Bezirksdaten zur Sozialstruktur und zum Stimmverhalten bei eidgenössischen Volksabstimmungen im Zeitraum 1870 - 2000

With the project "Conflict Lines in the Federal State" we investigated the controversial but little explored question of the extent to which political structures dampen conflicts, or whether concordance only contributes to a balance once the conflicts in society have already peaked. The case study Switzerland was used to investigate:
- the evolution and development of the lines of conflict;
- the clashes of interests as they emerged at the level of the political elite as well as possible connections between the behaviour of political parties in the voting struggle and the voting behaviour of the population;
- the forerunning or following up of political integration in relation to institutional change towards concordance;
- the political practice of the Swiss governing parties over time and how strongly this practice corresponds to the model of concordance.
The central thesis of concordance theory was that political stability can be achieved in socio-structurally heterogeneous societies if, firstly, the political elites behave cooperatively and, secondly, they are able to convince their respective social basis of the compromises achieved. The four cleavages identified by Lipset and Rokkan in 1967 and the "new" lines of conflict identified by various researchers who have further developed the Cleavage concept are regarded as structural opposites that have led to ongoing conflicts of interest and ultimately to the formation of different parties in Western Europe. For Switzerland, seven normative lines of conflict have emerged over a longer period of time, namely the opposites church-state, federalism-centralism, the conflict between the various language groups, the conflict dimensions urban-rural, labour-capital, "materialism-post-materialism" and "modernisation-tradition".