Theories of international relations Essays

Theories of international relations Essays Theories of international relations Essay Theories of international relations Essay A structural query in the social sciences and associated areas as we know it today has deep roots in the history of Western thought. To find out the fundamental, constitutive, structures into which the sensory data of human observation and experience fall: this was a fundamental objective of the ancient Greeks, to go back no far in time (S. Sambursky, 1956). The Greek root of word idea refers to pattern, relationship, or constitution. When we speak of Platos doctrine of Ideas, we might better speak of his principle of Forms, for this is specifically what they were. Granted that these were ideal, even heavenly units in Platos philosophy, it relics true, as Cornford has stressed, that Plato was also a cosmologist, keenly interested in the nature of the actual, experiential world, social as well as physical.   In Platos cosmology there is a thoughtful sense of reality as comprised by not discrete data but shapes and forms mathematical in character (F. M. Cornfo rd, 1952). Nor where Platos student and absconder Aristotle has any less interested in structures. As all interpreters of Aristotle have stressed, it is the living being, and with it growth, that dominates Aristotles mind as the basic model of structure. Organismic structure is, indeed, one of the oldest and most determined models to be found in Western philosophy and science. From Aristotles day to our own, with barely any lapses, the philosophy of an organism has been a significant one: sometimes with stress on the more static aspects, as in anatomy, but other times on the dynamic elements which are found to be constitutive, as in physiological processes, with growth. Structuralism can be inert in character, or it can be hereditary and dynamic. Contending purely organism model of structure have been as a minimum two others: the mathematical and the mechanical. Most likely the first is at least as old as the organismic. The earliest, pre-Socratic Pythagorean School of philosophy sought to reveal that reality is mathematical- that is, formed by irreducible geometrical patterns. As, the Pythagorean philosophy exercised great influence upon Plato, and much of his own cosmology contains efforts to refine the Pythagorean view of the geometric structures which form the real. The notion that reality is eventually mathematical in character is of course a very powerful one at the present time. A basic notion is interest in the relationships, the connections, within which we discover primitive elements of matter and energy. The perfunctory conception of structure, though also very old, enjoyed a renascence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the consequence in substantial degree of the influence on all thought of such physical philosophers as Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. It was nearly expected, given the great repute of these and other minds engaged in the search for laws, systems, and structures in the physical world, that the type of systems and structures they set forth in astronomy, physics, and mechanics must have excited the interests of those concerned mainly with man and society. To see society as a great machine with prototypes of equilibrium, action and reaction, and association of parts to the whole was alluring indeed, as so numerous of the ventures in social physics or social mechanics in the eighteenth century make evident. As with biology and the replica of the organism, mechanics and its model of the machine offered both statics and dynamics. Structuralism in sociology and associated disciplines has a long history insofar as its fundamental grounds are concerned. As Raymond Williams has written: We need to know this history if we are to understand the important and difficult development of structural and later structuralist as defining terms in the human sciences.( Raymond Williams, 1956). There are numerous major, and diverse, outsets of structure to be found in the social sciences of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but at the extraction of all of them lie in one relation or other the biological, mathematical, and mechanical models of reality which have wield strong effect upon so many areas of knowledge over the past numerous millennia in the West. Challenges of Structuralism Through the decline of student movements by the early seventies, the slipping and incorporation and commercialization of broader counter-cultural propensities, the appearance of an international economic crisis, and the rise of Thatcherism and Reaganism, the cultural theories and the politics of the critical theory that inclined the New Left were called deeply into question. For several especially in Britain and France, Althussers theory of cultural apparatuses, joint with semiotic theories of discourse, and his overall project of a scientific, structuralist Marxism, appeared the apparent alternative to the failures of humanist Marxism, especially the Hegelian Marxism of the Frankfurt tradition. More usually, a rediscovery of the political economic practicalities of Marxism was called for in opposition to the unrealistic and romantic humanism of critical theory. The challenge of structuralism (and its commencement of social reproduction and related semiotic theories of discourse) pro ved critical for the revision and rethinking of the cultural theory of critical theory in the seventies. Of decisive significance here was a reassessment of the tasks of critical theory as a form of empirical research, as well as a rethinking of the nature of the association between culture, the state and social movements. The job of surveying the response of critical theory to structuralism and structuralist semiotics is intricate by the difficulties of differentiating the composite of tendencies symbolized by structuralism and post structuralism, as well as the arbitrariness of separating off cultural analysis from other concerns of critical theory. There is a certain difficulty in separating out the reaction of critical theory to structuralism as opposed posting structuralism; given that they share numerous assumptions and that their reception took place more or less concurrently for many of those with access to the original French texts. The main justification for such a separation, beyond the significant theoretical shifts entailed, is that the focus of structuralism theories of society is the imitation of culture, whereas the focus of poststructuralist theories is in part the impracticality, or as a minimum difficulty, of any positive, representational theory of culture in the former sense. Gidde ns provide a practical characterization of these underlying continuities. Poststructuralist authors, such as Derrida and Foucault, were reacting against aspects of structuralism thought and yet were obliged to many of its varied assumptions and arguments such as the work of de Saussure, Là ©vi-Strauss, Althusser, Lacan, and early Barthes). Though handled distinctively in structuralism and post-structuralist writing, a number of shared themes can be identified: †¦the thesis that linguistics, or more accurately, certain aspects of particular versions of linguistics, are of key importance to philosophy and social theory as a whole; an emphasis on the relational nature of totalities, connected with the thesis of the arbitrary character of the sign, together with a stress upon the primacy of signifiers over what is signified; the decentring of the subject; a peculiar concern with the nature of writing, and therefore with textual materials; and an interest in the character of a temporality as somehow constitutively involved with the nature of objects and events. There is not a single one of these themes which does not bear upon issues of importance to social theory today. Equally, however, there is not one in respect of which the views of any of the writers listed above could be said to be acceptable. (Giddens, 1987:196) The precise boundaries of the theory of culture are also notoriously difficult to define. Some focus on More narrowly an artistic notion of culture, others slip into a more generic and inclusive one. As Nelson and Grossberg note in their recent collection: †¦cultural theory is now as likely to study political categories (such as democracy), forms of political practice (such as alliances), and structures of domination (including otherness) and experience (such as subjectification) as it is to study art, history, philosophy, science, ethics, communicative codes or technology. Cultural theory is involved with reexamining the concepts of class, social identity, class struggles, and revolution; it is committed to studying questions of pleasure, space, and time; it aims to understand the fabric of social experience and everyday life, even the foundations of the production and organization of power itself. Consequently, it is all but impossible to define the terrain of cultural theory by pointing to a finite set of object-domains or to the search for a limited set of interpretive tools. (1988:6) Cultural phenomena of Structuralism Structuralism contains and combines numerous elements of a classical epistemological dichotomy between quintessence and appearance in terms of the continuum between depth and surface. Là ©vi-Strauss, who were mainly instrumental in exercising this geological metaphor, liken the configuration of cultural phenomena to their layering as in strata, and the considerate of such phenomena in terms of the excavation of these stratums and an exposure of their patterns of interrelation. Elements of a culture, are the surface manifestations or demonstrations of underlying patterns at a deeper level equally within time, the ‘synchronic’, and through time, the ‘diachronic’. What de Saussure has provided, and what stands as perhaps the most momentous and binding element of all structuralism, is that the fundamental pattern or structure of any cultural phenomenon is to be understood in terms of a linguistic allegory. The lexical terms or items of vocabulary within such a language are offered by the symbols that subsist within social life, that is, the representations that attach to or arise from the substantial state of things or materiality itself. The grammatical rules of this metaphoric language are offered by the act, the continuous and habitual act, of significance. So the diversities of ways that we make sense in different cultures variously articulates and therefore gives rise to the diverse ‘languages’ that our cultural symbols comprise. The involvedness of this system of meaning is compounded by the fundamentally arbitrary relation between any particular object and state of affairs and the symbolic (linguistic) device that is engaged to indicate its being. Thing likeness, then, as objective and recognizable within any culture, derives not from any association between names and named but from a precisely poised structuring of otherness in our restricted network of ideas. Thin gs are not so much what they are but appear from a knowledge of what they are not, indeed a system of oppositions; the principle at the core of any binary code. Now the tenderness of this structuring of otherness remains secure, certainly, it appears as vigorous through the very practice of sociality, through the perseverance and reproduction of that tenancy relation at each and every turn within a culture. Meaning, then, within a particular culture, emerges from convention overcoming the random relation between the signifier and the signified. Convention replicates culture, and culture is conditional upon reproduction within structuralism. Bourdieu is devoted to the development of a critical yet indebted theory of culture and as such his ideas provide a significant contribution to our understanding of both power and power within our society. He began from an analysis of the education system and the part that its institutions play in the formation and diffusion of what counts as legal knowledge and forms of communication: †¦the cultural field is transformed by successive restructurations rather than by radical revolutions, with certain themes being brought to the fore while others are set to one side without being completely eliminated, so that continuity of communication between intellectual generations remains possible. In all cases, however, the patterns informing the thought of a given period can be fully understood only by reference to the school system, which is alone capable of establishing them and developing them, through practice, as the habits of thought common to a whole generation. (P. Bourdieu, 1971, p. 190) It is here that he divulges elements of a Durkheimian epistemology through his interest in the supporting character of cultural representations, the production and continuation of a social consensus that is a concept parallel in significance to the idea of a Collective consciousness’, and through the supposition of the social origins and perseverance of knowledge classifications. He is, though, critical of what he sees as Durkheim’s positivism in that it depends upon a stasis, and also that Durkheim believes the functions of the education system to be expected (J. Kennett, 1973). A major contribution of Bourdieu’s thought has been his improvement of a series of influential metaphors to eloquent the subtle relation of power and dominion at work in the social world and through the stratification of culture. Most notable is that which he draws from political economy when he speaks of cultural capital: ‘†¦there is, diffused within a social space a cultural capital, transmitted by inheritance and invested in order to be cultivated.’ (P. Bourdieu, 1971, p. 192) Stratified socialization practices and the system of education function to distinguish positively supportive of those members of society who, by virtue of their location within the class system, are the ‘natural’ inheritors of cultural capital. This is no crude conspiracy theory of a cognizant manipulation, somewhat what is being explored here is the prospect of a cultural process that is self-sustaining and self-perpetuating. This process is observed as carrying with it a framework of anticipation and tolerance of stratification and privilege. In this way Bourdieu moves from the ideological function of culture into a wakefulness of the weird efficacy of culture in that it is seen as structuring the system of social relations by its execution. Therefore, as Bourdieu makes clear, even within a democratic society this demonstration of disguised machinery continues to reinstate the inequalities of a social order which is pre-democratic in character and anti-democratic in essence. Structuralism in modern society The culturalist custom shares with the Marxist at least two major theoretical suppositions: first, the investigative postulate of a necessary, and quite elemental, disagreement between cultural value on the one hand, and the developmental logic of utilitarian capitalist civilization on the other; and secondly, the regulatory imperative to locate some social institution, or social grouping, adequately powerful as to protract the former against the latter. Culturalist hopes have been variously invested in the state, the church, the mythical intelligentsia and the labor movement; Marxist objectives in theory much more consistently in the working class, but in practice also in the state, as for communist Marxism, and in the intelligentsia (and very often more particularly the literary intelligentsia) for Western Marxism. Structuralism accepts neither analytical postulate nor regulatory imperative. For the former, it substitutes a dichotomy between manifestation and essence, in which esse nce is revealed only in structure; for the latter, a scientistic epistemology which characteristically denies both the need for dictatorial practice and the prospect of meaningful group action. There are numerous diverse versions of structuralism, of course, both in wide-ranging and as applied to literature and culture in particular. But, for our purposes, and very broadly, structuralism might well be distinct as an approach to the study of human culture, centered on the search for restraining patterns, or structures, which claims that individual phenomena have connotations only by virtue of their relation to other phenomenon as elements within a systematic structure. More particularly, certain kinds of structuralism those denoted very often by the terms semiology and semiotics can be recognized with the much more particular claim that the methods of structural linguistics can be effectively generalized so as to apply to all features of human culture. Structuralism secured entry into British academic life initially during the late sixties and seventies. But in France and structuralism has been a devastating Francophone affair it has a much longer history. The basic continuity between structuralism and post-structuralism is, nevertheless, not so much logical as sociological. Where Marxism desired to mobilize the working class, and culturalism at its most thriving at any rate, the intelligentsia, against the logics of capitalist industrialization, both structuralism and post-structuralism donate to a very different, and much more modest, intellect of the intellectual’s proper political function. In an observation truly directed at Sartre, but which could just as easily be intended toward Leavis, Foucault writes thus: For a long period, the†¦intellectual spoke and was acknowledged the right of speaking in the capacity of master of truth and justice†¦ To be an intellectual meant something like being the consciousness/conscience of us all some years have passed since the intellectual was called upon to play this role. A new mode of the â€Å"connection between theory and practice† has been established. Intellectuals have got used to working, not in the modality of the â€Å"universal†, the â€Å"exemplary†, the â€Å"just-and-true-for-all†, but within specific sectors, at the precise points where their own conditions of life or work situate them†¦ This is what I would call the â€Å"specific† intellectual as opposed to the â€Å"universal† intellectual (Foucault, 1978). Anti-historicism is a much more characteristic defining feature of structuralism. Both Marxism and culturalism translate their aversion to utilitarian capitalist civilization into historicity persistence that this type of civilization is only one amongst many, so as to be capable thereby to raise either the past or an ideal future against the present. By contrast, structuralism characteristically inhabits a never-ending theoretical present. The only significant exception to this observation is Durkheim, whose enduring evolutionist we have already noted. But so structuralism is his commencement both of primitive â€Å"mechanical solidarity† and of compound â€Å"organic solidarity,† that Durkheim cannot in fact account for the shift from the one to the other, accept by a badly masked resort to the demographic fact of population growth, which necessitates, on his own definition, a theoretically illicit appeal to the non-social, in this case, the biological (Durkheim, 1964 ). So structuralism is Durkheim’s basic preoccupation that this account of the dynamics of modernization becomes, effectively, theoretically incoherent, an allegation that could be leveled at neither Marx nor Weber, Eliot nor Leavis. And after Durkheim, even this residual evolutionism disappears from structuralism. Conclusion Structuralism’s anti-historicism directs it to take as given whatever present it might choose to study, in a fashion quite alien both to culturalism and to non-Althusserian Marxism. This positively makes possibly a non-adversarial posture in comparison with contemporary civilization; it does not, however, require it. A stress on structures as deeper levels of realism, inundated beneath, but nonetheless shaping, the realm of the empirically obvious, can very easily permit for a politics of de mystification, in which the structuralism analyst is understood as piercing through to some furtively hidden truth. For so long as this hidden reality is seen as somehow confusing the truth claims of the more apparent realities, then for so long can such a stance remain attuned with an adversarial intellectual politics. Even then all that eventuates is noticeably enfeebled, and fundamentally academic, versions of intellectual extremism, in which the world is not so much changed, as conside red differently. And again, while structuralism is certainly attuned with such radicalism, it does not need it. Hence the rather peculiar way in which the major French structuralism thinkers have proved capable to shift their political opinions, usually from left to right, without any corresponding amendment to their particular theoretical positions. For structuralism, as neither for culturalism nor for Marxism, the nexus between politics and theory appears irreversibly contingent. This permutation of positivism and what we might well term â€Å"synchronism† with an obligation to the demystification of experiential reality propels the whole structuralism enterprise in a fundamentally theoretic direction. A science of the stasis, marked from birth by an inveterate anti-empiricism, becomes almost inevitably preoccupied with highly abstract theoretical, or formal, models. Hence the near ubiquity of the binary resistance as a typical structuralism trope. Theoretical anti-humanism arises from fundamentally the same source: if neither change nor process nor even the finicky empirical instances are matters of real concern, then the intentions or actions of human subjects, whether individual or collective, can simply be disposed of as extraneous to the structural properties of systems. In this way, structuralism infamously â€Å"decentres† the subject.

