Social freezing in Switzerland and worldwide--a blessing for women today?

This is a critical review of the medical, ethical, judicial and financial aspects of the so called "social freezing", the cryopreservation of a woman's oocytes for non-medical purposes. The possibility of storing the eggs of fertile women in order to prevent age-related fertility decline is being widely promoted by fertility centres and the lay press throughout the world. Research data has shown that social freezing should ideally be performed on women around 25 years of age in order to increase their chances of a future pregnancy. In reality, it is mostly performed after the age of 35. Unfortunately, social freezing is in general not a solution for the underlying societal problems to fit in with professionally active women and having children. It only delays the existing problems. Furthermore, it creates a lot of potential new problems. A great deal more should be undertaken to offer real solutions to the underlying societal problems which are in part: pre-school education, care in the event of childhood illness, and the many weeks of school holidays, acceptance of professionally active women having children, and more job offers with a workload <100%.). Furthermore, society should be informed about the decreasing chances of pregnancy with increasing maternal (and paternal) age as well as the increasing risks of miscarriage and obstetric/neonatal complications. Detailed information for woman considering social freezing is crucial. Every doctor, proposing social freezing to his patients, should be up to date with all these details. Follow-up studies on the outcome of these children are needed.

Swiss Democracy on the Web 2010 : Society and Politics in a Connected Age

The rapid adoption of online media like Facebook, Twitter or Wikileaks leaves us with little time to think. Where is information technology taking us, our society and our democratic institutions ? Is the Web replicating social divides that already exist offline or does collaborative technology pave the way for a more equal society ? How do we find the right balance between openness and privacy ? Can social media improve civic participation or do they breed superficial exchange and the promotion of false information ? These and lots of other questions arise when one starts to look at the Internet, society and politics. The first part of this paper gives an overview of the social changes that occur with the rise of the Web. The second part serves as an overview on how the Web is being used for political participation in Switzerland and abroad. Le développement rapide de nouveaux médias comme Facebook, Twitter ou Wikileaks ne laisse que peu de temps à la réflexion. Quels sont les changements que ces technologies de l'information impliquent pour nous, notre société et nos institutions démocratiques ? Internet ne fait-il que reproduire des divisions sociales qui lui préexistent ou constitue-t-il un moyen de lisser et d'égaliser ces mêmes divisions ? Comment trouver le bon équilibre entre transparence et respect de la vie privée ? Les médias sociaux permettent-ils de stimuler la participation politique ou ne sont-ils que le vecteur d'échanges superficiels et de fausses informations ? Ces questions, parmi d'autres, émergent rapidement lorsque l'on s'intéresse à la question des liens entre Internet, la société et la politique. La première partie de ce cahier est consacrée aux changements sociaux générés par l'émergence et le développement d'Internet. La seconde fait l'état des lieux de la manière dont Internet est utilisé pour stimuler la participation politique en Suisse et à l'étranger.

Les parlementaires suisses entre démocratisation et professionnalisation (1910-2010). Biographie collective des élus fédéraux et réformes du Parlement helvétique

