ABSTRACT
In Switzerland’s political system, military power and efficiency are only supposed to develop in emergency cases. One can therefore regard the Swiss militia system as an attempt to install an all-embracing civil democratic primacy rooted in a deep mistrust of military power. Of particular importance to the aspect of democratic control of the armed forces is the fact that most military functions are available to the citizen-soldiers. The nation-in-arms principle, almost ideally institutionalised in Switzerland, implies a swing in civil-military relations: during the transition from democratic peacetime into a state of war, a partially latent, partially manifest militarisation of society takes place, almost inevitably, through the process of mobilisation. Concurrently, this transition changes civil-military relations. Though democratic supremacy, as guaranteed during peacetime, is not suspended, a latent shift towards greater political influence of the military transpires with all its risks of weakening the civil primacy.
