Don't get me wrong, I love the Swiss model of lots of referenda, very strong regional (canton) govt and a seven person executive, but also.. Swiss women didn't get the vote at federal level until 1991. Some changes are hard to pull off through referenda, others less so.
> Swiss women didn't get the vote at federal level until 1991
To be pedantic it was one Canton (Appenzell Innerrhoden) that the supreme court finally forced to let women have full voting rights, as in the rest if the Cantons, in 1990 [0]. So it was part of the state forcing this rather than through their direct democracy, which makes the issue even more interesting.
The other states were still slow at granting universal suffrage, Vaud being the first in 1959.
That's the other side of the book I guess. There are plenty more examples like this.
Imagine getting only men to vote yes to lose 50% of their voting power. Imagine getting a million farmers and their family's to vote for a drastic new way in ecological farming. Same issue, different times.
And yet, the Swiss women pre-1991 were probably more free than women in some communist country who technically had the right to vote decades earlier... but they were only allowed to vote for the Communist Party, because there was no other option on the ballot.
Yes more often than not Revolutionary or forward leaning ideas don't get a yes on the first glance.
But at this point the whole population talked about the topic.
And here comes the magic. A few years later a new idea arises better than any idea before and suddenly people get it.
We talk and vote about topics and not politicians.