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Why Does Switzerland’s Democracy Actually Work?

𝕭𝖊𝖓 𝕿𝖍𝖔𝖒𝖆𝖘
16 min readApr 19, 2025

When most Americans talk about “our democracy,” they’re actually talking about a representative republic. We elect officials who make decisions on our behalf. But that’s not what democracy meant to the ancient Athenians who invented the concept.

In Athens, democracy meant average citizens directly running the government through a process that would blow modern American minds. The cornerstone wasn’t elections — it was sortition, the random selection of officials by lottery.

This was government by jury duty.

Here’s how it worked: Athenian citizens volunteered for the candidate pool, then mechanical randomizers called kleroteria selected officials by pure chance. Sure, they checked if you were actually a citizen and not a total scoundrel, but your qualifications? Your eloquence? Your wealth? Irrelevant.

Randomness wasn’t some glitch they tolerated.

It was the entire point of the system.

According to Paul Cartledge, professor of Ancient History at Cambridge University: “The ancient Greeks took the exact opposite view [of their neighboring electoral republics]: elections were elitist and for the nobs, appropriate more for oligarchy (the rule of the few rich) than for democracy, whereas sortition, the lot, was the peculiarly democratic way of selecting most office-holders and all juror-judges to serve in the People’s jury-courts.”

The Athenians believed this random selection was fundamental to democracy. As Paul Cartledge goes on to explain: “The use of sortition provided the greatest freedom of action to encourage all qualified citizens to volunteer for important public political positions knowing that the process of selection was random, that it presupposed equality of both opportunity and outcome, that it fostered participation.”

Aristotle himself clearly stated, “it is accepted as democratic when public offices are allocated by lot; and as oligarchic when they are filled by election.” Montesquieu would later echo this view, writing that “Voting by lot is the nature of democracy; voting by choice is in the nature of aristocracy.”

Random selection nullified any advantages in wealth, charisma, or rhetorical skill — precisely the factors that dominate modern elections. As historian James Sickinger notes, true democracy was “the negative popularity contest” — a system purposely designed to prevent politics from becoming a popularity contest.

Why did the ancient Greeks go to such lengths to avoid election-based systems? Because they had identified a dangerous pattern: electoral systems inevitably become popularity contests that lead to power-hungry demagogues, who eventually establish dictatorships.

Sortition isn’t just ancient history. It’s making a comeback in modern politics. The most significant example comes from Ireland, where Citizens’ Assemblies selected by lottery have successfully tackled some of the country’s most divisive issues. In 2016–2018, a randomly selected assembly of ordinary Irish citizens deliberated on abortion rights and recommended constitutional changes that were ultimately approved by referendum. Similar assemblies in France have addressed climate policy, and in Canada they’ve reformed electoral systems. These randomly selected bodies have proven remarkably effective at breaking through partisan gridlock that elected officials couldn’t solve.

According to Brett Hennig of the Sortition Foundation, democratic lotteries could transform our broken political systems: “If citizens’ assemblies can successfully achieve thoughtful decisions about nuclear waste (in Australia), abortion and same-sex marriage (in Ireland), the constitution (in Iceland), city planning (in Canada) and a host of other topics…who needs politicians anymore?”

Swiss democracy vs. American republic: a tale of two systems

To understand how different America’s system is from true democracy, let’s compare it with Switzerland’s — one of the few modern nations that preserves significant elements of direct democracy. The contrast with our republican system is clear as day:

Swiss direct democracy

American republic

  • Limited direct democracy: No national initiatives or referendums; these tools exist only at state and local levels
  • Representative government: Emphasis on elected officials making decisions, not direct citizen participation
  • Barriers to entry: High costs of campaigns favor wealthy candidates and special interests
  • Limited power of recall: Few mechanisms to remove officials between elections
  • Constitutional amendment difficulty: Extremely difficult to amend the US Constitution compared to Swiss system
  • Elite design: Explicitly designed by the Founding Fathers to limit direct popular control
  • Selection method: Elections by popular vote, vulnerable to control by wealth, charisma, and campaign skills

According to Andreas Gross, a Swiss political scientist, Switzerland and America are “like twins that were separated at birth, grew up in different families, but maintained close contact.” While Switzerland copied federalism from the United States, the US took ideas about direct democracy from Switzerland but implemented them much more narrowly.

Some historians argue that the lack of national direct democracy in the US makes protest elections more likely. As Direct Democracy expert Dane Waters explains, “The possibility of having a voice at the national level would make a protest election like that of Donald Trump unnecessary.”

