New cracks in the bloc? The politics of repositioning the Swiss financial centre

Abstract

How do coalitions within financial sectors lead to reconfigurations in political regimes? We investigate this issue by looking at how the transformation of global wealth chains has led to the reconfiguration of Switzerland’s social blocs. To highlight the political effects of the restructuring of financial circuits, we combine a multiple correspondence analysis of the positions of Swiss parties and interest groups with a qualitative analysis of the dynamics of Swiss financial policies. We show how the Swiss financial sector is split into two sets of actors: (1) large banks, who seek to maintain access to international markets by complying with international regulation, and (2) smaller wealth managers and banks, who try to maintain the tax avoidance model. We contend that this split has resulted in a division within Swiss politics, between the traditional centre-right camp, and a new right-wing camp.

Keywords

finance wealth globalization interest groups political parties

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