Estimating a Trees Age Without Cutting the Tree

Estimating a Trees Age Without Cutting the Tree Foresters determine tree ages by counting the growth rings of a severed tree stump or by taking a core sample using an increment borer. Still, it is not always appropriate to use these invasive methods to age a tree. There is a noninvasive way to estimate tree age in common trees where they are grown in a forest environment. Growth Depends on Species Trees have different growth rates, depending on their species. A red maple  with a 10-inch diameter and competing with other forest-grown trees can easily be 45 years old while a neighboring red oak with the same diameter would only be approximately 40 years old. Trees, by species, are genetically coded to grow at about the same rate under similar conditions. A formula was previously developed and used by the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA)  to predict and determine a forestland  trees age. Running the calculations and comparing them to a species growth factor is regionally and species-specific, so these should be considered very rough calculations and can vary by region and site index. The ISA says that tree growth rates are affected tremendously by conditions such as water availability, climate, soil conditions, root stress, competition for light, and overall plant vigor. Further, the  growth rates of species within genera can vary significantly. So, only use this data as a very rough estimate of a trees age. Estimating a Tree's Age by Species Begin by determining the tree species and taking a diameter measurement (or convert circumference to a diameter measurement) using a tape measure at diameter breast height or 4.5 feet above stump level. If you are using circumference, you will need to make a calculation to determine the tree diameter: Diameter Circumference divided by 3.14 (pi). Then calculate the age of a tree by multiplying the trees diameter by its growth factor as determined by species (see list below). Here is the formula:  Diameter X Growth Factor Approximate Tree Age. Lets use a red maple to calculate age. A red maples growth factor has been determined to be 4.5 and you have determined that its diameter is 10 inches: 10 inch diameter X 4.5 growth factor 45 years. Remember that the growth factors  provided are more accurate when taken from  forest grown trees with competition. Growth Factors by Tree Species Red Maple Species - 4.5 Growth Factor X diameterSilver Maple Species - 3.0 Growth Factor X diameterSugar Maple Species - 5.0 Growth Factor X diameterRiver Birch Species - 3.5 Growth Factor X diameterWhite Birch Species - 5.0 Growth Factor X diameterShagbark Hickory Species - 7.5 Growth Factor X diameterGreen Ash Species - 4.0 Growth Factor X diameterBlack Walnut Species - 4.5 Growth Factor X diameterBlack Cherry Species - 5.0 Growth Factor X diameterRed Oak Species - 4.0 Growth Factor X diameterWhite Oak Species - 5.0 Growth Factor X diameterPin Oak Species - 3.0 Growth Factor X diameterBasswood Species - 3.0 Growth Factor X diameterAmerican Elm Species - 4.0 Growth Factor X diameterIronwood Species - 7.0 Growth Factor X diameterCottonwood Species - 2.0 Growth Factor X diameterRedbud Species - 7.0 Growth FactorDogwood Species - 7.0 Growth Factor X diameterAspen Species - 2.0 Growth Factor X diameter Considerations for Aging Street and Landscape Trees Because trees in a landscape or park are often pampered, protected, and sometimes older than forest-grown trees, it is more of an art to aging these trees without significant error. There are foresters and arborists with enough tree core and stump evaluations under their belts who can age a tree with a degree of accuracy. Its important to keep in mind that it is still impossible to do anything but estimate a tree age under these conditions. For younger street and landscape trees, pick a genus or species from above and reduce the Growth Rate Factor by half. For old to ancient trees, significantly increase the Growth Rate Factor.

Business Model Generation Canvas Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Business Model Generation Canvas - Essay Example so taking the utmost care to see to it that there is absolute visualization of the business model so created and the templates of the business model has got nine templates that fits very well for the better understanding and the due contribution from each of the participant. This type of Business model canvas can very well be formatted in a very large way depending on the number of participants and so even a very large number of the business participants can very well participate together and jointly contribute together towards the success of the business model canvas. Most of the people who participate in this joint exercise can very well contribute their own ideas and sketch down whatever they feel towards turning the business concern towards the success. Thus this Business Model Generation Canvas is a very powerful tools that can very well force business people to really undergo the process of first understand the problems of the business and then start the discussion process and finally create very useful and readily applicable ideas that can very well be applied to real time business problems. Thus as a final step it helps in the analysis of the business problems and gathers the ideas and the views of the different people participating in the business discussion. This kind of business canvas will very well help the business establishments in reaching and also setting new goals for the organization. This kind of model really challenges the business people to really think about the ways by which they can develop new and innovative business ideas which can very well satisfy the business goals of an organization that would very well satisfy and serve the business interests of its creators. This kind of business canvas is very well suited for any type of business organization be it a large or a small organization and this very well enhances the business capability of the organizations under consideration thus becoming a very important tool that could very well