The fatal flaw: how electoral republics become dictatorships

So what’s the mechanism that transforms vibrant republics into soul-crushing dictatorships? History keeps showing us the same film with different actors:

  1. First, a charismatic figure rides a wave of legitimate grievances to power.
  2. Then executive authority mysteriously expands while other branches of government develop sudden, convenient weakness.
  3. The guardrails designed to prevent abuse get dismantled one by one — not overnight, but gradually, so each step seems small and reversible.
  4. By the time people realize what’s happening, democracy exists only in name, while the reality has morphed into something much darker.

In his most famous work, The Republic, Plato directly addressed this pattern. He warned that excessive freedom in a democracy leads to its downfall, famously stating: “Dictatorship naturally arises [out of electoral government], and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty.”

In Plato’s political analysis, democracy inevitably falls to tyranny when powerful groups separate themselves from the democratic regime and become uncontrollable forces. He asserted that an electoral government “is always susceptible to the danger of a demagogue who rises to power by pleasing the crowd and, in doing so, commits terrible acts of immorality and depravity.”

Let’s look at some historical examples that prove Plato right.

The Roman Republic’s fall

The Roman Republic stood for nearly 500 years before Julius Caesar and Augustus transformed it into an empire. But Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it didn’t collapse in one either.

The republic had been rotting from within for about a century — growing dysfunction, street violence, partisan gridlock. By the time Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon with his legions — the ultimate constitutional violation — the republic was already on life support.

After Caesar’s assassination, his nephew/heir Augustus seized the moment. He expertly played on public fears, promised to restore order, and kept just enough republican window dressing to make the medicine go down. As historian Edward J. Watts puts it, most Romans were so exhausted by instability that “Augustus told Romans he was the only one who could save Rome. And they believed him.”

The autopsy on Rome’s republic reveals causes of death that should make us sweat. According to historians, Rome died because:

Politicians weaponized procedures to punish enemies rather than solve problems. Pure obstruction blocked desperately needed economic reforms. Military commanders cultivated personal loyalty from troops who should have served the state. Political violence became normalized. “Emergency powers” accumulated in the hands of strongmen. And perhaps most fatally: widespread complacency — citizens who simply couldn’t imagine their ancient republic could actually die.

Sound familiar? It should. We’re watching the same movie with different costumes playing out across the world today.

Turkey’s democratic regression under Erdoğan

A more recent example is Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Turkey was once considered a promising model of democratic development in a challenging region. As Brookings Institution scholars note, “the initial promise of reform has given way to authoritarian and dysfunctional politics.”

After coming to power in 2002, Erdoğan gradually consolidated control through a series of moves:

The Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany

The most notorious example is the collapse of Germany’s Weimar Republic. After World War I, Germany established a democratic constitution, but it contained fatal flaws — especially Article 48, which gave the president emergency powers.

When Hitler was appointed Chancellor in January, 1933, he quickly exploited this weakness. After the Reichstag fire, he convinced President Hindenburg to invoke Article 48, suspending civil liberties. This was followed by the Enabling Act, which allowed Hitler’s government to issue laws without parliamentary approval.

To ensure the law’s passage, Nazi leadership used intimidation, preventing all Communist and many Social Democrat representatives from voting. With this law in place, Hitler swiftly dismantled democratic institutions and created a one-party dictatorship.

The Weimar case illustrates perfectly what political scientists now identify as a crucial ingredient in democratic collapse: the willingness of political elites to abandon democratic norms. As scholar Larry Bartels observes: “Democracies will only collapse if actors deliberately disassemble them, and the key actors in this disassembling process are political elites.”

Modern examples of democratic backsliding

The examples of Rome, Germany, and Turkey are far from isolated cases. Around the world, we’ve seen numerous examples of electoral democracies transforming into authoritarian regimes in recent decades. The playbook is remarkably similar from country to country.

Russia under Vladimir Putin

Initially elected democratically in 2000 following Boris Yeltsin’s resignation, Putin has systematically dismantled democratic institutions and extended his rule through constitutional amendments. After serving as both president and prime minister, constitutional changes in 2020 effectively reset his term limits, potentially allowing him to remain in power until 2036. That’s not a typo — twenty thirty-six. Who says you can’t have a president-for-life if you just keep changing the constitution?

Venezuela under Chávez and Maduro

Hugo Chávez was democratically elected in 1998 but gradually consolidated power through constitutional changes, media control, and weakening of opposition. His successor Nicolás Maduro has accelerated democratic erosion, with elections widely considered fraudulent and opposition leaders imprisoned or exiled. Venezuela went from one of Latin America’s longest-standing democracies to an authoritarian nightmare in under two decades.

Hungary under Viktor Orbán

Since returning to power in 2010, Orbán and his Fidesz party have implemented what they call “illiberal democracy.” This has included rewriting the constitution, capturing the judiciary, taking control of most media outlets, and changing electoral laws to favor the ruling party. Orbán has been brutally honest about his intentions, openly declaring that liberal democracy has failed and that his model is the future. And the EU has largely sat back and watched it happen.

Poland under Law and Justice (PiS)

Between 2015 and 2023, Poland experienced significant democratic backsliding under the PiS party, which compromised judicial independence and media freedom. Recent elections have begun to reverse some of these trends, making Poland one of the few examples of a country that’s potentially pulling back from the authoritarian brink. But the damage done to its institutions will take decades to repair.

Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko

Initially elected democratically in 1994, Lukashenko has maintained power through increasingly authoritarian methods, culminating in the widely disputed 2020 election that triggered mass protests which were violently suppressed. Often called “Europe’s last dictator,” Lukashenko has ruled for 30 years and shows no signs of relinquishing control.

Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos

Elected president in 1965, Marcos declared martial law in 1972, suspending elections and ruling by decree until his overthrow in 1986. He used constitutional manipulation to extend his power well beyond normal term limits. In a bizarre twist of historical amnesia, his son Ferdinand Marcos Jr. was elected president in 2022 — proof that even the most brutal dictatorships can be rehabilitated in just a generation.

Peru under Alberto Fujimori

Democratically elected in 1990, Fujimori staged an “auto-coup” in 1992, dissolving Congress and suspending the constitution. Though he restored democratic institutions in form, he ruled increasingly as an autocrat until being forced to resign in 2000. His justification? Fighting terrorism and economic crisis required “extraordinary measures.” It’s always an emergency when would-be dictators want to grab power.

Egypt after the Arab Spring

Following the overthrow of longtime dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011, Egypt held democratic elections that brought Mohamed Morsi to power. However, after Morsi’s overthrow in 2013, General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi took power and has systematically eliminated opposition and civil liberties while maintaining the facade of elections. The Arab Spring’s democratic promise lasted all of two years before military rule returned.

Nicaragua under Daniel Ortega

After returning to power through democratic elections in 2007, Ortega has eliminated term limits, cracked down on opposition, and consolidated control over all branches of government. The 2021 election was widely considered a sham after potential opponents were jailed. Ortega, once a revolutionary who fought against dictatorship, has become what he once claimed to despise.

Myanmar’s democratic reversal

After a promising transition to partial democracy under Aung San Suu Kyi from 2015–2021, Myanmar’s military staged a coup in February 2021, arresting elected officials and violently suppressing protests. This shows how fragile democratic transitions can be when powerful unelected forces like the military retain significant power.

Each of these countries followed a similar pattern: initial democratic reforms or elections, followed by the gradual erosion of checks and balances, manipulation of electoral systems, and concentration of power in the executive. The specifics differ, but the trajectory from electoral democracy to authoritarian rule remains remarkably consistent.

What’s particularly alarming is that this democratic rot isn’t slowing down — it’s spreading like a political pandemic. The latest Democracy Index from the Economist Intelligence Unit shows global democracy scores plummeting from 5.52 in 2006 to a rock-bottom 5.17 in 2024. More than one-third of humanity now lives under authoritarian rule, with 60 countries classified as full-blown dictatorships — eight more than just a decade ago.

Even the so-called bastions of representative government are taking on water. The United States remains stuck in what the index calls “flawed democracy” territory — a demotion it earned in 2016 and can’t seem to shake. France just got kicked out of the “full democracy” club after a year of political chaos. And South Korea tumbled below the democracy threshold following its 2024 political meltdown.

As Joan Hoey, Director of the Democracy Index puts it: “While autocracies seem to be gaining strength, as shown by the index trend since 2006, the world’s democracies are struggling.” The message is becoming painfully clear: republican governance isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it system. It needs constant maintenance — and simply holding elections every few years isn’t enough to keep the machinery from breaking down.

Ancient democratic safeguards: what we can learn

The ancient Athenians understood these risks and designed their democracy with specific safeguards against demagogues and would-be tyrants. Their most famous innovation was ostracism — a procedure allowing citizens to temporarily exile powerful individuals who threatened democratic stability.

How ostracism worked

Think of ostracism as the ancient world’s ultimate political cancel culture — but with actual consequences. Here’s how they did it:

Once a year, Athenians got to vote on whether anyone had gotten too big for their britches. If they said yes, a vote was scheduled two months later — enough time for everyone to cool down and think things through.

On voting day, citizens scratched a name on a piece of broken pottery called an ostrakon and tossed it in the pile. If your name showed up on at least 6,000 shards, congratulations! You just won an all-expenses-paid decade-long exile.

The good news was that you kept your property and citizenship. The bad news was that you couldn’t come home for 10 years.

