In Switzerland, the police sector is primarily a cantonal policy area – which means it is widely distributed across an uneven field of subnational entities. Also because of this, political debates surrounding policing in Switzerland are largely under-researched today. A systematic inter-cantonal understanding of how the police is a subject of political debate, for example, is still lacking. In a new snapshot analysis focusing on six cantons and one legislative year, Anna Grüninger and I shed light on how members of the cantonal parliaments engage with policing matters. The findings point to varying degrees of parliamentary activity, and a wide thematic range in their dealings with police issues — coupled with a notable reluctance to employ the most powerful parliamentary tools.

Grüninger, Anna; Hagmann, Jonas (2025). Umstrittene Polizei: Wie sich die Kantonsparlamente mit dem Polizeiwesen befassen / Comment les parlements cantonaux traitent-ils la police? / Controversial police: How the cantonal parliaments deal with policing. DeFacto. 24 September/27 October. PDF DE / PDF FR / PDF EN