00:00Federalism promises balance,
00:04but without responsible leadership,
00:06it can just as easily tip into chaos.
00:09That's the warning from London School of Economics
00:12President and Vice-Chancellor Larry Kramer,
00:15who says federations survive
00:17only if leaders resist the temptation
00:20to exploit the system for political advantage.
00:25In these tensions between federal governments,
00:28national governments and state governments,
00:30the reality is that the consequences are very severe often,
00:34very significant.
00:35National security, for example,
00:38you know, security of a nation and its people.
00:42And often, unfortunately,
00:44well, fortunately or unfortunately motivated by politics.
00:48You've talked about giving power back to the people in a democracy.
00:53How do you resolve a situation where national security
00:57is being threatened by, let's say, such tensions
01:02where the people still have the final say?
01:04The first is that if it is a national security question,
01:07you know, the question is to what extent is it real
01:10and how severe is it?
01:12To what extent is it being used as a justification
01:14to extend power in other ways or over other subjects?
01:18And so it's appropriate that it's political because they are political questions.
01:23Kramer says disputes between federal and state leaders aren't a flaw,
01:28but a feature in the system.
01:30And history shows it's not always the center grabbing too much power.
01:35The tendency has not actually been for national governments to overstep,
01:39but for local governments to intrude on the authority of the national level.
01:43And that's historically been true almost everywhere.
01:46These clashes, Kramer says, don't break a federation.
01:50What does is when they can't be resolved in ways people will accept.
01:55The question isn't whether there are tensions and hard fights
01:58and things people care about, just whether you can resolve them
02:01in ways that after the resolution takes place,
02:04people accept it and move on to the next fight.
02:07And that, he argued, comes down to leadership.
02:11Leaders who are knowledgeable, transparent and open to change,
02:15not ones who bend laws or institutions to cling to power.
02:19Ultimately, democratic politics is a conversation.
02:22It is led by the political leadership,
02:25but the idea is to persuade and to bring the community along with where you are
02:30and not to impose on them.
02:32Kramer added that even unpopular decisions are part of governing.
02:36What matters is whether leaders and institutions are strong enough
02:40to adapt when mistakes are made.
02:43Hanakam, FMT.
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