What is the role for a small country like Switzerland on the global stage—and how should it position itself moving forward? The arrival of 2015 poses profound questions about global governance, especially with major challenges on the horizon, such as the UN’s negotiations on Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, the highly anticipated Climate Change Summit in Paris next December, and the politically-charged, yet unresolved trade issues from the WTO’s Doha Round.

Professor Cédric Dupont, Director of Executive Education (above, in photo), joined a debate on The Role of Switzerland in Global Governance with the Swiss Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Yves Rossier, at the Swiss Press Club in Geneva on 17 December 2014. We provide his analysis below (translated from French), which served as an introduction to the subsequent discussion with the Secretary of State and participating audience of diplomats, citizens and journalists:

Mr. Secretary of State, Ladies and Gentlemen,

So how should a country like Switzerland position itself in the wider field of global governance? The starting point of my remarks today is a brief reflection on what I consider the three essential characteristics of global governance today. First, it is a more open field than ever before, with more players present and active (not only a greater number of States and a larger number of international and regional organizations, but also non-state actors such as NGOs, big foundations, multinational corporations, and even iconic personalities). This situation is accompanied by a diversification of the forms of interaction, with multi-stakeholder partnerships of various types, going beyond the strict and sometimes rigid framework of classical diplomacy.

A second feature of the current situation is the absence of a clear architecture—but rather a constellation with crossing lines within and between the different domains of global governance. From this point of view, complexity prevails, whereas earlier forms were more clearly organized under the umbrella of the United Nations along thematic silos.

In a third and last major feature, I generally see global governance suffering from a recurring problem of legitimacy, despite its increasing openness to a larger number of players. This concern about legitimacy comes as a challenge to the system from large parts of the world’s population voicing their demands for representation, as well as the perceived lack of concrete results (or progress that is simply too slow). In this perspective, global governance is a fragile construction that requires constant efforts, both at the international and national levels, to keep the flame of international collaboration alive.

In the case of Switzerland, new realities in global governance offer a wider source of opportunities for action, in this more open game than in previous periods (especially between 1945 and 1990, for example). But this more open game also poses significant challenges for Swiss diplomacy, because it requires overcoming its traditional "recipes" of neutrality and the promotion of classic state multilateralism. These open dynamics can become problematic because they often require a commitment to be more proactive than reactive, an approach that is difficult to reconcile with Switzerland’s internal political discussions, which are often chilly, and sometimes even hostile, to such an approach.

Leaving aside these challenges for now, Switzerland has significant assets for seizing the opportunities provided by these current dynamics. The first of its strengths comes from the sum of both public and private expertise on multiple debates at the top of the agenda in 2015, including responses to climate change, in setting global goals for sustainable development and on international trade issues. This expertise enables Switzerland to propose solutions, or respond to proposals from other actors—but essentially, to participate at very early stages in the process.

The second Swiss advantage is what I would call its approach to national governance, where I mean both its political system (combining some centralization at the federal level with flexibility left to lower political levels, cantonal and local levels) and its practice of formal and informal arrangements between state and non-state. Generally speaking, its governance (representing the broader mindset of its participative electorate) is far less volatile than most other states, which brings the assurance of consistency and reliability. Certainly these arrangements do not always lead to optimal results (if we think of cartel-like practices in the economy), but Switzerland has an undeniable expertise for implementing multi-stakeholder solutions, which has become a necessity for any sustainable models of governance in today’s reality.

The third advantage of Switzerland is the unique “International Geneva” context, as an incubator for innovation and experimentation, for creating solutions for the problems of global governance. I would tend to say that in this perspective, International Geneva is to global governance what CERN is to nuclear physics—an interesting analogy precisely because CERN is based here.

In closing, and to open the debate more broadly, I would like to address the challenge of overcoming traditional recipes—in particular, the notion of “Swiss neutrality”. I would advance the idea that this is a term that should belong to the past. It is expected today of states like Switzerland they engage fully in global governance, and in this perspective it would be better for Switzerland to capitalize on its “independence” in foreign policy, deriving from its non-participation in blocks or existing groups (i.e., not belonging to the EU or the G20 are its assets, not barriers).  Independence allows Switzerland to promote innovative solutions based on Swiss expertise, and taking advantage of Swiss reliability for longer-term vision on policy matters. Neutrality and independence certainly go hand in hand, but the connotation associated with the word neutral can sometimes imply disengagement, whereas independence is more aligned with the current dynamics in global governance.