Abstract
This analytical chapter reaches the peak of the theoretical and methodological path followed so far to deconstruct the epistemological hypocrisy and unproven apriorism concerning state sovereignty that prevents the sovereignty issue from properly being addressed. The research question on the impact of Swiss-EU bilateralism on Swiss sovereignty in an Europeanised context is answered through empirics from statistical analysis that depict the credibility of the claims of Swiss state sovereignty. Data from the survey of experts produce a large number of significant statistics concerning many individual items creating Likert scales. This confirms the goodness of the methodological procedure. Moreover, by running different groups or repeated measures ANOVAs, the data unequivocally support the two research hypotheses. Both Swiss-EU bilateralism and comitology comparatively affect the presence of the erosive components of sovereignty within the three configurations of Swiss policy implementation. The presence of (1) uncontrolled (2) plurality of principals, (3) path dependence and (4) functional/cultivated spillover varies by comparing C1 to C2 and C3 and by comparing C2 and C3. This confirms that it cannot be said that Swiss-EU bilateralism and comitology do not affect the credibility of the claims of Swiss sovereignty. Yet, the interpretation of the direction of this effect is prudent. On the one hand, it is clear that there is evidence of sovereignty erosion concerning control and accountability and spillover due to bilateralism and joint committees. On the other hand, credibility occasionally increases in what pertains to the Swiss central role that is not seriously threatened by external actors.
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Notes
- 1.
Hypothesis 1 (H1): the comparison between implementations of directly/indirectly Europeanised Swiss public policies displays a changing credibility of the Swiss claim of the presence of state sovereignty within them. Hypothesis 2 (H2): the activity within Swiss-EU joint committees implementing directly Europeanised Swiss policies affects the credibility of the Swiss claim of the presence of state sovereignty.
- 2.
The analyses have been run using the IBM Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS – PASW).
- 3.
In a longitudinal perspective, this can be seen as equivalent to submitting the same questionnaire to the same population at three different times. The population remains the same, but the number of answers increases.
- 4.
Implementation of non-directly Europeanised Swiss policies, whose competence is exclusively domestic, is the archetypical situation in which the expected sovereign control may always be invoked as to come (see Chaps. from 1, 2, 3 and 4), the claim of ultimate sovereign control and decision to come, even after the manifest succession of T1, T2 and T3 (see Chap. 5), is thus hypocritically credible in default of counterevidence.
- 5.
Even if Diagram 7.1 may graphically suggest the idea of necessarily obtaining positive deltas, it is important to remember that measures of the sovereignty erosion indicators can also be negative and decrease when shifting from C1 to C2 and C3.
- 6.
“One of the main issues concerns the scale’s internal consistency. This refers to the degree to which the items that make up the scale ‘hang together’. Are they all measuring the same underlying construct? One of the most commonly used indicators of internal consistency is Crombach’s alpha coefficient” (Pallant 2010: 97).
- 7.
Consistent with the question structure within the survey questionnaire, the use of Likert scales is indeed suitable (Horber et al. 2003: 48). Buckingham and Saunders explain: “if some indicators are better than others, then simply adding them all together will give us an overall measure with considerable error in it. Clearly we need to check (a) whether all the items are good measures […] and, (b) whether they are consistent with each other. The process of making these checks is called scaling” (Buckingham and Saunders 2004: 150).
- 8.
The questionnaire did not distinguish between institutions, interest groups, politicians and media of the EU and/or of at least one EU Member State. Therefore, the survey participants could basically indicate the frequency of their contacts by simply distinguishing between domestic (i.e. Swiss) and non-domestic contacts (i.e. from the EU or from at least one of its Member States) under the three different configurations of implementation that are C1, C2, and C3.
- 9.
Similar to Pallant (2010: 97), DeVellis also indicates, by adding precise statistical details, that a Crombach’s alpha above .7 indicates reliability (DeVellis 2012: Chap. 3). See also George and Mallery (2003). This result is particularly satisfactory considering that the higher the number of items in a scale, the easier it is to have a reliable Cronbach’s alpha. Generally speaking, “For scales with a small number of items (e.g. less than 10), it is sometimes difficult to get a decent Cronbach’s alpha value, […] (Pallant 2010: 100).
- 10.
As discussed in Chap. 4, plurality of principals refers to part of those dynamics depicted by the MLG approach. MLG theorises the presence of different levels of authority potentially competing, limiting and bypassing the states’ leeway, but sovereign state erosion only depends on the possible presence of uncontrolled principals at the international/supranational level. Consequently, in the case of the Swiss state federal system, there is no reason to consider the internal influence of Cantons, or sub-national lobbies as a threat for the credibility of the Swiss claim of state sovereignty.
- 11.
