Swiss worlds of welfare

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Swiss worlds of welfareKlaus Armingeon a , Fabio Bertozzi b & Giuliano Bonoli ca Political Science at the University of Berne, Switzerlandb Department of Social Work and Social Policy at the University ofFribourg, Switzerlandc Social Policy at University of Fribourg, SwitzerlandPublished online: 04 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Klaus Armingeon , Fabio Bertozzi & Giuliano Bonoli (2004) Swiss worlds ofwelfare, West European Politics, 27:1, 20-44, DOI: 10.1080/01402380412331280793

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Swiss Worlds of Welfare

KLAUS ARMINGEON, FABIO BERTOZZI ANDGIULIANO BONOLI

Are there different worlds of welfare in Swiss cantons, analogous todifferent national welfare state regimes? Are the welfare regimesmade up of functionally related sub-regimes in the field ofemployment, education, taxation and social security, as argued inrecent analyses of ‘varieties of capitalism’? And can the variationsbetween such cantonal welfare regimes be explained by the samepolitico-institutional variables that account for the development ofnational welfare states? These are the guiding questions of thisarticle. We find strong empirical evidence for large inter-cantonalvariation in welfare state policies. The sub-regimes are notfunctionally connected, however. Their variation is related to differentsets of variables, indicating a weak functional link between them.Developments and causal structures are specific to the various sub-regimes. In addition, it is socio-economic and not politico-institutional variables that have had the strongest imprint on theoverall structure of cantonal welfare regimes.

Like most federal countries, Switzerland has developed over the years amulti-tiered system of social protection, where financing, decision makingpowers and implementation are shared between the different levels ofgovernment. The present arrangement is the result of one and a halfcenturies of social policy making, which has been characterised by an everincreasing role for the federal government. Core policy areas like old agepensions, unemployment insurance or health insurance have beentransferred from the cantonal to the federal government, so that in 1998approximately 58 per cent of national social expenditure was distributed bythe federal government. Cantons, however, retain substantial room formanoeuvre in several important areas of social policy: for instance, socialassistance is entirely decided upon at the cantonal level. Income tax iscollected separately (and at different rates) by the three different levels ofgovernment: federal, cantonal and communal. Family policy, social servicesand education are also areas of cantonal sovereignty (Tables 1 and 2).

West European Politics, Vol.27, No.1 (January 2004), pp.20–44PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON

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On the one hand, the increasing role played by the federal state, thesmall size of the country and the extent of economic and cultural exchangewithin the country may lead us to expect an overall low level of variation in

21SWISS WORLDS OF WELFARE

TABLE 1RESPONSIBILITIES OF CANTONS AND FEDERATION IN THE FIELD OF SOCIAL

SECURITY IN 2000

Programme Type of Programme Legislation Implementation*

Old age and survivors insurance Universal insurance Federation CantonsDisability insurance Universal insurance Federation CantonsSupplementary benefits Universal insurance/ Federation Cantons

means-testedUnemployment insurance Social insurance Federation CantonsAccident insurance Social insurance Federation FederationHealth care insurance Universal insurance Federation Private health fundsFamily allowances Social insurance Cantons Cantons

(Federation)**Unemployment assistance Means-tested Cantons CantonsSocial assistance Means-tested Cantons Cantons

Notes:* In the implementation column we only mention the administrative level that holds the mainresponsibility for the concrete implementation of the scheme, regardless of the financing level.** Family allowances for farmers are under the responsibility of the federal level, for the othercategories of workers family allowances are under the responsibility of the cantons.

Source: Obinger 1998, modified.

TABLE 2SOCIAL EXPENDITURE PER ADMINISTRATIVE LEVEL, 1998, AS % OF TOTAL

Federation Cantons Municipalities All

Total Social Expenditure 58.4 27.3 14.3 100.0Old age insurance (a) 84.5 12.4 3.1 100.0Disability insurance (a) 75.0 19.8 5.3 100.0Health care and health care insurance 64.4 29.2 6.4 100.0Other social insurances (b) 42.3 40.8 16.9 100.0Social assistance 1 31.0 35.5 33.5 100.0(wide definition) (c)Social assistance 2 0 41.8 58.2(narrow definition) (d)

Notes:(a) Public contributions, without employers’ contributions.(b) Includes old-age and disability complementary benefits, unemployment insurance, accident

insurance and family benefits funds.(c) Includes assistance to old people, help to needy people, labour offices, help to Swiss in

foreign countries and other assistance tasks.(d) Includes only help to needy people, 1995.

Source: BSV, Schweizerische Sozialversicherungsstatistik, 1999 and 2001.

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the extent and shape of social protection at the cantonal level. On the otherhand, within the policy areas that have remained under their sovereignty, theroom for manoeuvre of cantonal governments is subject to few constraints.Cantonal social laws must conform to the federal constitution and, if afederal law exists on the subject matter, must not go against it. We can thusexpect a high degree of cantonal variation in these policy areas. As a matterof fact, empirical analysis of the cantonal fiscal and social policies in the 26cantons that make up Switzerland reveals profound differences in theinstruments that are used and in the size of cantonal welfare states. Taxloads and tax scales vary considerably. The lowest taxload is found in thecanton of Zug, the highest (more than twice as high) in the canton ofNeuchâtel (BFS 2001: 801).1 Tax progression (taxation index forhighest/lowest income class) in the canton of Vaud is almost six times ashigh as in the canton with lowest progression, the canton of Obwalden(Vatter et al. 2002).2 Cantons like Argovia or Obwalden know of nocantonal welfare scheme, while a canton like Geneva has six schemes inplace (Wyss 1999).3 Considering these variations, it is arguable that somecantonal welfare states follow a liberal minimalist approach, other are moregenerous and egalitarian in their orientation, and yet others have a clearlyconservative orientation, based on a traditional vision of the family. Hencesome of the variation of Western European welfare states could bereproduced within Switzerland itself. Demands for some form of fiscalharmonisation are regularly put forward in the political arena (essentially byleft-wing political actors) but have so far failed to be transformed intopolicy measures.

Against this background, this article has two main objectives. First, itprovides an account of the variation that exists among cantonal welfarestates within Switzerland. It does this by applying to Swiss Cantons theframework developed by Esping-Andersen (1990) for the comparison ofnational welfare states. Second, it looks for explanations for the observedpattern. Theories that have been developed by students of social policy inrelation to the development of national welfare state are found most usefulin explaining the pattern of cantonal variation.

By looking at social policy in the member states of a federal country, thisarticle takes forward the debate on the relationship between federalism andsocial policy. In fact, even though a substantial amount of literature existstoday on this theme, most of it is actually concerned with social protectionat the federal level. Systematic comparisons of policy at the level of themember states are to a large extent missing. Yet the room for manoeuvrethat some federal constitutions allow in social policy means that the livingconditions and life experiences of some individuals can be very different indifferent part of the same country.

