Beyond the "Röstigraben": the Swiss Electorate Divided About the EU

Jose Anson, Universal Postal Union
Olivier Cadot, HEC, Université de Lausanne

Abstract

This paper analyses the EEA and bilateral agreements vote results at the level of 3025 communities of the Swiss Confederation by simultaneously modelling the vote and the participation decisions. Regressions include economic and political factors. The economic variables are the aggregated shares of people employed in the losing, winning and neutral sectors, according to BRUNETTI, JAGGI and WEDER (1998) classification, which follows a Ricardo-Viner logic, and the average education levels, which follows a Heckscher-Ohlin approach. The political factors are those used in the recent literature. The results are extremely precise and consistent. Most variables have the predicted sign and are significant at the 1 % level. More than 80 % of the communities' vote variance is explained by the model, substantially reducing the residuals when compared to former studies. The political variables do have the expected signs and are significant as well. Our results underline the importance of the interaction between electoral choice and participation decisions as well as the importance of simultaneously dealing with those issues. Eventually they reveal the electorate's high level of information and rationality.