POWER STRUCTURES
Keeping it in the family
By 1957, the patrician families in the big Swiss cities (Genf=Geneva) had lost their power. | Graphic: P. Benz et al. (2024)
Switzerland doesn’t have an aristocracy, but it does have historically wealthy, patrician families who for a long time occupied important positions of power in the land – such as the Sarasins in Basel and the Pictets in Geneva. Researchers at the Swiss Elite Observatory at the University of Lausanne have now visualised the interconnectivity of these patricians in three big Swiss cities between 1890 and 1957. The dots here signify members of the local elite: black for patricians from Basel, yellow for those from Geneva and blue for those from Zurich; grey = others.