22 WEST EUROPEAN POLITICS

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In the case of Switzerland, this analysis is of crucial importance. Ininternational comparisons of welfare states, Switzerland has long beenclassified as one of the least developed, or a ‘welfare laggard’ to use thejargon of social policy students. It is only in recent years that Switzerlandhas caught up to the median Western European welfare state (Armingeon2001; Bonoli and Mach 2000; Lane 1999). Yet this view of a liberal orconservative welfare state with strong liberal traits is based essentially onthe observation of national social programmes only. In fact, theseprogrammes, in some cantons more than in others, are supplemented byothers, and together they impact upon the living conditions and lifeexperiences of Swiss residents.

Analysing cantonal welfare states in the same manner as nationalwelfare states raises the question of whether theories and techniques are notstretched in an inappropriate way. We believe that the welfare regimeapproach can be helpfully applied to the study of cantonal social protectionsystems. Cantons have different political systems, social structures andpolitical legacies. There is no reason why these independent variablesshould not have similar effects on cantonal social policies as they have onthe national level on the welfare state of a country.

The article starts with some theoretical issues (section 2) and moves onto present the research design and databases used in this study (section 3).Our results are then presented, first in relation to the variation that existsamong cantonal welfare states (section 4), and second as an attempt toexplain such variation (section 5).

TERMS, THEORY AND HYPOTHESES

In using the term ‘worlds of welfare’ we refer to the typology developed byEsping-Andersen (1990). Although we apply the distinctions between aliberal, a social democratic and a conservative-Catholic welfare regime, wedo not suggest that empirical reality is close to these ideal types,4 inparticular in differentiating three blocs of cantonal welfare systems of whicheach is rather homogeneous internally. Rather, we argue that, for example,the ‘social democratic’ elements in a given canton are stronger than inanother canton. In other words, we assume three ideal types of welfarestates: in a liberal welfare state, size of transfer payments are limited andpublic schemes are geared to provide the last resort to people in need (safetynet), giving not much more than minimum of existence. Private insuranceagainst risks of modern society is given preference over public schemes,and government tends to favour subsidies to private schemes instead ofrunning its own public scheme. In a Catholic-conservative welfare statethere are massive transfers with the aim of maintaining the status which the


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beneficiary has acquired while being in employment. The Catholic-conservative welfare state is oriented towards the maintenance of the familywith one (typically male) breadwinner, in particular if he or she is a Swissnational and not foreign. The social democratic welfare state also hasmassive transfers. However, it does not aim at status preservation, but atequality among all members of the population, irrespective of gender,former employment status or nationality. Worlds of welfare may also belinked to the goals of party families. The social democratic left has been infavour of the socialist welfare state; the prime example being theScandinavian countries (Castles 1982, 1999; Korpi 1983; Esping-Andersen1990; Schmidt 1998). Catholic-centrist parties have been the major forcesbringing about the continental welfare state with its emphasis on thetraditional family structure and status preservation (Kersbergen 1995).Liberal parties support a marginal (or lean) welfare state, prime examplesfor this correlation being found in the Anglo-Saxon countries, and inparticular the USA.

Our analysis of cantonal variations in social polices is based one thesetheoretical approaches, which were developed as a result of empiricalresearch comparing nations. We start by identifying four distinctdimensions that differentiate between different worlds of welfare, and thenmove on to review likely explanations for the observed pattern.

Dimensions and Explanations of Worlds of Welfare

The typology developed by Esping-Andersen focuses on the core schemes ofthe welfare state, pensions, unemployment insurance, sickness insurance,and so forth. The level and the kind of benefits delivered by these schemesconstitute our first dimension, which we call social security. Our seconddimension is also based on the institutional structure of redistributivemechanisms, but instead of focusing on the benefits provided, it deals withthe financing of public expenditure. It is labelled ‘taxation’. These twodimensions are used in most comparative research on welfare states.However, recent political discourse in most Western societies and academicdebates, in particular with regard to the programmatic development of socialdemocratic parties, have pointed to two additional dimensions of socialpolicy, closely linked and interacting with social security schemes: educationand employment regimes, which we also wish to include in our analysis.Education is important since it can make people largely independent fromwelfare state provisions like unemployment benefits. Hence investment inhuman capital reduces the need for social security expenditure. In addition,increasing human capital fosters economic productivity and hencecompetitiveness. Recent research has shown that left-wing parties havechosen the strategy of building up human capital by educational and public


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sector expansion, while liberal and conservative parties tried to increaseeconomic growth by low taxes and low public investment (Boix 1997, 1998).A similar finding has been presented by Frank Castles (1999: 174–85). Inaddition to the impact of social democratic incumbency, he finds a differencebetween liberal – mostly Anglo-Saxon – countries and Catholic-conservativecountries, to which nearly all continental European countries belong. In the1970s and even 1980s, the Anglo-Saxon countries have spent more oneducation than the continental European nations. However, by the 1990s thisdifference has dwindled. Looking at the historical development, one couldargue that the Catholic-conservative countries have been the most resistantto expansion of public education, while the left has been most favourable toincreasing budgets for education.

Finally, the employment regime is the fourth dimension we use todistinguish among the cantonal worlds of welfare. The term denotes thepatterns of employment and unemployment and the patterns of wageregulation. We argue that it may substitute public social policies or createchallenges to these schemes. Cases in point are the former Australasiansystems of collective arbitration, guaranteeing a ‘decent standard of living’to everyone (Castles 1985). On the other hand, conflictual labour relationsproduce industrial unrest, whose outcomes (e.g. unemployment) have to becovered by public policy. Hence it comes as no surprise that employmentpatterns are linked to types of welfare. This is clearly shown in analyses byIversen and Wren (1998) or Jochem and Siegel (2000), relying on ideasdeveloped by Scharpf and Schmidt (2000) and Huber and Stephens (2001).Recently Hall, Soskice and others have argued that labour relations,employment patterns, skills formation and welfare state policy are closelylinked together (Hall and Soskice 2001; Estevez-Abe et al. 2001).Empirically, this link is by no means clear-cut, as demonstrated by Alber(2000) for employment patterns or Daly (2000) for the case of genderdifferences in employment. However, there are good theoretical andempirical arguments for assuming that social democratic welfare statesfoster a combination of low unemployment, high employment for bothsexes through adequate labour market policies and generous child careprovisions. In contrast, conservative-Catholic welfare states supportemployment regimes with high employment of males, low employment offemales and generous schemes which allow families with children to rely ononly one breadwinner. Liberal welfare states are characterised by high ratesof labour force participation for both sexes without providing much publicchildcare or similar means. The functional equivalent is low taxes and lowsocial security contributions making the employment of child carersaffordable to parents with good professional/vocational training. While theabsence of high unemployment is considered crucial for the social


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democratic welfare state, it is more acceptable in Catholic-conservativestates – in particular if it does not hit male breadwinners – and in liberalstates. In the latter, unemployment is considered to be the result ofmalfunctioning labour markets in which it does not make sense to interveneand in which government is not allowed to intervene.

