Aggressive in behaviour Essay

I will use this as my title for the purposes of planning. In 1998, 47% of female prisoners had dependent children (Flynn, 1998:75). In 1999 this was estimated to be more like 55% – based on those with children sixteen or under. With the female prison population numbering around 3,250, the number of women estimated to have young children is 1788 (Harris, 2000:iv). So I feel it would be useful to try and locate around 10% of this number and ask for permission to interview and study their children. This figure would still mean a lot of work for the researchers – and there would need to be several – as not all of those approached would give permission for the research to involve their children. As a result, I have determined that the best methods of research will be interviews and observations. The reason I have chosen these methodologies is because they are more informal, and when working with children, it is more likely to yield results than questionnaires. Questionnaires are problematical for younger children, who may be unable to write and face to face techniques are more likely to obtain information – questionnaires are not always filled in or returned to the researchers (Bell, 1999:130). The benefits of interviewing and observation preclude the use of questionnaires, in part because they allow a certain flexibility for the researcher to further investigate any new ideas which may become apparent (Browne, 1997:406, 414). Observation is beneficial to the researcher because it can allow for additional details to be noted which the child might be unable or unwilling to express. Interviews permit a degree of familiarity between the researcher and the subject, and in turn may present opportunity to further discuss any points which the researcher feel are relevant. In questioning children, the ethics are complex. Permission to interview the child has to be obtained, and it might be unclear from whom it should be procured. The British Psychological Society in 1996 set down a code of ethics and conduct in which it was stipulated that if the research affects someone not able to give valid consent, i.e. a child under the age of eighteen, then it needs to be obtained from whomever has legal authority to give it (Lindsay, 2000:14-15). The first people deemed to be those with parental responsibility are the natural parents. Exceptions to this include a carer who has a resident order under the 1989 Children Act, anyone holding a temporary emergency protection order or the local authority if the child is in care (Masson, 2000:37). If the mother is in prison, as is necessary for his research, obtaining information regarding their children might be a contentious point. It will involve the co-operation of the prison management in addition to the parents, children, and the child’s’ place of education. There being only sixteen prisons in England and Wales which house female prisoners (Flynn, 1998:57), I feel it would be easier to gain the information from a women-only establishment as the administration may be more familiar with the inmates and perhaps will be in a position to assist the research. This would require asking the prison to identify those prisoners with children, which I believe is a detail which would perhaps already be on a database. If this is not the case, it would then involve asking the women in the prison to come forward. This would undoubtedly cause difficulties, as they may not wish to do so, perhaps through disinterest in the research or an unwillingness to be set part from the others as a result of it. Women who have been separated from their children, for whatever reason, may be emotional as a result, and therefore sensitivity is an absolute necessity. The disruption to the prison is also something which needs to be taken into consideration, but:  Ã¢â‚¬ËœÃ¢â‚¬ ¦most prisoners find it a welcome change to talk to outsiders†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ã‚  (King, 2000:303). Once women with children between the ages of two and seventeen years have been identified and approached, their permission to interview their children must be obtained. Authorisation should also be secured from the person caring for the child away from the prison, as it is actually ethically wrong to ask permission for such things from the parent not currently the full-time carer (Masson, 2000:38). I do not know the ethics on continuing on the sole permission of the carer rather than the mother. This is the only clear means of getting access to the information required, as it would be too difficult to poll schools for the information. They would not be able to divulge the data on the children without parental permission anyway. If permission is not given by the mother or the carer, the child will not be contacted in any way. It might be interesting, however, to ask why the parents did not want to take part. Once permission has been gained, the next step is to decide where would be best for the child to hold the interviews. The parents may have suggestions themselves, as they may prefer to have the interview conducted in their presence. This is something which will have to be taken into consideration in the conduct of the project, as it may have a bearing on the behaviour of the child. The presence of a parent, teacher or carer may influence the way the child acts, albeit perhaps indirectly, so affecting their responses to the questions. It would undoubtedly be better to interview all the children under the same conditions, but this might not be possible so it would be advisable to be prepared to be flexible. The best place would be somewhere neutral to the child perhaps a local community centre, preferably interviewing the child twice – once with a parent, carer or teacher in the room, then once without them there. I believe this might show a variance in the child’s attitude and behaviour towards the researcher and their questions, as they will have ‘an audience to play to’ when someone they know well is in the room. It is essential, however, to interview the child in a setting in which they are comfortable. If the parents feel it would be best to interview at their home, then places such as the garden or even the stairs may provide a sense of security for the child (Masson, 2000:43). Otherwise another place to carry out an interview might be the child’s school. If the child is hostile to their school-life however, this may introduce elements of bias into their interview compared to other children who may have been interviewed at home or at a community centre. The practicality of eliciting reliable information from a child (under eighteen years of age), is a point which quickly becomes clouded with other issues. The words of an adult may be too complex or the sentence structure poorly formed, so that a child become confused. This has been proven to be the case by several authors (Walker, 1994, Dockrell, Lewis & Lindsay, 2000), and includes children up to the age of eighteen. Minors, even those nearly eighteen, are not always proficient in language skills, and may have difficulty understanding the wording of questions or in formulating their own answers (Walker, 1994:4). There is a need to be sure of how a child is answering a question put to them, as they could be responding to a part of a question rather than the whole question.

The War to Save a Nation

The War to Save a Nation Should we interfere in countries that are in civil war or in need of help, or should we as a nation be more concerned about our own issues on the other hand? There are many different viewpoints on whether we should be in Afghanistan or Iraq; both sides of the argument have valid points supported by facts and strong beliefs. l, for one, strongly believe that there should be a continued presence in those countries. I believe it is morally wrong to turn one's back and pretend nothing is happening.The war in Afghanistan over the past 12 years has come at a great cost in means of oney and lives, although the benefits coming from this war are Justified in my eyes. In this paper I will go over how the lives being sacrificed have been for a cause that is improving the lives of Afghans, keeping our nation safe from terrorist attacks, why there is a need for Justice to be served, how the lives being lost are for a greater good, how the money being spent will lead to a better future for Afghanistan, how Democracy can be achieved, and how terrorism needs to be addressed as a regional issue.For there to be a desirable and meaningful achievement of the goals that we ave placed on this war there is need for a continued presence in Afghanistan. Washington provided Afghanistan with 51. 8 billion dollars between 2001 and 2010, about 56% of this money was spent on equipping, training Afghan forces while the other portion was spent on humanitarian, economic, governance and counter- narcotic programs. Wahabuddin) With the money provided by the U. S. the Afghan population has greatly increased in these areas over the past decade, which is what we as a nation have been striving for so that we may bring this war to an end. The ives being sacrificed in this war with rising casualties has come at a great cost, but is leading to the Afghan nation to become a more stable country.In the article â€Å"Justifying sacrifice: Barack Obama and the selling and ending of the war in Afghanistan† Trevor McCrisken goes on to say In order to ‘sell' the renewed effort to bring the Afghanistan campaign to ‘a successful conclusion', Obama has drawn heavily on the idea of ‘sacrifice' by emphasizing in his rhetorical defence of the commitment of further US troops that the protection of the United States and its nterests against further terrorist attacks compels America to bear the burden of sacrifice that continuing the war entails. McCrisken 1) With that said the author shows that the war Afghanistan and the sacrifices made are necessary for us to bear to ensure our safety. Barack Obama used his Inaugural address to call all Americans and clarify the need for sacrifice and the reminder of the sacrifices made in the history of our nation, and the need for our nation to bear those sacrifices again in order to create a better life for our nation and the Afghan public (McCrisken 2) Our afety as a nation is not the only at risk and to en sure future safety for the Afghan public sacrifices need to be made.With the ongoing war in Afghanistan the lives being lost on both sides are reaching heights that we as a nation never hoped for, but is needed to keep our country safe and to better the lives of Afghans and rebuild the country so that it may thrive. The number ot deaths ot Coalition torces and Atgnan civilians nas exceeded t justification of sacrifice, but when it is the terrorist groups that are responsible for the majority of civilian deaths. The Taliban need to answer for their crimes and be held accountable for their actions. Between 2007 and 2010 Taliban accounted for 5,570 civilian casualties in Afghanistan.Oust War Index) The number of deaths caused by Taliban need to be answered, and the continued presence of a Coalition force is what is needed to exact Justice on those who prey on the weak. The average life expectancy in Afghanistan in 2004 was 42, and the more devastating fact was that 25% of children did not make it to the age of five (Costs of War) The fact that so many re dying at too early of an age because the ongoing war is a tragedy, but in order to reclaim Afghanistan there needs to be Justice served for those responsible.The Taliban are accounting for countless deaths in Afghanistan, not only soldiers but also civilians and need to answer for their crimes against the Afghan nation. The benefits of an ongoing presence in Afghanistan and the sacrifices being made do not Justify the means. Over the years there have been many improvements to Afghans lives with that comes sacrifice, but to make a change sacrifices have to be ade.In 2001, 8% of Afghans had access to some form of health-care, but has now risen to more than 80% (International Security Assistance Force 27) With this improvement shows that the lives being sacrificed have greatly improved the country Afghanistan and that there is better care and hope for Afghan. Between 2001 and 2008 the number of children attending sc hool rose from 900,000 all the way up to 5 million, with a third of those students being girls and young women. Metzler 39) Over the past decade all the schools that have been built and the number of children ttending school these days show how much a impact we have made on the nation of Afghanistan in the means of an education which will improve the economy in Afghanistan. Even though there have been many lives lost due to this ongoing war in Afghanistan, the benefits for the population of Afghanistan have risen drastically from where the nation was before 2001.The money being spent in Afghanistan is being used in a way that is greatly improving the lives of citizens in the country of Afghanistan, and is providing the nation with a brighter future to grow from. In 2008 Washington spent $3 billion dollars in total assistance for health, education and agriculture (Metzler 40) This money that has been put into Afghanistan shows that our Nation is using our tax dollars in a way that we can be proud of, and how important it is to be less concerned about how much is being spent but the greatly positive effect we are having on a nation that needs help.In 2007 the Afghan National Army and ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) worked together and cleared the entire Ghazni Province of Taliban. On top of providing medical support to 2,300 citizens, uilt 10 new schools, gave out 260 tons of humanitarian aid and also one million dollars committed towards additional development. (Afghanistan 33) The money put into Afghanistan and which is being spent on this war, are benefiting the people of Afghanistan in such a way that it is greatly improving the lives of the civilians in country.Democracy can be achieved in Afghanistan to provide the nation stability by creating political competition and providing accountability to the Afghan citizens, which will in turn get the Atgnan nation to strive to improve their country and esire for a better future. â€Å"If the Natio nal Assembly is not seen to be achieving anything, citizens are likely to lose faith in democratization as a whole, allowing old powerbrokers to reassert themselves outside constitutional structures. (International Crisis Group 96) With this said it shows how the Afghan nation needs to strive and have a hand in the future that is being built around themselves, rather than sitting on the sidelines watching their country change before their eyes. The younger generations of Afghans are watching their country and government being built efore them, but do not have a part in what is happening and feel left out of the political decision process in their country. Sultanzoy 100) The author explains how the younger generation need to be able to have a hand in how their nation is being built, and the need for a Democracy so that their voices can be heard. The progress and push to create a Democratic society in Afghanistan is possible, and the work being accomplished is leading to free and fair elections which would lead to a better life for all Afghan citizens and generations to come. The war in Afghanistan needs to be addressed as a regional issue to improve the economic growth of the country of Afghanistan.From that point, there will be more opportunities for young Afghans to have a better future rather than having the few choices they have now. â€Å"Desperation and poverty are the tools used by evil forces to raise their terrorist cadres. But that environment will not change if political will is lacking, and if there is no action by the US and the governments of the region to get our economies to create Jobs that offer hope. † (Karzai 228) Hamid Karzai the President of Afghanistan shows in this quote that the need for Afghanistan needs to have a focus on the political and economic aspects in order to make a change and a better future.The Economy has continued to grow at rates between 12-14 percent per year which is the highest in South Asia. (Metzler 40) This is what the effects of the continued presence and aid of our government has shown for in Afghanistan, and how the regional issue is being addressed in a way that shows that there can be a bright future for Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan these days is being addressed n a more regional note rather than the way it was in the earlier parts of the war.Afghanistan's economy has been rising steadily due to the support coming from the U. S. and Coalition Forces. There are many different viewpoints on whether we should be in Afghanistan or Iraq; both sides of the argument have valid points supported by facts. l, for one, strongly believe that there should be a continued presence in these countries. I believe it is morally wrong to turn one's back and pretend nothing is happening. There is the possibility to provide a better future for Afghanistan.The lives being acrificed have been for a cause that is improving the lives of Afghans, keeping our nation safe from terrorist attacks, Justic e is needed to be served, the lives being lost are for a greater good, the money being spent will lead to a better future for Afghanistan, Democracy can be achieved and terrorism needs to be addressed as a regional issue. This ongoing war with all the rises and decline over the years has brought Afghanistan to the point where it is at now. The war is not over and needs to be continued so that we may improve this world that we live in, one country at a time.

