomized by the federal executive body comprising of 7 ministers who deliberate behind closed doors but present their decision to the country as a single body. Switzerland is deemed a “Willensnation”, German for a nation by the grace of the will of the people, as opposed to royal fiat, language, conquest or even a single culture. In order for such a nation-state to survive, continuous deliberation must be engaged in. This produced an unusual penchant for stability, the long-term and pragmatic, as opposed to the emotional, decision making process and with time created a polity that expects debate on virtually all matters. An exceptionally diverse and sophisticated media serves as the backbone of this system. Indeed, it can be argued that a direct democracy can only function well if its electorate invests considerable time and financial resources to remain well informed.
The creation of this system took centuries and is the consequence of the country’s unique history and the result of some past exceptional leadership such as those of Paul Usteri and Alfred Escher. Due to its inherent vulnerability, however, it may be readily disassembled. Indeed, it is questionable if the long-winded and time intensive political process can survive in our ever faster paced and complex world. Moreover, it is also questionable if the old federalist structure of the country continues to serve it well today. For example, the sparsely populated farming cantons wield inordinate political, and thus financial, clout on the federal level via the National Assembly. This results in often questionable infrastructure investments in rural areas and has created the world’s most subsidized and protected agricultural sector as based on percentage per GNP spent. Moreover, the ephemeral anxieties of citizens are increasingly exploited and mobilized by special interest groups via initiatives and referendums so as to often derail carefully crafted governmental legislation. It will be interesting to see whether the unique brand of democracy in Switzerland will be able to adapt to the challenges of the future. In the meantime, it is a worthy model to study for anyone interested in an exceptionally well-functioning direct democracy.
Can anyone write a non-linear history of Switzerland (maybe to complement)? If we refer to the Swiss say in 1315 (Morgarten), who were they, who were the others? Oh, and the Habsburgs, weren't they Swiss, too? What I mean is that for a long time 'Switzerland' wasn't as big as it is today and many battles were fought between what is Switzerland and oh, what is Switzerland now.... Kokiri
I have removed the following from the Switzerland article:
IMHO, this is too much for the general article, but it could be included here, in the more extended article on the Swiss history. Kokiri 09:18, 24 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Great. Someone's added some more details about the world wars. Originally we just had the rather curt sentence "Switzerland was not involved militarily in either world war". I corrected this with the Operation Tannenbaum reference, but steered clear of the contentious nazi gold issue. All interesting stuff though. The phrase "not involved militarily" has crept back in though. I'm not sure it is correct. Depends on your interpretation of the phrase I suppose, but it seems missleading. It was a stance of armed neutrality. The Swiss did mobilize a big army to defend themselves. It just never engaged the enemy in the end.
Quote from this article (which is bit biased)
"Threatened with attack from German and Italian forces from all sides, General Guisan devised the strategy of a delaying stand at the border, and a concentration of Swiss forces in the rugged and impassable Alps.... A fifth of the Swiss people, 850,000 out of the 4.2 million population, was under arms and mobilized... ".
Nojer2 20:44, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
"Within Switzerland at the time of the conflict there was moderate polarization. Some were pacifists. Some took sides according to international capitalism or international communism. Others leaned more towards their language group, with some in French-speaking areas more pro-Allied, and some in Swiss-German areas more pro-Axis. The government attempted to thwart the activities of any individual, party, or faction in Switzerland that acted with extremism or attempted to break the unity of the nation. The Swiss-German speaking areas moved linguistically further away from the standard (high) German spoken in Germany, with more emphasis on local Swiss dialects."