Creative & Critical Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Creative & Critical - Assignment Example However consistent the effects of that approach to achieving peace is, the fact remains that nobody wants to be involved in a war. No man would willingly become a soldier, ready to kill nameless others who have not done him personal harm but rather harmed his nation or a weaker one that needed protection. While numerous articles and opinion papers in the 21st century have condemned war and its outcomes to the best of the writers abilities, the most scathing condemnation of war was not done during our most recent times. Rather, it was written during the events unfolding within World War I by Wilfred Owen in his sonnet â€Å"Dulce Et Decorum Est†. The gravity of the poem can only be attributed to the fact that Owen wrote the poem while recovering from shell shock or in modern lingo â€Å"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder† more commonly known as PTSD in 1917, having served as a British war soldier. Writing many a war related poems during this time including â€Å"Strange Meeting†, â€Å"Insensibility†, and â€Å"S.I.W.†, this practice was actually one of the methods that he employed in order to help him deal with the trauma of the war and its lifelong effects upon him (Williamson, Andrew â€Å"Dulce Et Decorum Est†). It is from this highly graphic recall of his involvement in the war that led to the highly creative and almost 3-D like depiction of the war within his writing. While published posthumously in 1920 the sonnet translates into English as â€Å"It is sweet and honorable to die for ones country† (Williamson, Andrew â€Å"Dulce Et Decorum Est†). However, nothing about the lines from the sonnet depict war and the soldier experiences as being such. For example, the first stanza of the sonnet describes: Anybody who reads the above stanza without being told of the era that it was written it would absolutely swear that it was written by a modern day soldier coming home from

Human Resources Essay Example for Free

Human Resources Essay Employees are always considered an asset to the organization. However organizations can never estimate what amount of this asset is required. Usually the number of employees is either higher than wanted or lower than wanted. Thus to cope up with either surpluses or shortages organizations have a number of methods that are as follows: To manage shortage of employees The first and foremost method to slash shortages is recruiting more permanent employees. This increases the number of workforce as required by the organization. However increasing new employees increases costs for the organization as well. Another method to overcome shortages is to retain employees within the organization who are retiring and offer them added incentives on a late retirement. Similarly another approach to lower down costs and still come over shortages can be to hire retired individuals again on a part time basis. This helps the organization to meet the shortage requirement in an efficient manner as no training is required and also the part time wages are low. Another approach can be to reduce turnovers by providing benefits such as premium pay etc. This is an effective way to retain old employees but can elicit a bidding war which the organization might not be able to control for a long time (Caruth, 1997). Over time and subcontracting is also a good way to deal with shortages. Sub contracting is an expensive procedure but obviously for a short time the company could afford to contract employees. Temporary hiring is also an option and is somewhat similar to sub contracting. Redesigning the job processes so that lesser employees are required is also a way to deal with shortages. This method though requires training so that employees adapt to the new job design and are comfortable with it and doesn’t result in heavier workloads and lowering down the talent level. To Manage Surplus of employees Surpluses are easier to manage then shortages. Stopping the hiring process, no replacements of those who leave, layoffs, offering early retirements etc are one of the most commonly used downsizing techniques (Mathis, 2004). Downsizing activities however have a negative effect on existing employee’s motivation and thus are usually avoided by most organizations. By introducing the shift system, number of hours worked can be reduced and efficiency of employees can be increased. Similarly, outsourcing or temporary employees shouldn’t be hired as there is already a surplus. To lower down costs, the company can either cut down pays across the board or switch to a variable pay plan (number of hours worked multiplied by per hour rate). In either way those with a lower pay or those who work lesser hours will prefer finding a new job that pays them more. Training is also a good way to deal with surpluses. Train half of the employees at a given time and let the other half work then train the later half and let the first half work. Though this is also something expensive and in the long run of no benefit to the organization. Voluntary severance is also another way in which you ask employees to volunteer if they want to leave the organization. Another way to utilize abundance of employees is by expanding operations. Though a firm cannot expand operations overnight nor it can expand them just to accommodate extra employees when there is no need of an expansion. Job Description My current job is as a sales and marketing executive at a technology corporation. I report directly to my sales and marketing director. The basic purpose of my job is to plan and carry out product activation and brand awareness activities in order to increase and sustain sales of my company. The core responsibilities of the job include developing and maintaining a database of customers and potential customers, to plan and carry out sales activities, develop new ideas, keep a track of sales performances, provide management with relevant information, frequently research on the market, the competitors and the customers in order to cope up with the changing needs, make connections with clients for business and organizational development, conduct training sessions to pass on my learning, skills and knowledge to my juniors. Apart from these I have to readily keep my colleagues up to date with all relevant information so that the department is on the same page in meetings or conferences. Communication is one of the foremost things in my job and I have to take care that relevant information reaches the pertaining individual on time. Redesigning the job description In order to redesign my job description following the exhibit I think the first thing that should be focused upon is that the job shouldn’t be monotonous as it is in the above mentioned case. The duties should vary from hard to difficult and from usual to unusual. Skill variety should be a basic part of it. This will lead to an increase of interest towards the job and thus will increase my motivation. My performance will also be definitely improved as I will be learning something different every time and this will be adding to my experience and skills. This will also alleviate the redundancy in my job to some extent (Tanke, 2000). One thing that I feel is lacking in my job is the power of making decisions on my own. As already mentioned I report to my director. At times he is not in the field and he does not have the true picture. In such cases a delay in decision making can be costly for the organization. Thus sales executives should be given the autonomy to at times make decision on their own which can benefit the company. Obviously everyone knows that wrong decision will result in losing the job. So every employee will definitely think for the best of the organization before taking any actions. Employee empowerment results in increasing employee confidence and provides them with new experiences particular to dealing with responsibilities. In turn, employees are satisfied with their jobs, feel a relationship with the organization and get a morale boost. One way to make an employee feel important is to provide feed back. Feedback tells the employee if their work is appreciated or not and in what areas they need to improve. If my director gets feed back from a client on any activity that I planned then it should be known to me as well. Apart from this there should be a little more flexibility in the management attitude so that they also understand that every employee has different needs (Tanke, 2000). Like my job could be more exciting if the management does not keep me sitting in the office just to fill in the hours an employee has to be on his seat. It would be beneficial for both if I am out in the field and monitoring and assisting in the sales activities. All these steps will definitely improve performance, motivation and satisfaction.

The Powerful Settings of Hawthornes Young Goodman Brown Essay

The Powerful Settings of Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown Setting can be a powerful literary device, and Nathaniel Hawthorne wields it to great effect. There are four major settings in Hawthorne’s â€Å"Young Goodman Brown,† and they all take place in Salem. This essay is an examination of those settings and their effects. The tale opens in a doorway as the reader is presented with two lovers saying goodbye. The two lovers are Goodman Brown, who is eager to leave for his adventure; and his wife Faith Brown, who is desperately trying to dissuade him from leaving the house tonight. In this setting, the main elements induce feelings that are positive, bright, and hopeful – a sunset, a familiar street and home, and the pink ribbons in Faith’s cap. Goodman’s positive setting doesn’t last very long, however. As he walks down the street past the meeting house, his surroundings undergo a drastic change. Goodman’s path takes him onto a "dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind."†His new se... ...ne Review 19 (Spring 1993): 18-21. Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The Complete Short Stories of Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc.,1959. The Holy Bible, King James Version-Old and New Testaments, with the Apocrypha   http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/kjv.browse.html James, Henry. Hawthorne. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997. Martin, Terence. Nathaniel Hawthorne. New York: Twayne Publishers Inc., 1965. Wagenknecht, Edward. Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Man, His Tales and Romances. New York: Continuum Publishing Co., 1989.

