The foreigner-shaped hole at the centre of Swiss democracy | Clare O'Dea | TEDxIHEID

Just over half a century ago, Swiss women were granted federal voting rights. Today, the same arguments that excluded women from the political process are used to disenfranchise ‘foreign’ residents. Clare O’Dea explains why this democratic deficit is unjust and unsustainable. Former Irish Times journalist Clare O’Dea worked for ten years at the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (swissinfo.ch) before publishing two non-fiction books – The Naked Swiss: A Nation Behind 10 Myths (2016) and The Naked Irish: Portrait of a Nation Beyond the Clichés (2019). Originally from Dublin, she is now a dual Swiss-Irish national. Her first novel, Voting Day (2022), is set in Switzerland in 1959 on the day male voters said no to granting women the vote. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx