ATTFED (DFG-SNF-Project)

Attitudes towards Federalism in Germany and Switzerland. Advancing Research on the Configuration, Determination, and Transformation of Subnational Identities and Preferences.

Project Description

This research project takes a comprehensive and in-depth look at citizens’ attitudes to federalism in the German Länder and Swiss Kantone, with the goal of gaining a better understanding of the conditions under which more or less federalism is demanded. Indeed, the Covid-19 pandemic has brought back long-standing criticism of federalism’s effectiveness both in Germany and Switzerland. However, knowledge on citizens’ attitudes to federalism is scarce (and often limited to some regions) despite the decisive legitimating role attitudes play when reforms of federalism (including centralising options) are debated.

Our project addresses this gap by mapping citizen attitudes to federalism both in Switzerland and Germany, explaining them on the basis of various individual-level, regional-level, and country-level factors, and conducting a detailed analysis of the malleability of citizen preferences for centralisation.

The project is divided into two subprojects: In the first subproject, we conceptualise several dimensions of attitudes to the federal division of powers and systematically analyse a number of factors that explain attitudes to federalism. In the second subproject, we study the nature of preferences for centralisation with the help of a vignette experiment, asking respondents to evaluate reform proposals on several issues that would involve a shift of responsibility from the regional to the national level.

  • Measuring and mapping attitudes to different facets of federalism
  • Identities and support for federal governance
  • Experimental research on attitudes to federalism
  • Preferences for changes of federal governance: centralization and decentralization
  • Federalism and support for interregional redistribution
  • Determinants of citizens’ preferences in federal systems: trust, ideology, and personality

Members of the project team presented findings from the project at various workshops and conferences, including the ECPR General Conference (2023, 2024), the Annual Conference of the EPSA (2024),the Annual Congress of the Swiss Political Science Association ASSP (2023, 2024, 2025), and of the IAGSP (2024). Additionally, findings were presented at the workshop "Making devolution work in an age of multiple crises: Comparative lessons from Europe" at the University of Edinburgh (2024), the “Federalism Workshop” of the DVPW Thematic Groupe on Federalism in Berlin (2024), the annual workshop on Public Administration 

Several studies resulting from the project are currently under review in international journals, and some have already been invited to be resubmitted in revised form. In addition, a book publication has been agreed for 2026.

Members of the project team will be hosts of the 2025 Workshop of the DVPW thematic group on “Federalism” which will take place at the University of Stuttgart on February 27-28, 2025. 

As part of the project, the workshop “Rethinking Federalism and Multilevel Governance” will take place at Schloss Wartegg (Switzerland) on March 12-13, 2025.

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