About role of the United Nations in the changing World Essay

Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations†. Those are words from Preamble of Charter of the United Nations. The Charter of the United Nations was signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, and came into existence on 24 October 1945. The Statute of the International Court of Justice is an integral part of the Charter. The day is now celebrated each year around the world as United Nations Day. The purpose of the United Nations is to bring all nations of the world together to work for peace and development, based on the principles of justice, human dignity and the well-being of all people. It affords the opportunity for countries to balance global interdependence and national interests when addressing international problems. There are currently 191 Members of the United Nations. See more: Satirical essay about drugs They meet in the General Assembly, which is the closest thing to a world parliament. Each country, large or small, rich or poor, has a single vote; however, none of the decisions taken by the Assembly are binding. Nevertheless, the Assembly’s decisions become resolutions that carry the weight of world government opinion. The United Nations Headquarters is in New York City but the land and buildings are international territory. The United Nations has its own flag, its own post office and its own postage stamps. Six official languages are used at the United Nations – Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. The UN European Headquarters is in the Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland. It has offices in Vienna, Austria and Economic Commissions in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Amman in Jordan, Bangkok in Thailand and Santiago in Chile. The senior officer of the United Nations Secretariat is the Secretary-General. The Aims of the United Nations: *To keep peace throughout the world. *To develop friendly relations between nations. *To work together to help people live better lives. * to eliminate poverty, disease and illiteracy in the world. * to stop environmental destruction. * to encourage respect for each other’s rights and freedoms. *To be a centre for helping nations achieve these aims. The Principles of the United Nations: *All Member States have sovereign equality. *All Member States must obey the Charter. *Countries must try to settle their differences by peaceful means. *Countries must avoid using force or threatening to use force. *The UN may not interfere in the domestic affairs of any country. All countries should try to assist the United Nations. Now some information about the UN system: The basic structure of the United Nations is outlined in an organizational chart. What the structure does not show is that decision-making within the UN system is not as easy as in many other organizations. The UN is not an independent, homogeneous organization; it is made up of states, so actions by the UN depend on the will of Member States, to accept, fund or carry them out. Especially in matters of peace-keeping and international politics, it requires a complex, often slow, process of consensus-building that must take into account national sovereignty as well as global needs. The Specialized Agencies, while part of the UN system, are separate, autonomous intergovernmental organizations which work with the UN and with each other. The agencies carry out work relating to specific fields such as trade, communications, air and maritime transport, agriculture and development. Although they have more autonomy, their work within a country or between countries is always carried out in partnership with those countries. They also depend on funds from Member States to achieve their goals. Recently, international conferences organized by the UN have gained significance. UN conferences have been held since the 1960s, but with the Conference on Environment and Development, known as the Earth Summit, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992, they turned into real fora for deciding on national and international policy regarding issues that affect everyone such as the environment, human rights and economic development. Since the Earth Summit, UN conferences have turned into forums in which non-governmental organizations (NGOs) can voice their concerns alongside those of governments. Such conferences focus world attention on these issues and place them squarely on the global agenda. Yet, once the international agreements produced by these conferences are signed, it is still up to each individual country to carry them out. With the moral weight of international conferences and the pressures of media and NGOs, Member States are more likely to endorse the agreements and put them into effect. I also would like to ad some basic information about structure and budget, to make brief of UN more visible. The six principal organs of the United Nations are the: General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, International Court of Justice and Secretariat. The United Nations family, however, is much larger, encompassing 15 agencies and several programmes and bodies. When it comes to a budget, the budget for the two years 2000-2001 was $2,535 million. The main source of funds is the contributions of Member States, which are assessed on a scale approved by the General Assembly. The fundamental criterion on which the scale of assessments is based is the capacity of  countries to pay. This is determined by considering their relative shares of total gross national product, adjusted to take into account a number of factors, including their per capita incomes. In addition, countries are assessed for the costs of peacekeeping operations. What is the role of the UN nations in the changing World? I already gave some simply answers at the beginning of this assignment. I will try to answer this question in depth in the following part of my work. The UN has been effective, even indispensable, in post-conflict development in Mozambique, Guatemala, Afghanistan, the Balkans and elsewhere. It also has guided and monitored political change (democracy and governance) in Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor and Georgia. The UN has been involved in the conflict in Abkhazia since Georgian forces stormed the Abkhaz parliament in Sukhumi in August 1992, triggering a war that remains unresolved today. In 1993, the UN and the CSCE (Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe) agreed that the international lead on the conflict in Abkhazia should be taken by the UN. In the same year the UN, faced with urgent requests from the government of Georgia to deploy a peacekeeping force to Abkhazia, decided to establish an observer mission for Georgia (UNOMIG) to monitor implementation of the July ceasefire agreement between the two sides which had been mediated and guaranteed by the Russian Federation. The decision to send an observer force rather than a fully fledged peacekeeping force reflected the desire of the Russian Federation to take the lead in the management of conflict in the ‘former Soviet space’, and the unwillingness of the other permanent members of the Security Council to challenge Russian prerogatives. There was also a general concern that the peacekeeping apparatus of the UN was overloaded, and disagreement among the parties as to what the mandate of a more substantial force would be. The UN Secretary-General also designated Swiss diplomat Eduard Brunner as Special Envoy for the conflict. He served until 1997 when Liviu Bota, a Romanian diplomat, was appointed Special Representative (SRSG) for the Abkhaz conflict. Both were responsible for the mediation of a process of negotiation leading to a political settlement of  the conflict. Bota has had a more or less permanent presence in the conflict zone, whereas Brunner was only delegated to visit intermittently. Russia’s special status in this process was recognized in its designation as ‘facilitator’ of the talks. In the early years of negotiation matters were not helped by the passive attitude taken by the Special Envoy to mediation of the conflict. The UN’s failure to take a more engaged approach was one factor among several contributing to the obvious lack of movement towards a political settlement in 1994-96. The fact that the more proactive approach adopted by Liviu Bota has also not produced a settlement would suggest, however, that the extent of UN activism is not the determining factor in conflict resolution. While the first personnel of UNOMIG were being deployed, the ceasefire collapsed and hostilities resumed. The UN Security Council condemned the renewal of conflict and associated displacement of population and demanded that the parties cease fighting. They also decided to extend the mandate of UNOMIG pending clarification of the situation. Traditionally, the UN has had a similar approach to its work since its conception in 1947. Gradually it became more and more involved; adding different organelles, agencies, and addressing more issues that weren’t necessarily new as it grew in size and scope. The International Court of Justice, the Economic and Social Council, and agencies like the International Maritime Organization were created to solve problems in these areas. It grew out of the General Assembly and the Security Council; to an organization with thousands of employees worldwide doing hundreds of completely different things. To put it simply, and to generalize, it has gotten bigger, and more involved. The Secretary General NOW has the ability to change the way a leader runs his country, make two warring countries sign a peace treaty, and even route money through areas in the world that would have never gotten any before. The Secretary has assumed power or the power of influence, he or she does not have any written or given power, Still however, this clearly shows how much more the UN has gotten involved and grown, even more like the feared â€Å"world government† that it vows to never become. It is a little misleading to speak of the role of the UN. The UN is nearly  powerless as an abstract entity or even as a representative of the world’s nations. It can act, instead, only insofar as it is given authorization by the great powers, which means primarily the United States. The UN has no standing peacekeeping force and thus is dependent on finding countries willing to contribute troops for any particular mission. The organization suffers as well from an extreme shortage of funds because of the continual U.S. refusal to pay its dues. Any peacekeepers sent to East Timor will probably not be a UN force because the U.S. Congress has required that there be a 15-day delay before the U.S. government can approve any UN peacekeeping operation and has forbidden Washington from paying its authorized share of the costs of any such operation. U.S. influence is greatest in the Security Council, but some organs of the UN, such as the General Assembly or bodies dealing with economic and social issues have had a Third World majority ever since the era of decolonization. Accordingly, U.S. policy has been to undermine and marginalize the UN. The United Nations should have an important role in world affairs, but U.S. policy and the policies of other leading states, severely limit the international organization. From the point of view of U.S. policymakers, however, there is one crucial role played by the UN: it serves as a convenient scapegoat when something goes wrong. For example, the current catastrophe in East Timor is directly attributable to the refusal of the United States and other Western powers to deter the atrocities there over a period of a quarter century, yet the UN will probably take the blame. So as we can see, we can look for the subject of my assignment from the different point of view. Another UN’s role: The Asian crisis, has become a global crisis, was by no means a purely financial matter. It had disastrous consequences for millions of people in their everyday lives. Moreover, it was the poor who are hardest hit. In Indonesia, almost 15,000 workers lost their jobs in 1998. And poverty came with its usual sorry retinue: hunger, social unrest, violence, abuse of human rights. The least developed countries, the ones least able to influence world priorities and policies, were penalized. So the human dimension was at the heart of the response (including debt relief)to this  first major crisis of globalization. Of course, the role of the seven major industrial powers, and of the world’s finance ministers and central bankers, remained crucial. But they could not undertake this task alone. All parts of the international system came together. President Clinton has suggested wide-ranging discussions on the new world â€Å"financial architecture.