1. Grundgestalt, Bewegung, Stufung.--[Beilage]: Musik-Beispiele.

This chapter compares the institutional setting and integrations processes in Switzerland and the EU. The major findings are that EU integration is trying to achieve more political integration and accommodation of a much higher degree of diversity in much less time than has ever been the case in Switzerland. Integration and expansion processes that were slower and non-linear in Switzerland and that happened in separate phases (e.g. religious diversification, linguistic diversification, territorial expansion, etc.) are all going on (...) at the same time in the EU. Especially integration and accession with enormous shocks of diversification are engineered at the same time in the EU. From this point of view, the EU has already tried to go beyond many stages that took centuries to be completed in Switzerland. The institutional design of the European Union seems to echo quite well the federal state formation process in Switzerland. The following precisions are however necessary in the comparative perspective. First, the momentary stage of European Integration, characterized by intergovernmental crisis management, resembles the (dysfunctional) intergovernmental centralism of the Swiss cantons during the decades before the formation of the federal-state in 1848. Second, due to the greater diversity of the European Union, this quasi-federal system has derived in extreme asymmetries between the member states. Since EU identity is not well entrenched among European citizens (and politicians), it has been hard to design institutions and policies of common territorial protection and redistribution and there is mistrust towards centralistic EU institutions (specially in the countries more affected by the economic crisis). Most European citizens do not feel that their interests are taken into account by the European Union. Third, it is important to note that in Swiss federalism the municipalities play an important role, they are much more than just administrative districts. This city-centred and bottom up construct of citizenship is guaranteed by the Swiss federal constitution. Citizens feel that their most immediate and local identity is not jeopardized but rooted in and guaranteed by the Swiss federal constitution. Compared to sub-national Swiss federalism, EU federalism is entirely focused on the nation-state and the EU institutions. Serious consideration ought to be given to the idea that European citizenship is not only about bringing citizenship to a higher European level but also about bringing it more to the root-level of citizenship: the city. Direct democracy has acted as a federator in the Swiss context. Switzerland made direct democracy and direct democracy made Switzerland. There has been a slow and iterative process of adaptation of structurally similar institutions of direct democracy at all levels (communal, cantonal, federal) of all units (all communes, all cantons, confederation roughly between 1830-1891. To the contrary, the EU is only incipiently in a process of introducing direct democracy (in some member-states and ECI), and so far direct democracy is mainly practiced as national plebiscitary democracy. Under this guise it is seen as a threat to EU integration and probably not without good reason. While in Switzerland the coherent introduction of direct democracy at all levels of the polity in the long run served as an important unifier, direct democracy has even not been considered as integrative part of all levels of political integration in the EU. It is of great interest that the one element in which the European Union has based the construction of EU citizenship and identity – mobility of residence – has been implicitly discouraged in Switzerland. The institutional design as incorporated in Swiss multicultural identity (which aims fundamentally at the protection of cantonal autonomy, culture and language) has facilitated that Switzerland is called today a successful multicultural society. Most citizens identify with Switzerland as a country and they like it as it is, but they do not want to take advantage of their formal right to move to other parts of the country, especially not across language borders. The same institutional design that has made of Switzerland a successful case of multiculturalism and democracy poses important barriers that make it difficult for the Swiss to move their residence across their country. Considering that one of the main features of European citizenship is the freedom of movement and residence, this poses a main concern. The Swiss compromise between the formal right and economic necessity of mobility on the one hand and the protection of political and cultural sub-identities on the other hand, is commuting. Due to the vast size, this is of limited applicability in the EU. However, in a Europe of cities and trans-border regions, commuting is an important option provided that every European citizen lives reasonably close to an important economic centre. In short, the Europe of commuters deserves attention in the context of EU citizenship. (shrink)

Assisting suicide is legal in Switzerland if it is offered without selfish motive to a person with decision-making capacity. Although the ‘Swiss model’ for suicide assistance has been extensively described in the literature, the formally and informally protected liberties and claims of assistors and recipients of suicide assistance in Switzerland are incompletely captured in the literature. In this article, we describe the package of rights involved in the ‘Swiss model’ using the framework of Hohfeldian rights as modified by (...) Wenar. After outlining this framework, we dissect the rights involved in suicide assistance in Switzerland, and compare it with the situation in England and Germany. Based on this approach, we conclude that in Switzerland, claim rights exist for those requesting suicide assistance, and for those who are considering providing such assistance, even though no entitlements exist toward suicide assistance. We then describe the implementation of the ‘Swiss model’ and difficulties arising within it. Clarifying these issues is important to understand the Swiss situation, to evaluate what features of it may or may not be worth correcting or emulating, and to understand how it can impact requests for suicide assistance in other countries due to ‘suicide tourism’. It is also important to understand exactly what sets Switzerland apart from other countries with different legislations regarding suicide assistance. (shrink)

