Historical Narrative and Constitutional Design in Switzerland (1798-1891)

Authors

  • Jordi Jaria i Manzano Universitat Rovira i Virgili

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17811/hc.v0i22.717

Keywords:

Direct Democracy, Federalism, Constitutional Amendment, Implantation of the Liberal State, Switzerland

Abstract

The existence of the popular initiative favours the Swiss Constitution being amended on a regular basis. However, despite having undergone innumerable partial revisions and two total revisions (in 1874 and in 1999), the fundamental constitutional elements that define the identity of the political system remain unchanged since 1848, giving rise to one of the most stable states in Europe, from the constitutional point of view, and to the longest running republican regime in the Old Continent. The present work explores how the historical narrative is fundamental in the construction of the constitutional identity of the Swiss federal state, carried out through an idea of ​​continuity with the past, which provides an extremely solid foundation for the stability of the system. This paper analyses the period between the beginning of political Modernity in Switzerland, with the establishment of the Helvetic Republic in 1798, and the incorporation into the Constitution of the popular initiative for the revision of the Constitution in 1890.

Fecha de envío / Submission date: 18/01/2021

Fecha de aceptación / Acceptance date: 11/03/2021

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Downloads

Published

2021-09-04

Issue

No. 22 (2021): Historia Constitucional N. 22 (2021)

Section

NOTES

License

Copyright (c) 2021 Jordi Jaria i Manzano

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
  4. Journal can use the published works for future publications.
  5. Authors must inform the journal of later publications of their text.