I believe that this question is more fitting for any subreddit focusing on politics or political theory, so you may also ask there.

Switzerland has a long tradiition of both being a heavily partitioned country and a self-reliance, what in effect allowed for quick development of local democracies. The first documented evidence of Switzerland being an effective confederacy of local communes (Federal Charter) comes from 1291, but this simply documents a state of affairs that has existed for at least several decades to a century. Thanks to wealth, level of development and remarkable military prowess, Confederacy managed to establish its status as a neutral and independent state in the late 15th century. Reformation brought discord though and resulted in tensions leading to open conflicts between some cantons. It should be noted however, that the government paid a lot of attention to traditional liberties, as after the fall of Huttwil League in the Peasant War of 1653, authorities, although resorted to execution of uprising leaders and took some oppressive measures towards the peasants, refrained from using this victory to extend its privileges, moving to more authoritarian form of governance. In a similar vein, Swiss leaders basically forced Napoleon to restore Swiss autonomy in the traditional form of confederacy. Summing it up, the ideas of mediation and consensus both between the constituent areas and between various social strata go centuries back, unlike in most European countries that remained strongly authoritarian monarchies until 19th/20th century or lacked the cooperation between social stratas (case of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth). They also contribute to lesser appeal of any form of extremism that was present in tumultuous period of France's history spanning from the French Revolution to early 20th century.

In modern times, Swiss government is unique because of the democratic element being very pervasive, creating a democratic regime that is more direct than most other representative democracies in the world. Referenda (solving local problems by public vote directly) play much larger role than in other countries, where such instrument is used rarely if ever (Switzerland is not a big country for European standards). On average, Swiss citizens vote at least twice a year to establish a federal issues and at least several times a year to solve local issues on cantonal and municipality level while any constitutional change must be put to public vote by definition. The effect is twofold: first, any issue important enough to cause unrest can be easily resolved democratically by issuing a referendum, second any issue resolved in such a matter is less likely to generate further unrest, because challenging it would mean challenging the democratically established consensus what amounts to challenging the whole idea of democracy. This means that Swiss citizens prefer to work the differences out rather than contest the government, especially given they have efficient tools to do the former.