"Power-sharing in the union government will go some distance toward giving the minorities a stake in the system, but it is not enough: the constitution must also decentralize power to Burma?s states. If the ethnic minorities as a group have power in the capital, then they will be able to participate in national level decisions, but those decisions will still be made by the nation as a whole for local communities that each has its own range of cultures, traditions, styles of government, languages, and religions. When the constitution decentralizes power to the states, then each state may make decisions for itself over those things that matter most to it. When States have influence only by working through the Union government, then they have power only when they can persuade the rest of the Union government to go along with them. If they cannot do so, then they will feel oppressed when national policy trammels on their particular values and life-ways. In other words, power-sharing at the center is not an adequate substitute for local self determination..."