How was the plot to kill president Garfield created and carried out Essay

How was the plot to kill president Garfield created and carried out Please use specific examples from book - Essay Example He had a very high means of opining about himself. He felt that he deserved to get a very powerful job in United States, and James Garfield was in the best position to offer him that job (Millard 2012). However, the president did not offer him his wish; so he plotted to assassinate him. Charles Guiteau was a republican like James Garfield and Ulysses Grant. Prior to the elections of 1880, James Garfield and Ulysses Grant were running for the presidency and James Garfield won the Republican nomination to face Democrat Winfield S. Hancock in the general elections. Guiteau had engaged in several ventures before joining politics. He then supported the Republican presidential candidate James Garfield after his favourite Stalwart candidate Ulysses Grant lost in the nomination. Stalwart was a Republican faction allied to the former president Ulysses Grant. The other faction was Half-Breeds led by President Garfield. The vice president Arthur who later took over as president after the assassination of President Grant was a Stalwart. Guiteau wrote a speech called Grant vs. Hancock which he later changed to Garfield vs. Hancock in support of Garfield (Millard 2012). He later said that his intention was to unite the two factions of the Republican Party; and one of the reasons why he murdered the president is because he thought it was the best way to resolve the divisions in the Republican Party which, according to him, were caused by President Garfield. With these political sacrifices he made, Charles Guiteau hoped that the Republican government would offer him a good job. He aimed at a diplomatic post in Vienna, and later asked for the same position in Paris. During the 1880 campaign he was all over the Republican headquarters in New York City seeking rewards for his efforts which he believed to have caused the narrow win of Garfield over Hancock. Later after the inauguration of Garfield in March 5, 1881, he went to the White House in Washington and

I give you the information and you give me the topic Research Paper

I give you the information and you give me the topic - Research Paper Example Personally, as a student, it affects me because the decision I have already made regarding my degree major is irreversible. For this reason, understanding the skills and requirements, or the chance of securing a job in the labor market is imperative. F. The topic regarding the employability and the importance of various degree majors draws heated debate amongst individuals. Different groups have diverse perspectives regarding the topic based on their evaluation of the reality. G. Although the supporters of the skill-specific argue that the modern labor market is dynamic and requires an individual who has adequate skills in technical courses. Regardless of that, there is sufficient evidence that skills learned in the liberal arts arm the student in facing the real world. H. Audience: with the current debate, students joining colleges are confused about the degree course to pursue. Alternatively, this reason, it is the obligation of the career counseling officers in the school to ensure that new students have adequate knowledge on the impact of various degree courses on their future lives. A. Include a brief introduction to the two discipline categories: changes in the work environment, job made obsolete, job outsourcing, modern job requirements, and impact of social networks on employment. Skill-specific majors (engineering) have the highest wage and an average employment potential while liberal arts (Education) have the highest employability ratio and an average salary (Carnevale, Cheah, and Strohl 8; (Thomas 13) Rampell, Catherine. "Outlook Is Bleak Even for Recent College Graduates - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. The New York Times,  2011. Web. 8  Feb.  2015.

Comparative ethnic identity and ethnic conflict Essay

Comparative ethnic identity and ethnic conflict - Essay Example Semitic Nazi leader Adolf Hilter saw Jews as inferior people. After years of Nazi government in Germany, finally, Adolf decided to do mass killings under the cover of world war. Mass killing centers were in the camps of Poland. The time covered by the film is between 1933: where the Jewish population stood about nine million, most Europeans by then lived countries that Nazi countries would influence during world 11.By 1945; the Germans with their collaborators had killed about every three European Jews as part of solution. Between 1948and 1951, about 700,000jews immigrated to Israel, also 13600 Jewish were displaced, others emigrated to United States and other nations. In 1957, the camps closed. The main objective of the film is to gives an interdisciplinary approach to citizenship education. Students go from thought to judgment, then participation so that they can deal with moral questions important in study of racism, bigotry, violence, and anti-Semitism. The film shows consequence s of anti-Semitism, racism and discrimination by exploring the tarnish mirror of history as one of most violent times in world history in 1930 and 1940s. When the students watched and saw what really happened, they could be able to known the forces that damaged democracy in Germany, betrayed the future of young people, and finally caused holocaust. Moreover, the student can find out how those forces threaten our community. Students are able to learn how any made decisions can influence the society, nation and the entire world. The film though is biased as those who were accountable for crime against humanity, and continued theft of aboriginal land are shown as heroes which does not reflect the core values of society. The film contributed to Nazi holocaust, because it is in 1933, the Jewish population of Europe was about 9million people. In 1945, the Germans killed almost killed two out of three Europeans Jews as part of their lasting solution with their collaborators. The Jews were the primary victim of Nazi racism and deemed a priority danger to the Germanys. They were other victims including about 200,000Roma (Gypsies).there were Germanys who were mentally disabled patients living in institutional settings killed in euthanasia program. The Germans and their collaborators persecuted and killed millions of other people while the Nazi tyranny spread across Europe. The soviet prisoners of war between two to three million died of diseases, hunger, neglect, or maltreatment. The non -Jewish polish intelligentsia was killed by Germanys .They deported millions of polish and soviet civilians for forced labor in Germany or in occupied Poland. The individuals worked and died due to terrible conditions. From the beginning of Nazi government, German government mistreated homosexuals and others who had deeds against the norm of the society. The German police targeted the political opponents like communists, socialist and trade unionists, religious dissidents such as Jehova h’s witnesses. Many people died of incarceration and maltreatment. It shown that, the national socialist authority formed concentration camps to arrest real and imagined political opponents and ideological opponents. As the years increased, the police officials incarcerated Jews, Roma and other people due to ethnic and racial hatred in those camps. They wanted to monitor their population. In 1945 and 1944, Nazi German government brought millions of Jews

Ecomics instution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Ecomics instution - Essay Example Despite the increase in the income level of these individuals in the past decade, it is revealed that money as a single entity does not offer the remedy to counter unhappiness. With various strategies applied, to measure the trends in Layard’s case happiness, the modern society is capable of identifying measures that would limit success. As an economist, Layard poses a question to individuals in the quest to find happiness asking them what they would do differently to achieve the fete. His opinion opposes the capitalists’ theories that favor the aspect of individualism. Their desire to offer competition in the economic struggling society suggests limited room for improvement in the other social classes that may endeavor to rise from their demeaning state. The book is set in two main parts, the first part that introduces the constraints experienced in the desire to achieve happiness and the second part explaining measures that people implement to increase their happiness . It is often difficult to achieve total progress, and with perfection determining most of the conscious decisions made towards situations, limited progress may be achieved. Happiness is not achieved easily with obstacles impairing the person’s desire to achieve control of positivity towards the entity. Layard argues that there are provisions that counter happiness in the society and are in the form of psychological or mental instability. When people strain and suffer due to external factors that overshadow their economical achievements, there is little realized in the happiness brought by money. There can never be a defined happiness achieved without handling all external impairments of the physical mind. An individual must poses a sober and creative mind free from stress and external pressure from environmental entities to achieve development.

NO NEED Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

NO NEED - Essay Example The learner should dig deep into learning new vocabularies and finding the relevant instances where they should be applied. Knowing the right meaning of the word and applying it appropriately will demonstrate ‘language maturity’ and high competence of the learner. Learning meanings of several vocabularies will broaden the learners reading comprehension skills as they can understand the message carried in the vocabulary with ease. Consequently, Practice through speaking the language more makes the learner improve on their reading and writing. Just like writing, speaking is an active process that enables the learner to gain experience with the language and assist them remember more about what they spoke while writing. Learning the second language does not come with much ease as one’s native language and mastering it needs one to put a lot of efforts. To improve on it, constant research should be done in which the learner extracts different vocabularies and find ways to use them. Sentence structure and rules governing the formation and use of sentences should be regularly considered. If these are done, reading and writing in second language will be

Sir Francis Bacon Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Sir Francis Bacon - Essay Example Bacon's thoughts on science are closely associated with those of Galileo. A benefit of the early Renaissance was the rediscovery of the writings of those living in antiquity. With the new reading of Galileo, Sir Francis Bacon rejected the form of speculative reasoning that dominated the Middle Ages. Bacon believed that if you wanted to really know about something in nature, you needed to approach your study in a methodical manner, gathering real data that was observable and recordable. He states in his book The Great Insaturation, "There are and can be only two ways of searching into and discovering truth. The one flees from the senses and particulars to the most general axioms [laws]†¦The other derives axioms from the senses and particulars. This is the true way but yet untried. Bacon believed that if you wanted to understand soil or rocks, you would gather many different samples or specimens, study them and then let the facts of your study form new ideas about the natural worl d. Bacon melded his ideas with those of Galileo, formalizing them into a general theory of inductive reasoning that became known as empiricism (McKay 1992). Empiricism is the backbone of the scientific method utilized by students and scientists universally in modern times. Sir Francis Bacon believed that this new approach to knowing and understanding the natural world would radically change societies. He believed firmly that this new knowledge would give humans greater control over the natural elements .

Photograph Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Photograph - Essay Example The stretching position she is holding is one that is commonly undertaken by people prior to taking a jog or a brisk walk. The common stretching techniques include taking an upright or seated position, and hold it while either stretching their legs by gently pulling the ankle backwards or touching their toes respectively. The article highlights, through evidence from studies, the disadvantages of stretching before working out. When one undertakes a stretching exercise, they should not do it for more than 30 seconds and it should not be in a fixed position for the entire time. This explains the use of the photo of the woman doing a stretching exercise while seated on the ground. In that story, the photo editor selected a photograph of a woman on the road stretching, seemingly about to take a jog, in which the road acts as the line of the photograph, which essentially creates structure allowing the reader to view the photo from one end to another. This also adds symmetry to the photo which further draws a reader to the photo, and produce shapes, that add depth to a photograph. For this photo, the shapes are created from white rails visible on the left, just off the road. These rails are rectangular and elongated in shape forming a perception of the distance to be covered by the woman when she starts to jog. These two elements go hand in hand to produce depth and structure, allowing the reader to form a perspective on the context of the article i.e. the location or surrounding environment. The young woman seated on the road provides the element of a form that brings three-dimensionality to the photo. Three-dimensionality implies length, width and depth that draw the eye of the reader allowing them to look deeper into the photograph, then develop a perception for example whether they find it beautiful. The photos value enhanced by the shadows and light within a photograph, and these further

Introductory Business Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Introductory Business Law - Essay Example Observance of the Act is imposed by a sovereign government authority, the Information Commissioners Office (ICO). The ICO maintains direction pertinent to the Act.2 The Act characterizes eight principles of information-handling practice. The Data Protection Act is considered an immense Act that has a status for difficulty.3 At the same time as the fundamental principles are honored for the protection of privacy, understanding the act is not all the time simple. Numerous companies, organizations and individuals appear hesitant of the aims, substance and even principles of the DPA. Some hide behind the Act and rebuff to give even very indispensable, publicly accessible material referencing it to the Act as a restriction.4 The act also impacts the manner in which organizations carry out business in terms of who can be contacted for marketing purposes, not only through telephone and direct mail, but also by electronic means and resulted the improvement of permission which has its basis referenced to marketing strategies. The Scottish Parliament enacted the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (the Scottish Act) was on 24 April 2002 and received Royal consent on 28 May 2002. The Scottish Act provides a new general constitutional right of access to all types of recorded information of any age in the custody Scottish public authorities. The UK Act does is not applicable to public authorities covered by the Scottish legislation. On the other hand, the Scottish Act does not taken into account and cover the UK government departments functioning in Scotland as well across-border public authorities (for example the Ministry of Defence and the Forestry Commission). These institutions and authorities are covered by the UK Act. The Scottish Act is only applicable to public authorities and not to private entities. Public authorities are, on the other hand, generally described in the Scottish Act, and comprise not

