Municipal Mergers in Switzerland

The cumulative dissertation on the topic of municipal mergers in Switzerland is being prepared within the framework of the National Science Foundation project entitled “Challenges to Local Government” and supervised by Prof. Dr. Reto Steiner.

Starting Point

Compared internationally, the Swiss municipal landscape, with a median municipality size of ca. 1150 inhabitants, is small-scale, but also heterogenous.  In spite of considerable differences in size and organization of the municipalities, all municipalities must provide public services.  When fulfilling their tasks, the municipalities currently face challenges such as increasing complexity of local tasks, attempts to increase efficiency also in the public sector, difficulties in finding members to serve in the local offices, and decreasing societal significance of the municipality borders.  A possible reform approach to meet these challenges is the merging of political municipalities.  Unlike the situation in numerous OECD countries, Switzerland has not yet implemented large-scale territorial reforms.  Between 1850 and 2011, the number of municipalities in Switzerland merely decreased from 3203 to 2515 (Status:  July 1, 2011).  Particularly since 1990, however, more mergers have been implemented; this has been accompanied by a decrease in the number of municipalities in Switzerland (see Figure 1).

Today every second municipality is discussing a possible merger with one or several neighboring municipalities, and 15 percent are involved in a concrete merger project.  Particularly the small municipalities are having lively discussions about a possible merger.  In mid-sized municipalities, mergers are less of a topic, although mergers are again being more frequently discussed in towns having more than 20,000 inhabitants (see Figure 2).

In this context, it is striking that cantonal legislation and support measures from the superordinate governmental level for municipal mergers, and also the size and number of municipalities, vary greatly depending upon the canton and that municipal mergers are not being implemented in all cantons.  Since 2000, municipal mergers were implemented in only 14 cantons.

Research Questions

• What are the causes and effects of municipal mergers?
• How do the cantonal merger support measures affect the merger activity of the municipalities?
• Which merger strategies are being followed in Switzerland as compared internationally?

Methodology

The data for the study comes from various sources in terms of a triangulation:  On the one hand, secondary data is being used, while, on the other hand, primary data is being collected.  The following survey data is available for the study:

• Written survey of the Swiss Municipal Clerks 1988, 1994, 1998, 2005, and 2009
• Survey of the cantonal administrations on the topic of “Reforms from the Cantonal Perspective” 2008
• Survey of the Executive Municipal Officials 2008

Anticipated Findings

The anticipated findings of the study include more accurate data on the expansion, triggers, and effects of municipal mergers in Switzerland, statements on the operational mode of the cantonal incentive systems for municipal mergers, and an analysis of the merger strategies in Switzerland compared to other selected countries.

This dissertation is beeing written by Claire Kaiser under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Reto Steiner.