Liberals have long been reticent about the federalist idea. But the development of their conservative wing prompted them to reconsider their position. Today, federalism is seen by liberals as a pillar of the Swiss entrepreneurial spirit.
Since the French Revolution, democracy has often been contested in its representative form, and has never completely erased the authoritarian aspirations of certain schools of thought. Yet direct democracy has not escaped criticism.
While Switzerland borrowed its federalist system from the USA, the growth of direct democracy across the Atlantic was stimulated by the Swiss model. This is the story of the common destiny of these two countries, which was not only played out in their capitals.
Switzerland doesn't like heroes, especially its own. That's not a problem in itself. Unless, that is, it removes the individual from history, at the risk of rendering it unintelligible. In this sense, Switzerland would do well to reappropriate its great figures.
Major entrepreneurs played a direct role in building the federal state born in 1848. These economic figures subsequently became rarer, often giving way to the leaders of employers' associations. An evolution that has left its mark.
Accused since Rousseau of sullying the mechanisms of genuine democracy, pressure groups are nonetheless an essential cog in the wheel. Seated among the «intermediary bodies» dear to Tocqueville, they enable opinions to be forged.
As a daughter of the Enlightenment, Germaine de Staël naturally embraced the liberal discourse. But she developed it by associating it with the idea of the nation, a reflection of the Romanticism of the time, which liberalism had come to tame with the concept of the nation-state.
With wokism, withdrawal into one's own identity became a sign of rejection of the Enlightenment. Is this still the case? Isn't getting together between women - or between men - a legitimate demand, albeit one that wokes up to in a very incoherent way?
The militia system is criticized far and wide. However, its critics miss its own logic, which, along with federalism and direct democracy, contributes to the institutional construction of Switzerland, and thus to the country's identity.
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