† Some would say that this was none of the U.N.’s business. There are other international bodies, more specialized and perhaps more competent to deal with economic problems: the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the Bank for International Settlements. But the U.N. is the one truly global institution we all belong to. It must have a seat at the table. Economic and financial strategies will succeed only if they are applied within a clear political framework. That framework will command much wider support if, through the U.N., all affected countries have played a part in working it out. Over the long term, globalization will be positive. It draws us closer together and enables us to produce more efficiently, to control our environment, to improve our quality of life. But such benefits are not felt equally by all. For many people, â€Å"long term† is too far off to be meaningful. Millions on this planet still live in isolation, on the margins of the world economy. Millions more are experiencing globalization not as a great new opportunity but as a profoundly disruptive force that attacks both their material living standards and their culture. Some of those who had benefited most from open markets and capital flows were feeling the greatest pain. The temptation to retreat into nationalism or populism is strong. But, fortunately, in most developing countries, those false solutions are being rejected. Each country’s crisis has its own local features and causes. Each country has to address its own specific problems and shortcomings. But many countries need help, for these are not just financial or macro-economic problems. They have grave social and political consequences, and some of their causes are to be found in political and social systems. The U.N. has a responsibility, as the universal institution, to insist on the need for worldwide solutions based on rules that are fair to all. It is the UN job to ensure that nations do not react to crisis by turning their backs on universal values. In such crises, the UN must come together to find solutions based on the founding  principles which all their member states have in common: those of the U.N. Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In particular, the UN has a special responsibility to speak up for the victims or potential victims. The UN cannot forget the countries in Africa and elsewhere whose debt burdens the crisis has made even more unsustainable. Debt relief is often resisted on grounds of â€Å"moral hazard,† that it rewards the reckless and penalizes the prudent. But were not the lenders often just as reckless and irresponsible as the borrowers? Can it really be moral for them to insist on full interest and full repayment if the result is that children not yet born when the debts were contracted are denied even a subsistence diet or an elementary education? Many nations feel their interests are ignored or neglected in specialized economic bodies, where the strongest voices, for quite understandable reasons, tend to be those of countries which have already achieved economic success. But the U.N. provides a forum for informed debate among all those affected by the crisis. It has to represent all stakeholders in the global economy. The U.N. must play its part in the search for solutions that preserve the benefits of globalization while protecting those who have suffered or who have been left out. UN has kept women’s issues and interests on the agenda of change when they risked being set aside for a â€Å"later† that would never come in Afghanistan, Kosovo and East Timor. It has protected children in conflict and in post-conflict stress. The UN is bringing justice post-conflict to the repressed through ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia), ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), and the nascent Sierra Leone court. In each case, the role and the centrality of the UN have been different. The United Nations is an organization that has always been based on respect for nation’s sovereignties, peace, and judicial cooperation regarding topics which are salient to the current time period. As the entire world moves further into the â€Å"technological age†, and with the turn of the century coming (which is really only symbolic of a new era), new issues are bound to develop. The world will gradually change, and the UN ne eds to address these needs by evaluating its current state along with what it can do to change for the better. The increasingly global economy, the European Community, and the development of the sagging Asian market (with  the rest of the world in a recession also) show action needs to be taken economically. Hostility remains in the Middle East, human rights are being violated every day around the globe, and people everywhere are disgruntled with their current governmental situation. How will the UN curb nuclear terrorism, help the homeless and uneducated, and still maintain and outside role in political matters? Or should they maintain an outside role? These are merely a few of the hundreds of issues addressing the world today, and the UN must prepare for the coming decade with open minded foresight. As Secretary General Kofi A. Annan said, every conflict is different, every post-conflict is different, and each model of intervention by the international community is different. In Iraq, we have an immediate post-conflict humanitarian and reconstruction challenge in front of us. It is in eve ryone’s interests, especially in the Iraqi people’s interest, to ensure that Iraq becomes an economically functional, politically stable and self-governing state that is respectful of the rule of law, of democratic principles and of international norms. The coalition nations currently controlling Iraqi territory have distinct responsibilities as occupying powers to maintain public order and safety, to protect civilians and to provide essential services. The wider international community, especially the United Nations, also have indispensable roles to play. While systems are in place for humanitarian assistance, a framework is needed to facilitate greater engagement and support in the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq. The United Nations has extensive expertise that can and should be brought to bear. The UN and its agencies have been heavily involved in Iraq since the first Gulf War, and have an in-depth understanding of the circumstances, and the challenges. The UN is fully engaged through its agencies and has resources on the ground in Iraq, providing much-needed assistance to the Iraqi people. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the WFP (World Food Programme)- they all know Iraq. Countries need to build on the strength of the engagement of these and other UN agencies in Iraq, and determine how best they can make further use of this experience and expertise. In Iraq, as in all post-conflict situations, common over-arching goals must be to meet the needs of the people, and to support them in their course towards stability, recovery and reconstruction. After Kosovo, many thought NATO would become let say â€Å"Globocop† that the G-8 would supplant the Security Council, that the UN would be sidelined. But, in fact, the UN picked up the pieces in Kosovo, mandated the intervention in East Timor and has helped Afghanistan put itself back together. What about issues that should to be addressed in a Resolution? As for what should be addressed, there almost are more topics than one is able to think about. Should there be more staff running relief efforts in Zaire? Is the International Court of Justice really necessary, or is it wasting money and time that could be spent on other things. Analyzing this, you could say that since nations only sue each other, and no real action is taken, and the courts have no real power to enforce anything, what is the use? Possibly the funding used for this could go towards building schools in Africa. This may seem fairly ludicrous, but one needs to have the foresight to see these things, and there i s only a certain amount of money around for things like this. Possibly the UN relief troops should be allowed to use loaded weapons and fire at hostile parties, for their own safety and to help curb violence more. Maybe the Secretary General should be stripped of all his power, and put all diplomacy matters in the hands of the General Assembly or Security Council. The Secretary could have increased power that would force nations to comply with his decisions. A UN that is much like a world government could possibly work as long as there was representatives from every nation. Because the world is more complex, if the UN was simplified it might make things smoother. Instead of having an agency for every little issue, such as the ACC Sub-Committee on Nutrition, or the UN office for Outer Space affairs. Are these REALLY necessary? They may be, but it is the decision of the delegates. The UN’s image with â€Å"Security Council† and a Court System might look bad to some conservative minded citizens of a nation. Economically, are the proper funds being allocated to areas and agencies in need? Should a worldwide mandatory educational requirement be put into effect? What exactly is the most pressing area right now that needs the fiscal help the UN can offer? Again, in the past 50 years help has been going to the same places, while the Secretariat grew larger and larger, and the entire UN gradually began becoming a complex political bureaucracy, and began to focus less on its original mission as stated in the charter, to  promote peaceful relations between the nations of the world. This doesn’t seem to be working anymore, possibly because the current UN is obsolete. In summation, United Nations reform is a daunting task. As a member of UN, Poland should remember to use foresight, think of what kind of world we will live in next century, what new things will happen, and how the UN should evolve to meet these needs with vigor. The UN is still only an organization, not a government, and it is based itself on precedent. That is, actions of the past determine future decisions. If precedent is broken, we should remember what has been built for all of us for the past 51 years. Bibliography: www.alertnet.org www.globalpolicy.org www.undp.org www.globalissues.com/Geopolitics/EastTimor www.un.org/ www1.umn.edu/humanrts/instree/chapter1.html United Nations: 50 Years of Peace and War, University of California Press, John Taylor, Phd. 1998 United Nations Published Charter The History of The United Nations, Paladin Press, Jonathon Kingsley. 1994

