This paper uncovers the transformation and inherent characteristics of local autonomy in 19th- and 20th-century Switzerland by focusing on its federalism and direct democracy. In this federation with a centripetal force, the governments originated with Kantons (states), but the Gemeinde (basic autonomous bodies) also enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. Therefore, citizenship is based on three strata even now, namely, Gemeinde, Kanton, and national level. At all three levels of government, (semi) direct democracy is practiced as a result of the second turning point in Swiss history, in which the French Revolution-type modernism was suppressed. The case of the city of Bern illustrates the continuity and coexistence of the closed citizens corporation from the ancien regime and the newly established residents' Gemeinde, the overlapping of authority between Kanton and Gemeinde, the high degree of Gemeinde's right of self-governance, and the belated development of bureaucracy in the local administration. The process in the second expansion of the city of Zurich in 1934 shows what suburban Gemeindes went through when they faced urbanization and industrialization under an extremely decentralized fiscal system, and how the prolonged consensus-building process served as the bedrock of resident self-governance.
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