Dimensions of Rightist Populism in Switzerland (SVP after 1999)

The development of the Schweizerische Volkspartei was intensely affected by an interesting transformation in the last decade. The old traditional political movement of small business has step by step changed to a modern populist party of the radical right. Concerning the typological characterization of this political subject, the Volkspartei belongs to the "nacionalist" type of the European populist parties. Its economical conception is strong liberal, while the common social values remain rigorously christian-conservative. The Helvetic-national element appears in the party ideology only in the foreign affairs themes, whereas the internal problems are seen rather 1rom the regionalist views. The great successes of the SVP in last federal, cantonal and district elections were a result of the fact, that the party had occupied the former ideological positions of the Christdemokralische Volkspartei (CVP), which had little by little renounced on its integral conservativ character (for example in questions of the swiss neutrality). The future of the SVP in the next years depends now on the development of the programm positions of the other political parties in 1he Switzerland and also on the behaviour of the old electorat of the CVP in the traditional catholic cantons.