election campaigns; political parties; political communication; political history; Swiss post-war history
Kergomard Zoé (2018), Les campagnes électorales fédérales à l’âge d’or de la "concordance". Quelle compétition électorale derrière le "modèle suisse"?, in Garçon François, Perseil Sonny, Pesqueux Yvon (ed.), L'Harmattan, Paris , 43-58.
SkenderovicDamir (2017), Populism: A History of the Concept, in Heinisch Reinhard C. (ed.), Nomos, Baden-Baden, 41-59.
Oscar Mazzoleni, Gerrit Voerman (2016), Memberless parties: Beyond the business-firm party model?, in
Party Politics, 1-10.
SkenderovicDamir (2016), Populisme, in Christin Olivier (ed.), Métailié, Paris, 83-102.
Zoé Kergomard (2016), Rennwald, Line: Partis socialistes et classe ouvrière: ruptures et continuités du lien électoral en Suisse, en Autriche, en Allemagne, en Grande-Bretagne et en France : 1970-2008, in
Traverse, 201-203.
Oscar Mazzoleni (2016), Staying away from the mainstream: the case of the Swiss People’s Party, in Tjitski Akkerman (ed.), Routledge, New York, 252-275.
Oscar Mazzoleni (2015), Between Opposition and Government: The Swiss People’s Party, in Frank Decker (ed.), Nomos Verlag, Baden-Baden, 111-128.
Carolina Rossini (2015), Fra perdita di consensi e reazioni al cambiamento. I partiti politici ticinesi negli anni ’70 e ’80, in
Archivio storico ticinese, 158, 49-74.
Damir Skenderovic (2014), Rechtspopulismus nach 1945: Die Schweiz im europäischen Vergleich, in
Revue transatlantique d’études suisses, (4), 43-59.
Skenderovic Damir (2013), Bauern, Mittelstand, Nation: Imaginationen und Metamorphosen der Schweizerischen Volkspartei im 20. Jahrhundert, in MazzoleniOscar, Meuwly Olivier (ed.), NZZ Libro, Zürich, 49-76.
Oscar Mazzoleni (2013), Des convergences inhabituelles: l'Union démocratique du Centre et le Parti socialiste dans l'arène parlementaire fédérale, in Oscar Mazzoleni (ed.), Slatkine, Genève, 89-108.
Oscar Mazzoleni, Olivier Meuwly (2013),
Die Parteien in Bewegung. Nachbarschaft und Konflikt, NZZ Libro Verlag, Zurich.
Oscar Mazzoleni, Olivier Meuwly (2013),
Les partis politiques suisses en mouvement, Slatkine, Genève.
Skenderovic Damir (2013), Paysannerie, classe moyenne et nation: imaginaires et métamorphoses de l’Union démocratique du centre au XXe siècle, in Mazzoleni Oscar, Meuwly Olivier (ed.), Slatkine, Genève, 45-70.
Oscar Mazzoleni (2013), Ungewöhnliche Konvergenzen. Die Schweizerische Volkspartei und die Sozialdemokratische Partei in der parlamentarischen Arena der Eidgenossenschaft, in Oscar Mazzoleni (ed.), Neue Zürcher Zeitung Verlag, Zurich, 99-122.
Kergomard Zoé, "Plus de liberté, moins d’Etat"? Le néolibéralisme comme recette miracle à la crise des partis suisses au tournant des années 1980, in Ludi Regula, Ruoss Matthias, Schmitter Leena (ed.), Chronos, Zürich.
Zoé Kergomard, An die Urnen, Schweizerinnen! Die Erfindung der Wählerin im eidgenössischen Wahlkampf von 1971, in Hedwig Richter (ed.), VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden.
Kergomard Zoé, De la représentation-mandat à la représentation-figuration? Les processus de sélection des candidat.e.s aux élections fédérales des années 1940 aux années 1980, in
Traverse, revue d'histoire.
Oscar Mazzoleni, Political achievements, party system changes and government participation: the case of the ‘new’ Swiss people’s Party, in Steven Wolinetz (ed.), ECPR Press, Colchester.
Oscar Mazzoleni, Carolina Rossini, The Swiss People’s Party. Converting and Enhancing Organization by a new Leadership, in Reinhard Heinisch (ed.), Palgrave, London.
Heinisch Reinhard, Oscar Mazzoleni,
Understanding populist organization: the European Radical Right parties, Palgrave, London.
The main aim of the proposed project is to examine continuity and change in election campaigns that have been led by the main Swiss political parties in the post-war period. Taking an historical approach, the research includes, on the one hand, an examination of the development that has taken place in the organisation of campaigning in particular with regard to the internal discussions, negotiations and decision-making that political parties undertake when preparing, designing and leading election campaigns. On the other hand, the project analyses communication patterns and discourses that political parties adopt in order to address the public in election campaigns and which they use to cast the relevance and interpretation of particular political and social issues. The analysis of these two key areas in the study of campaigning is placed against the background of the specific cultural and institutional settings that have impregnated the history of post-war Switzerland.The proposed project examines and compares the four main political parties that have continuously played a key role in federal elections and government, namely the Liberal-Democratic Party (FDP), Christian-Democratic Party (CVP), Swiss People's Party (SVP) and Social-Democratic Party (SPS). The election campaigns in the seven federal election years of 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1991, 1999 and 2007 are taken as case studies. Each election year represents a time when contextual factors and/or the transformation of the party system caused specific challenges to the four main parties. Taking account of the federal structure of the country’s political system, the project looks not only at the national level, but also at the cantonal level - namely the cantons of Zurich, Vaud and Ticino, which represent the largest cantons in each of the country’s three language regions. The main part of the corpus of sources and documents draws from party archives that are located in public archives and party offices, and which so far remain largely unexploited. An initial investigation of all sixteen party archives (four at the national level and twelve within the three cantons) has revealed the richness of these holdings and allows a comprehensive examination of the parties’ organisational and preparatory campaign work, as well as their election campaigns. Further sources include documents (ads, announcements, interviews, etc) dealing with matters relating to elections that have been published in newspapers during the period of the election campaign. For the elections that took place in the 2000s, the research also considers electronic sources, such as party websites and other election material. The collected sources and documents will be evaluated and analysed in order to hermeneutically reconstruct the discourses and practices that political parties adopt in election campaigns.An important objective of the project is to support the recent revitalisation of historical Swiss party research and contribute to it catching up with its Anglo-Saxon, German and French counterparts, where in the field of political history has been considerably renewed in recent years. The organisation of an international conference at the end of the research will give the opportunity to bring together leading scholars in the study of party campaigning and to present the results of the research. Moreover, the research project integrates two PhD studies and therefore contributes to the advancement of young academic careers. Since questions of party politics and election campaigns have, in recent years, excited more interest in Switzerland, the proposed research project also seeks to achieve the wide diffusion of its findings, and to reach out not only to the scientific community, but also to the general public.