Learning from Helvetia?
Switzerland – Model or Special Case?
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
When the pacification of conflicts between nationalities in a multi-lingual, multi-ethnic environment is at stake, the reference to Switzerland is not far away. But the Swiss model’s transferability is limited. Without the support of society, the will of the state, and the consensus of the elite, the institutions of conflict resolution as they developed in Switzerland in a long process of state-building do not allow themselves to be transferred. But Switzerland remains at any rate an example of a political order where the cantons represent the key to linguistic peace, where the term minority has nothing pejorative about it, and where institutions and values were developed that release an enormous integrating force.
(Osteuropa 11/2007, pp. 27–46)