This section makes no sense to me and if I had to guess I would assume that it originally described the situation during the 1st world war. Then there was a certain tendency of the German (well actually Swiss German) speaking part of Switzerland to be more in favour of Germany and of the French speaking part of Switzerland to be more in favour of France, but during the 2nd world war such a thing did simply not happen! To allude that the general "Swiss German" public was Nazi friendly is just simply nonsense! The last (and correct) sentence of the section actually reveals this discrepancy. The rest of the section is also quite awkwardly written; what exactly was the side of "international capitalism"? This needs to be rewritten. [anonymous 21:01, 12 Aug 2007 (UTC)
Can some one please add where CH stands for... I know it has to do with the cantons and there federation, yet I can't find any good explenation..
I googled a date of 1623 for the loss of the Valtellina. Why does it appear again 1798? (I'm not saying that must be wrong. The happenings in Grisons were quite complicated, and I don't have any detailed knowledge of the period) dab 11:33, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I don't agree with the statement made in the endof the Napoleonic years section that states that at that time "Swiss territory increased for the last time". I don't have historical sources to cite, but being from Switzerland I know that Jura became a formal Swiss Canton only in 1974 or so and thus the territory changed. Unless of course Jura was fully part of Berne before and thus geographically there was not increase in territory. In any case I think it should be made clearer.
It is actually still wrong as it increased in October 4, 1967 when Verenahof became part of Switzerland. I am deleting it as it is wrong. 137.195.250.2 ( talk) 00:33, 15 May 2009 (UTC)
Switzerland and History of Switzerland seem to have a number of inconsistencies. According to these articles, Switzerland won de facto independence from the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire in 1315, 1385, and 1499, with no mention of becoming dependent between these dates. In addition, the article on Habsburg indicates that the Habsburgs weren't in control of the Holy Roman Empire on the first two of these three years (during which the House of Luxembourg had control of the empire, such as it was). Even if these seeming contradictions are somehow technically true, they should be clarified so as not to confuse readers. Calbaer 19:28, 14 September 2006 (UTC)
insertion of "i love katie" into link -- Carolinacosmina 17:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
Quote (this article as of 4 Feb 2010): After the war, Swiss authorities considered the construction of a Swiss nuclear bomb. Leading nuclear physicists at the Federal Institute of Technology such as Paul Scherrer made this a realistic possibility, and in 1958 the population clearly voted in favour of the bomb. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968 was seen as a valid alternative, however, and the bomb was never built. - This is complete nonsense. First of all, there was no popular vote on the subject (there were two popular initiatives in the 60s, both aimed for a halt of the programme or at least a moratorium; both were rejected). There was a statement of the federal council in favor of the programme (published on 11 July 1958), nothing more. Beyond that, the consent is today that there was nothing like a realistic possibility for the project to succeed, quite the opposite was the case - the project grew to be the Swiss military's worst embarrassment of all times and led to the resignation of a federal councillor. Before that happened, the project had already proven to be practically impossible to finish: extensive surveys didn't show any useful resources in Switzerland, so the army acquired the material needed illegally; the first two reactors were failures and proved useless, and the third reactor had to be abandoned. Planes meant to carry the Swiss bomb were to be built (or at least assembled) in Switzerland, but sheer incapability of the strategists involved rendered this enterprise a financial crash. When the national council in 1964 was asked for additional credit to finance the Mirage project, they said no - which led to the creation of a legendary investigation commission, a report and, after that, to the government giving half of the general staff the sack and the defense minister stepping down. Who wrote that entry? We need a new one. Meapappia ( talk) 15:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
It seems that there are three articles with overlapping information:
1.
History of Switzerland
2.
Modern history of Switzerland
3.
Switzerland during the World Wars
I think these should be combined -- or if that is too long for one article, at least edit them so they do not overlap. --
Semitemos (
talk)
01:37, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
CH means Helvetica Confederation (placing swapped in Latin, thus CH) also, in the Reformation section, it mentions that Nidwalden was one of the cantons that remained Catholic, however, it is of my knowledge that Obwalden was the one remaining Catholic while Nidwalden turned Protestant no? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.198.91.95 ( talk) 04:07, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 2 external links on History of Switzerland. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 23:14, 4 November 2017 (UTC)