In the 34th issue of the journal Social Change in Switzerland, Anke Tresch, Line Rennwald and Lukas Lauener show that the proportion of people who do not feel close to any party has risen sharply in Switzerland since the 1970s. They now account for around 70% of voters. With the exception of the national-conservative party “Democratic Union of the Centre” (SVP in German), all the major parties are affected by the decline in party affiliation.
An analysis of all the national post-election surveys from 1971 to 2019 (with over 40,000 participants) shows that in 1971, over half the people questioned still identified with a party. But in 2019, only 30 per cent still identified with a party - a low figure by international comparison. The decline in the number of people identifying with a party was greatest for the former Christian Democratic People's Party (CVP), with a fall of two-thirds, followed by the socialist party (SP), with a halving. Conversely, the proportion of people identifying with the SVP doubled between 1999 and 2019.
People with no party identification are less interested in politics and participate less in federal elections. They are therefore harder for the parties to mobilise. At the same time, they are a numerically important group, and all the parties need to win over some of these voters in order to maintain their electoral strength. Since the mid-1990s, the SVP has been the most successful at doing this. The SP, on the other hand, has achieved below-average electoral results among people with no party identification.
The typical profile of the non-party-affiliated is female, young and non-denominational - and therefore does not correspond to the social profile of the typical SVP voter (male, older, Protestant). However, non-party members are similar to the SVP electorate in terms of their socio-economic characteristics (often without a university degree and with low to medium incomes) and their political stance against EU membership and higher social spending. In the run-up to the 2023 elections, the SVP is therefore the party best placed to win the votes of many people with no party identification. However, with clear demands in favour of women and the younger generation, the other parties could also score points with this section of the electorate.
>> Tresch, Anke, Rennwald, Line & Lauener, Lukas (2023). L'évolution des identifications partisanes en Suisse 1971-2019. Social Change in Switzerland, N°34, www.socialchangeswitzerland.ch
Contact:
- Prof. Anke Tresch, FORS & Université de Lausanne, 021 692 37 31, ankedaniela.tresch@unil.ch
The series Social Change in Switzerland continuously documents the evolution of the social structure in Switzerland. It is published jointly by the Swiss Competence Centre for Social Sciences FORS and the LIVES Centre - The Swiss Competence Centre for Research on Life Courses and Vulnerabilities. The aim is to trace changes in employment, family, income, mobility, voting or gender in Switzerland. Based on state-of-the-art empirical research, it is aimed at a wider audience than just specialists.