Analysing cantonal welfare states along these four dimensions, we notonly take into account the most recent state of research in comparativewelfare policy analysis (Hall and Soskice 2001; Scharpf and Schmidt 2000;Huber and Stephens 2001), but we are also able to contribute to the debateon the interconnectedness of these four dimensions, using a most similarsystems comparative design. The extension of Esping-Andersen’s (1990)typology to these other dimensions is straightforward, since according to theargument policies in these dimensions are causally if not functionallyrelated to each other (see Hall and Soskice 2001; Estevez-Abe et al. 2001).

Western societies have not only developed different systems of socialsecurity, but have followed substantively different trajectories in the fieldsof employment and education as well. As we shall see below, thisdivergence can be observed among Swiss cantons. In order to explain it wemake reference to the recent research on the development of the national(see Esping-Andersen 1990; Schmidt 1998; Castles 1999; Pierson 2000)and cantonal welfare states (Vatter 2002; Freitag 2000a, 2000b). On thisbasis, we can identify the following explanatory variables:

(a) The strength of left (social democratic), centre (Christiandemocratic/Catholic) and liberal/right political parties. Each of theseparties supports the expansion of ‘its’ welfare state. However, with oneexception,5 cantonal governments are broad coalitions where the majormeans of decision making are negotiation and mutual accommodation.In 1998, three cantons were governed by a five party coalition. In ninestates, there was a government made up of four parties and in 13cantons three parties shared power (Vatter 1998; Germann 1999:406–8). Hence party competition in the sense of policy seeking isconstrained within cantonal governments. However, the relativestrength of the three major political forces – social democrats, Christiandemocrats and liberals – in the cantonal electorate might be importantfor the willingness of the other political parties to make concessions. Inother words, due to the broad coalition in government, we cannot expecta ‘pure’ type of welfare state reflecting the preferences of one politicalparty. On the other hand, the ability to lean towards a particular typemay be conditioned by the relative strength of the particular politicalcamp that supports that type.


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(b) Institutions that foster welfare state expansion. The size of governmentcoalitions is of importance in this respect. The broader the coalition, themore likely are bargains between the various partners includingcompensatory payments for the clientele of the parties. Hence thechances for a lean welfare state to diminish with the increasing size ofgovernment coalitions.

(c) Institutions that constrain welfare state expansion. Direct democracy issuch an institution (Immergut 1992; Obinger 1998; Bonoli 1999). Thereare various arguments for this effect. One observation is that inprinciple it is easier to have a majority against compared to a majorityfor a new policy that might be redistributive, and that future advantagesare less visible than the costs incurred doing the reform. A moreelaborate argument points to different logics of population andpoliticians. Politicians tend to increase spending in order to be re-elected; citizens tend to restrict spending since they know that they haveto pay it via taxes (Kirchgässner et al. 1999). The more directdemocracy is used in a canton, the better the chances for a liberalwelfare state.

(d) Deep-seated cultural values of a given society. Comparative policyanalysis has pointed to Catholicism as a major force impacting onwelfare states (Castles 1994, 1999). Hence we expect that in Protestantcantons (i.e. cantons with a large share of Protestants) the liberal andsocialist welfare state has the highest likelihood to flourish, while inCatholic cantons the development of a conservative welfare state ismost likely.

(e) Needs and opportunities. These are general conditions of public policy:the more affluent and economically advanced a region, the more it canafford to nurture a costly welfare state. On the other hand, the morepronounced the needs for a welfare state the larger welfareexpenditures. In the context of Switzerland, four such needs areprominent: the share of elderly, who need health care and – sometimes– social assistance (Ergänzungsleistungen); the number of unemployedwho need support by active and passive labour market policy; thenumber of foreigners, who usually are at the bottom of the incomeladder and hence often in need of welfare state support; and finally theneeds produced by urban living conditions. The more urbanised acanton, the less likely it is that family networks can function assubstitutes of public social security and health care.


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DATA AND RESEARCH DESIGN

Our dependent variable is the type of cantonal welfare state in the late1990s, which we determine with reference to our four policy-baseddimensions: social security, taxation, education and employment. For eachpolicy area, we assign every canton to one of Esping-Andersen’s regime-types.

In order to assign a canton to a given welfare regime, we use indicatorsor set of indicators discriminating between one ideal type of welfare and thetwo other types. We derive these indicators from theoretical reasoning withregard to the underlying goals of liberal, conservative and socialist politicalforces and from the findings of empirical comparative research, being ableto show that in international comparisons these political goals in fact haveresulted in different types of welfare states.

Our indicators are unidimensional (e.g. higher or lower socialexpenditure), so how do we discriminate between the three worlds ofwelfare? The basic idea is to combine two indicators or sets of indicatorsdenoting two different sub-dimensions. These sub-dimensions have beenchosen so that they distinguish one type of welfare regime from theremaining two. By intersecting the two sub-dimensions, we obtain a four-fold classification where three cells correspond to the three worlds ofwelfare. The fourth cell is a residual type for which on theoretical reasonsthere should not be empirical instances. However, if we relax theassumption of just three worlds of welfare, there might be very differentmixes of different policies constituting cases that cannot be neatly attributedto one of Esping-Andersen’s types of welfare state. Technically, we use asthe cut-off point the arithmetic mean of the respective variable. In mostcases we have more than one indicator for one sub-dimension. For example,in the case of social security the number of schemes might be as importantas the expenditures. Provided these indicators were significantly correlated(p<.05, coefficients at least .45), pragmatically we used them both,attaching the same weight to them. Technically, this was done by z-standardising and adding the variables. A z-transformation is obtained bysubtracting the mean of a variable from its actual values, and dividing thedifference by the standard deviation. This does not change the type of datadistribution, although the mean of the sample becomes ‘0’ and the standarddeviation ‘1’.

Let us illustrate this procedure of building typologies for our fourdifferent dimensions of cantonal welfare regimes.