Evolution of Management Essay Example for Free

Evolution of Management Essay As long as there have been human endeavors, there have been people willing to take charge—people willing to plan, organize, staff, and control the work. One might say that nature abhors a vacuum and thus someone will always step forward to fill a leadership void. Probably the natural emergence of leadership grew out of our instinct for survival. In the hostile world of early humankind, food, shelter, and safety needs usually required cooperative efforts, and cooperative efforts required some form of leadership. Certainly leadership was vested in the heads of early families via the patriarchal system. The oldest member of the family was the most experienced and was presumed to be the wisest member of the family and thus was the natural leader. As families grew into tribes and tribes evolved into nations, more complex forms of leadership were required and did evolve. Division of labor and supervision practices is recorded on the earliest written record, the clay tablets of the Sumerians. In Sumerian society, as in many others since, the wisest and best leaders were thought to be the priests and other religious leaders. Likewise, the ancient Babylonian cities developed very strict codes, such as the code of Hammurabi. King Nebuchadnezzar used color codes to control production of the hanging gardens, and there were weekly and annual reports, norms for productivity, and rewards for piecework. The Egyptians organized their people and their slaves to build their cities and pyramids. Construction of one pyramid, around 5000 BC. , required the labor of 100,000 people working for approximately 20 years. Planning, organizing, and controlling were essential elements of that and other feats, many of them long term. The ancient Egyptian Pharaohs had long-term planners and advisors, as did their contemporaries in China. China perfected military organization based on line and staff principles and used these same principles in the early Chinese dynasties. Confucius wrote parables that offered practical suggestions for public administration. In the Old Testament, Moses led a group of Jewish slaves out of Egypt and then organized them into a nation. Exodus, Chapter 18, describes how Moses â€Å"chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, and differentiated between rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties and rulers of tens. A system of judges also evolved, with only the hard cases coming to Moses. The city-states of Greece were commonwealths, with councils, courts, administrative officials, and boards of generals. Socrates talked about management as a skill separate from technical knowledge and experience. Plato wrote about specialization and proposed notions of a healthy republic. The Roman Empire is thought by many to have been so successful because of the Romans’ great ability to organize the military and conquer new lands. Those sent to govern the far-flung parts of the empire were effective administrators and were able to maintain relationships with leaders from other provinces and across the empire as a whole. There are numerous other ancient leaders who were skillful organizers, at least as indicated by their accomplishments, such as Hannibal, who shepherded an army across the Alps, and the first emperor of China, who built the Great Wall. Many of the practices employed today in leading, managing, and administering modern organizations have their origins in antiquity. Many concepts of authority developed in a religious context. One example is the Roman Catholic Church with its efficient formal organization and management techniques. The chain of command or path of authority, including the concept of specialization, was a most important contribution to management theory. Machiavelli also wrote about authority, stressing that it comes from the consent of the masses. However, the ideas Machiavelli expressed in The Prince are more often viewed as mainly concerned with leadership and communication. Much management theory has military origins, probably because efficiency and effectiveness are essential for success in warfare. The concepts of unity of command, line of command, staff advisors, and division of work all can be traced back at least to Alexander the Great, or even earlier, to Lao Tzu. The Industrial Revolution created a need for new thinking and the refinement of old thinking. Time and motion studies intensified the division of work, as did centralized production and research and development. Modern management theory prevails afterwards. The preceding historical review indicates that thinking about management and leadership is in large part situational and that practices evolved to deal with new situations that arose. It also indicates that yesterday’s principles and theories are surprisingly contemporary and surprisingly sophisticated. Some overlap occurs, of course, and some gaps. Today’s theorists have attempted to fill in the gaps and adapt the theories to current situations. Yet, like in other areas of thought, not much is of recent origin in the field of management theory. The Evolution of Management Changes in management practices occur as managers, theorists, researchers, and consultants seek new ways to increase organizational efficiency and effectiveness. The driving force behind the evolution of management theory is the search for better ways to utilize organizational resources. Advances in management theory typically occur as managers and researchers find better ways to perform the principal management tasks: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling human and other organizational resources. In this paper, we will try to examine how management theory concerning appropriate management practices has evolved in modern times, and look at the central concerns that have guided its development. First, we look into the so-called classical management theories that emerged around the turn of the twentieth century. These include scientific management, which focuses on matching people and tasks to maximize efficiency; and administrative management, which focuses on identifying the principles that will lead to the creation of the most efficient system of organization and management. Next, we consider behavioral management theories, developed both before and after the Second World War, which focus on how managers should lead and control their workforces to increase performance. Then we discuss management science theory, which developed during the Second World War and which has become increasingly important as researchers have developed rigorous analytical and quantitative techniques to help managers measure and control organizational performance. Finally, we discuss business in the 1960s and 1970s and focus on the theories that were developed to help explain how the external environment affects the way organizations and managers operate. At the end of this paper, one will understand the ways in which management theory has evolved over time. One will also understand how economic, political, and cultural forces have affected the development of these theories and the ways in which managers and their organizations behave. Figure 1. 1 summarizes the chronology of the management theories that are discussed in this paper. Scientific Management Theory The evolution of modern management began in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, after the industrial revolution had swept through Europe, Canada, and the United States. In the new economic climate, managers of all types of organizations—political, educational, and economic—were increasingly trying to find better ways to satisfy customers’ needs. Many major economic, technical, and cultural changes were taking place at this time. The introduction of steam power and the development of sophisticated machinery and equipment changed the way in which goods were produced, particularly in the weaving and clothing industries. Small workshops run by skilled workers who produced hand-manufactured products (a system called crafts production) were being replaced by large factories in which sophisticated machines controlled by hundreds or even thousands of unskilled or semiskilled workers made products. Owners and managers of the new factories found themselves unprepared for the challenges accompanying the change from small-scale crafts production to large-scale mechanized manufacturing. Many of the managers and supervisors had only a technical orientation, and were unprepared for the social problems that occur when people work together in large groups (as in a factory or shop system). Managers began to search for new techniques to manage their organizations’ resources, and soon they began to focus on ways to increase the efficiency of the worker–task mix. Job specialization and division of labor The famous economist Adam Smith was one of the first to look at the effects of different manufacturing systems. 7 He compared the relative performance of two different manufacturing methods. The first was similar to crafts-style production, in which each worker was responsible for all of the 18 tasks involved in producing a pin. The other had each worker performing only 1 or a few of the 18 tasks that go into making a completed pin. Smith found that factories in which workers specialized in only 1 or a few tasks had greater performance than factories in which each worker performed all 18 pin-making tasks. In fact, Smith found that 10 workers specializing in a particular task could, between them, make 48 000 pins a day, whereas those workers who performed all the tasks could make only a few thousand at most. Smith reasoned that this difference in performance was due to the fact that the workers who specialized became much more skilled at their specific tasks, and, as a group, were thus able to produce a product faster than the group of workers who each had to perform many tasks. Smith concluded that increasing the level of job specialization— the process by which a division of labour occurs as different workers specialize in different tasks over time—increases efficiency and leads to higher organizational performance. Based on Adam Smith’s observations, early management practitioners and theorists focused on how managers should organize and control the work process to maximize the advantages of job specialization and the division of labour. F. W. Taylor and Scientific Management Frederick W. Taylor (1856–1915) is best known for defining the techniques of scientific management, the systematic study of relationships between people and tasks for the purpose of redesigning the work process to increase efficiency. Taylor believed that if the amount of time and effort that each worker expended to produce a unit of output (a finished good or service) could be reduced by increasing specialization and the division of labour, then the production process would become more efficient. Taylor believed that the way to create the most efficient division of labour could best be determined by means of scientific management techniques, rather than intuitive or informal rule-of-thumb knowledge. This decision ultimately resulted in problems. For example, some managers using scientific management obtained increases in performance, but rather than sharing performance gains with workers through bonuses as Taylor had advocated, they simply increased the amount of work that each worker was expected to do. Many workers experiencing the reorganized work system found that as their performance increased, managers required them to do more work for the same pay. Workers also learned that increases in performance often meant fewer jobs and a greater threat of layoffs, because fewer workers were needed. In addition, the specialized, simplified jobs were often monotonous and repetitive, and many workers became dissatisfied with their jobs. Scientific management brought many workers more hardship than gain, and left them with a distrust of managers who did not seem to care about their wellbeing. These dissatisfied workers resisted attempts to use the new scientific management techniques and at times even withheld their job knowledge from managers to protect their jobs and pay. Unable to inspire workers to accept the new scientific management techniques for performing tasks, some organizations increased the mechanization of the work process. For example, one reason for Henry Ford’s introduction of moving conveyor belts in his factory was the realization that when a conveyor belt controls the pace of work (instead of workers setting their own pace), workers can be pushed to perform at higher levels—levels that they may have thought were beyond their reach. Charlie Chaplin captured this aspect of mass production in one of the opening scenes of his famous movie, Modern Times (1936). In the film, Chaplin caricatured a new factory employee fighting to work at the machine imposed pace but losing the battle to the machine. Henry Ford also used the principles of scientific management to identify the tasks that each worker should perform on the production line and thus to determine the most effective way to create a division of labour to suit the needs of a mechanized production system. From a performance perspective, the combination of the two management practices— (1) achieving the right mix of worker–task specialization and (2) linking people and tasks by the speed of the production line—makes sense. It produces the huge savings in cost and huge increases in output that occur in large, organized work settings. For example, in 1908, managers at the Franklin Motor Company redesigned the work process using scientific management principles, and the output of cars increased from 100 cars a month to 45 cars a day; workers’ wages increased by only 90 percent, however. From other perspectives, though, scientific management practices raise many concerns. The definition of the workers’ rights not by the workers themselves but by the owners or managers as a result of the introduction of the new management practices raises an ethical issue, which we examine in this â€Å"Ethics in Action. † Fordism in Practice From 1908 to 1914, through trial and error, Henry Ford’s talented team of production managers pioneered the development of the moving conveyor belt and thus changed manufacturing practices forever. Although the technical aspects of the move to mass production were a dramatic financial success for Ford and for the millions of Americans who could now afford cars, for the workers who actually produced the cars, many human and social problems resulted. With simplification of the work process, workers grew to hate the monotony of the moving conveyor belt. By 1914, Ford’s car plants were experiencing huge employee turnover—often reaching levels as high as 300 or 400 percent per year as workers left because they could not handle the work-induced stress. 15 Henry Ford recognized these problems and made an announcement: From that point on, to motivate his workforce, he would reduce the length of the workday from nine hours to eight hours, and the company would double the basic wage from US$2. 50 to US$5. 