This chapter analyses how social policies aimed at reducing social risks translate into an institutional imperative to support and protect vulnerable groups in Switzerland. More precisely, we perform a legal and policy analysis to assess, first the impact of the country's internal diversity (internal factor) and second the European economic crisis (external factor) on coverage of the institutional solidarity schemes. We argue that within highly contested fields like migration, unemployment and disability, social protection schemes are dependent on the political salience which shapes a particular solidaristic logic and reframes the social safety net.