Comparing Federal Republics: United States and Switzerland - Essay Example

The unification of the different states that form the United States of America and the effective coordination of the state’s economic, social and political functions was a great step that is attributed to the sovereignty of the USA. The US has little of indigenous inhabitants and many of the inhabitants are foreigners. On the other hand, Switzerland has equally undergone through tremendous evolution in economic, social cultural and political structure to form the current federal state of Switzerland.

Concerning the administrative structure, Switzerland is a confederation of many cantons, which would resemble the states in the case of America and whose autonomy and supremacy in matters of self-governance is unquestionable. Nevertheless, critical studies on the two countries reveal interesting similarities as well as differences, which would describe the autonomy of each. The basic question that would therefore guide this paper would be, ‘what strategic similarities and differences characterize the U.

S and Switzerland in matters of politics of collective identity, as well as in relation to governance for the states and cantons in case of the U.S and Switzerland respectively?’ Moreover, ‘what democratic ideals govern these countries and what impact does the governance have over the respective economies?’ Background information Switzerland: Swiss confederation or better known as the Switzerland republic is one of the landlocked countries in Western Europe (Ehs, 2004, p. 3). Switzerland is relatively small in land area with an approximate land coverage of about 41.

2 thousand square kilometers, which harbors a population of about eight million people. Majority of the citizens reside on the Swiss plateau, which covers a larger area and contains the main economic hub cities of the republic of Switzerland, which include Geneva and Zurich. Switzerland is a federal state, which commands great diversity in linguistic and cultural background with four distinct cultural orientations of German, Romansh, French as well as Italian being dominant. The history of Switzerland, as a sovereign state, dates back from 1848, the year when the Swiss constitution was adopted.

However, the formation of federal cantons, which were later to form the sovereign federal state dates back earlier to the thirteenth century, where in 1291, a confederation of states (which would lead to the formation of the present day Switzerland) started to form and persisted for centuries. The traditional communities, who lived in the valley regions between the Alps Mountains, were the first to form confederacies, which would ensure peace and security within the trade routes passing through the region.

Switzerland illustrates quite an interesting phenomenon in its system of governance where the federal state evolved from a central feudal system into the modern day democracy (Hirzel, 2010, p. 7). Switzerland multiparty political framework is based around three main structural pillars, which are federalism, consensus democracy as well as direct democracy. Besides being instituted around the merged cantons, Switzerland is restructured into communes, which form the basic and lowest political functioning units (Ladner, 2011, p. 12-17). Among the leading political parties of Switzerland are the UDC, PRD, PDC as well as PS. U.S The sovereignty of a great nation such as America comes through