Social security. The first dimension of the aspect of social security is thesize of the welfare state measured in terms of the number of cantonal socialsecurity schemes and the per capita social security benefits paid out of


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cantonal and local funds. In this regard, lean liberal welfare cantons standin contrast to conservative and social democratic ones. The seconddimension, which divides between social democratic or liberal andconservative welfare schemes is familialism, understood as the extent towhich a welfare regime assumes that ‘family’ corresponds to the traditionalmale breadwinner model (Esping-Andersen 1999: 45). We measuredfamilialism by the difference between the effort cantons make to supportnon-working mothers on the one hand (birth grants and the amount of childbenefits for the fourth child), and to help mothers reconcile work and familylife on the other (expenditure on pre-school facilities).6 Hence, cantons witha liberal welfare regime are supposed to have a non-familialistic and leansocial security system; those belonging to the conservative regime will haveextensive and strongly familialistic social security schemes, while in socialdemocratic welfare states social security is extensive, and familialism low.The remaining case is lean schemes with strong familialism. It could beseen as a case of ‘liberal-conservative’ social policy.

Taxation. Running a large welfare state implies considerable costs, whichhave to be covered by taxes or social security contributions. Cantonal socialsecurity schemes, education and labour market measures do not depend oncontributions, hence taxes are the sole means of financing the welfare state.Here our first dimension is the overall level of taxation. We can expect thetax load to be low in liberal welfare regimes and higher in social democraticor conservative ones. The second dimension is the degree of progressivityof cantonal income tax. While there should be little difference betweensocialist and conservative welfare states with regard to the distribution ofthe domestic product between public and private households, thedistribution of the tax load over income categories may be very different. Insocial democratic regimes we expect more progressive tax rates, attemptingredistribution from the top to the bottom end of the income scale, whileliberal and conservative political actors are more sceptical with regard toredistribution by progressive tax scale on various grounds. Hence, in aliberal world of welfare both tax load and tax progressivity are low, inconservative worlds, tax load is high while progressivity is low. In socialdemocratic worlds both tax load and progressivity are high. The remainingcase is low tax load and high progressivity (‘redistributive-liberal’).

Education. In contrast to the other aspects of the welfare state, comparativeresearch on education does not lead to a threefold distinction. There aregood theoretical and empirical reasons supporting the view thatconservative political forces do not favour public education as much associal democrats do (Boix 1997, 1998; Castles 1999; Schmidt 2002).


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However, the role of liberal parties is not clear. One could point to theliberal idea of fairness of economic competition, leading to much publiceducation as providing the infrastructure of a vibrant market society. Butone could also refer to the liberal idea that state intervention should be smalland that public services have to be paid for – so that we would expect asystem of education that is based on private contribution and limited tothose able to pay. For these reasons, in the case of education we havedifferentiated only between two poles: conservative regimes versus allothers. The less spent on education (measured as public cantonal and localper capita expenditure for education) and the smaller the size of the groupof young people with high school diplomas (Matur), the nearer a canton isto the conservative pool.

Employment. In this case, the first dimension is the extent to which the statepoliticises the labour market by sustaining a large public employmentsector. High levels of public employment reduce the size of market-drivenemployment in the private sector, can contribute to absorb shocksexperienced by the private labour market, and are also necessary to theprovision of extensive public social services. For these reasons, a larger thanaverage public employment sector is considered a social democraticattribute. Conversely, lower levels of public employment are liberal orconservative features. Our second dimension is the extent to which women,particularly mothers, are integrated in the labour market (cf. Schmidt 1993;Daly 2000). High levels of women (mothers’) employment are found inboth liberal and social democratic welfare states. In conservative welfarestates, women are assumed to perform family-related caring duties to alarger extent. Hence, in a conservative regime female employment is likelyto be discontinued in case of motherhood, in contrast to liberal and socialdemocratic regimes, where the compatibility of female employment andmotherhood is more likely. Combining these two dimensions, we arrive at asocial democratic employ-ment regime (large public sector and strongcontinuation of employment in case of motherhood), a liberal employmentregime (small public sector and strong continuation) and a conservativeregime (small public sector and weak continuation). The remaining case isof large public sector and low continuation, which could be labelled ‘statistconservative’, and which, at the European level, is represented by countrieslike Italy or France.

Having operationalised our dependent variable, we proceed in three steps. Inthe next section we show the extent to which the cantonal worlds of welfarediffer. Our empirically based argument will show that various aspects of thecantonal worlds of welfare – employment, education, taxation and social


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TABLE 3SUMMARY OF THE OPERATIONALISATION OF VARIABLES FOR THE DIFFERENT

ASPECTS OF THE CANTONAL WELFARE STATE

Dimension 1 Dimension 2 Outcomes

Employment (a) Level of public Continuity of female employment employmentHigh High Social democraticLow Low ConservativeLow High LiberalHigh Low Unclear

(statist-conservative)

Taxation (b) Level of taxation Progressivity of taxation High High Social democraticHigh Low ConservativeLow Low LiberalLow High Unclear

(redistributive-liberal)

Education (c) Education expenditure and share of diplomasHigh Unclear (social

democratic or liberal)

Low Conservative

Social Security (d) Number of cantonal Degree of familialism (birth social security schemes grants, child benefits to 4th and per capita social child minus expenditure security benefits on pre-school paid by canton and facilities)municipalitiesHigh Low Social democraticHigh High ConservativeLow Low LiberalLow High Unclear

(liberal-conservative)

Notes and Sources:(a) Dimension 1, cantonal and municipal employees per 1,000 of labour force, 1991, source

Vatter, Freitag, Müller (2002); dimension 2, participation rate of women aged 25-40 withchildren below age 6 and with children below age 12 (in % of total participation rate ofwomen aged 25-40), 1995, source BFS (1996), our calculations.

(b) Dimension 1, total taxation index on income and assets and general index of taxation level,1999, source BFS (2001); dimension 2, taxation progression index (index for highest incomeclass/index for lowest income class), 2000, source Vatter, Freitag, Müller (2002).

(c) Dimension 1, cantonal and municipal education expenditure (per inhabitant in Swiss francs,without federal contributions) and share of high school diplomas entitling for universityeducation in the 19-years-old age group, 1998, source BFS (2000).

(d) Dimension 1, number of cantonal welfare schemes (max. 7, social assistance excluded), 1998,source Wyss (1999), our calculations, and cantonal and municipal social expenditure (inSwiss francs pro head, without federal subsidies), 1997, source Vatter, Freitag, Müller (2002);dimension 2, birth grants (in Swiss francs) and benefits for 4th child (in Swiss francs), 2000,source BSV (2001), minus pre-school expenditure (in Swiss francs per head) (z-scoredvalues), 1998, source BFS (2000).

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TA

BL

E 4

VA

RIA

TIO

N O

F D

EP

EN

DE

NT

VA

RIA

BL

ES

AM

ON

G S

WIS

S C

AN

TO

NS

IN

CO

MP

AR

ISO

N T

O V

AR

IAT

ION

AM

ON

G O

EC

D C

OU

NT

RIE

S

Var

iati

on a

mon

g 26

Sw

iss

cant

ons

Mea

nsd

*C

V**

Dim

.D

ata

sour

ce

Em

ploy

men

tPu

blic

sec

tor

size

(ca

nton

al a

nd m

unic

ipal

em

ploy

ees

per

1,00

0 of

labo

ur f

orce

, 199

1)81

.92

21.8

10.