00 per day. This was a dramatic increase, similar to an announcement today of an overnight doubling of the minimum wage. Ford became an internationally famous figure, and the word â€Å"Fordism† was coined for his new approach. Ford’s apparent generosity was matched, however, by an intense effort to control the resources—both human and material—with which his empire was built. He employed hundreds of inspectors to check up on employees, both inside and outside his factories. In the factory, supervision was close and confining. Employees were not allowed to leave their places at the production line, and they were not permitted to talk to one another. Their job was to concentrate fully on the task at hand. Few employees could adapt to this system, and they developed ways of talking out of the sides of their mouths, like ventriloquists, and invented a form of speech that became known as the â€Å"Ford Lisp. † Ford’s obsession with control brought him into greater and greater conflict with managers, who were often fired when they disagreed with him. As a result, many talented people left Ford to join his growing rivals. Outside the workplace, Ford went so far as to establish what he called the â€Å"Sociological Department† to check up on how his employees lived and the ways in which they spent their time. Inspectors from this department visited the homes of employees and investigated their habits and problems. Employees who exhibited behaviours contrary to Ford’s standards (for instance, if they drank too much or were always in debt) were likely to be fired. Clearly, Ford’s effort to control his employees led him and his managers to behave in ways that today would be considered unacceptable and unethical, and in the long run would impair an organization’s ability to prosper. Despite the problems of worker turnover, absenteeism, and discontent at Ford Motor Company, managers of the other car companies watched Ford reap huge gains in efficiency from the application of the new management principles. They believed that their companies would have to imitate Ford if they were to survive. They followed Taylor and used many of his followers as consultants to teach them how to adopt the techniques of scientific management. In addition, Taylor elaborated his principles in several books, including Shop Management (1903) and The detail how to apply the principles of scientific management to reorganize the work system. Taylor’s work has had an enduring effect on the management of production systems. Managers in every organization, whether it produces goods or services, now carefully analyze the basic tasks that must be performed and try to devise the work systems that will allow their organizations to operate most efficiently. The Gilbreths Two prominent followers of Taylor were Frank Gilbreth (1868–1924) and Lillian Gilbreth (1878–1972), who refined Taylor’s analysis of work movements and made many contributions to time-and-motion study. Their aims were to (1) break up into each of its component actions and analyze every individual action necessary to perform a particular task, (2) find better ways to perform each component action, and (3) reorganize each of the component actions so that the action as a whole could be performed more efficiently—at less cost of time and effort. The Gilbreths often filmed a worker performing a particular task and then separated the task actions, frame by frame, into their component movements. Their goal was to maximize the efficiency with which each individual task was performed so that gains across tasks would add up to enormous savings of time and effort. Their attempts to develop improved management principles were captured—at times quite humorously—in the movie Cheaper by the Dozen, which depicts how the Gilbreths (with their 12 children) tried to live their own lives according to these efficiency principles and apply them to daily actions such as shaving, cooking, and even raising a family. Eventually, the Gilbreths became increasingly interested in the study of fatigue. They studied how the physical characteristics of the workplace contribute to job stress that often leads to fatigue and thus poor performance. They isolated factors— such as lighting, heating, the colour of walls, and the design of tools and machines—that result in worker fatigue. Their pioneering studies paved the way for new advances in management theory. In workshops and factories, the work of the Gilbreths, Taylor, and many others had a major effect on the practice of management. In comparison with the old crafts system, jobs in the new system were more repetitive, boring, and monotonous as a result of the application of scientific management principles, and workers became increasingly dissatisfied. Frequently, the management of work settings became a game between workers and managers: Managers tried to initiate work practices to increase performance, and workers tried to hide the true potential efficiency of the work setting in order to protect their own well-being. Administrative management theory Side by side with scientific managers studying the person–task mix to increase efficiency, other researchers were focusing on administrative management, the study of how to create an organizational structure that leads to high efficiency and effectiveness. Organizational structure is the system of task and authority relationships that control how employees use resources to achieve the organization’s goals. Two of the most influential views regarding the creation of efficient systems of organizational administration were developed in Europe. Max Weber, a German professor of sociology, developed one theory. Henri Fayol, the French manager who developed a model of management introduced earlier, developed the other. The Theory of Bureaucracy Max Weber (1864–1920) wrote at the turn of the twentieth century, when Germany was undergoing its industrial revolution. To help Germany manage its growing industrial enterprises at a time when it was striving to become a world power, Weber developed the principles of bureaucracy—a formal system of organization and administration designed to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. A bureaucratic system of administration is based on five principles (summarized in Figure 1. 2). †¢ Principle 1: In a bureaucracy, a manager’s formal authority derives from the position he or she holds in the organization. Authority is the power to hold people accountable for their actions and to make decisions concerning the use of organizational resources. Authority gives managers the right to direct and control their subordinates’ behaviour to achieve organizational goals. In a bureaucratic system of administration, obedience is owed to a manager, not because of any personal qualities that he or she might possess— such as personality, wealth, or social status—but because the manager occupies a position that is associated with a certain level of authority and responsibility. †¢ Principle 2: In a bureaucracy, people should occupy positions because of their performance, not because of their social standing or personal contacts. This principle was not always followed in Weber’s time and is often ignored today. Some organizations and industries are still affected by social networks in which personal contacts and relations, not job-related skills, influence hiring and promotional decisions. †¢ Principle 3: The extent of each position’s formal authority and task responsibilities, and its relationship to other positions in an organization, should be clearly specified. When the tasks and authority associated with various positions in the organization are clearly specified, managers and workers know what is expected of them and what to expect from each other. Moreover, an organization can hold all its employees strictly accountable for their actions when each person is completely familiar with his or her responsibilities. †¢ Principle 4: So that authority can be exercised effectively in an organization, positions should be arranged hierarchically, so employees know whom to report to and who reports to them. Managers must create an organizational hierarchy of authority that makes it clear who reports to whom and to whom managers and workers should go if conflicts or problems arise. This principle is especially important in the armed forces, CSIS, RCMP, and other organizations that deal with sensitive issues involving possible major repercussions. It is vital that managers at high levels of the hierarchy be able to hold subordinates accountable for their actions. †¢ Principle 5: Managers must create a well-defined system of rules, standard operating procedures, and norms so that they can effectively control behaviour within an organization. Rules are formal written instructions that specify actions to be taken under different circumstances to achieve specific goals (for example, if A happens, do B). Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are specific sets of written instructions about how to perform a certain aspect of a task. A rule might state that at the end of the workday employees are to leave their machines in good order, and a set of SOPs then specifies exactly how they should do so, itemizing which machine parts must be oiled or replaced. Norms are unwritten, informal codes of conduct that prescribe how people should act in particular situations. For example, an organizational norm in a restaurant might be that waiters should help each other if time permits. Rules, SOPs, and norms provide behavioural guidelines that improve the performance of a bureaucratic system because they specify the best ways to accomplish organizational tasks. Companies such as McDonald’s and Wal-Mart have developed extensive rules and procedures to specify the types of behaviours that are required of their employees, such as, â€Å"Always greet the customer with a smile. † Weber believed that organizations that implement all five principles will establish a bureaucratic system that will improve organizational performance. The specification of positions and the use of rules and SOPs to regulate how tasks are performed make it easier for managers to organize and control the work of subordinates. Similarly, fair and equitable selection and promotion systems improve managers’ feelings of security, reduce stress, and encourage organizational members to act ethically and further promote the interests of the organization. If bureaucracies are not managed well, however, many problems can result. Sometimes, managers allow rules and SOPs—â€Å"bureaucratic red tape†Ã¢â‚¬â€to become so cumbersome that decision making becomes slow and inefficient and organizations are unable to change. When managers rely too much on rules to solve problems and not enough on their own skills and judgment, their behaviour becomes inflexible. A key challenge for managers is to use bureaucratic principles to benefit, rather than harm, an organization. Fayol’s Principles of Management Working at the same time as Weber but independently of him, Henri Fayol (1841–1925), the CEO of Comambault Mining, identified 14 principles (summarized in Table 2. ) that he believed to be essential to increasing the efficiency of the management process. Some of the principles that Fayol outlined have faded from contemporary management practices, but most have endured. The principles that Fayol and Weber set forth still provide a clear and appropriate set of guidelines that managers can use to create a work setting that makes efficient and effective use of organizational resources. These principles remain the bedrock of modern management theory; recent researchers have refined or developed them to suit modern conditions. For example, Weber’s and Fayol’s concerns for equity and for establishing appropriate links between performance and reward are central themes in contemporary theories of motivation and leadership. Behavioural Management Theory The behavioural management theorists writing in the first half of the twentieth century all espoused a theme that focused on how managers should personally behave in order to motivate employees and encourage them to perform at high levels and be committed to the achievement of organizational goals. The â€Å"Management Insight† indicates how employees can become demoralized when managers do not treat their employees properly. Management Insight How to Discourage Employees Catherine Robertson, owner of Vancouver-based Robertson Telecom Inc. , made headlines in February 2001 for her management policies. Robertson is a government contractor whose company operates Enquiry BC, which gives British Columbians toll-free telephone information and referral services about all provincial government programs. Female telephone operators at Robertson Telecom must wear skirts or dresses even though they never come in contact with the public. Not even dress pants are allowed. As Gillian Savage, a former employee, notes, â€Å"This isn’t a suggested thing, it’s an order: No pants. † Brad Roy, another former employee, claims a female Indo-Canadian employee was sent home to change when she arrived at work wearing a Punjabi suit (a long shirt over pants). The no-pants rule is not the only concern of current and former employees. Roy also said, â€Å"I saw some people being reprimanded for going to the washroom. While Robertson denied Roy’s allegation regarding washrooms, she did confirm that company policy included the no-pants rule, that employees were not allowed to bring their purses or other personal items to their desks, and that they were not allowed to drink coffee or bottled water at their desks. The company does not provide garbage cans for the employees. A g roup of current and former employees recently expressed concern with the number of rules Robertson has in place, and claimed that the rules have led to high turnover and poor morale. A current employee claims that many workers do not care whether they give out the right government phone numbers. Robertson said that she knew of no employees who were discontent, and was shocked that the policies had caused distress among employees. She defended the dress code as appropriate business attire. Robertson may have to make some adjustments in her management style. The cabinet minister responsible for Enquiry BC, Catherine MacGregor, ordered an investigation of the contractor after being contacted by The Vancouver Sun about the allegations. She noted that the skirts-only rule for women is not appropriate, and that, â€Å"All of our contractors are expected to fully comply with the Employment Standards Act, Workers Compensation rules and human rights legislation. † Additionally, Mary-Woo Sims, head of the BC Human Rights Commission, said dress codes can’t be based on gender. Thus, an employer can’t tell men they must wear pants (as Robertson does), but tell women they can’t. â€Å"On the face of it, it would appear to be gender discriminatory,† Sims said. The Work of Mary Parker Follett If F. W. Taylor is considered to be the father of management thought, Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) serves as its mother. 