This chapter provides the theoretical grounding for the book by tracing key frameworks in language policy and planning (LPP). It introduces foundational LPP definitions and examines how LPP operates as both an explicit institutional activity and a set of implicit social mechanisms. Drawing on Hornberger’s integrative model, Spolsky’s tripartite framework, and Shohamy’s critique of policy mechanisms, the chapter argues that LPP is never merely a technical tool but deeply ideological, shaping which linguistic practices are legitimized, valued, or suppressed. Critical Language Policy (Tollefson) further illuminates the historical and structural forces that naturalize inequality through seemingly neutral decisions. Liddicoat and Baldauf’s multilevel model underscores how policy is made, mediated, and contested across macro-, meso-, and micro-levels, while Stroud and Heugh’s notion of linguistic citizenship highlights agency, participation, and the right to speak and be heard. Together, these frameworks provide analytical tools for unpacking Switzerland’s linguistic order as a constitutional arrangement as well as a layered system of governance, ideology, and lived practice.