271

Vat

ter,

Frei

tag,

Mül

ler

(200

2)Pa

rtic

ipat

ion

rate

of

wom

en a

ged

25–4

0 w

ith c

hild

ren

belo

w a

ge 6

(i

n %

of

tota

l par

ticip

atio

n ra

te o

f w

omen

age

25–

40, 1

995)

72.3

47.

290.

102

BFS

(19

96),

our

cal

cula

tions

Part

icip

atio

n ra

te o

f w

omen

age

d 25

–40

with

chi

ldre

n be

low

age

12

(in

% o

f to

tal p

artic

ipat

ion

rate

of

wom

en a

ge 2

5–40

, 199

5)80

.19

6.05

0.08

2B

FS (

1996

), o

ur c

alcu

latio

nsE

duca

tion

Can

tona

l and

mun

icip

al e

duca

tion

expe

nditu

re (

per

inha

bita

nt

in S

wis

s fr

ancs

, with

out f

eder

al c

ontr

ibut

ions

, 199

8)2.

530

377.

290.

151

BFS

(20

00)

Shar

e of

hig

h sc

hool

dip

lom

as e

ntitl

ing

for

univ

ersi

ty e

duca

tion

in th

e 19

-yea

r-ol

d ag

e gr

oup

(199

8)16

.98

5.60

0.33

1B

FS (

2000

)Ta

xati

onTo

tal t

axat

ion

inde

x on

inco

mes

and

ass

ets

(199

9)99

.87

18.0

60.

181

BFS

(20

01)

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eral

inde

x of

taxa

tion

leve

l (19

99)

100.

7016

.54

0.16

1B

FS (

2001

)Ta

xatio

n pr

ogre

ssio

n in

dex

(ind

ex f

or h

ighe

st in

com

e cl

ass

/ ind

ex f

or lo

wes

t inc

ome

clas

s, 2

000)

1.13

0.61

0.53

2V

atte

r, Fr

eita

g, M

ülle

r (2

002)

Soci

al s

ecur

ity

Num

ber

of c

anto

nal w

elfa

re s

chem

es (

max

. 7, s

ocia

l ass

ista

nce

excl

uded

)2.

121.

930.

911

Wys

s (1

999)

, our

cal

cula

tions

Can

tona

l and

mun

icip

al s

ocia

l exp

endi

ture

(in

Sw

iss

fran

cs p

ro h

ead,

with

out f

eder

al s

ubsi

dies

, 199

7)15

04.4

637.

110.

421

Vat

ter,

Frei

tag,

Mül

ler

(200

2)B

enef

its f

or 4

th c

hild

(20

01)

187.

2943

.91

0.23

2B

SV (

2001

)B

irth

gra

nts

(200

1)39

7.96

547.

611.

382

BSV

(20

01)

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iati

on a

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g O

EC

D c

ount

ries

Mea

nsd

*C

V**

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men

tG

over

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t em

ploy

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t (as

% o

f to

tal e

mpl

oym

ent,

1994

)18

.84

7.06

0.38

OE

CD

(19

97a)

Fem

ale

part

icip

atio

n ra

te (

fem

ale

labo

ur f

orce

in %

of

fem

ale

popu

latio

n 15

-64,

196

0–95

)50

.01

10.1

00.

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EC

D (

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a)Fe

mal

e la

bour

for

ce (

as %

of

tota

l lab

our

forc

e, 1

999)

43.7

77.

990.

07O

EC

D (

2000

)Ta

xati

onC

urre

nt r

ecei

pts

of g

ener

al g

over

nmen

t (as

% o

f G

DP,

197

1–96

)41

.63

8.87

0.21

Arm

inge

on, B

eyel

er, M

eneg

ale

(200

0)C

urre

nt r

ecei

pts

of g

over

nmen

t (%

of

GD

P, 1

994)

44.3

77.

990.

18O

EC

D (

1997

b); O

EC

D (

1996

)So

cial

sec

urit

ySo

cial

sec

urity

tran

sfer

s (i

n %

of

GD

P, 1

971–

95)

15.1

04.

190.

28A

rmin

geon

, Bey

eler

, Men

egal

e (2

000)

Not

es:

*sd

= s

tand

ard

devi

atio

n**

CV

= c

oeff

icie

nt o

f va

riat

ion,

obt

aine

d by

div

idin

g th

e st

anda

rd d

evia

tion

by th

e ar

ithm

etic

mea

n

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security – do not cluster together. For example, there might be a liberalemployment regime in a socialist system of cantonal social security. This isin support of recent analyses demonstrating that a close nexus betweenemployment, education, taxation and social security is missing (Alber 2000)and that Swiss cantonal regimes are the outcome of different configurationsof political power on different levels. Due to data restriction, we cannot testthe path dependency hypothesis, implying that we should also be able toclassify cantons 50 or 70 years ago into the three types of regime.

Regressing the types of cantonal welfare states onto the variousindependent variables is the final step of our analysis. We apply thestatistical technique of a multinomial logistic regression. Hence, we try toanswer the question as to why a canton belongs to a certain world ofwelfare, defined by our typological construction.

DIFFERING WORLDS OF WELFARE

Living conditions vary greatly between Swiss cantons, as can be seen fromTable 4, which provides information on inter-cantonal variation ofemployment, education, tax and social security policies. The entries inTable 4 show variations that are typically much above 0.15, that is, onestandard deviation corresponds to more than 15 per cent of the arithmeticmean in nearly all cases. This does not apply to integration of females intothe labour market, which shows much less variation: the coefficient ofvariation7 of female employment is only about 0.10 compared to 0.42 forcantonal and municipal social expenditure in 1997 or 0.33 for share of highschool diploma. Thus, in this regard we would not expect much variation ofthe employment regime across Switzerland.

Are the variations of most indicators strong or not? As a yardstick wecan use the variation of similar indicators of welfare states between OECDnations. Unfortunately we do not have exactly the same variables for thecomparison of nation states as we have for cantons, but for the purposes ofa broad comparison, similar variables can suffice. In these terms, it appearsthat differences between cantonal welfare states are at least of a similarmagnitude to differences between national welfare states. However, oneshould not labour this point: in addition to the dissimilarities betweencantonal welfare states in Switzerland, we need to add the unifying effectsof a federal welfare state – an extra dimension that is obviously missing inthe case of the OECD countries and even EU countries.

Comparing international with inter-cantonal differences, we see that thelow extent of cantonal variation of female employment is not a typicallySwiss feature. In this regard, nation states are also more similar than inrespect to other variables. One could assume that in this policy area other,

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more general, forces are at work, such as modernisation or the decreasingacceptance of gender discrimination among Western publics in the last threedecades.

