It should hardly be surprising that Tocqueville, as a theorist of democracy, discovered the example of Switzerland quite early on as a subject of study, although research does not entirely agree on whether Swiss democracy was for him a very important (Dürr 1925) or at most a secondary reference point (Monnier 1977). The trips that Tocqueville made there in 1832 and 1836, about which he provides insight in some notes (cf. OC V, 2, 173 ff.), had, in addition to his inspection of the prison system there (Auderset 2017, 47), the aim of familiarizing himself with the contrast between modern representative democracy in the USA and the traditionally direct democratic elements in Swiss cities and cantons.