ABSTRACT
The direct economic and social effects of globalization led to many unsettling changes for Switzerland and its inhabitants, removing many of the certainties of the Sonderfall and introducing new political divisions. The collapse of the Soviet Empire and the transformation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) into a semi-democratic Russian Federation profoundly altered the international context within which Switzerland had, so happily and successfully, existed in the past. The ending of the Cold War not only challenged traditional views of neutrality as such. It also created a new situation for Swiss foreign policy in general, since from being sharply divided, the world became more confusing and often multipolar. The new difficulties for Switzerland with Europe really started in the late 1980s with changes in the European Community. It had also widened both its policy scope and, especially, its intensity of integration, thanks to the Single European Act.
