Suchergebnisse

One of the core objectives of the nccr – on the move is to provide new data on migration using a variety of approaches. After the preparatory work in 2015, the Migration-Mobility Survey was setup and successfully conducted during the fall 2016. In total, 5800 migrants were surveyed.
Topics include the migratory trajectory before arriving in Switzerland, the family composition and labor market participation and integration and satisfaction with life in Switzerland.

Despite dramatic economic transformation in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, radical working-class politics has never become an institutionalized part of Swiss political life as it has among its neighbors France, Italy and Germany. Nor did class conflict produce in Switzerland a deeply fragmented and compartmentalized society such as is found in other small European Democracies. It is argued that decentralized social, economic and political institutions; moderate and continuous rates of economic development; cross-cutting cleavages and overlapping group affiliations; small size, and to a lesser extent political neutrality contributed to Switzerland's relatively calm "class struggle." It is further noted that these explanations seem to fit the Swiss case best when enveloped in Lipset and Rokkan's developmental thesis of European cleavage development, in which it is argued that nineteenth and twentieth century political institutions are more able to mediate class conflict successfully when not burdened by the residue of the unresolved political conflicts of earlier periods in the development of the modern political state. In sum, by the time working-class politics reached high tide in Switzerland, most nation building issues had been resolved, and effective democratic processes had been firmly put in place.

The traditional economic approach to tax evasion does not appear to be particularly successful in explaining the extent of tax compliance. We argue instead that a psychological tax contract which establishes a fiscal exchange between the state and the citizens shapes tax compliance to a large extent. In that respect, a case study of Switzerland is useful because the small size of the cantons and their direct democratic political systems procedurally establish a close exchange relationship between taxpayers and tax authorities. In this paper, evidence is discussed on how tax evasion and tax morale in Switzerland evolved over time. In addition, the impact of economic, legal, socio-demographic, psychological and institutional factors on Swiss tax evasion is discussed.

Abstract. A storm loss model that was first developed for Germany is applied to the much smaller geographic area of the canton of Vaud, in Western Switzerland. 24 major wind storms that struck the region during the period 1990–2010 are analysed, and outputs are compared to loss observations provided by an insurance company. Model inputs include population data and daily maximum wind speeds from weather stations. These measured wind speeds are regionalised in the canton of Vaud following different methods, using either basic interpolation techniques from Geographic Information Systems (GIS), or by using an existing extreme wind speed map of Switzerland whose values are used as thresholds. A third method considers the wind power, integrating wind speeds temporally over storm duration to calculate losses. Outputs show that the model leads to similar results for all methods, with Pearson's correlation and Spearman's rank coefficients of roughly 0.7. Bootstrap techniques are applied to test the model's robustness. Impacts of population growth and possible changes in storminess under conditions of climate change shifts are also examined for this region, emphasizing high shifts in economic losses related to small increases of input wind speeds.

In early 1945 Japanese navy circles in Berlin tried to begin peace negotiations with the United States. Using their contacts with the arms trader Friedrich Wilhelm Hack, they sent Commander Fujimura Yoshikazu to Switzerland, where he opened talks with Allen W. Dulles of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. Though the Japanese navy and Foreign Ministry showed some interest, the peace attempts finally failed since neither side took the initiative to an official level. Fujimura confused his government by claiming that the Americans had made the first step, while the U.S. side waited for proof that the administration in Tokyo was backing the navy officer's initiative.

Denmark and Switzerland are small and successful countries with exceptionally content populations. However, they have very different political institutions and economic models. They have followed the general tendency in the West toward economic convergence, but both countries have managed to stay on top. They both have a strong liberal tradition, but otherwise their economic strategies are a welfare state model for Denmark and a safe haven model for Switzerland. The Danish welfare state is tax-based, while the expenditures for social welfare are insurance-based in Switzerland. The political institutions are a multiparty unicameral system in Denmark, and a permanent coalition system with many referenda and strong local government in Switzerland. Both approaches have managed to ensure smoothly working political power-sharing and economic systems that allocate resources in a fairly efficient way. To date, they have also managed to adapt the economies to changes in the external environment with a combination of stability and flexibility

By focusing on the belated introduction of female suffrage in Switzerland, this article looks at how the political exclusion of half of the Swiss population was normalised. It argues that, notwithstanding its singularity, the Swiss case highlights some of the main mechanisms, practices and legitimisation strategies used to withhold political rights from women in modern society. The long time span between the introduction of male suffrage in 1848 and the introduction of female suffrage in 1971 raises the question of how such an exclusion could be maintained, particularly in the face of the tendency towards democratisation in the post–1945 world. Pursuing a loose chronological narrative, the author discusses the explanatory arguments of six types of socio-historical approaches to the question. Together, they provide evidence of what was at stake for the official gender scripts in the debates about a reconfiguration of the conception and practice of democracy. ; By focusing on the belated introduction of female suffrage in Switzerland, this article looks at how the political exclusion of half of the Swiss population was normalised. It argues that, notwithstanding its singularity, the Swiss case highlights some of the main mechanisms, practices and legitimisation strategies used to withhold political rights from women in modern society. The long time span between the introduction of male suffrage in 1848 and the introduction of female suffrage in 1971 raises the question of how such an exclusion could be maintained, particularly in the face of the tendency towards democratisation in the post–1945 world. Pursuing a loose chronological narrative, the author discusses the explanatory arguments of six types of socio-historical approaches to the question. Together, they provide evidence of what was at stake for the official gender scripts in the debates about a reconfiguration of the conception and practice of democracy.

