The Rise of the Urban Left in Switzerland, 1980–2020

Major cities across the globe are governed by the political left, and smaller urban centers shift to the left as well. Yet, we know surprisingly little about how or when exactly these changes came about and, consequently, how we can explain the varying strength of the left across different cities. In this paper, we examine the long-term evolution of left-wing parties’ strength in local councils and executives in 111 Swiss cities over 40 years (1980–2020). Two main explanations are tested based on a rich and unique dataset: 1) whether and to what extent the rise of the urban left coincides with changes in the socio-economic composition of the local electorate is assessed through official census-data; 2) whether value change and especially a greater emphasis on post-materialism took place in the existing electorate is tested through the local-level results of some 500 nation-wide referendums held over that period. Our main findings are that as of the 1990s, the traditional support base of the left among workers has been replaced by socio-cultural professions, and that around the same time preferences for post-materialism and cosmopolitanism became much more important determinants of left-wing success. Moreover, we show that these changes are not specific to local elections. Rather, we find the same dynamics for national-level election results in Swiss cities. The rise of the urban left therefore has less to do with the level than with the place where politics is done. This has important implications for our understanding of the specificity and idiosyncrasy of local politics, for debates about urban-rural polarisation, as well as for discussions on the political role and significance of “the left” in contemporary democracies.