Historian James Sickinger calls ostracism “a way to get rid of potential tyrants” who hadn’t actually broken any laws but who “posed a threat to civic order.” It was preventative medicine for the body politic — removing the tumor before it turns malignant.

The procedure was remarkably effective. Among those ostracized were relatives of the tyrant Peisistratos, preventing a return to tyranny.

Modern applications of ancient wisdom

So how do we take these dusty Athenian ideas and make them work in a world of TikTok and AI?

Here are six concrete recommendations:

  1. Cap political careers with ironclad term limits, not just for presidents but all the way down the food chain.
  2. Create real recall powers so voters can fire politicians between elections when they go rogue.
  3. Draft ordinary citizens by lottery for special commissions or even legislative bodies — like jury duty, but for making laws instead of enforcing them.
  4. Set up citizens’ assemblies — random groups of everyday people — to tackle the big constitutional questions politicians are too scared to touch.
  5. Force cooling-off periods before any major constitutional changes, so we don’t rewrite the rules of democracy in the heat of partisan fever.
  6. Create anti-corruption agencies with actual teeth, not just the ability to write strongly-worded reports.

The Swiss are already doing some of this. Their system forces referendums on major changes and gives citizens multiple chances to slam the brakes on bad ideas. Their initiatives take 4–8 years to work through the system — glacially slow by Twitter standards, but fast enough to address real problems while slow enough to avoid catastrophic mistakes.

What’s more, some of these old-meets-new democratic tools are already breaking into our systems. Yale researchers point to lottery-selected citizen assemblies popping up worldwide. Ireland used one in 2016 to tackle abortion laws, breaking decades of religious-political gridlock. The UK convened ordinary citizens to figure out the Brexit mess their politicians created. France recently let randomly selected citizens map out assisted suicide policy.

These randomly selected bodies are smashing through partisan barriers that have infuriated career politicians for years. Researcher Alexandra Cirone diagnoses our current malaise: “There is democratic fatigue among voters who don’t feel as though they are being represented or included in politics. And government has been captured by elites who have little connection to the average voter.”

These “mini-publics” — ordinary citizens selected by lottery — have already resolved seemingly intractable issues from gay marriage to climate policy. They’re not wholesale replacements for our current institutions, but they might be the democratic booster shot our failing systems desperately need.

Democracy is not about elections

The verdict of history is in, and it’s brutal: electoral republics keep falling to dictators who game the very democratic systems designed to prevent tyranny. This isn’t a weird coincidence or a random bug — it’s a fundamental flaw in governments that fetishize elections while neglecting democracy’s deeper foundations.

The ancient Athenians understood this trap and built safeguards against it. Their democracy wasn’t just an election day festival — it was a comprehensive system for spreading power widely, preventing its concentration, and giving regular citizens direct control over their government.

Modern research backs up what the Greeks figured out through trial and error. Political scientist Nancy Bermeo cuts through the fog: “Democracies will only collapse if actors deliberately disassemble them, and the key actors in this disassembling process are political elites.” Average citizens don’t typically vote for dictatorship — they watch, confused or distracted, while power-hungry leaders dismantle democratic guardrails one by one.

The toolkit of would-be autocrats has evolved dramatically. As researchers have documented, modern strongmen rarely storm the palace or cancel elections outright. Instead, they surgically alter electoral rules, stack courts with loyalists, muzzle critical media, and hijack the language of democracy while gutting its substance — a process experts call “dictatorial drift.”

This research shatters another myth: economic failure isn’t the primary trigger for democratic collapse. While poor governance can grease the skids, the real engine is the willingness of leaders to torch democratic norms for personal gain. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán didn’t exploit his country’s institutional weaknesses because of economic necessity — he did it because nobody stopped him.

As America navigates the treacherous waters of polarization, economic uncertainty, and eroding democratic norms, we’d better remember the ancients’ hard-won wisdom: democracy demands more than just periodic trips to the voting booth. It requires robust institutions that prevent power from concentrating, mechanisms for citizens to participate directly in governance, and iron-clad safeguards against demagogues looking to exploit popular anger.

American democracy’s future depends on our ability to recognize these patterns and adapt our institutions accordingly. The ancient Greeks cracked this code 2,500 years ago. Let’s not be the civilization that was too arrogant to learn from history.

Bibliography

Politics
Democracy
Democracy In America
Republican Party
History

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𝕭𝖊𝖓 𝕿𝖍𝖔𝖒𝖆𝖘
𝕭𝖊𝖓 𝕿𝖍𝖔𝖒𝖆𝖘

Written by 𝕭𝖊𝖓 𝕿𝖍𝖔𝖒𝖆𝖘

4.8K followers
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http://www.HouseBlackwood.net

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