Assembly democracy between social selectivity and equality

Abstract In most Swiss municipalities and two cantons, voting means attending a public assembly rather than casting a ballot. This article investigates the extent to which participation in such assemblies is shaped by different patterns of social selectivity compared to ballot voting. Using survey data from one canton and four municipalities, we show that while none of the three institutional settings—ballot voting, cantonal Landsgemeinde, or municipal assemblies—is consistently more inclusive or exclusive, they differ markedly in the socio‐structural composition of participants. The Landsgemeinde attracts an electorate that is neither biased by age nor by homeownership but exhibits the strongest distortion by formal education. In contrast, municipal assemblies show balanced participation across educational groups, but overrepresentation of elderly, homeowners, employed individuals, and, to some extent, men. Furthermore, we show that social embeddedness — such as length of residence — strongly motivates participation in assembly democracy but plays little role in ballot votes.