National sentiment in the enactment and discourse of Swiss political ritual

Abstract

Studies of nationalism have tended to focus on elite actions and on cases that show nationalism on the rise or in its extreme. This article looks at the intertwining of ideology with social manifestations in Switzerland in order to show how national sentiment is constructed and enacted. Switzerland’s cultural, political, and linguistic diversity, it is argued, has served to keep national sentiment in check. Indeed, as a historically informed examination of successive cycles of political rituals illustrates, the Swiss have contested rather than celebrated the centralizing state, and national sentiment has thus remained ephemeral.

[Switzerland, national sentiment, political ritual, invention of tradition, history and anthropology]