Notre travail de thèse vise à analyser, d'une part, les principales réformes du Parlement fédéral adoptées au cours du 20e siècle et, d'autre part, l'évolution du profil sociographique pour six cohortes d'élus fédéraux (1910, 1937, 1957, 1980, 2000 et 2010), sous l'angle de sa démocratisation et de sa professionnalisation. La thèse comprend trois axes de recherche principaux. Premièrement, nous nous penchons sur les deux réformes institutionnelles censées favoriser la démocratisation du recrutement parlementaire, à savoir l'adoption de la proportionnelle pour l'élection du Conseil national en 1918 et l'introduction du suffrage féminin à l'échelon fédéral en 1971. Nous abordons également les réformes du Parlement visant, depuis les années 1970, à sa revalorisation et à sa professionnalisation. Le deuxième axe porte sur la réalisation d'un portrait collectif des élus fédéraux pour la période 1910-1980, dans le but de vérifier l'impact des réformes des règles électorales (proportionnelle et suffrage féminin) sur le profil des députés et sénateurs. Enfin, dans le troisième axe, nous abordons les transformations du profil socio-professionnel des parlementaires pendant la période plus récente (1980-2010), en lien avec la professionnalisation accrue de l'Assemblée fédérale et les changements des rapports de force partisans. Nos résultats permettent de mettre en évidence plusieurs éléments de continuité (prédominance de la catégories des indépendants, notamment des avocats, des chefs d'entreprise et des agriculteurs, et sous-représentation des salariés du secteur public ; fort ancrage local), ainsi que certains facteurs de rupture (présence accrue des femmes, moindre importance de la carrière militaire). D'autres changements dans le profil sont liés au processus récent de professionnalisation, contesté et inachevé, qui a favorisé néanmoins l'émergence de nouveaux profils sociologiques d'élus, en termes de formation, de profession (apparition du groupe des parlementaires professionnels) et de cumul des mandats économiques et politiques, avec cependant de fortes variations entre les partis et entre les deux Chambres. - Our PhD thesis aims at analysing, on the one hand, the main reforms of the Federal Parliament adopted during the 20th century and, on the other hand, the evolution of sociographical profile for six cohorts of Swiss MPs (1910, 1937, 1957, 1980, 2000 and 2010) in terms of their democratization and professionalization. Our research is composed of three main parts. Firstly, we analyse two institutional reforms which intended to promote the democratization of parliamentary recruitment, namely the adoption of proportional representation (PR) in 1918 for the election of the National Council and the introduction of women's suffrage at the federal level in 1971. We also deal with parliamentary reforms that, since the 1970s, have aimed at reasserting the political status of the Federal Assembly and at professionalizing its members. Secondly, we carry out a collective biography of Swiss MPs during the period 1910-1980, in order to verify the impact of electoral reforms (PR and women's suffrage) on the profiles of deputies and senators. Finally, we discuss the transformation of the MPs' socio-_professional profiles during the recent period (1980-2010) in connection with the increased professionalization of the Federal Assembly and the changes of the power relations within the Parliament. Our results allow us to highlight several elements of continuity (the predominance of self-employed persons, especially lawyers, business managers and farmers, and the underrepresentation of public employees; stronger background in local politics), as well as some factors of discontinuity (increased presence of women and lesser importance of the military career). Other changes of the parliamentarians' profile are related to the recent process of professionalization. Although contested and unfinished, it has promoted new sociological profiles in terms of educational background, profession (growth of the professional parliamentarians) and number of political and economic mandates held simultaneously, however with important variations between parties and between Lower and Upper House.

The politics of contaminated sites management : institutional regime change and actor's mode of participation in the environmental management of the Bonfol Chemical Waste Landfill in Switzerland

By the end of the 1970s, contaminated sites had emerged as one of the most complex and urgent environmental issues affecting industrialized countries. The authors show that small and prosperous Switzerland is no exception to the pervasive problem of sites contamination, the legacy of past practices in waste management having left some 38,000 contaminated sites throughout the country. This book outlines the problem, offering evidence that open and polycentric environmental decision-making that includes civil society actors is valuable. They propose an understanding of environmental management of contaminated sites as a political process in which institutions frame interactions between strategic actors pursuing sometimes conflicting interests. In the opening chapter, the authors describe the influences of politics and the power relationships between actors involved in decision-making in contaminated sites management, which they term a "wicked problem." Chapter Two offers a theoretical framework for understanding institutions and the environmental management of contaminated sites. The next five chapters present a detailed case study on environmental management and contaminated sites in Switzerland, focused on the Bonfol Chemical Landfill. The study and analysis covers the establishment of the landfill under the first generation of environmental regulations, its closure and early remediation efforts, and the gambling on the remediation objectives, methods and funding in the first decade of the 21st Century. The concluding chapter discusses the question of whether the strength of environmental regulations, and the type of interactions between public, private, and civil society actors can explain the environmental choices in contaminated sites management. Drawing lessons from research, the authors debate the value of institutional flexibility for dealing with environmental issues such as contaminated sites.