ABSTRACT
Considering the technical, economic, and social developments of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, which are far from being completed, the stiff territorial and constitutional organization of 26 fully sovereign cantons might seem rather averse to adaptation. In Switzerland, however, "one must be cautious in imagining the existence of a continuous centralization process which assigns ever more room for manoeuvre to the Federation and ever less to the cantons". In international comparison, Switzerland continues to dispose of very decentralized revenue and expenditure structures with a share of more than 40 per cent of the national tax revenue contributed by the subnational entities. Representation of women in the cantonal parliaments has constantly increased since 1971. In April 2017, the proportion of women in the cantonal parliaments amounted to 27.2 percent. In Switzerland, local politics continue to be characterized less by conflictual and ideological disputes than cantonal and federal politics, as municipality size increases, both the number and intensity of conflict rises, too.
