WHEN SWISS CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS SPECIAL ISSUE LIMIT themselves to the presentation of a picture of modern Switzerland and leave it to the public to decide whether they want to learn something from the Swiss experience, two problems remain unsolved. First, in Switzerland we have neglected to some extent the analysis of the structures and the processes of the political system. We know more about the history of our political institutions than we do about their actual functioning. Normative theory is better developed than empirical research. This leads to the second problem: as many questions concerning the mechanics of the system are not answered in a sufficiently clear way, interpretations of the Confederatia Helvetica differ considerably between various analysts.