ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Switzerland as a relatively unknown experimenter with both democratization and de-democratization. It explains how can trace movement along the democracy-undemocracy dimension, whether regimes that have entered the zone of possibility for democracy then become more liable to both democratization and de-democratization, and whether democratization and de-democratization typically occur at different tempos and with different forms of opposition between state and citizen power. The French Revolution shook Switzerland's economic and political ties to France while exposing Swiss people to new French models and doctrines. A constitutional approach concentrates on laws a regime enacts concerning political activity. Within democracies the chapter examines distinguish between constitutional monarchies, presidential systems, and parliament-centered arrangements. Advocates of procedural definitions single out a narrow range of governmental practices to determine whether a regime qualifies as democratic. The great bulk of historical regimes have fallen into the low-capacity undemocratic sector. Many of the biggest and most powerful, however, have dwelt in high-capacity undemocratic sector.