28 Much of her writing about management and about the way managers should behave toward workers was a response to her concern that Taylor was ignoring the human side of the organization. She pointed out that management often overlooks the multitude of ways in which employees can contribute to the organization when managers allow them to participate and exercise initiative in their everyday work lives. Taylor, for example, relied on time-and-motion experts to analyze workers’ jobs for them. Follett, in contrast, argued that because workers know the most about their jobs, they should be involved in job analysis and managers should allow them to participate in the work development process. Follett proposed that, â€Å"Authority should go with knowledge whether it is up the line or down. † In other words, if workers have the relevant knowledge, then workers, rather than managers, should be in control of the work process itself, and managers should behave as coaches and facilitators—not as monitors and supervisors. In making this statement, Follett anticipated the current interest in self-managed teams and empowerment. She also recognized the importance of having managers in different departments communicate directly with each other to speed decision making. She advocated what she called â€Å"cross-functioning†: members of different departments working together in cross-departmental teams to accomplish projects—an approach that is increasingly utilized today. Fayol also mentioned expertise and knowledge as important sources of managers’ authority, but Follett went further. She proposed that knowledge and expertise, and not managers’ formal authority deriving from their position in the hierarchy, should decide who would lead at any particular moment. She believed, as do many management theorists today, that power is fluid and should flow to the person who can best help the organization achieve its goals. Follett took a horizontal view of power and authority, in contrast to Fayol, who saw the formal line of authority and vertical chain of command as being most essential to effective management. Follett’s behavioural approach to management was very radical for its time. The Hawthorne Studies and Human Relations Probably because of its radical nature, Follett’s work was unappreciated by managers and researchers until quite recently. Instead, researchers continued to follow in the footsteps of Taylor and the Gilbreths. One focus was on how efficiency might be increased through improving various characteristics of the work setting, such as job specialization or the kinds of tools workers used. One series of studies was conducted from 1924 to 1932 at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company. This research, now known as the Hawthorne studies, began as an attempt to investigate how characteristics of the work setting—specifically the level of lighting or illumination—affect worker fatigue and performance. The researchers conducted an experiment in which they systematically measured worker productivity at various levels of illumination. The experiment produced some unexpected results. The researchers found that regardless of whether they raised or lowered the level of illumination, productivity increased. In fact, productivity began to fall only when the level of illumination dropped to the level of moonlight, a level at which presumably workers could no longer see well enough to do their work efficiently. The researchers found these results puzzling and invited a noted Harvard psychologist, Elton Mayo, to help them. Subsequently, it was found that many other factors also influence worker behaviour, and it was not clear what was actually influencing the Hawthorne workers’ behaviour. However, this particular effect— which became known as the Hawthorne effect—seemed to suggest that workers’ attitudes toward their managers affect the level of workers’ performance. In particular, the significant finding was that a manager’s behaviour or leadership approach can affect performance. This finding led many researchers to turn their attention to managerial behaviour and leadership. If supervisors could be trained to behave in ways that would elicit cooperative behaviour from their subordinates, then productivity could be increased. From this view emerged the human relations movement, which advocates that supervisors be behaviourally trained to manage subordinates in ways that elicit their cooperation and increase their productivity. The importance of behavioural or human relations training became even clearer to its supporters after another series of experiments—the bank wiring room experiments. In a study of workers making telephone switching equipment, researchers Elton Mayo and F. J. Roethlisberger discovered that the workers, as a group, had deliberately adopted a norm of output restriction to protect their jobs. Workers who violated this informal production norm were subjected to sanctions by other group members. Those who violated group performance norms and performed above the norm were called â€Å"ratebusters†; those who performed below the norm were called â€Å"chiselers. † The experimenters concluded that both types of workers threatened the group as a whole. Ratebusters threatened group members because they revealed to managers how fast the work could be done. Chiselers were looked down on because they were not doing their share of the work. Work-group members disciplined both ratebusters and chiselers in order to create a pace of work that the workers (not the managers) thought was fair. Thus, a work group’s influence over output can be as great as the supervisors’ influence. Since the work group can influence the behavior of its members, some management theorists argue that supervisors should be trained to behave in ways that gain the goodwill and cooperation of workers so that supervisors, not workers, control the level of work-group performance. One of the main implications of the Hawthorne studies was that the behavior of managers and workers in the work setting is as important in explaining the level of performance as the technical aspects of the task. Managers must understand the workings of the informal organization, the system of behavioural rules and norms that emerge in a group, when they try to manage or change behaviour in organizations. Many studies have found that, as time passes, groups often develop elaborate procedures and norms that bond members together, allowing unified action either to cooperate with management in order to raise performance or to restrict output and thwart the attainment of organizational goals. The Hawthorne studies demonstrated the importance of understanding how the feelings, thoughts, and behaviour of work-group members and managers affect performance. It was becoming increasingly clear to researchers that understanding behaviour in organizations is a complex process that is critical to increasing performance. Indeed, the increasing interest in the area of management known as organizational behaviour, the study of the factors that have an impact on how individuals and groups respond to and act in organizations, dates from these early studies. Theory X and Theory Y Several studies after the Second World War revealed how assumptions about workers’ attitudes and behaviour affect managers’ behaviour. Perhaps the most influential approach was developed by Douglas McGregor. He proposed that two different sets of assumptions about work attitudes and behaviours dominate the way managers think and affect how they behave in organizations. McGregor named these two contrasting sets of assumptions Theory X and Theory Y (see Figure 1. 3). THEORY X According to the assumptions of Theory X, the average worker is lazy, dislikes work, and will try to do as little as possible. Moreover, workers have little ambition and wish to avoid responsibility. Thus, the manager’s task is to counteract workers’ natural tendencies to avoid work. To keep workers’ performance at a high level, the manager must supervise them closely and control their behaviour by means of â€Å"the carrot and stick†Ã¢â‚¬â€rewards and punishments. Managers who accept the assumptions of Theory X design and shape the work setting to maximize their control over workers’ behaviours and minimize workers’ control over the pace of work. These managers believe that workers must be made to do what is necessary for the success of the organization, and they focus on developing rules, SOPs, and a well-defined system of rewards and punishments to control behaviour. They see little point in giving workers autonomy to solve their own problems because they think that the workforce neither expects nor desires cooperation. Theory X managers see their role as to closely monitor workers to ensure that they contribute to the production process and do not threaten product quality. Henry Ford, who closely supervised and managed his workforce, fits McGregor’s description of a manager who holds Theory X assumptions. THEORY Y In contrast, Theory Y assumes that workers are not inherently lazy, do not naturally dislike work, and, if given the opportunity, will do what is good for the organization. According to Theory Y, the characteristics of the work setting determine whether workers consider work to be a source of satisfaction or punishment; and managers do not need to control workers’ behaviour closely in order to make them perform at a high level, because workers will exercise selfcontrol when they are committed to organizational goals. The implication of Theory Y, according to McGregor, is that â€Å"the limits of collaboration in the organizational setting are not limits of human nature but of management’s ingenuity in discovering how to realize the potential represented by its human resources. It is the manager’s task to create a work setting that encourages commitment to organizational goals and provides opportunities for workers to be imaginative and to exercise initiative and self-direction. When managers design the organizational setting to reflect the assumptions about attitudes and behaviour suggested by Theory Y, the characteristics of the o rganization are quite different from those of an organizational setting based on Theory X. Managers who believe that workers are motivated to help the organization reach its goals can decentralize authority and give more control over the job to workers, both as individuals and in groups. In this setting, individuals and groups are still accountable for their activities, but the manager’s role is not to control employees but to provide support and advice, to make sure employees have the resources they need to perform their jobs, and to evaluate them on their ability to help the organization meet its goals. Henri Fayol’s approach to administration more closely reflects the assumptions of Theory Y, rather than Theory X. Management Science Theory This theory focuses on the use of rigorous quantitative techniques to help managers make maximum use of organizational resources to produce goods and services. In essence, management science theory is a contemporary extension of scientific management, which, as developed by Taylor, also took a quantitative approach to measuring the worker–task mix in order to raise efficiency. There are many branches of management science; each of them deals with a specific set of concerns: Quantitative management utilizes mathematical techniques—such as linear and nonlinear programming, modelling, simulation, queuing theory, and chaos theory—to help managers decide, for example, how much inventory to hold at different times of the year, where to locate a new factory, and how best to invest an organization’s financial capital. Resources in the organizational environment include the raw materials and skilled people that an organization requires to produce goods and services, as well as the support of groups including customers who buy these goods and services and provide the organization with financial resources. One way of determining the relative success of an organization is to consider how effective its managers are at obtaining scarce and valuable resources. The importance of studying the environment became clear after the development of open-systems theory and contingency theory during the 1960s. The Open-Systems View One of the most influential views of how an organization is affected by its external environment was developed by Daniel Katz, Robert Kahn, and James Thompson in the 1960s. 38 These theorists viewed the organization as an open system— a system that takes in resources from its external environment and converts or transforms them into goods and services that are then sent back to that environment, where they are bought by customers (see Figure 1. 4). At the input stage, an organization acquires resources such as raw materials, money, and skilled workers to produce goods and services. Once the organization has gathered the necessary resources, conversion begins. At the conversion stage, the organization’s workforce, using appropriate tools, techniques, and machinery, transforms the inputs into outputs of finished goods and services such as cars, hamburgers, or flights to Hawaii. At the output stage, the organization releases finished goods and services to its external environment, where customers purchase and use them to satisfy their needs. The money the organization obtains from the sales of its outputs allows the organization to acquire more resources so that the cycle can begin again. The system just described is said to be â€Å"open† because the organization draws from and interacts with the external environment in order to survive; in other words, the organization is open to its environment. A closed system, in contrast, is a self-contained system that is not affected by changes that occur in its external environment. Organizations that operate as closed ystems, that ignore the external environment and that fail to acquire inputs, are likely to experience entropy, the tendency of a system to lose its ability to control itself and thus to dissolve and disintegrate. Management theorists can model the activities of most organizations by using the open-systems view. Manufacturing companies like Ford and General Electric, for example, buy inputs such as component parts, skilled and semiskilled labour, and robots and computer-controlled manufacturing equipment; then, at the conversion stage, they use their manufacturing skills to assemble inputs into outputs of cars and computers. As we discuss in later chapters, competition between organizations for resources is one of several major challenges to managing the organizational environment. Researchers using the open-systems view are also interested in how the various parts of a system work together to promote efficiency and effectiveness. Systems theorists like to argue that â€Å"the parts are more than the sum of the whole†; they mean that an organization performs at a higher level when its departments work together rather than separately. Synergy, the performance gains that result when individuals and departments coordinate their actions, is possible only in an organized system. The recent interest in using teams comprising people from different departments reflects systems theorists’ interest in designing organizational systems to create synergy and thus increase efficiency and effectiveness.

