Alexander H. Trechsel is Professor of political science and holder of the Swiss Chair on Federalism and Democracy at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. He is also co-director of the Research and Documentation Centre on Direct Democracy (c2d) and director of the e-Democracy Center (e-DC), both located at the University of Geneva. He is the co-author of Swiss politics. Continuity and Change in a Consensus-Democracy (with Hanspeter Kriesi, Cambridge University Press, in press) and recent articles in European Union Politics, European Journal of Political Research, Democratization, and Journal of European Public Policy.