To what extent do the various aspects of welfare states – employment,education, taxation and social security regimes – cluster in a given canton?The basic idea of a close fit of education, labour market and social policy inrecent literature is both functional and political. One idea points to therequirements of correspondence of, for example, social policies to thelabour market conditions: a flexible labour market and high employmentrequire some sort of active labour market policy and generousunemployment benefits. Clearly we do not expect that close fit in Swisscantons since the cantonal welfare states are only part and parcel of a multi-tiered system. The other idea concerns the power resources and institutionsunderlying the welfare state. In this perspective a given cantonal politicalsystem should impact in the same way on all aspects of the welfare state.However, this view neglects two other major influences: the one originatesfrom the power distributions and institutions on the national level and therequirements of a minimal fit of cantonal with federal measures. Forinstance, the first pillar of the pension system in Switzerland createsconsiderable equality between pensioners (Leitner and Obinger 1996;Bonoli 1999; Obinger 2000) and this cannot be fully done away with bycantonal measures. In addition, cantonal politics and institutions interactwith federal power distributions, rules, standard operating procedures andnorms, and the impact of cantonal power distributions might vary by policyfield. Finally, Jens Alber (2000) puts forward the argument that each aspector segment of the welfare state has developed in a special configuration,which is shaped by historical development. If we accept the idea of separatepolicy fields with ‘their own underlying historical logic’ we would notexpect a priori a strong clustering of the aspects of the welfare state inSwitzerland and elsewhere.

Table 5 depicts the classification of cantons based on the calculationsoutlined in the section of data and measurement, and demonstrates that thereis hardly correlation between types of the welfare states in the variousdimensions. Social democratic social policies and labour market structurecan go together with conservative tax and educational policy. A statisticalanalysis reveals that the welfare regime in education is significantlycorrelated with all the other regimes, while the welfare dimension isuncorrelated to the dimension of employment and taxation. There are a fewcases approaching a consistent type – like socialist Geneva or conservativeValais. A number of cantons seem to combine consistently liberal andconservative attributes: Argovia, Appenzell Inner-Rhodes, AppenzellOuter-Rhodes, Berne and St Gall. But these few cases do not cancel out the


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TABLE 5WORLDS OF WELFARE IN SWITZERLAND: CLASSIFICATION OF THE 26 SWISSCANTONS (EMPLOYMENT, EDUCATION, TAXATION AND SOCIAL SECURITY)

List of Employment Education* Taxation Social Cantons Security

AG Argovia 2 2 1 1AI Appenzell Inner-Rhodes 2 2 1 1AR Appenzell Outer-Rhodes 1 2 2 1BE Berne 1 2 2 1BL Basle-Country 1 4 4 3BS Basle-Town 4 4 3 3FR Fribourg 3 4 3 2GE Geneva 3 4 3 3GL Glarus 1 2 1 1GR Grisons 4 2 1 1JU Jura 3 4 3 1LU Lucerne 2 2 2 4NE Neuchâtel 3 4 2 2NW Nidwalden 1 2 1 4OW Obwalden 1 2 2 4SG St Gall 1 2 2 1SH Schaffhausen 3 4 1 3SO Solothurn 1 2 4 4SZ Schwyz 1 2 1 4TG Thurgovia 2 2 3 1TI Ticino 4 4 4 3UR Uri 4 2 1 4VD Vaud 1 4 3 2VS Valais 1 2 2 2ZG Zug 2 4 1 2ZH Zurich 4 4 1 3

Notes: 1 = liberal2 = conservative3 = social democratic4 = unclear, in case of employment ‘statist-conservative’, in case of education either ‘liberal’or ‘socio-democratic’, in case of taxation ‘redistributive-liberal’, in case of social security‘liberal-conservative’.*only category 2 and 4 are possible under this dimension.

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general finding that there is no correlation between the theoreticallydeduced types of welfare in the various dimensions. Results are different ifthe employment regime is excluded on the grounds that cantonalgovernments can do little about ubiquitous trends of increasing femaleemployment continuity. Then all inter-correlations are significant except theone between taxation and social security. But it is a weak correlation, and ismuch weaker than expected from the theory of strongly interconnecteddimensions of an underlying national welfare regime.8 This is an importantfinding considering recent contributions arguing that the dimensions ofemployment, education and social security are causally connected. We areable to show that this is not the case. The most obvious explanation pointsto different causes of variations that allow for the emergence of ‘regimes’which do not fit together as predicted. The implication is that there are notonly two or three varieties of capitalism (Hall and Soskice) or welfare-employment states (Scharpf), but many. We will test the hypothesis ofdifferent sources of these four dimensions in the following section.

EXPLAINING CANTONAL VARIATIONS: THE IMPACT OF POLITICS

AND INSTITUTIONS

This data analysis started from types of welfare states in the field ofemployment, education, taxation and social security which have beendefined on theoretical grounds. Using labels like social democratic, liberalor conservative suggests that in cantons with strong left, liberal orconservative parties we will find a corresponding welfare type. This is nottoo plausible considering the weak correlation between the variousdimensions. However, one could argue that some fields – employment, forinstance – are much less amenable to political or institutional cantonaleffects than others – such as social security. Hence, in the first instance weran a multinomial bi-variate logistic regression, regressing the type ofwelfare state on the independent variables, discussed in section 3. The morewe can explain the membership of cantons in the four (education: two)‘worlds of welfare’ by the respective independent variable, the stronger therelationship between the explanatory variables and the dependent ones(membership in a given world). In a bi-variate analysis the appropriatemeasure of that strength of relationship is the explained variance. In logisticregression there is no measure like the coefficient of determination (R2) inordinary least squares techniques. However, comparable statistics of theexplanatory power of an independent variable have been developed. Amongthem is Nagelkerke’s R2, which can be interpreted in a similar way as theusual R2 in OLS regression. Table 6 adopts this measure, and reports on thesignificance of the model and the explanatory power of the independentvariables as measured in terms of Nagelkerke’s R2.

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Exp

lana

tory

Var

iabl

esD

imen

sion

sD

ata

Des

crip

tion

*E

mpl

oym

ent

Taxa

tion

Edu

cati

onSo

cial

Sec

urit

y

Pro

test

anti

sm(.

03)*

*(.

01)

(.03

).3

2Sh

are

of p

rote

stan

ts, 1

980

Dir

ect

dem

ocra

cy(.

14)

.31

(.00

).3

0N

o. o

f al

l can

tona

l pop

ular

vot

es, 1

983–

2000

Lef

t in

gov

ernm

ent

(.22

)(.

