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The @NZZ published a portrait of the SVP on the eve of their election of a new president. The authors called it "a journey into the interior of the largest party in Switzerland". The article is based on interviews with party representatives at different organizational levels (1) https://twitter.com/aline_wanner/status/1296697564507537408
The authors ask: Who is the SVP today? What topics does the party focus on? How does it become conservative modern? As a researcher for the @_PiAP project, I have also had the opportunity to talk to over 30 SVP representatives (reps) over the last few months.(2)
The article then describes the party as an organization that faces a detachment between the party elite and the base because of ignorance of new topics such as climate change, its professionalism, and style of leadership. (3)
I argue that these findings are very insightful but miss some important aspects. No doubt, individual accounts, and views are important to understand and explain the SVP's past successes and current challenges but that is only part of the tale. (4)
In my view, the article focuses too much on personal stories of individual figures. It overlooks certain important aspects such as the SVP's efforts to build a mass party model, centralization in the context of a decentralized political system, and charisma as a marketing tool(5)
First, most interviewed SVP representatives agreed that there are different opinions on topics within the party but they emphasized this diversity as a strength. What still unites party members are shared ideological views and a sense of community (us vs them). (6)
Those are important incentives that facilitate a mass party model, which is also prevalent in other parties and serves as an explanation of why the SVP attracts members with a similar political ideology and why they strongly commit to the party. (7) https://doi.org/10.1080/23248823.2016.1193349
In short, in my view, preserving Swiss values and being part of a community of like-minded individuals are often more important for existing members than personal agreement with the party programme or promotion of more progressive policies. (8)
Second, an important cleavage lies within the organizational structure: national centralization vs. (somewhat) autonomous sub-national entities. In 2016, the party created an executive committee (Parteileitungsausschuss) with far-reaching competences. (9) https://www.svp.ch/partei/organisation/organe/parteileitungsausschuss/
Thereby, the national SVP centralized its decision-making power and communication control. This structure allows for more efficient management, quick homogenous responses, and implementation of effective national campaigns, but sometimes ignores sub-national needs (10)
Further centralization of power is shown in the party organs. Cantons with more electoral strength are allowed to send more delegates to the national assembly and the six cantons with the most voters have a seat in the head office (Parteileitung). (11)
Those aspects seem to undermine equal participation of all cantonal branches in decision-making processes and question the "supreme position" of the delegate assembly. However, the SVP relies on all branches and should keep this in mind, despite further centralization. (12)
Cantonal SVP branches and local sections are important to grow an active base that ensures electoral strength. But in the decentralized Swiss political landscape, they have to respond to regional contexts and sometimes deviate from national recommendations. (13)
The @NZZ article overlooks the context of the federal system and linguistic regions, where party representatives have to develop tailored strategies within specific cultural and political environments. What works for the SVP in Zurich may not work for the UDC in Geneva. (14)
In short, if the SVP wants to connect with the base and benefit from its organizational intensiveness (large network of local sections), it needs to balance national centralization, sub-national representation, and cantonal autonomy. (15)
Third, the article mentions the detachment of key figures (Blocher, Köppel, Matter, etc.) with the base. In my interviews, this view was echoed but many reps also made a distinction between personal agreement and the importance of charismatic leaders for party branding. (16)
At the local level, the party leaders' dominant position and media appearance help to strengthen the brand of the SVP and awareness of core topics but they sometimes impede the further development of a large activist member base. (17)
In public, local representatives are often faced with questions that revolve around controversial statements of well-known party leaders instead of the SVP's policies. This, in turn, makes it difficult to have a dialogue and to recruit new members - especially young people. (18)
In short, what helps to strengthen the brand and mobilization of existing members, may not facilitate the recruitment of new (younger) members. (19)
To sum up, individual accounts of disagreement with party elites and core topics are informative. But structural aspects such as efforts to build a mass party and centralization of power in a federal system are important to evaluate the SVP's present and future challenges. (end)
