Steve Teles: evaluation

Transcript context

…Why? I think one thing that we tend to underestimate about Britain is the fact that there’s very large barriers to entry to the agenda. The problem with the United States is, you can get lots of things on the agenda but there’s all these things that keep it from getting all the way to passage. But if you wanna do something creative, there’s lots of little holes, places where you can start. You can start in states, you can start in one branch of government, you can start in the bureaucracy, you can start in the courts. Britain has a much more compressed system of agenda setting and that dramatically reduces the overall creativity of the system, although it does mean that when you actually get a desire for action, you can produce it. Now that can also produce disasters like the poll tax and so in that sense I think our political system is also… At least at its best, is more deliberative. It’s a lot easier to do really big stupid things, at least through legislation, than it is in the British system than it is in the American system. You’re a political scientist. Is there a region in the world today you would like to see become politically independent that is not currently politically independent? A region in the United States? No, of the world.…

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