Eugenics, politics and the state: social democracy and the Swiss ‘gardening state’

doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2008.03.010

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences

Volume 39, Issue 2, June 2008, Pages 263-269

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.shpsc.2008.03.010 Get rights and content

Abstract

This article explores the connections between eugenics, politics and the state, taking the Swiss case as a particular focus. It is argued that Switzerland provides a historical example of what Bauman [Bauman, Z. (1989). Modernity and the Holocaust. Cambridge: Polity Press.] describes as ‘gardening states’: states that are concerned with eliminating the ‘bad weeds’ from the national garden and thereby constructing sharply exclusionary national identities. The Swiss experiments with eugenics (1920s–1960s) can be seen as an example of an ongoing struggle against ‘difference’. Against this backdrop I will examine, first, the ways in which state regulation of reproductive sexuality, and other eugenic measures, became central mechanisms for dealing with cultural and other ‘differences’ in the Swiss nation. Second, I will analyse the gendered nature of such mechanisms, as well as the preoccupation with racial ‘difference’ exemplified by eugenic policies towards ‘Gypsies’. To conclude, I will examine the impact of political institutions and political ideology, in particular, social democracy, on these eugenic gardening efforts.

Section snippets

Introductory comments

The ‘science’ of eugenics emerged during the second half of the nineteenth century, with the aim of assisting nation states in formulating social policies which would improve the ‘quality’ of the population. The growth of modern health and social policies from the turn of the twentieth century provided the institutional conditions for translating eugenic rhetoric into a policy programme. The emerging welfare state also added an additional motive to that of preventing degeneracy: limiting public

Eugenics and the pastoral state

The term ‘eugenics’ was popularised by Sir Francis Galton in 1883, to refer to the genetic improvement of the national ‘stock’ on the basis of the scientific study of ‘all influences that tend, in however remote a degree, to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had’ (Galton, 1883, p. 25). Galton regarded the evolutionary processes described by his cousin Charles Darwin, in particular the

Gender, sexuality, race

Swiss eugenic policies were closely bound up with the emerging welfare system and shaped by the specifics of Swiss political institutions and, in particular, their federal structure. In the Swiss context, the terms racial hygiene and eugenics were used interchangeably, the former being the more widely used (Schwank, 1996). The most important sites of racial hygiene discourse in Switzerland were the new disciplines of psychiatry and sexology. Internationally, the best known Swiss ‘degeneracy

Concluding remarks

International debates and scholarly analyses of eugenics over the past two decades have commonly considered the presence of eugenic sterilization laws as an indicator of the importance of eugenic practices in respective national contexts. The Swiss case demonstrates the problematic nature of such an assumption; not only were eugenic sterilizations in most cantons instead applied on the basis of medical guidelines, or without any legal basis at all, but also, as we have seen in the case of Vaud,

Acknowledgements

This article is based on research funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Research Professor Grant 61-66003.01), carried out in collaboration with Natalia Gerodetti. I thank Thomas Huonker, Walter Leimgruber, participants in the conference Eugenics, Sex and the State at Clare College, Cambridge (18–19 January 2007) and two anonymous reviewers for Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences for helpful advice, and Olaf Henricson-Bell for stylistic

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Eugenics, politics and the state: social democracy and the Swiss ‘gardening state’

Abstract

Section snippets

Introductory comments

Eugenics and the pastoral state

Gender, sexuality, race

Concluding remarks

Acknowledgements

Psychiatrie und ‘Rassenhygiene’

Modernity and the Holocaust

Modernity and ambivalence

Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie

Ewig still steht die Vergangenheit? Der unvergängliche Strafverfolgungsanspruch nach schweizerischem Recht

Governmentality: Power and rule in modern society

Zur ‘Sozialisierung’ einer medizinischen Massnahme: Sterilisationspraxis der Psychiatrischen Poliklinik Zürich in den 1930er Jahren

Discipline and punish

The subject and power

The history of sexuality, Vol. 1. An introduction