If you ask a Swiss person who their president is, they likely won’t be able to tell you. And it’s not because they are political

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问题     If you ask a Swiss person who their president is, they likely won’t be able to tell you. And it’s not because they are politically apathetic or uninformed. In Switzerland, citizens don’t vote for their president.
    In this small alpine country, citizens elect a new Parliament every four years, and the Parliament chooses a group of seven councilors from different parties. They are the head of state. The presidency rotates among the members every year. But the keystone of Swiss democracy is the regular use of refer-endums, in which citizens vote on everything from their town’s new sports center to the country’s immigration policy.
    As Michael Bechtel, professor of political science at the University of St. Gallen, explains, in a direct democracy there is a stronger incentive for political elites to take into account citizen preferences when making choices. It might sound like a panacea for Occupy Wall Street types, but this is actually a complex system with both advantages and disadvantages.
    Voting in Switzerland is easy. With no need to register, every citizen receives a ballot for each vote, which can be returned by mail.
    And decisions aren’t final. If a law has already been passed, people can still overturn it by getting 50,000 signatures in 100 days. The bill then has to be voted on by the public. And if that wasn’t enough, Swiss citizens can also suggest their own laws by "popular initiative. " If 100,000 people ask for a change in the constitution, the Parliament is obligated to discuss it and submit the proposal to a popular vote.
    To be sure, there are pitfalls. Popular votes can lead to a tyranny of the majority, making it easy to discriminate against small groups. In 2009, a law was passed with 57 percent of the votes in favor of banning the construction of mosque towers even if the government emphatically opposed the ban. This system also slows down the law-making process and makes it more difficult to get on the same page with international rulings like those of the European Union.
    Could other nations benefit from direct democracy? Maybe, but the preconditions are high. Besides being a well-educated electorate with basic rights, they must be able to see past party lines. "It comes down to how much you trust your fellow citizens," says Klaus Dingwerth, political scientist and fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute.
The head of state of Switzerland is made up of______.

选项 A、a Parliament elected by citizens
B、seven councilors chosen from the Parliament
C、seven councilors from different parties
D、a president and seven councilors from different parties

答案C

解析 细节题。根据题干定位到原文第二段第一句和第二句:In this small alpine country,cit-izens elect a new Parliament every four years,and the Parliament chooses a group of seven council-ors from different parties.They are the head of state.正确理解句子间的逻辑关系才能得出正确答案,瑞士政府首脑是由议会从不同的党派中选出的七位议员组成的,所以[C]选项正确。[A]选项的parliament由选民直接选出,并不是政府首脑,可排除。因为七位议员并不是从议会中选出的,所以[B]选项错误,可排除。[D]选项中的president是一个职位,但并不是政府首脑的人员组成,故该选项可排除。
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