This paper interprets empirical data, measuring the socio- economic cleavages among the Swiss regions, feelings of deprivation, patterns of spatial identification and values underlying referenda behaviour in Switzerland. The results show no empirical evidence to support the thesis arguing that location in peripheral regions increases people's feelings of deprivation. The thesis that lower strata are more alienated than higher strata, irrespective of the region, is, however, supported by the data. The findings on patterns of identification are divergent: most people living in alpine peripheries are firmly rooted in their local communities; whereas lowland regions and agglomerations show higher degrees of individualistic orientations. The findings provide evidence that: (a) Swiss culture is not monolithic but shaped by industrial, post-industrial and even pre-industrial values (particularly in the alpine periphery)—referenda behaviour reveals value differences along the lines between hinterlands and centres; and (b) value changes in Switzerland occur gradually and not in a disruptive manner.

Im Auftrag des Departements Bildung, Kultur und Sport des Kantons Aargau hat die Hochschule für Soziale Arbeit eine Studie zur Jugendarbeit im Kanton Aargau durchgeführt. Im Mittelpunkt der Studie stand die offene Jugendarbeit. Die Jugendarbeit der Verbände wurde berücksichtigt. Die Studie liefert erstmals forschungsbasierte Daten zur Angebotsstruktur, zur räumlichen Verteilung des Angebots im Kanton Aargau sowie zu den Träger- und Finanzierungsstrukturen. Als Ergebnis zeigt sich, dass in der Hälfte der Aargauer Gemeinden die Jugendlichen ein Angebot der Jugendarbeit vorfinden. Vor allem in mittelgrossen bis sehr grossen Gemeinden, also in Gemeinden mit mehr als 200 Jugendlichen besteht ein vielfältiges Angebot, zu dem drei Viertel aller Aargauer Jugendlichen in ihrem Wohnort Zugang haben (grosse regionale Angebotslücken). Das Angebot der offenen Jugendarbeit besteht zur Hälfte aus offenen Treffangeboten. In der offenen Jugendarbeit dominiert im Kanton Aargau der Typus der kooperativen Finanzierung durch mehrere kirchliche und politische Gemeinden. Die Beteiligung der politischen Gemeinde an einer (gemischten) Trägerschaft führt tendenziell zu einer besseren Personalausstattung. Einrichtungen ohne Trägerbeteiligung der politischen Gemeinden oder Kirchgemeinden werden ohne hauptamtliche Mitarbeiter/innen betrieben. Eine Steigerung des Professionalisierungsgrades und eine genügend hohe Personalausstattung sind für die Erfüllung der an die Jugendarbeit gestellten Aufgaben notwendig. Dies könnte durch eine (ausreichend dotierte) kantonale Fachstelle in beratender und koordinierender Funktion ergänzt und durch die gesetzliche Verankerung sichergestellt werden. Untersuchungsdesign: Querschnitt, Bestand Juni 2006; Standardisierte Befragung, schriftlich (Stichprobe: 229; Aargauer Gemeinden; Auswahlverfahren: total. Stichprobe: 80; Einrichtungen der offenen Jugendarbeit; Auswahlverfahren: total. Stichprobe: 3; Jugendverbände; Auswahlverfahren: total). (Autor)

Objective: To describe chronic disease management programs active in Switzerland in 2007, using an exploratory survey. Methods: We searched the internet (Swiss official websites and Swiss web-pages, using Google), a medical electronic database (Medline), reference lists of pertinent articles, and contacted key informants. Programs met our operational definition of chronic disease management if their interventions targeted a chronic disease, included a multidisciplinary team (≥2 healthcare professionals), lasted at least six months, and had already been implemented and were active in December 2007. We developed an extraction grid and collected data pertaining to eight domains (patient population, intervention recipient, intervention content, delivery personnel, method of communication, intensity and complexity, environment, clinical outcomes). Results: We identified seven programs fulfilling our operational definition of chronic disease management. Programs targeted patients with diabetes, hypertension, heart failure, obesity, psychosis and breast cancer. Interventions were multifaceted; all included education and half considered planned follow-ups. The recipients of the interventions were patients, and healthcare professionals involved were physicians, nurses, social workers, psychologists and case managers of various backgrounds. Conclusions: In Switzerland, a country with universal healthcare insurance coverage and little incentive to develop new healthcare strategies, chronic disease management programs are scarce. For future developments, appropriate evaluations of existing programs, involvement of all healthcare stakeholders, strong leadership and political will are, at least, desirable.