Assisting suicide is legal in Switzerland if it is offered without selfish motive to a person with decision-making capacity. Although the ‘Swiss model’ for suicide assistance has been extensively described in the literature, the formally and informally protected liberties and claims of assistors and recipients of suicide assistance in Switzerland are incompletely captured in the literature. In this article, we describe the package of rights involved in the ‘Swiss model’ using the framework of Hohfeldian rights as modified by (...) Wenar. After outlining this framework, we dissect the rights involved in suicide assistance in Switzerland, and compare it with the situation in England and Germany. Based on this approach, we conclude that in Switzerland, claim rights exist for those requesting suicide assistance, and for those who are considering providing such assistance, even though no entitlements exist toward suicide assistance. We then describe the implementation of the ‘Swiss model’ and difficulties arising within it. Clarifying these issues is important to understand the Swiss situation, to evaluate what features of it may or may not be worth correcting or emulating, and to understand how it can impact requests for suicide assistance in other countries due to ‘suicide tourism’. It is also important to understand exactly what sets Switzerland apart from other countries with different legislations regarding suicide assistance. (shrink)

Science and technology policy is often confronted with issues that are both complex and controversial and which have to be decided upon in a delicate constellation of policy-makers, experts, stakeholders, non-governmental organizations and the public. One attempt to deal with such a complex problem is via citizen involvement. Participatory technology assessment (pTA) already goes back to several decades, and countries have made various experiences. While in some countries, governments established technology assessment organizations, which also included pTA in their methodological portfolio, (...) others primarily rely on experts to make decisions on science and technology policy. In a third group of countries non-state actors, such as social scientists, experimented with pTA. However, they were often unable to link these experiments to policy-making. This paper deals with the question of why this variation exists and compares the use of pTA in Switzerland and Austria. Despite similarities between the two countries, both had quite different experiences with pTA so far. Whereas several pTAs have been carried out in Switzerland until today, Austrian pTAs have remained infrequent. The aim of this paper is to explain this difference as a result of different ways of policy-making which affect the use and chances of pTA. (shrink)

ArgumentCultural history has investigated the appropriation of mountain wilderness in considerable detail, without however systematically including the contributions of science and technology in the process. This paper suggests a way of filling this gap. It argues that cartography was instrumental in giving mountains their modern shape. In the course of the nineteenth century, mountains arguably gained a new factual existence at the intersection of new aesthetic, scientific, economic, and political concerns with landscape. Taking the case of Swiss cartography, the paper (...) shows how mapmakers strived to represent this matter of concern in ever more perfect ways, culminating in the three-dimensional rendering of mountains as plaster reliefs. The paper concludes with the observation that this transformation is to a certain extent irreversible. The mountains made in Switzerland in the nineteenth century are probably here to stay. (shrink)

This chapter explores the case of Switzerland as a “small power” in the currently emerging new world order. Particularly, we address the Swiss position amid the growing strategic competition between the United States (US) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and given its long-standing but evolving practice of neutrality. In our chapter, we set off by discussing Switzerland’s foreign policy positioning against the backdrop of three theoretical perspectives: Switzerland as a state like all others; Switzerland (...) as a small state; and, finally Switzerland as a small neutral state. With the help of these three categories, we further locate Switzerland’s foreign policy firmly in the “hedging zone,” especially concerning the country’s China policy. The chapter then discusses four key documents, all of which have been released in recent years, drawing out the country’s foreign policy framework, before reaching some conclusions. (shrink)

Switzerland has very detailed laws regulating the use of animals in agriculture, entertainment and science. There are also many Swiss laws governing the genetic modification of animals, protecting human embryos, and criminalising the creation of human/animal chimeras or hybrids. Despite all these regulations, the creation of an animal embryo that will develop a human organ using induced pluripotent stem cells and the subsequent birth of the resulting chimera would actually be permitted by current legislation. While this might appear to (...) be an unhappy accident due to insufficient scientific foresight, I argue here that this loophole should not be closed, as the creation of human organs inside animals will probably be possible within 10 years, and Swiss laws would currently enable the use of this process to save human lives through this allogenic or autologous organ source. (shrink)