Goerge and Mallery’s complete rule to determine the reliability of the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient is the following: “_ > .9 – Excellent, _ > .8 – Good, _ > .7 – Acceptable, _ > .6 – Questionable, _ > .5 – Poor, and _ < .5 – Unacceptable” (George and Mallery 2003: 231). The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the Scale of Plurality of Principals can be improved by deleting two items. At least three good reasons to keep them apply here as for the Scale of Briefings above. Moreover, it is important to signal how this scale also presents a very high mean of the inter-item correlations with .435 (Briggs and Cheek 1986). These results are welcome because they prove (a) the evident conceptual relevance of the plurality of principals; and (b) the perfect fit between the items used to measure this dimension within the survey questionnaire. This result is particularly satisfactory because it was obtained by computing all the items that were related to plurality of principals, but that were not present together within one single question. Consequently, the reliability and internal consistency of this scale also provides positive feedback about both form and content of the survey questionnaire.
- 12.
In addition to the detailed results displayed in Appendix 2 and using the appropriate statistical techniques discussed in Appendix 1, further checks were also realised. In particular, comparing the significant results obtained by running ANOVAs with those obtained by running cross-tabs, a very high correspondence has been reported. Almost all the items and scales that appear significant by running ANOVAs, were also significant when running cross-tabs (the correspondence is particularly high in the case of the repeated-measures). Moreover, as discussed in Appendix 1 and 2, it must be pointed out that the very few non-significant results issued from the use of cross-tabs may still be included in the presentation of the overall ANOVAs analyses thanks to their theoretical relevance already widely discussed in the previous chapters. This is particularly true in respect of the exploratory nature of this study as well.
- 13.
- 14.
For graphical reasons, the scores of scales in the charts are weighted by simply dividing them by the number of items composing the scales themselves. This produces a possible range of variance from −4 to +4.
- 15.
In this chart, as in the following, Likert scales and items are presented together given that, in this preliminary study, their weighting is premature.
- 16.
This item already represented a rather ambiguous case in terms of significance (see Appendix 2, Table A.1). Even if slightly erosive in C2 and non-erosive in C3, the item globally shows a rather erosive trend.
- 17.
- 18.
This confirms the overall consistency of the results produced by using the two different ANOVA techniques.
- 19.
It is difficult to establish the original reason for this decreasing interest of media and citizens in what happens within C2 and C3. This negative trend may indeed depend either on the simple lack of political salience of the activity per se, or on its lower visibility and publicity then producing as an effect a smaller proximity of citizens and media caring and asking about it. Yet, after the events related to the popular Swiss “ Stop Mass Immigration” initiative, there is increased public and media interest in these issues (Solari 2015; Ticinonews Redazione 2015).
- 20.
It is very important to clarify that this result does not depend on the number of contacts and involvement of those external collaborators that may be expected to perhaps be greater within directly Europeanised bilateralism rather than in other non-directly Europeanised public policies. Indeed, the question precisely refers to the attitude of non-Swiss individuals, when applicable. The significant variance of means indicate that, independently from their number, non-Swiss collaborators have different attitudes on this point.
- 21.
Interest groups, by definition, must indeed not be considered as exclusively domestic actors because often related to international rather than only national logics and dynamics. In this respect, many works generally furnish a good presentation of the main theories and empirics on the complex system of interest representation within the EU. See for instance Greenwood and Ronit (1994) and, more recently, Greenwood (2011).
- 22.
Both results are presented because they are statistically significant. Yet the interpretative priority favours the repeated measures result. Generally speaking, repeated measures seem to be more reliable because they have arisen from a population having the same direct and complete, and thus better, knowledge of the observed events.
- 23.
Results for, on the one hand, the distinction between implementation of directly/non-directly Europeanised Swiss public policies, and, on the other hand, the distinction between presence/absence of Swiss-EU joint committees implementing directly Europeanised Swiss public policies, are not complementary. Indeed, joint committees are part of bilateralism.
- 24.
The attention to the conceptual meaning of items must not be seen as the introduction of either a hierarchy among them or a statistical weighting of the results here presented. Given the exploratory nature of this research, both these operations are premature. This semantic attention simply consists of highlighting the logical specificities captured by the different items that, in all evidence, describe and measure complex events and information. As further elaborated, a hierarchy of items and weighting of results could be part of the future perspectives and developments of this research.
- 25.
Ibidem.
- 26.
This conclusion is also confirmed by the non-significant variances of the Plurality of Principals Scale.
- 27.
This number also includes the only item associated with a contextual feature.
- 28.
Yet, these results are not presented graphically because of their current theoretical irrelevance.
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Pusterla, E. (2016). Empirics on Swiss Sovereignty Credibility. In: The Credibility of Sovereignty – The Political Fiction of a Concept. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26318-2_7
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