2 Number of referendums
referendum, Centre for Research on Direct Democracy (C2D), direct democracy, report, worldwide
2.1 Referendums and ballot dates over time
Figure 2.1 provides a detailed breakdown of the number of Swiss referendums and ballot dates per decade, categorized by the national and cantonal level.
Figure 2.1 (a) displays the trend of national referendums over time. The number of national referendums remained relatively low until after 1950, when there was a marked increase. This upward trend continued through the 1970s and peaked in the 1990s. Since then, the number of national referendums has declined somewhat. In total, around 670 referendums have been held at the national level since 1870.
Figure 2.1 (b) illustrates cantonal referendums. Data collection begins in 1970, peaking with nearly 1200 referendums during the 1980s. A gradual decrease can be seen after that. Nonetheless, cantonal referendums remain a significant part of Switzerland’s political process, with a total of around 5700 referendums held since 1970.
Figure 2.1 (c) focuses on national ballot dates, which follow a similar trend to the national referendums. However, there does not seem to be a clear peak. Rather, the first two decades of the 21st century still saw a considerable number of national direct democratic events, with over 30 ballot dates within this decade.
Figure 2.1 (d) highlights cantonal ballot dates. The data, available since 1970, shows that subnational ballot dates were most frequent around the 1970s and 1980s, with nearly 500 ballot dates per decade. However, a decline set in after these two decades, corresponding with the decrease in subnational referendums, although the reduction is attenuated.
Overall, Figure 2.1 demonstrates the strong role referendums play at both national and cantonal levels in Switzerland. However, a trend of declining activity has been observed at both levels. From 1970 onwards, the number of referendums decreased, particularly around the turn of the millennium. The current decade seems to have continued this trend with a nearly 40 % decrease in the number of votes within the first years compared to the decade before. There seems to be a comparable trend for ballot dates, although the decrease from the 1970s onward seems to be more gradual and less pronounced, meaning that the number of direct democratic proposals decreased stronger than the actual direct democratic events that accompany them.
2.2 A declining trend
Figure 2.2 depicts the evolution of referendums at the national and subnational levels in Switzerland, with 1970 serving as the baseline year. In this graph, the number of referendum votes in 1970 is indexed to 100 %, and the lines track how the count of referendums has changed over time relative to this baseline.
The blue line represents national referendums, while the green line shows cantonal referendums. The chart reveals that the national number of referendums is significantly more volatile than the subnational number. This higher volatility is largely due to the fact that the national line represents just one entity — Switzerland as a whole — so a year with few referendums (two, for example) causes sharp movements in the index. By contrast, the subnational number reflects the combined total of the Swiss cantons (excluding Landsgemeinde votes), which smoothes out the fluctuations, leading to a more stable trend line.
Particularly the subnational trend line shows a slight downward movement in the most recent years, indicating the decrease in the frequency of referendums relative to 1970 that was observed before. However, the overall patterns suggest that while national referendums are subject to more pronounced fluctuations, subnational referendums benefit from the aggregation of cantonal activity, leading to a greater overall stability.
When it comes to ballot dates, our data indicates a trend towards a homogenisation of voting dates. Whilst there are more dates with solely cantonal referendums in the 1970s and 1980s, most cantonal votes today seem to take place on the same day as national ones. Figure 2.3 confirms this trend, showing that the total number of ballot dates decreases over time, meaning that there are fewer cantonal ballot dates.
This could be related to the introduction of postal voting. As postage costs are to be paid by the cantons, cantonal authorities might try to reduce the number of ballot dates as much as possible in order to save costs.
2.3 Cantonal trends and numbers
Figure 2.4 depicts the disaggregated components of the green line in Figure 2.2, i.e. the number of cantonal referendums per year across the Swiss cantons since 1970. This figure tracks absolute changes in the frequency of ballot dates over time in each canton. Some cantons see highly variable numbers of referendums each year, while others demonstrate more steady trends, indicating the varying political and legal dynamics at the cantonal level in Switzerland.
As Figure 2.5 shows, the canton with the most cantonal referendums since 1970 is Zurich, which is also the largest canton by population. Geneva is the only canton from the French-speaking part of Switzerland in the top-ten. This observation is nothing new, as previous studies found that direct democracy plays a larger role in the German-speaking part of Switzerland as the institutions are more developed there (Kriesi and Baglioni 2003, 7). Overall, it can be seen that with the exception of Zurich, the cantons held less referendums than the national level.