Musical performance requires the ability to master a complex integration of highly specialized motor, cognitive and perceptual skills developed over years of practice. It often means also being able to deal with a large amount of pressure within dynamic environments. Consequently, many musicians suffer from health-related problems and have a large number of physical and psychological complaints. Research has shown that making music can present challenges for musicians’ wellbeing. Therefore, our research aims to evaluate and analyze the wellbeing of two (...) distinct groups of respondents, college music students compared with amateur musicians in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, this second group serving as our comparison group. This article presents the results of a sample of 126 musicians (mean age ± SD = 22.4 ± 4.5 years, 71 male). The wellbeing was assessed through the World Health Organization Quality of Life-BREF questionnaire evaluating two general measures, Quality of Life and General health, and four specific dimensions, Physical health, Psychological health, Social relationships and Environment. The respondents’ Quality of Life was high on each measure: median scores were higher than 4 for the first two measures and higher than 70 for the four specific dimensions. Among the dimensions, respondents had the highest mean score for Social relationships and Physical health (74.0 and 73.8, respectively) and, finally, on Psychological health (70.3). Our overview of musicians’ wellbeing in Western Switzerland underlines the importance of helping musicians to be aware of their health in order to take care of themselves. This research offers an important insight into musicians’ health and point out the importance of involving different actors (teachers, administrators or support staff) to promote their wellbeing and empower musicians. (shrink)

The article deals with the symbolic meanings that the images of America and Switzerland have in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky. It is shown that the meanings of these two images are interconnected and constitute a dialectical contradiction, and each image, in turn, has two contradictory meanings - positive and negative. America acts, on the one hand, as a symbol of the openness and freedom of man, his desire to build the future on his own, but, on the other (...) hand, it expresses a dead-end path of development based only on material values. Switzerland embodies the ideal of spiritual development, which is the inner essence of European civilization, but at the same time it symbolizes the patriarchal, sinless state of man, which does not correspond to real earthly life. Switzerland is the ideal of the heavenly state of an earthly person, but this ideal is impossible in real life. The tragedy of the impracticability of this ideal is most clearly demonstrated by Dostoevsky through the story of Prince Myshkin in the novel The Idiot. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric Jahrgang: 45 Heft: 1 Seiten: 125-140.

This interdisciplinary, social scientific analysis of the regulatory discourse on nanotechnology in the three German-speaking countries of Germany, Austria and Switzerland and in the EU between 2000 and 2013 has shown three distinct phases, characterised by shifts in the configuration of actors and in the thematic scope from nanotechnology to nano-materials. Compared to modes of governance based on traditional statutory law, modes of governance based on less binding forms of soft law and self-regulation (like codes of conduct, guidelines and (...) certification systems) and new modes of governance (like assessment studies, risk management frameworks as well as participatory and cooperative forms of communication and negotiation) have gained importance. Despite some similarities, two different cultures in governing nanotechnology can be distinguished: a product-oriented culture in statutory regulations (when speaking about products, the article is also referring to substances) and a risk-based culture in applying soft law based on new modes of governance. In addition, the different regulatory cultures have led to four strategic approaches: modes of governance mainly based on hard law and soft law at the EU level, modes of governance mainly based on cooperative and self-regulatory approaches in Germany, cooperative governance approaches in Austria and modes of governance mainly based on self-regulatory and soft law approaches in Switzerland. (shrink)

In this contribution we take a look at the development of environmental concern and mobility behavior of the population in Germany and Switzerland. The proportion of survey participants who express concern about the state of the natural environment is high in both countries. However, this proportion did not increase during the last two decades despite the ongoing public debate about environmental issues. At the same time the demand for private transportation did increase in Germany by almost 20% (in (...) class='Hi'>Switzerland by 2.5%). However, fuel consumption per capita decreased in Germany by 6.5% and in Switzerland by 2.2%. Our time series analyses of these trends suggest that this reduction is due to the price increase of gasoline which was substantial in both countries and not due to any change in attitudes. We argue that further price increases are appropriate means to reduce fuel consumption. However, our analyses also show that the price elasticity for fuel is low. (shrink)

This paper analyses the current organ donor card system in Switzerland and identifies five problems that may be partially responsible for the country’s low deceased organ donation rates. There are two minor issues concerning the process of obtaining a donor card: the Swisstransplant website understates the prospective benefits of donation, and the ease with which donor cards can be obtained raises questions regarding whether any consent to donation provided is truly informed. Furthermore, there are two major practical problems that (...) might affect those who carry an organ donor card: the lack of a central donor registry increases the likelihood that donors’ wishes will be “lost”, and there is a high probability that family members will veto organ donation. The fact that these two practical problems are not mentioned to potential donors by Swisstransplant constitutes the fifth problem. Donation rates would probably improve if more accurate information about the benefits of donation was provided to potential donors, a central donor registry was created, and families were not permitted to veto donation from those on the registry. (shrink)

