The ‘participationnist state’ and the ‘apathetic citizen’: educationalizing the ‘problem of non–voting’ in postwar Switzerland (1940s–1970s)

Abstract

Should citizens be educated into voting? Is non-voting a ‘problem’ for democracies, and, if yes, can it be educationalized? This article examines public debates on non-voting and its ‘educationalization’ in post-war Switzerland, in order to analyse the renegotiation of citizenship norms and ideals at a time when the priority of voting over other, non-institutional forms of political participation was increasingly contested. With a longstanding emphasis on (male) citizens’ participation in institutional politics, Switzerland as a ‘participationist state’ is an interesting case study to observe tensions surrounding participation and its promotion among citizens. After the Second World War, Swiss political elites had already reinforced their efforts to cultivate voting as a ‘civic duty’ among young men, as they feared a weakening of the ‘citizen-soldier’ ideal. With the further rise and associated problematization of non-voting in the 1960s and 1970s, attempts to curb this phenomenon through educational measures peaked, but encountered latent or open resistance. The difficulties (or the impossibility) of educationalizing non-voting thus revealed a growing disconnect between the dominant (and gendered) framing of non-voting as a manifestation of an unacceptable passivity to be ‘cured’ by educational measures, and the demand for forms of political participation other than voting articulated by the 1968 social movements. Ultimately, these debates exemplify a series of key tensions in contemporary democracies. The first is the tension between inclusion and exclusion, from the late enfranchisement of women in 1971 to the still-unsettled question of the political role of non-citizen residents. The second is the contested prioritization of voting in relation to other forms of participation. Third and finally, the focus on promoting voting as a ‘civic duty’ collided with the recurrent search for a balance between rights and duties within citizenship, and, linked to that, between emancipatory and paternalist dynamics in attempts to ‘mould’ citizens.