Contract Laws Essay Example for Free

Contract Laws Essay When it comes the laws of business there are a broad range of categories and topics. A topic that we would find when studying business law is contracts. â€Å"A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more people.† (Rogers, 2012) In the world we live in learning about contract laws is very vital when entering into one. We must be aware that there is more than just on type of contract and there are several steps that both parties must follow before any contract can be legal. There are several types of contracts that individuals can enter. These types are expressed, implied, bilateral, unilateral, simple, formal and quasi contracts. An express contract are â€Å"formed by the express language of the parties—the actual words they use in their agreement—and can be either written or oral.† (Rogers, 2012) This type of contract does not have to be in writing. An expressed contract contains the offer, acceptance and consideration elements of a contract. Express contracts are usually compared to implied contracts. Implied contacts are â€Å"formed not by the express words of the parties, but rather by their actions.† (Rogers, 2012) With this type of contract the agreement is implied by actions. There are no expressed words within an implied contract. It can be either implied in fact or in law. If a contract will result in inequity or harm it will not be implied. If there is any doubt or discrepancy exists, then the court might not con clude a contractual relationship. If an implication arises that they have jointly assented to a new contract that contains the same requirements as the old agreement. Another type of contract is a bilateral contract. A bilateral contract is a† reciprocal arrangement between two parties under which both parties promise to perform an act in exchange for  the other partys act† (BusinessDictionary.com). When entering into a bilateral contract there is a joint agreement among the two parties that entails the performance of an act. The promise made by one party constitutes sufficient consideration for the promise made by the other party. It is a common contract because we enter into a bilateral contract everything we make a purchase, order or receive any kind of treatment. Bilateral contracts are compared to unilateral contract. Unilateral contract are agreements that deal with a promise that is made by only one person involved in the contract. This agreement is when there is an exchange for the performance or non-performance of an act by the other party. Only one of the contracting parties can be enforced to comply with contract. This type of contract is one-sided because only the offeror is legally bound in complying with the terms of the contract. The offeree can comply or refrain from performing the act, but he or she cannot be sued if they do not comply. If you accept an offer from a unilateral contract it cannot be achieved by making another agreement only by performance or non-performance of some particular act. An offer can be revoked until the act has been performed or there was no act completed and the date has passed. The following contract is called a simple contract. It is in no way a lawfully recorded or legitimately sealed contract, but breeches are still frequently ruled on by a judge. It â€Å"is any oral or written contract that is not required to follow a specific form, or be signed, witnessed, or sealed.† (Rogers, 2012). They are not necessarily formalized contracts and do not entail court proceedings in order to make them binding. They are simply an agreement that is among the parties involved. They are usually compared to formal contracts. Formal contract are â€Å"a written agreement between two parties that are considered to be legally binding and enforced my law† (Laws.com). They must be in writing, signed and seal by all parties entering into the contract. In order for a formal contract to be valid it must contain three elements, which are the offer, the acceptance and a payment for the services provided or goods delivered. This type of contract eliminates any uncertainty regarding its terms and conditions. It contains a preface section which is utilized to clearly define the essentials terms that are utilized within the contract. This helps in eliminating redundancy in the use of common language. It also insures substantive terms of the contract  that are described and referenced in t he contract. Quasi contracts are the last type of contract discussed in the text. Quasi contracts are not a realistic contract. â€Å"They are a remedy that a court may offer to make things fair.† (Rogers, 2012). This type of contract is implied by law. Courts will imply a fictional contract to require one party to return benefits to the other party where unjust enrichment has occurred. Unjust enrichment doctrine deals with the equality of a quasi contract. It states that no party should profit at the expense of the other without making restitution of a reasonable value. When there is no oral or written agreement, courts depend on this doctrine to provide a legal remedy for a quasi contract. A Quasi contract can be compared to an implied contract. There are two types of implied contracts. These types are Implied-in-fact and Implied-by-law. A quasi contract is considered to be an Implied-by-law. It is different from an implied-in-fact because the courts treat the former as an express written contract because of the actions and words that both parties have expressed. Even though neither party has verbally expressed the acceptance of the contract their actions might be viewed differently. A contracted can be valid and enforceable, but can also be found to be unenforceable and can be voided. In order for a contract to be valid and enforceable it must contain the five elements of a contract to be legally binding. These elements are offer, acceptance, consideration, legality and capacity. The first element of a valid contract is the offer. An offer â€Å"is an invitation for another to enter into a contract† (Rogers, 2012). Offers can be verbal or written, but must at all times be clear terms. They can be bilateral or unilateral terms. They are not legally binding. Offers can be voided is any of the individuals involved cannot or do not comply with their promise. Offers can also be voided, repealed or annulled after parties have accepted the offer, unless there is a clause where it states that revocations are not allowed. The following element is acceptance. An acceptance â€Å"is an acquiescence to enter into a contract under the terms of the offer† (Rogers, 2012). Once an offer is made the parties must agree on the terms. All parties must be willing to enter into the agreement. Acceptances can be implied or  expressed. They can be directed to all parties involved or just one person. There are times when the individual making the offer will invite the person accepting the offer by actually performing the acts that the offeror is bargaining for. This occurs when special tribulations of notification, revoking and confidence in the form of limited performance can occur. Consideration is the next element of a valid contract. A consideration is â€Å"anything of legal value that is asked for and received as the price for entering into a contract† (Rogers, 2012). For a contract to be considered to be legally binding it must be supported by a valuable consideration. For instance, a party is required to do something in exchange for the promise that was made in a benefit of value. It is what each individual in the contact provides to the other as the established value for the other’s promise. For the most part, considerations are usually a payment of money, but are not always. At times they can be a promise to do something such as a type of work in return for something. The fourth element is legality. This is â€Å"an agreement may be considered illegal if it would violate a statute; result in commission of a tort; or violate public policy.† (Rogers, 2012). In contract law, legality of purpose is required of every enforceable contract. Agreement of a social nature are presumed not to be legally binding, but with evidence can be rebutted in court. Also, any domestic agreements such as agreements created by a parent and a child are generally unenforceable on the basis of the system of law. The last element is capacity. Capacity is â€Å"the mental competency of an individual and also with special rules for people who are under legal age† (Rogers, 2012). In other words, it deals with the competence of all parties. In order for an individual to enter into a contract they must be capable to do so. All parties entering the contract have to be over the legal age, mentally capable and cannot be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. If a contract is made with an individual that is under the age of 18 or 21, depending on the jurisdiction, the contract is voidable, but is legal and enforceable until or unless the individual revokes it. In the  eyes of the law, individuals under the age of 18 or 21 are deemed to be immature and naà ¯ve to enter into a contract. The individual may avoid the legal duty to perform the terms of the agreement without being liable of breach of contract. All parties must also be mentally capable of entering into a contract. If a party does not understand the nature and/or consequences of the contract when it is formed the contract can be voided. An individual that lacks the legal capacity can be declared incompetent in a court and can be appointed a legal guardian. If someone is to enter into a contract with someone who is not mentally capable the contract will be voided and there will not be any legal effects because neither party may be legally compelled to comply with the terms. Lastly, no one entering in to a contract can be intoxicated. All parties must be sober at the time of entering a contract in order for the contract to be deemed enforceable. When someone is under the influence they are not capable of knowing what they are doing and why. They might also not comprehend the terms of the contract which makes it unenforceable. A contact can appear to be legally binding because it may contain all the elements of a contract, but there are defenses to a contract that can also make a contract unenforceable and voidable. There are two types of defense to a contract, which are lack of genuine assent and lack of proper form. Genuine assent or â€Å"meeting on the minds† is a criteria utilized to determine validity of acceptance of an offer for a contract. This occurs when the acceptance of a contract is secured through improper or illegal means such as fraud, mistake, duress and undue influence. The first type of genuine assent that will be discussed is fraud. Fraud is the premeditated falsification of an essential matter of the contract. When there is an existence of fraud in a contractual proceeding it makes the contract unenforceable and can be voided by the party upon whom the deception was perpetrated. According to our text, there are two types of fraud, which are fraud in the execution and fraud in the inducement. Fraud in the execution merely occurs when one of the individuals who entered in to the contract isn’t aware that they are entering in to one. The second fraud is when both parties are aware they are entering into the contract, but one of the  parties is deceived when entering into it. The following type that can make a contract unenforceable and invalid is a mistake. A mistake is also known as a mutual mistake. When there is a mistake this means that both parties made a mistake to something that is vital to the contract. Just because one party can make a mistake doesn’t necessarily mean that the contract is voidable. In order for it to be considered as unenforceable it must have a significant effect on the exchange or bargaining development. The following factor is duress. Duress is when one party forces the other party to sign a contract. The force can be either physical or emotional pressure. When there is use of duress the contract is voidable by the party that was under duress during signing. Duress can be defined by three categories, which are actual or threatened violence to an individual, threats to an individual’s property and/or economic duress. Economic duress is the more difficult to prove because you have to establish the boundaries of acceptance behavior of this kind of pressure. Duress is sometimes compared to undue influence, but there are different. As mentioned above, duress deals with someone being pressured into signing the contract, whereas undue influence is when a party is manipulated in to signing the contract. If one party has put inequitable and inappropriate pressure on the other in the discussions leading to the signing of the contract, common law will allow duress and undue influence to allow for the terms of the contract to be set aside. Common laws are laws â€Å"made by the decisions of judges in individual cases. â€Å" (Rogers, 2012). Undue influence is easy to recognize because it can involve the parties having a fiduciary relationship or one of the members involved depends on another due to their age, illness, infirmity, etc. A fiduciary relationship is a relationship where one individual has a responsibility to act for the others benefit. When undue influence occurs the individual who is suppose to be helping the other person out is taking advantage of that person. Lastly, the second type of defense to a contract as listed above is lacks proper form. This is generally when it lacks writing. There are certain types of contracts that are required to be in writing, but at times we aren’t aware. If these types of contracts are not in writing then they  cannot be enforced. It is important to learn about contract laws. They are the foundation of our society. Since we enter into contracts on a daily bases we should be aware of these laws. Contracts can be complicated and having knowledge of the different types and what makes them enforceable or voided can really be helpful. If there were no laws on contract then the agreements we make could become impractical and unworkable. References Lewinsohn, J. L. (1914). Contract Distinguished From Quasi Contract. California Law Review, 2(3), 171. Rogers, S. (2012). Essentials of Business Law. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc. Smith, C. A. (2012). Contracts. http://www.west.net/~smith/contracts.htm Information regarding elements of a contract and remedies for breach. Undefined. (n.d.). Bilateral Contract. In BusinessDictionary.com. Retrieved May 2, 2014, from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/bilateral-contract.html. Undefined. (n.d.). Know the types of Formal Contract. In Laws.com. Retrieved May 2, 2014, from http://contract-law.laws.com/types-of-contracts/types-of-formal-contract.

