Service with a Smile

GENEVA, Switzerland — I came to Geneva to study international relations and learned a little lesson about citizenship in the process. In addition to studying at a hub of diplomatic activity, I’ve had the privilege to observe how the Swiss envision their obligations to their country and to each other.

A widely known fact: Switzerland hasn’t seen combat in roughly two centuries. A less widely known fact (at least in the United States): All able-bodied Swiss men are obligated to enroll in the military at the age of 18 and, after an initial training period of nine months, perform additional local training every year until the age of 30. Women may volunteer.

On the surface, this makes little sense.

An overwhelming 95 percent of the Swiss military is conscripted. Conscripts have the right to ask for civilian service in place of military service, but this choice has to be one of a conscientious objector, and is voted upon by committee. Those who are found physically or psychologically unfit for service are required to pay an extra 3 percent tax and perform some other civic service, such as fire department duty.

Each soldier keeps his or her weapons in the private home.

Why does a country often parodied for its neutrality policy have a conscript army? This makes especially little sense when one considers that Switzerland is now surrounded by countries beginning to look more and more like Switzerland itself: friendly, peaceful, and law-abiding. The Swiss have no threatening neighbors and it is popular sentiment that the army would quickly be blown to smithereens if an invasion did occur.

The answer to this paradox lies at the heart of the Swiss tradition of the citizen-at-arms, the fully-committed participant of direct democracy. Compulsory conscription is part of the Swiss identity.

In the far past, a nationally drafted militia kept the cantons from raising armies against each other. But it quickly became enshrined as the ultimate symbol of solidarity and subsidiarity. As Dr. Sabine Mannitz at the Peace Institute Research Frankfurt (PRIF) writes, “the Swiss concept of the citizen-soldier aims at the lowest possible degree of institutionalising military structures and at a maximum of immediate democratic control.” Compulsory militia service, the obligation to defend the polity on equal share, is the other side of the coin of semi-direct democratic participation rights. If you have equal decision-making power, you have equal responsibility.

There have been numerous referendums to change the policy. But old traditions are stubborn.

A 1989 movement to abolish the Swiss military as a whole was based on an economic assessment: The costs of operating such a vigilant and locally prepared defense system when the apparent external threats seem so low are quite high.

The referendum failed by a vote of 64 percent to 36 percent (a margin many Swiss found surprisingly thin).

By 1995, a few changes had been made, including the introduction of alternative service for conscientious objectors and the opening of the forces to women. Overall, the level of conscripts available for call at any one time dropped from 10 percent of the population to 5 percent, due to a lowering of the retirement age.

A second referendum was held in 2001. It failed by a vote of 77 percent to 23 percent.

For all its anachronism, most Swiss still highly regard (nearly) universal conscription. For many who have served, the militia is a school of life, and teaches invaluable lessons. One former soldier noted that Swiss middle-class men cannot rise in the corporate world without a good show in the army.

Many Swiss will tell you that there are multiple problems with the current policy, especially economic inefficiency, gender inequality, and a clash with popular pacifist sentiments. But compulsory service lives on.

The scheme would be impractical and undesirable in a large republic. But one still cannot help but admire the Swiss commitment to serve. As a citizen of a country once again reflecting upon what civic responsibility means, I have come to hold a certain appreciation for the Swiss sense that "everyone is in this together"—even if there are no enemies to fight.


Raúl A. Carrillo ’10, a Crimson editor, is a social studies concentrator in Lowell House.