Since the publication last December of the report of the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the Credit Suisse debacle, we know that the Minister of Finance at the time lied to the population in December 2022, recalls the “SonntagsZeitung”. Enough to shake confidence in our authorities. The Sunday newspaper interviewed Nathalie Giger, professor of political science at the University of Geneva, on the impact of such events on the population’s loss of confidence in the authorities.
Indeed, historically, the stability of Swiss institutions is based on a high level of public confidence, notes the specialist. And this has indeed been tarnished by certain factors, such as the increase in health insurance premiums or the “calculation error” of the AVS. Nevertheless, “these events, although disturbing, have not created enough waves to lastingly undermine confidence,” according to Nathalie Giger. However, “the populist discourse, which denigrates the elites, and therefore the State, does not promote confidence in institutions,” she adds.
To better establish this confidence in our authorities, “the population must first of all be well informed and have enough basic knowledge in order to be able to follow the daily news on Swiss politics,” notes the specialist. Second, it also requires that information about politicians’ activities, their voting behavior and their links of interest be simple and accessible to the general public. Certainly, this information is already available, but it deserves that access to it be made even simpler, for the political scientist. And finally, it is important that the administration functions, and that it is close to citizens, because – with the media – it constitutes an important point of contact for the population, underlines Nathalie Giger.
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The erosion of foreign democracies serves Switzerland
For Nathalie Giger, looking abroad, where democracies are eroding – like the United States or Hungary – does not make the Swiss population doubt its institutions. On the contrary: it “makes Swiss institutions, including their inertia, attractive, because they are perceived as more stable than other democracies”.
This is what emerges from a 2023 study by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), published in 2024. It focused on the share of the population with a high or acceptable level of confidence in their government in 30 of the 38 member countries. 44% of OECD citizens surveyed in this context responded that they had little or no confidence in their government. And only 39% of them had high or at least moderate confidence in him. In Switzerland, 62% of those questioned said they had high or moderate confidence in the Federal Council.
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