ABSTRACT
Switzerland is one of the oldest federations in the world. It is often seen as a success story in terms of management of ethno-linguistic diversity. This small federation, where four languages and two religions coexist with deep regional economic disparities, seems to have found the way to manage diversity successfully. The following sections, however, show the inconsistency that lies at the core of Swiss federalism. Swiss federalism rests on a state/society incongruence where the federal constitution creating twenty-six cantons coexists with a social structure composed of two main linguistic/cultural communities. In addition to these two large groups of French-speaking Swiss Romand and German Swiss, there are two smaller linguistic groups in the form of Italian-speakers and Rhaeto-Romansche speakers. To add to the complexity, the cantonal borders do not neatly correspond to either linguistic or religious fault-lines.
