National politicians exert more power over people’s daily lives than any other level of political subsidiarity, as examined in the following sub-sections:
· They dominate the internal governance of a country (6.6.4.1), because they control the budgets of lower layers of administration.
· They represent their countries in international negotiations and global governance (6.6.4.2). In this role they often pay more attention to domestic politics than to the long-term interests of the country they represent.
· They can try to gain popularity by whipping up the kind of nationalism that prides itself on opposing other countries (6.6.4.3). This damages the country's ability to cooperate internationally and it feeds internal tensions.
(This is an archive of a page intended to form part of Edition 4 of the Patterns of Power series of books. The latest versions are at book contents).