Nuclear Weapons In The Middle East Politics Essay

Nuclear Weapons In The Middle East Politics Essay Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction which are capable of wiping out an unimaginably large number of people. Today, five member nations, the United States of America, Russia, United Kingdom, France and the Peoples Republic of China are internationally recognized as nuclear weapons nations by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and are thus permitted to possess nuclear weapons. Two non-signatory members, India and Pakistan also possess these weapons and have conducted nuclear weapon tests. In addition to these seven members, Israel is strongly suspected of possessing nuclear weapons although it has neither confirmed it nor denied it. There is also speculation the Iran might be running a covert nuclear weapons program. Finally, North Korea has publicly declared itself to be in possession of nuclear weapons but this fact has never been confirmed as it has not conducted any substantial nuclear tests. There is an urgent need to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons across the world as they pose a great threat to international security and their usage could lead to catastrophe. Today, this issue is especially relevant to North Korea and the Middle East where the lack of agreements and the prevalence of ambiguities regarding nuclear programs is becoming an issue of global concern. Countries associated with nuclear weapons3 Definition of Key Terms Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) The NPT is a treaty that came into force in 1970, in order to limit nuclear proliferation. It prohibits non nuclear weapon states from developing, possessing or acquiring nuclear weapons or explosives. The three pillars of the treaty are non proliferation, disarmament and the peaceful use of nuclear technology. Currently, it has not been signed by India, Pakistan and Israel. Nuclear weapons Nuclear weapons are extremely destructive and explosive weapons that derives its force through either fission reactions or both fission and fusion. Nuclear Proliferation Nuclear proliferation is a term now used to describe the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information, to nations which are not recognized as Nuclear Weapon States by the NPT. 1 Nuclear weapons free zone A Nuclear weapons free zone is a geographical area recognized by the United Nations that has banned the use and development of nuclear weapon technology and has put measures into place to check its implementation. Nuclear Disarmament Nuclear disarmament is a proposal to dismantle nuclear weapons in order to reduce the possibility of the occurrence of a nuclear war. Background Information The first nuclear weapon was invented by USA, Britain and Canada during the Second World War. USA remains the only country to have ever used it. Soon after, during the Cold War, the world saw the beginning of the nuclear arms race. Following the Second World War, Korea was divided into two geographical regions: the northern controlled by the Soviets and the southern controlled by USA. Also, Israel is believed to have begun investigating the nuclear field soon after it was founded in 1948. In the 1950s the nuclear program in Iran was established for peaceful purposes under the supervision of the United States. The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) was signed in 1963 which banned the test of nuclear weapons underwater, in the atmosphere or in outer space. This treaty was not signed by China and France who are both nuclear weapons states today. The conflict between the communist North Korea and the capitalist South Korea has been going on since 1950 and there have been repeated failures to consolidate the two as one unified nation. Even today, the two countries have not officially made peace. Hence, ever since the 1970s, North Korea began its pursuit of acquiring nuclear weapons. In 1967, a CIA report claimed that Israel had the materials required to construct a bomb. In 1979, a US satellite reported a flash in the Indian Ocean that was similar to a nuclear denotation and could have possibly been a nuclear test conducted by Israel. It is speculated to be one of the apparently few joint nuclear tests conducted by South Africa and Israel. Minimal progress was made in nuclear disarmament until 1991 and the Comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty (CTBT) was adopted in 1996 which banned all nuclear explosions in all environment for military or civilian testing. It was signed by 182 countries and ratified by 153 and was aimed at stopping the nuclear arms race. Iran ratified the NPT in 1970s which subjected it to IAEA inspections. Today, the main reason for suspicion of Irans nuclear program is its failure to declare sensitive enrichment and reprocessing activities to the IAEA. In 1992, North Korea entered a safe guards agreement under Article 3 of the NPT which allowed IAEA inspectors to inspect North Koreas nuclear materials. In 1993, North Korea threatened to withdraw from the NPT which it had acceded to earlier. However, this did not ultimately happen as USA and North Korea came to an agreement by which North Korea would suspend all nuclear reactors in exchange for in exchange for alternative energy resources. North Korea withdrew from the IAEA in 1994 and launched a missile over the Sea of Japan in 1998 which caused USA to review its policies towards the country. Relations between the two countries remained turbulent. In 2002, the North Korean Deputy Secretary apparently acknowledged the existence of a covert nuclear-weapons development program. North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003 and in response; the US launched six way talks about the issue with North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia. North Korea, once again, agreed to abandon all nuclear weapon activities. However, like previous agreements, North Korea did not commit to it. It declared that it had nuclear weapons and withdrew from the six party talks in 2005. In October, 2006 North Korea announced plans for its first nuclear test. North Korea did conduct an explosive underground test but there are doubts as to whether it really was a nuclear test since the magnitude of the blast was less than expected. As far as Iran is concerned, in March 2010, Iran declared itself as a nuclear state and president Ahmadinejad announced I want to announce with a loud voice here that the first consignment of 20 percent enriched uranium was produced and was put at the disposal of the scientists. However, Iran reiterated that it will use this only for peaceful purposes. We have the capability to enrich uranium more than 20 percent or 80 percent but we dont enrich (to this level) because we dont need it. Evidently, there has been a great turn of events regarding the development and legitimacy of nuclear weapons in North Korea, Iran and Israel. A clear agreement in the case of all three countries has yet to be formed. General Overview Nuclear Deterrence The argument of those who possess nuclear weapons is that it enables them to ward off or deter nuclear or conventional attack through threat of disastrous retaliation. This could be incentive to possess nuclear weapons. DPRK has been accused of using nuclear weapons as a political tool to normalize relations with USA, Japan, and South Korea and to end the embargo against North Korea. North Korea will thus be unwilling to give up nuclear weapons without substantial concessions from USA and South Korea, among others. On the other hand, Iran has entirely denied seeking nuclear weapons for retaliation or nuclear deterrence. Transfer One of the greatest concerns with nuclear weapons is that it could end up in the wrong hands. Not only could countries possessing them sell them to others, thus encouraging nuclear proliferation, but nuclear weapons could also be sold to or stolen by non-state actors. If such a situation were to arise, it would have severe implications on the national security of several countries. For instance, DPRK has refrained from selling its nuclear weapons and materials. However, in the case of harsh sanctions being imposed on the country, it could retaliate and sell its nuclear weapons. Out of this fear, China has prevented the Security Council from authorizing the use of force or imposing truly harsh sanctions on the country. Similarly, in 1975, there were rumors that Israel offered to sell its nuclear weapons to South Africa. Israel has vehemently denied the claim. Israel-Iran Relations The turbulent relationship between Israel and Iran dates back to the Islamic Revolution in the 1970s. Both countries are suspected of having a nuclear weapons program and blame each other for threatening the security of the Middle East by doing so. Irans extreme hostility towards USA and Israel is probably the reason that has caused many to consider Iran to be the greatest threat in the Middle East. Iran itself is not a democracy and does not recognize the right to freedom of speech and expression. In addition, it refuses to acknowledge Israel as a country and refers to Israel as an occupied territory. However, many are angered at the fact that although there is no proof that Iran plans on developing nuclear weapons it is being faced with threats of dire consequences by the USA and Europe where as there is comparatively less pressure on Israel which is practicing opacity as far as its nuclear plan is concerned. On the other hand, seeing as Israel is a democracy, people believe that it can be trusted with its power. Israel also has a reputation of being relatively more reliable and predictable. It is considered less likely to misuse its nuclear weapons through and arbitrary attack. However, Israels intentional ambiguity regarding nuclear development in the country could be considered as a catalyst for the prospect of a nuclear arms race in the region. There are rumours that Israel may have up to 400 nuclear warheads. Egypt and 17 other Middle Eastern countries want Israels nuclear capabilities to be discussed with the IAEA since they have all signed the NPT and believe that Israels accession to the NPT is essential to establish regional peace. Israels current status is considered by some to be a provocation of nuclear proliferation. Israel refuses to sign the NPT without a comprehensive regional peace agreement as until then it requires its ambiguity about its nuclear weapons capability as a deterrent. It is important to note that although the world is split regarding who is to be blamed, both Israel and Iran are in a situation that can possibly lead to a destabilizing arms race in the Middle East and are key players in the possibility of establishing a nuclear free zone in the Middle East. Thus any agreement that does not involve the two countries will result in stalemate. Major Countries and Organizations Involved Israel Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is not a part of the NPT and is suspected by the IAEA to have nuclear weapons. Israel refuses to admit or deny possessing nuclear arsenal, or developing nuclear weapons and is using this ambiguity about its nuclear weapons capability as a deterrent. It is a good ally of USA and a hostile enemy of Iran. Iran Iran is a part of the NPT and strongly asserts that its nuclear technology, including enrichment is solely for civilian purposes but the IAEA has been unable to verify it. It is strongly suspected that the program is concealing the development of nuclear weapons. Iran claims that Israel is the only obstacle to establishing a nuclear weapons free zone and has stated its intentions to wipe Israel of the map. Iran has been subjected to four rounds of sanctions by the Security Council of the United Nation in order to urge it to halt its nuclear program. USA USA, today, has the largest quantity of nuclear weapons in the world but is trying to gradually cut them down under the Obama administration. It strongly condemns both North Korea and Iran for their nuclear program and is unwilling to accept either of the two as nuclear powers. China China has been reluctant to back the sanctions against Iran as it supports the Irans nuclear program for civilian use. It is believed to have helped Iran with its missile development programs. It is North Koreas most important ally, biggest trading partner and main source of food, arms and fuel. China has not expressed outright defiance against USA in order to protect its relations with the country and has supported some UN sanctions against Iran. Russia Russia believes that every nation has the right to self defense and therefore sees Irans nuclear program as legitimate. It has strong ties with Iran and has opposed unilateral sanction imposed on it by USA. However, Russia has urged Iran to change its stance. Russia has also been accused of assisting North Korea and Iran with their nuclear program. IAEA The IAEA is an international organization that promotes the peaceful use of nuclear energy. The IAEA believes that every nation has the right to an authorized and monitored nuclear program for peaceful purposes; however, nations should not attempt to pursue nuclear weapons in any form. Timeline of Events Date Description of event 1945 USA conducts its first nuclear test 1946 Russia conducts its first nuclear test 1952 UK conducts its first nuclear test 1964 China conducts its first nuclear test 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty 1968 NPT signed 1974 Indias first nuclear test 1985 North Korea accedes to the NPT 1990 Frances first nuclear test December 31, 1991 North and South Korea sign the South-North Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. March 6, 1992 US imposes sanctions upon North Korea for missile proliferation activities September, 1992 IAEA inspectors discover discrepancies in North Koreas initial report on its nuclear program and ask for clarification on several issues, including the amount of reprocessed plutonium in North Korea. February 9, 1993 North Korea denies IAEA inspections of two sites believed to store nuclear waste. 1993 North Korea threatens to withdraw from the NPT 1994 Agreed Framework June 13, 1994 North Korea withdraws from NPT 1996 Comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty (CTBT) adopted 1998 Pakistans first nuclear test Feb 15, 1994 North Korea permits IAEA inspections in 7 of its sites May 24, 1996 The United States imposes sanctions on North Korea and Iran for missile technology-related transfers April 25, 1999 The United States, South Korea, and Japan establish the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group to institutionalize close consultation and policy coordination in dealing with North Korea 4 2002 President G W Bush names North Korea as a member of the Axis of Evil October 16, 2002 US announces that North Korea has admitted to possessing nuclear weapons January 10, 2003 North Korea withdraws from NPT October 9, 2006 North Korea conducts an underground explosive test 2009 North Korea conducts another test Previous Attempts to solve the Issue Sanctions on Iran The Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanction upon Iran in its resolutions 1737, 1747, 1803 and 1929. The UN Security Council began imposing sanctions on Iran since 2006, when it failed to comply with IAEA requirements and continued uranium enrichment activities. The sanctions have included bans on exports of nuclear, missile, and dual-use technologies; limiting travel by dozens of Iranian officials; and freezing the assets of forty individuals and entities, including Bank Sepah and various front companies.2 In addition, USA and EU have individually imposed further sanctions on Iran which have targeted its trade, finances and energy sector. Russia has supported the weaker Security Council sanctions against Iran but opposed the stronger ones imposed individually by the USA. It is against any unilateral sanctions and although a fourth round of sanctions was imposed, it faced resistance from Russia and China, both of which maintain strong economic ties with Iran. They opposed it due to their individual economic and political interests. According to critics, the lack of support from these two nations could have weakened the overall affect of the sanctions. The sanctions imposed are believed to have had limited success as Iran still holds an aggressive stance as to continuing its nuclear program and asserts that is it permitted to do so for civilian use as per the NPT. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said: The Iranian nation will not succumb to bullying, invasion and the violation of its rights.5 Talks with DPRK Several attempts have been made to establish a nuclear free Korean-peninsula but all efforts until today have been unsuccessful and DPRK has withdrawn from all treaties it has acceded to. This is probably because DRPK has only been signing treaties out of international pressure, not voluntarily. Agreed Framework The United States and North Korea signed the Agreed Framework on October 21, 1994 by which DPRK agreed to freeze operation and construction of nuclear reactors in exchange for two light water reactors and the relaxation of economic sanctions. The Agreed Framework resolved the ongoing 18 month crisis during which DRPK threatened to withdraw from the NPT. However, there were difficulties regarding the financing of reactors caused the plan to be behind schedule. Infuriated, DPRK violated the agreements which caused USA to persuade KEDO suspend shipments to the country. This marked the end of the agreement. In comparison to other attempts, this one probably had the greatest chance of success as it offered DPRK to end its nuclear program in exchange for realistic concessions made by other countries. Six Party Talks The six party concerning DPRKs nuclear program involved United States, North Korea, China, Japan, Russia and, South Korea as was a result of North Korea withdrawing from the NPT in 2003. Until today, six rounds of the six party talks have been held. Due to the conflicting aims of the members involved, minimal progress was achieved. During the third phase of the fifth round, North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear facilities in exchange for fuel aid the normalization of relations with Japan and USA. These talks eventually ended when North Korea launched a satellite despite international pressure not to do so. It was believed to be a test of its prototype Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). In February 2005, North Korea declared that it had nuclear weapons for self defense and pulled out of the six party talks. DPRK expelled all nuclear inspectors and resumed its nuclear weapons program. Possible Solutions As evident from the past, Iran has been adamant about its position and the authenticity of its nuclear program. For any further progress to be made Iran and the West need to cooperate. Prior to creating any framework for agreements, Iran must be given recognition for its right to exist as an Islamic Republic, and its minimum security concerns must be acknowledged as legitimate. Thus, military strike either by USA or by Israel against Irans possible nuclear program would be disastrous as it would possibly cause Iran to retaliate which is a concern of global security and lead to regional catastrophe. The underlying problem in the Middle East crisis is the lack of trust and the increasing hostility between Iran and Israel. Solutions to resolve this issue should focus on reduce the fears of existential destruction that the two nations harbor towards each other. Iran must recognize the importance of moderating its bellicose stance whereas Israel checks its threats to attack Iran. In order to moderate any development of the negotiations between Israel and Iran, the Security Council should provide security guarantees to both countries and assess their concerns of security risks. Another way of addressing the issue would be to provide financial incentives to Iran; large enough to buy up the nuclear energy specialized for civilian use, if Iran completely halts its current nuclear program. One way of addressing the issue of North Korea would be to provide it with concessions such as providing it with substitute forms of energy for its civilian nuclear program and cutting back economic sanctions based on any agreement that has been reached upon. However, these are only possible if North Korea agrees to comply with any solutions reached upon. Although diplomacy is a great tool to resolve conflicts, many believe that as North Korea has repeatedly proved itself to be unreliable as far as agreements are concerned, a more aggressive option might be appropriate. However, it is important to note that any aggressive military action could possibly worsen matters. Constructive solutions would include measures to normalize relations between North Korea and all other states. As of today the most viable solution would be to establish a nuclear free zone in North Korea but it is difficult to implement. All problems that arise as a consequence of implementing such a solution must therefore also be addressed.