ABSTRACT
Swiss politics were regarded as an essential part of the overall post-war national achievement, the creation of the Sonderfall Schweiz, the Swiss special case. It was direct democracy which was responsible for many of the changes in the constitution. Hence, from the 1960s there had been moves to revise the constitution to make it more usable and reader friendly, but consultation on this failed to offer much support. It was tasked with upholding national independence and security, as well as scrutinizing the executive and the working of federalism. Swiss democracy, as people will see, managed to deal with the problem quite effectively in the end. So, as the next chapter shows, there was considerable support for combining economic closeness with political detachment from the European Community, a recipe which seemed to work very well and to the benefit of the Sonderfall and its supporters.
