THROUGHOUT THE TWO-DAY DEBATE OF OUR SYMPOSIUM we did our best to answer a challenging and I would say tricky question: can the Confederado Helvetica be imitated? I do not think that the Swiss who were present considered their country as a model at all. They tried to establish and to maintain a certain distance from the object of their study and to refrain from the reference — too often used — to a so-called special Swiss case. They were no apologists but honest witnesses.

Personally, I would make an evaluation of my country from a slightly different angle. My enquiry, therefore, would be focused on the functioning of the Swiss democratic system, on our capacity to face the challenge of our times and to maintain a national cohesion which is indispensable to our existence as a nation. Is this small country still viable? Is it not condemned to be swallowed by one of those continental empires which, in the decades following 1945, were supposed to structure the international system in one, two, three, four or five sub-systems?

It appears that the outlook in this fin de siècle is a little different: small countries are still alive; they have proliferated. There are today more than 160 states on the planet and there are more to come. Everywhere there appears a frantic search for a cultural identity on which to base a nation.