First Five Years/ Descriptive Essay Essay

I was born on the island of Sao Miguel, Azores which is part of Portugal. Sao Miguel is also known as â€Å"Green Island† due to its lush meadow landscape, rain forests and waterfalls. I was blessed in being born to Eduardo & Olga Pereira. The story begins with my father; he entered the military â€Å"Army† as soon as he was of legal age. My mother was a live-in nanny for a wealthy family who lived in a white house on the hillside overlooking the city. She has told me how she loved being a nanny for the little boy who was called Roberto Reis. She often talks about the family because she has found memories of caring for the little boy. Also, being of a young age of 15 the family cared for her as one of their own children. This was the beginning to how my parents met. According to dad he was walking one day down a cobblestone road and spotted my mother on the grey iron veranda†¦ she was wearing a white dress, slim with long dark hair and very pretty and holding the l ittle boy. He tried talking to my mom at the time but she said she couldn’t be bothered. At least that’s how she tells the story. Nonetheless he started walking by every day at high noon in hopes of talking and courting my mom from the veranda. The family that she worked for had strict family values when it came to respecting someone’s daughter. The father figure in the house†¦said to my dad, Olga lives underneath our roof so I’m held accountable for her safety and well-being. She is a part of our family so I expect only honorable intentions. My dad respectfully informed him, his interest were for a long-term commitment. A couple of years later my father and mother got married and I came along shortly a year later. When I turned 2yrs of age my mother told me the story of how my maternal grandmother told her that she would not watch me again because I’d given her a heart attack. It seems that I was fond of kittens so I apparently saw one outside and decided to follow it right to a 2ft rock wall which I climbed and began crawling towards the orange colored kitten. When my grandmother finally noticed me she’d just about had a heart attack because behind that wall was 25 foot drop over rocks into grapevines. She slowly and carefully walked slowly calling my name to come to her and get off the wall. As she inched her way close enough she grabbed me and held so tight. She was just so  thankful that nothing happened to me. So as I stated earlier no more quality time at vovo’s house for me without my mom being present and accounted for. Once I reached 2  ½ years of age is when my parents and I migrated to the United States of America in April 1971. The â€Å"American Dream† is what my parents were in pursuit of which led them to the City of Fall My father’s sister lived here with her husband and children. It was very early on as to the goals my parents had set for themselves. My dad was a carpenter and built sailing yachts, and mom worked in a mill as a sewing machine operator. It was all about working hard and long hours and saving money to buy a car and then a house. Both parents didn’t go to college in Portugal but had enough education to reach the goals they set for themselves. I remember we always had everything we needed at least that’s what they showed growing up. The culture Roman Catholic was an enormous part of life. Going to church weekly and participation in church functions â€Å"The Feast of Our Lady of Health† were celebrated every August. The church held Saturday night dinner dances the men wore casual bell bottom pants and women wore white gogo boots†¦..it was all for raising money for the church often usually once a month as well as the New Year Party which brought the parishioner’s together to celebrate the new coming year. I was enrolled at SS Peter and Paul School. Learning Religion was very important to my parents. One memory in the 2nd grades I remember was the annual Halloween party at school. The PTA would decorate the hall with black and orange streamers and setup a witch’s cauldron with smoke coming out of it and we would bob for apples and get tricks or treat bags. It was such fun. I also enjoyed when we did fundraisers at school I liked bringing home the huge boxed kits full of items to show and sell on tracking sheet. I would constantly take items out and repack them I remember enjoying to the touch, the feel of things and even the smell of these little blue car erasers. I was so proud of selling my items I was known as the little brown haired girl who was assertive in selling all the different trinkets. I remember long ago how my parent’s friends would many times say to me â€Å"How time passes so quickly with respect to growth and time â€Å" I didn’t realize  how many fond memories I had of my early childhood until today. As I finish this essay the sun is shining bright yellow and my background music is calm meditation.

Indian Removal essays

Indian Removal essays The 1830s removal of the Cherokee Indians from their ancestral land to distant reservations in Oklahoma, known as the Trail of Tears, represented a marked divergence from American national policy. The decision made by the Jackson administration differed in two conspicuous ways: the removal proceeded from a gross breach of treaty and sovereignty rather than a coerced Teformulation of a treaty; it defied the entire Judicial branch of government by going against the Supreme Court. Although the historical trend was building up to greater and greater clashes between Indians, the national policy had not overtly changed until Jackson proposed the Indian Removal Act. Beginning in 1721 the colonies had made treaties with Native Americans (Doc. A). Successive US Treaties took away successive amounts of land (Doc. A). Although coerced, these treaties were superficially legal. Henry Knox, secretary of war under Washingtons administration and negotiator of the Cherokee Treaty of Holston, summarized the possibilities for the United States as follows, ...two modes present themselves...; the first of which is by raising an army and [destroying the resisting] tribes entirely, or 2ndly by forming treaties of peace with them (Doc. B). America did in fact employ both options; taking away increasing amounts of lands from Indians via treaties and outright conquering the lands of Indians who resisted. However, Knox further observed, An inquiry would arise, whether ...the United States have a clear right ... to proceed with the destruction or expulsion of the savages ...The Indians being the prior occupants possess the right of the soil. It cannot be taken from them unless by their free consent, or by the right of conquest of a just war. (Doc B). As this is the national policy existing under Washington, it can clearly be seen to be contrary to Jackson who removed the ...

Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt in Criminal Trials

Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt in Criminal Trials In the United States court system, the fair and impartial delivery of justice is based on two fundamental tenets: That all persons accused of crimes are considered to be innocent until proven guilty, and that their guilt must be proven â€Å"beyond a reasonable doubt.† While the requirement that guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt is meant to protect the rights of Americans charged with crimes, it often leaves juries with the momentous task of answering the often subjective question - how much doubt is â€Å"reasonable doubt?† Constitutional Basis for Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, persons accused of crimes are protected from â€Å"conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.† The U.S. Supreme Court first acknowledged the concept in its decision on the 1880 case of Miles v. United States: â€Å"The evidence upon which a jury is justified in returning a verdict of guilty must be sufficient to produce a conviction of guilt, to the exclusion of all reasonable doubt.† While judges are required to instruct juries to apply the reasonable doubt standard, legal experts disagree on whether the jury should also be given a quantifiable definition of â€Å"reasonable doubt.† In the 1994 case of Victor v. Nebraska, the Supreme Court ruled that the reasonable doubt instructions given to juries must be clear, but declined to specify a standard set of such instructions. As a result of Victor v. Nebraska ruling, the various courts have created their own reasonable doubt instructions. For example, judges of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals instruct juries that, â€Å"A reasonable doubt is a doubt based upon reason and common sense and is not based purely on speculation. It may arise from a careful and impartial consideration of all the evidence, or from lack of evidence.† Considering the Quality of Evidence As part of their â€Å"careful and impartial consideration† of evidence presented during the trial, jurors must also evaluate the quality of that evidence. While first-hand evidence such as eyewitness testimony, surveillance tapes, and DNA matching help eliminate doubts of guilt, jurors assume - and are typically reminded by defense attorneys - that witness may lie, photographic evidence can be faked, and DNA samples can become tainted or mishandled. Short of voluntary or legally-obtained confessions, most evidence is open to being challenged as invalid or circumstantial, thus helping to establish â€Å"reasonable doubt† in the minds of the jurors. Reasonable Does Not Mean All As in most other criminal courts, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court also instructs jurors that proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a doubt that leaves them â€Å"firmly convinced† that the defendant is guilty. Perhaps most importantly, jurors in all courts are instructed that beyond a â€Å"reasonable† doubt does not mean beyond â€Å"all† doubt. As Ninth Circuit judges state it, â€Å"It is not required that the government (the prosecution) proves guilt beyond all possible doubt.† Finally, judges instruct jurors that after their â€Å"careful and impartial† consideration of the evidence they have seen, they are not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant actually committed the crime as charged, it is their duty as jurors to find the defendant not guilty. Can Reasonable Be Quantified? Is it even possible to assign a definite numeric value to such a subjective, opinion-driven concept as reasonable doubt? Over the years, legal authorities have generally agreed that proof â€Å"beyond a reasonable doubt† requires jurors to be at least 98% to 99% certain that the evidence proves the defendant to be guilty. This is in contrast to civil trials on lawsuits, in which a lower standard of proof, known as a â€Å"preponderance of the evidence† is required. In civil trials, a party might prevail with little as 51% probability that events involved actually occurred as claimed. This rather wide discrepancy in the standard of proof required can be best explained by the fact that persons found guilty in criminal trials face far more severe potential punishment - from jail time to death - compared to the monetary penalties typically involved in civil trials. In general, defendants in criminal trials are afforded more constitutionally-ensured protections than defendants in civil trials.   The Reasonable Person Element In criminal trials, jurors are often instructed to decide whether the defendant is guilty or not by applying an objective test in which the defendant’s actions are compared to those of a â€Å"reasonable person† acting under similar circumstances. Basically, would any other reasonable person have done the same things the defendant did? This â€Å"reasonable person† test is often applied in trials involving so-called â€Å"stand your ground† or â€Å"castle doctrine† laws that justify the use of deadly force in acts of self-defense. For example, would a reasonable person have also chosen to shoot his or her attacker under the same circumstances or not? Of course, such a â€Å"reasonable† person is little more than a fictional ideal based on the individual juror’s opinion of how a â€Å"typical† person, possessing ordinary knowledge and prudence, would act in certain circumstances. According to this standard, most jurors naturally tend to consider themselves to be reasonable people and thus judge the defendant’s conduct from a viewpoint of, â€Å"What would I have done?† Since the test of whether a person has acted as a reasonable person is an objective one, it does not take into account the particular abilities of the defendant. As a result, defendants who have shown a low level of intelligence or have habitually acted carelessly are held to the same standards of conduct as more intelligent or careful persons, or as the ancient legal principle holds, â€Å"Ignorance of the law excuses no one.† Why the Guilty Sometimes Go Free If all persons accused of crimes must be considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and that even the slightest degree of doubt can sway even a reasonable person’s opinion of a defendant’s guilt, doesn’t the American criminal justice system occasionally allow guilty people to go free? Indeed it does, but this is entirely by design. In crafting the various provisions of the Constitution protecting rights of the accused, the Framers felt it essential that America apply the same standard of justice expressed by renowned English jurist William Blackstone in his often-cited 1760s work, Commentaries on the Laws of England, â€Å"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.†

Essay on Sonia Shah's review of the Constaant Gardner

On Sonia Shah's review of the Constaant Gardner - Essay Example It can be at times a matter of life and death and the companies’ failure to give out all necessary details regarding something that concerns the life of another human being is immoral. Granted that they are being paid substantially, this is still a moral judgment call that should be adhered to religiously. They should ensure that their subjects comprehend all encompassing particulars pertaining to the scope and effects of the study. By virtue of common sense, a good policy should to first give out an answer form or through an interview, guarantee that a person should first understand what he or she is about to go through before actually including them in any study. Of course this would be next to impossible as there are a number or experiments wherein the danger would not be worth the risk of any human being. On the other hand, we have the different side of the story which portrays the inevitability of such practices in pharmacology. It is as the author puts it, our biggest blunder to disregard the risks that are inherently involved in the development of most drugs. This is the major reason why drug companies have set up shop in regions such as Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and especially Africa. An American is said to purchase about 10 prescription drugs yearly while the ratio of those who partake in experiments is 20 to less than one. Those who do join in experiments are labeled as ‘guinea pigs’ and are perceived to have little to no choice on the matter (Shah, par. 10). There is such a need for these studies to be conducted and if the option for this is to take it to another country, then the big pharmaceutical companies would gladly take it there. If business can be conducted better elsewhere, then it becomes a no-brainer that they would up and go wherever it is. There is no question that test clinics are necessary to develop new drugs that should be able to help humanity. As long as these