10)

.48

.28

Shar

e of

left

par

ties’

rep

rese

ntat

ives

in c

anto

nal

gove

rnm

ent,

mea

n 19

83–9

5C

entr

e in

gov

ernm

ent

(.05

)(.

05)

(.16

)(.

23)

Shar

e of

cen

tre

part

ies’

rep

rese

ntat

ives

in

cant

onal

gov

ernm

ent,

mea

n 19

83–9

5 R

ight

in

gove

rnm

ent

(.04

)(.

00)

(.01

)(.

12)

Shar

e of

rig

ht p

artie

s’ r

epre

sent

ativ

es in

can

tona

l go

vern

men

t, m

ean

1983

–95

Size

of

coal

itio

n(.

05)

(.11

).1

9.3

1N

o. o

f pa

rtie

s in

gov

ernm

ent,

mea

n 19

90–9

7

Wea

lth

(.05

)(.

26)

.21

(.19

)Pe

r ca

pita

inco

me,

in S

wis

s fr

ancs

, 199

2U

rban

isat

ion

(.15

)(.

18)

.56

.67

Shar

e of

inha

bita

nts

livin

g in

urb

an a

reas

, 198

8U

nem

ploy

men

t.3

2.4

3.6

0.4

8C

anto

nal u

nem

ploy

men

t rat

e, m

ean

1983

–97

Dem

ogra

phic

str

uctu

re(.

22)

(.06

)(.

02)

(.21

)Sh

are

of in

habi

tant

s ol

der

than

65,

mea

n 19

83–9

7F

orei

gner

s(.

12)

(.19

).3

8.5

3Sh

are

of f

orei

gn in

habi

tant

s, m

ean

1990

–97

Not

es:

* al

l dat

a ar

e ta

ken

from

Vat

ter,

Frei

tag,

Mül

ler

(200

2), o

ur c

alcu

latio

ns.

** b

etw

een

brac

kets

if p

>.0

5.L

eft p

artie

s: S

ocia

l dem

ocra

tic, g

reen

, dem

ocra

tic-s

ocia

l par

ties

Cen

tre

part

ies:

Chr

istia

n-D

emoc

ratic

par

ties

and

Uni

on o

f In

depe

nden

ts (

Lan

desr

ing

der

Una

bhän

gige

n)R

ight

par

ties:

Rad

ical

s, S

wis

s Pe

ople

’s P

arty

Central Institutional Socio-economic

TA

BL

E 6

EX

PL

AN

AT

OR

Y P

OW

ER

OF

CU

LT

UR

AL

, IN

ST

ITU

TIO

NA

L A

ND

SO

CIO

-EC

ON

OM

IC V

AR

IAB

LE

S O

F T

HE

SW

ISS

WO

RL

DS

OF

WE

LF

AR

E (

NA

GE

LK

ER

KE

R-S

QU

AR

ES

)

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Table 6 offers an overview of the general results of the analyses. Hardlyany systematic correlation can be found for the employment regime. It is notdependent on cultural, institutional or political variables. Similar results areobtained for taxation. However, there we have a clear institutional effect:direct democracy exerts an important influence on the type of taxationregime.9 Even when we control for the impact of unemployment – the othersignificant explanatory variable – in a multivariate model, the overalleffects remain significant. The more popular votes in a canton, the lower thelikelihood of a conservative or social democratic regime of taxation. Thisfinding supports an institutional interpretation of worlds of welfare as far asthe taxation dimension is concerned. In the field of public revenue theimpact of party families is very weak, while the extent to whichparliamentary decision is superseded by popular vote is of primeimportance. This fits nicely into theories stating that all parties tend toexpand public revenues in order to finance public services, and so toimprove their chances of re-election. In contrast, citizens are primarilyinterested in low tax loads (Steinmo 1993; Kirchgässner et al. 1999). Incantons where voters have a strong (direct) say, tax loads will therefore tendto be smaller than in cantons where parliaments operate under fewerplebiscitary restrictions – irrespective of the political make-up of thegoverning coalition.

On the dimension of education, the strength of the left in governmentand the size of coalition have an impact on the type of education: thestronger the left, the greater the likelihood of high educational expenditures,and similarly, the larger the size of the governing coalition, the greater thelikelihood of higher spending on education. Adding successively the othersignificant variables as controls in a multivariate model, the effects remainsignificant in the case of the strength of left-wing government (except ifurbanisation is the second variable), while the size of the coalition becomesinsignificant (except if the strength of the left is used as a control). Althoughour findings are not very robust, they do fit in with theories according towhich left-wing parties try to steer on the supply side, in particular withregard to human capital and public infrastructure. This supply-side effect ofwelfare state policies has frequently been overlooked in recent comparativeresearch (though see Boix 1997, 1998; Castles 1999), where the focus hasbeen on demand side policies such as fiscal measures and social securityschemes. As in the analysis of the dimension of social security, the solepolitical effect emanates from the distinction between left and non-leftgovernments. In does not matter whether government is composed ofconservative-Christian (i.e. mostly Catholic parties) or right-liberal parties(the Radicals and the Swiss People’s Party). An obvious explanation pointsto the distinction between centrist parties favouring state intervention and


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right-liberal parties fighting for the free play of market force. By its veryorigin, the Swiss People’s Party has been a classic protectionist party(Junker 1968), and it has remained so until today with regard to selectedprotectionist measures for farmers. Programmatically, the Swiss Radicals isnot a coherent liberal party, but is composed of cantonal sections withdifferent ideological orientations (Ladner 1999). In historical perspective,the radicals never consistently supported the free play of market forces; inaddition they have been in strong support of conservative-statist andprotectionist policies (Gruner 1964).

For the explanation of dimensions of systems of social security, left-wing government, direct democracy and the size of coalition producedsignificant results in the expected direction. Once we controlled for therobustness of these findings by including all other significant independentvariables in a multivariate model, these political and institutional variablescontinued to produce significant results only in two or three of the possiblesix combinations: size of coalition became insignificant when directdemocracy, urbanisation, unemployment or numbers of foreigners wereadded. Direct democracy lost significance in the combination with left-winggovernment, urbanisation and size of coalition. Finally, left-winggovernment was insignificant in tandem with direct democracy,urbanisation, unemployment and numbers of foreigners.

Urbanisation is obviously a major socio-economic explanatory variablefor cantonal social security systems. Left-wing power is strongly andpositively correlated with urbanisation (.64): the more urban a canton, thehigher the share of left-wing parties in government. On the other hand, themore rural a region, the better the odds for centrist parties (correlation withurbanisation: -.54). In contrast, the power of right-liberal government is notsignificantly related to urbanisation. Hence, one could argue thaturbanisation is the major background variable explaining both worlds ofwelfare and the political strength of the left in Swiss cantons.

