The Swiss are justly famous for their political institutions and practices: the ancient assembly of free citizens in the Landsgemeinde, the elaborate devices for direct participation by the citizen in the process of decision through referenda and initiatives, the variety and precision of the federal system, the refinements of voting practice and proportional representation, the thriving local and cantonal governments, the evolution of the uniquely Swiss collective executive bodies on local, cantonal and federal level, the overlapping office-holding which enables a person to be simultaneously an elected officer of township, canton and federal parliaments, the instrumental attitude to constitutions which enables easy revision and extension to what elsewhere would be legislative activity, the astonishing stability of Swiss voting habits which have held the four main parties in very nearly perfect equilibrium since 1919 and the late entry of women into politics. The simple enumeration of Switzerland's ‘peculiar institutions’ adds up to an impressive statement of the uniqueness of Switzerland in the European context. Other societies have some but none has all these channels of direct and semi-direct democracy. The net of politics seems to stretch farther in Switzerland than elsewhere. Activities thought of as technical or administrative in other countries tend to be made elective and political in Switzerland. The ground rules of politics, that unspoken agreement about what is or is not ‘done’, and the unwritten provisions of Swiss constitutionalism make up a further middle area of values and habits which profoundly affect the workings of the machinery.