Switzerland’s rejection of the Swiss People’s Party’s proposal to cap the country’s population at ten million has been widely interpreted as a crucial test of contemporary European politics. While the referendum exposed persistent anxieties about immigration, housing, infrastructure, and national identity, it also revealed an emerging counter-narrative centered on demographic aging and labor-market needs. In this interview with the ECPS, Professor Georg Lutz examines the referendum’s implications for direct democracy, populism, and the future of liberal democracy. He discusses the resilience of the populist radical right, the role of issue ownership in electoral politics, and the opportunities and limits of direct democracy. Professor Lutz also reflects on political distrust, misinformation, democratic participation, and the evolving relationship between popular sovereignty and constitutional liberalism.
Interview by Selcuk Gultasli
Switzerland is frequently portrayed as the world’s most sophisticated laboratory of direct democracy—a political system in which citizens regularly decide major policy questions through referendums and popular initiatives. Yet the country’s June 2026 referendum on the Swiss People’s Party’s (SVP) proposal to cap the population at ten million revealed that even Switzerland’s celebrated democratic model is increasingly shaped by the same tensions confronting liberal democracies across Europe: migration, demographic change, economic insecurity, national identity, and the rise of the populist radical right.
Although voters ultimately rejected the initiative, the campaign exposed deep divisions over immigration and the future direction of Swiss society. More importantly, it highlighted a significant shift in public debate. As Professor Georg Lutzargues in this interview, discussions about immigration are no longer driven solely by concerns over cultural identity or social cohesion. For the first time, a prominent counter-argument emerged around demographic realities and economic necessity. In his words, “all populations in European countries are aging,” and immigration was increasingly discussed as “something that is also necessary for the labor market.” As he notes, “we see a bit of a shift in this debate compared to what we have seen in previous times.”
In this wide-ranging conversation with the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Lutz—Director of FORS, the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Lausanne—offers a nuanced assessment of the referendum, the resilience of the SVP, and the broader relationship between direct democracy and populism. Rejecting simplistic interpretations, he argues that the referendum result represented both a setback and a success for the SVP. While the initiative failed, “45 percent of the Swiss population voted in favor of limiting the population to 10 million,” a figure substantially higher than the party’s own electoral support.
The interview also explores whether direct democracy serves as a safeguard against populism or inadvertently empowers it. Professor Lutz challenges common assumptions on both sides of the debate. While acknowledging concerns about minority rights and majoritarian pressures, he argues that “the reality is much more nuanced” than many critics suggest. Direct democracy, he contends, is deeply intertwined with representative institutions and often acts as an indirect mechanism of accountability rather than a revolutionary alternative to parliamentary politics.
Perhaps most importantly, Professor Lutz shifts attention away from institutional design and toward what he sees as the more pressing threats facing contemporary democracies: the fragmentation of information systems, the spread of misinformation, growing political distrust, and systematic efforts to undermine confidence in democratic institutions. In an era of polarization and populist mobilization, his reflections offer important insights into both the strengths and vulnerabilities of democratic governance in Switzerland and beyond.
