With regard to political institutions and to patterns of exclusion and inclusion in policy-making, Switzerland can be considered as the mirror image of the UK. Because they provide a series of veto points, Swiss institutions allow a significant degree of influence to external groups. Most notably, this is the case of the referendum system, whereby any act passed by parliament can be challenged at the polls if 50,000 signatures are collected supporting a referendum. In addition, well-established decision-making procedures tend to include a wide range of different and often conflicting interests, and to produce compromises that are more or less acceptable to as many actors as possible. This peculiar approach to policy-making constitutes an important limitation to the room for manoeuvre available to the government in virtually all areas of policy.Pension policy, of course, is no exception.

The 1995 Swiss pension reform was adopted after more than a decade of intense negotiations between political parties and the social partners. Despite a series of attempts at reaching a mutually acceptable compromise, a totally consensual solution was not found. Eventually, however, the reform included both expansion and retrenchment elements, a combination that proved instrumental in guaranteeing the final adoption of the pension bill. The retrenchment measures alone would have been at a much higher risk of defeat in a referendum. This strategy has been used in other welfare reforms in the early 1990s, and can be seen as a response to the institutional constraints that limit policy-making. The combination of improvements in provision, on which there was widespread agreement, with controversial retrenchment elements has contributed to the successful adoption of reform also in the areas of unemployment benefits and health insurance (Bonoli 1997b).