Animal welfare is an importantsocietal issue in Switzerland. Policy makershave responded with a strict legislation onanimal protection and with two programs topromote animal friendly husbandry. Alsoprivate actors in the meat industry initiatedprograms for animal friendly meat productionto meet consumers' expectations. Labeled meathas a market share of over 20%. Depending onthe stakeholders responsible for the labels,their objectives vary. While retailers want toattract consumers with meat produced in ananimal friendly and environmentally compatiblemanner and with products of consistently goodsensory quality, producers want (...) to keep marketshares and increase their revenues. (shrink)

In Switzerland, people can be granted access to assisted suicide on condition that the person whose wish is to die performs the fatal act, that he has his decisional capacity and that the assisting person’s conduct is not selfishly motivated. No restrictions relating to the ground of suffering are mentioned in the act. Existential suffering as a reason for wanting to die, however, gives raise to controversial issues. Moreover, existential suffering lacks definition and no consensus exists on how to (...) evaluate and manage it. This study explores the perspectives of care professionals and volunteers from a “right-to-die organization” on existential suffering as a motive for assisted suicide requests. A qualitative study based on face-to-face interviews was conducted with twenty-six participants: palliative care and primary care providers as well as EXIT right-to-die organization volunteers. Elements from the grounded theory approach were used. The twenty-six participants described existential suffering in a multiplicity of individual ways. In total, sixty-three stories were recounted. Their representations were grouped into eight categories: physical decline and its consequences, loneliness, fear of the future, life is over, loss of social significance, loss of hope for a better future, being a financial burden and loss of pleasurable activities. According to all participants, suffering coming from the loss of self-identity was always linked to physical decline, as if one’s image completely defined someone’s identity. Society’s perception of old people and vulnerable people were also often questioned. Another interesting point was that only four stories referring to a “pure” existential suffering were found. This suffering was related to a feeling that life has come to an end, without identification of any other related restriction or suffering. Existential suffering is multifaceted. Legislators and right-to-die organisations have to address the question of what make a AS acceptable. The plurality of existential suffering implies the need of a very personalized care. A better understanding of what it is made of could provide a “toolbox” to people concerned by these requests, helping them to explore it in order to offer suffering people a wider range of alternatives. (shrink)

Forests are under immense stress globally. Economic growth is one reason for this: its impacts can lead to deforestation and put tremendous harvesting pressure on forests. In light of increasingly popular - and growth-based - bioeconomy strategies, the need for more wood is likely to accelerate. Degrowth, in contrast, rejects economic growth as the central economic principle, arguing that the material throughput of countries in the Global North must shrink to achieve global sustainability. Although the concept has gained importance, there (...) have been no attempts to link degrowth with the forest sector. This article argues that degrowth principles are beneficial for basing the forest sector on sustainable grounds, while the degrowth movement also needs to define its relationship to the forest. Against this backdrop, this contribution sets the cornerstone by linking the Swiss forest sector to central degrowth principles, and discussing possible interrelations and mismatches. Finally, a future research agenda for degrowth and the forest sector is presented. (shrink)

Some form of assisted dying (voluntary euthanasia and/or assisted suicide) is lawful in the Netherlands, Belgium, Oregon, and Switzerland. In order to be lawful in these jurisdictions, a valid request must precede the provision of assistance to die. Non-adherence to the criteria for valid requests for assisted dying may be a trigger for civil and/or criminal liability, as well as disciplinary sanctions where the assistor is a medical professional. In this article, we review the criteria and evidence in respect (...) of requests for assisted dying in the Netherlands, Belgium, Oregon, and Switzerland, with the aim of establishing whether individuals who receive assisted dying do so on the basis of valid requests. We conclude that the evidence suggests that individuals who receive assisted dying in the four jurisdictions examined do so on the basis of valid requests and third parties who assist death do not act unlawfully. However, further research on the elements that may undermine the validity of requests for assisted dying is warranted. More research on the reasons why requests for assisted dying are refused is also desirable. (shrink)

In Switzerland, people can be granted access to assisted suicide on condition that the person whose wish is to die performs the fatal act, that he has his decisional capacity and that the assisting person...