Integration Policy

This chapter examines Swiss integration policy from an international comparative perspective and assesses its evolution through a historical lens. In line with international trends, a gradual improvement in the social and economic rights of legally resident foreigners can be observed, which facilitated access to the Swiss labour market, family reuni cation, or social bene ts. Resistance towards these trends is concentrated in the realms of political and cultural rights. Formal requirements to acquire Swiss citizenship remain high, and the country continues to hold an assimilationist understanding of integration, with only scarce concessions to cultural pluralism. This restrictive policy orientation re ects for instance in the considerable share of third-generation nonSwiss citizens, meaning grandchildren of immigrants, who still hold no Swiss passport. Right-wing populist parties such as the Swiss People’s Party nurture this restrictive impetus, and pro t from the instruments of direct democracy to translate it into policies. Since the early 2000s, this strategy has been increasingly successful, as documented by the adoption of the minaret ban (2009), the initiative against mass immigration (2014), or the face disclosure initiative (2021) at the polls. From a structural perspective, similarly to other federations, policies regulating the political, socio-economic, and cultural-religious inclusion of non-citizen residents in the country evolved in a bottom-up manner. Although a more proactive stance in this eld was developed at the national level over the last two decades, cantons and municipalities retain signi cant authority for their own approaches to the implementation as well as the formulation of integration policy.