CONCLUSIONS

Are there different worlds of welfare in Swiss cantons, analogous to differentnational welfare state regimes? Are the welfare regimes made up offunctionally related sub-regimes in the field of employment, education,taxation and social security, as argued in recent analyses of ‘varieties ofcapitalism’? And can the variations between such cantonal welfare regimesbe explained by the same politico-institutional variables that account for thedevelopment of national welfare states? These have been the guidingquestions of this article. We find strong empirical evidence for large inter-cantonal variation in welfare state policies. The sub-regimes are not


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functionally connected, however. Their variation is related to different sets ofvariables, indicating a weak functional link between them. Developments andcausal structures are specific to the various sub-regimes. And, in addition, itis socio-economic and not politico-institutional variables that have had thestrongest imprint on the overall structure of cantonal welfare regimes.

Although socio-economic variables – in particular urbanisation – turnout to be the major force shaping cantonal ‘worlds of welfare’, we also haveindications of significant influence of institutional and political variables. Inthe field of taxation direct democracy is an important force shaping thecantonal taxation regime. In education, left-wing political parties supportthe expansion of education system. In the field of social security, it is onceagain the left and direct democracy that have an impact. But we have toadmit that the robustness of these findings is limited. It is noteworthy that ifthere is a major political effect on the worlds of welfare in Swiss cantons itis between the left and all other parties. The differences between theChristian-democratic and right-liberal forces have no significant impact onthe welfare state policies of these parties on the cantonal level.

To what extent can the findings of this paper be generalised to otherdemocratic nations. We see three contributions: first, there are hugedifferences in cantonal welfare state policies that have an impact on thepeople’s living conditions. We would not expect such strong differences toexist inside Germany or Austria, simply due to constitutional rules whichwould not allow for such variation. Hence, in analysing social policies infederal states, we need to specify which type of federalism pertains in aparticular country.10 Probably a useful distinction is that between federalism(as in the US, Switzerland or Spain), unitary federalism (as in Germany andAustria) and unitary systems (as in France). Considering the wide differenceof state welfare policies in Switzerland and Germany, we hypothesise thatthe major dividing line does not run between unitary and both types offederalist system, but between federalism on the one hand and unitarysystems and unitary federalism on the other.

Second, this study completes existing analyses of the impact offederalism on social policy, which usually focus exclusively on the effectson the federal level of social policy making. For instance, in the case ofSwitzerland, most studies (e.g. Cattacin 1995; Kriesi 1995; Obinger 1998)identify the delaying effect of federalism on the development of a federalwelfare state. We add another perspective: in federal states like Switzerland,the welfare state is the outcome of the interaction between federal and statepolicies, whereby state policies are not only of marginal importance.

Third, we find that there is a missing correlation between the variousdimensions of the welfare state. Our study does not support the idea that aparticular system of social security corresponds to a particular system of


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taxation, employment or education. This corresponds to the finding byAlber (2000) and suggests the need for a more differentiated analysis ofdimensions of the welfare state. Probably in the field of employment,markets and cultural variables are of utmost importance, whereas in taxationit is institutions that play a particularly strong role. The role of politicsmight be restricted to education and social security.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the workshop ‘Federalism and the Welfare State– Comparative Perspectives on the Old and the New Politics of the Welfare State’, Hanse Institutefor Advanced Study, Delmenhorst, 24–27 May, 2002, and benefited from comments made byworkshop participants. To a large extent this paper is based on a data set gathered by AdrianVatter, Markus Freitag and Christoph Müller (University of Berne, 2002). We are grateful to thesecolleagues for generously sharing their database with us. This paper was written in the context ofthe research project ‘Convergence towards a unique “continental” model of welfare state inEurope? The importance of regional integration for Swiss welfare state reform’. The projectstarted in February 2001 at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Berne and issupported by the Swiss National Science Foundation in the framework of the Swiss PriorityProgram Switzerland: Towards the Future.

NOTES

1. The chosen indicator is the global index of fiscal charge and refers to the year 1999. Whereasin Zug this index represents 58.7% of the inter-cantonal average, in Neuchâtel it reaches125.3% of the average.

2. The tax progression index is provided by Vatter et al. (2002). Data refer to year 2000. Thetax progression index is obtained by dividing the taxation index (cantonal, communal andchurch tax on incomes) for the highest income class (900,000–1,000,000 Swiss francs) bythe taxation index for the lowest income class (7,500–30,000 Swiss francs) as a percentageof the Swiss average (=100). Whereas in the canton of Vaud this index is 2.73, in the cantonof Obwalden it is 0.46.

3. Social assistance excluded.4. Esping-Andersen (1990) himself admits the non-existence of pure cases in empirical reality

and the general lack of purity of the empirical models, since they often combine elementsfrom different ideal-typical regimes.

5. Only one political party, the Christian Democrats, governs Appenzell Inner-Rhodes.However, the party system in this canton is at an embryonic stage; there are hardlydifferentiated and organisationally consolidated party organisations. Hence the notion ofone-party government is not appropriate (Steiner 1969).

6. The variable has been calculated as follows: The z-values of child benefits for the fourthchild and of birth grants have been added and then z-standardised. From this z-scores the z-scores of the variable ‘expenditures on pre-school facilities’ have been subtracted. Thisvariable indicates the weight given to the goal of sustaining traditional family formscompared to the weight given to liberal and social democratic goals of giving workingwomen the right to have a family.

7. The standard measure for the heterogeneity, the standard deviation (sd), has one crucialshortcoming: the absolute magnitude of the standard deviation increases linearly with themean of the variables. In order to compare several groups with respect to their relativehomogeneity this has to be taken into account. A suitable technique is the calculation of thecoefficient of variation (CV), being the standard deviation divided by the mean.

8. Correlation matrix (Cramers’-V *: p<.05):


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Education Taxation Social security

Employment .65* .37 .38Education - .55* .86*Taxation - - .35

9. As in the case of the following analyses, coefficients frequently become insignificant if theeffects of the independent variable on the type of regime are estimated. In this case, forexample, direct democracy exerts significant different effects on the likelihood of liberal andsocial democratic regimes, while it narrowly missed significance (p=.07) with regard to thedifference between conservative and liberal taxation regimes. In contrast, the differencesbetween all other possible pairs (social democratic vs. conservative; conservative vs. unclear;unclear vs. social democratic, unclear vs. liberal) are insignificant. To some extent, thisinsignificance might be due to the complexity of our theoretically deduced type of welfareregimes and the low numbers of cases. Hence in what follows we focus on the significanceof the coefficient for the overall model and whether the effect coefficients are in the expecteddirection.

10. In this sense we agree with Pierson (1995) when he stresses that ‘federalism matters a greatdeal for the development of social policy, but how it matters depends on the specific kind offederalism and how federal institutions are embedded in a particular context’.

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Documents

Swiss worlds of welfare