Social Responsibility And Shareholder Theory - 808 Words

In recent years, society insistently demands from corporations actively participate in his life. The main idea is next, inasmuch as corporation is extracted from society a certain income, they therefore obliged him to pay. What is a social responsibility of business today? What should do executives only satisfy shareholders or they have also obligations to society? One of the most famous studies about social responsibility and shareholder theory presents in the article of economist Milton Friedman named â€Å"The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits†, which has been published in 1970n. In this article author, who has subsequently rewarded with the Nobel Prize, was formulated main points of shareholders theory and denounced the whole concept of socially responsible business. Friedman declared, â€Å"There is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game† (214). He defenses his view using next arguments. First, he pointed that the primary responsibility of managers is the fulfillment of desires owners of the company, hence shareholders. The wishes of shareholders are reduced mainly to one thing, namely to bring the company the highest possible income. 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Personal Statement Experiences at Wayland Baptist University

Personal Statement: WBU Looking back, I regard attending WBU one of my best lifetime decisions. Before I discuss my experiences at WBU, it would be prudent to first give a brief background of myself. To begin with, I have had the opportunity of serving my country in the military and in a way; this has largely shaped my personality and my outlook of life. In that regard, I have come to appreciate the value of life more than ever before. Further, the time I have served in the military has taught me that success is possible in any facet of life with the right attitude, determination and personal sacrifice. I chose to attend WBU for its insistence on the need to prepare well-educated individuals in a Christian environment. For me, undertaking my studies in such an institution would in addition to developing my moral character also enable me to become a highly productive professional in my chosen career. As a result of coursework completed at the university, I have experienced both academic and professional grow th in a number of academic areas. In terms of personal growth, I am now a better communicator. Further, I now regard myself a better decision maker. On the other hand, I have also grown professionally as far as my understanding of management theory and practice is concerned. My understanding of organizational behavior has also been enhanced as a result of coursework completed at the university. In my opinion, WBU has very few weaknesses (if any) within its academicShow MoreRelatedCareer Development And Management By Dr. Robert Morris1812 Words   |  8 Pages Multi-Generational Workforce Jeffrey A. Butz Wayland Baptist University, San Antonio August 4th, 2015 Author Note This paper was prepared for MGMT 5344-SA01, Career Development and Management, Taught by Dr. Robert Morris The current workforce within an organization can be divided into four distinct groups which are identified by generations. People who make up these generations have similar values, attitudes, and beliefs separate from each group. With these different sets ofRead MoreTraining Management Plan For Cgi3248 Words   |  13 Pages15 Training Management Plan for CGI Tony Tomes Wayland Baptist University MGMT5344 Running Head: TRAINING MANAGEMENT PLAN FOR CGI 10 February 2017 3 Training Management Plan (TMP) Outline and Table of Contents Page Numbers TMP Thesis Statement . . . . . . 3 Organization Description . . . . . 3 TMP Practical Value and Benefits . . . . .Read MoreWhy Is Communication Important For Managerial Success?3593 Words   |  15 Pages1 Running head: SHORTENED VERSION OF TITLE 4 CHRISTIAN COMMUNICATION Christian Worldview and Communication Antonio Ramirez III Wayland Baptist University, Texas Christian Worldview and Communication As a modern manager, does having a Christian worldview hinder or help communication? The following questions will be answered: What is a Christian worldview on communication? Why is communication important for managerial success? What is the process, Purpose, and Barriers

The Glass Menagerie (Critical Article #1) Free Essays

string(55) " paint the picture during the act of recalling† \(p\." Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association http://apa. sagepub. com Tennessee Williams: The Uses of Declarative Memory in the Glass Menagerie Daniel Jacobs J Am Psychoanal Assoc 2001; 50; 1259 DOI: 10. We will write a custom essay sample on The Glass Menagerie (Critical Article #1) or any similar topic only for you Order Now 1177/00030651020500040901 The online version of this article can be found at: http://apa. sagepub. com/cgi/content/abstract/50/4/1259 Published by: http://www. sagepublications. com On behalf of: American Psychoanalytic Association Additional services and information for Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association can be found at: Email Alerts: http://apa. agepub. com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://apa. sagepub. com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www. sagepub. com/journalsReprints. nav Permissions: http://www. sagepub. com/journalsPermissions. nav Citations http://apa. sagepub. com/cgi/content/refs/50/4/1259 Downloaded from http://apa. sagepub. com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 9, 2009 jap a Daniel Jacobs 50/4 TENNESSEE WILLIAMS: THE USES OF DECLARATIVE MEMORY IN THE GLASS MENAGERIE Tennessee Williams called his first great work, The Glass Menagerie, his â€Å"memory play. The situation in which Williams found himself when he began writing the play is explored , as are the ways in which he used the declarative memory of his protagonist, Tom Wingfield, to express and deal with his own painful conflicts. Williams’s use of stage directions, lighting, and music to evoke memory and render it three-dimensional is described. Through a close study of The Glass Menagerie, the many uses of memory for the purposes of wish fulfillment, conflict resolution, and resilience are examined. T he place: St. Louis, Missouri. The year: 1943. Thomas Lanier Williams, age thirty-two, known as Tennessee, has returned to his parents’ home. He has had a few minor successes. Several of his shorter plays have been produced by the Mummers in St. Louis. For another, staged by the Webster Grove Theater Guild, he was awarded an engraved silver cake plate. He has retained Audrey Wood as his literary agent and with her help had several years earlier won a Rockefeller fellowship to support his writing. But Williams’s Fallen Angels bombed in Boston the previous summer. Its sponsor, the Theater Guild, decided not to bring the play to New York. Since obtaining a B. A. from the University of Iowa in l938, Williams has been broke more often than not. He has no home of his own. He’s led an itinerant existence, living in New Orleans, New York, Provincetown, and Mexico, as well as Macon, Georgia, and Training and Supervising Analyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute; faculty, Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis; Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School. Submitted for publication October 12, 2001. Downloaded from http://apa. sagepub. com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 9, 2009 Daniel Jacobs 1260 Culver City, California. He has subsisted on menial jobs—waiting tables, operating an elevator, ushering at movie theaters—tasks for which he is not f itted and from which he is often f ired. His vision in one eye is compromised by a cataract that has already necessitated surgery. And just before moving back home from New York, he was beaten up by sailors he took to the Claridge Hotel for a sexual liaison. Arriving home in 1943, Tennessee f inds many things unchanged: his parents, Cornelius and Edwina, remain unhappily married and their bitter quarrels f ill the house. Williams must again deal with the father he despises. Tennessee is pressured by Cornelius, who opposed his return home, to f ind a job. If Tennessee will not return to work at the International Shoe Company, as Cornelius advises, then he must earn his keep by performing endless domestic chores. But it is the changes in the family that are even more troubling. Williams’s younger brother Dacon is in the army and may be sent into combat after basic training. His maternal grandparents have moved in because Grandma Rose, now conf ined to an upstairs bedroom, is slowly dying. Most important of all, Tennessee’s beloved sister, also named Rose and two years older than he, is no longer at home. She has in fact been at the State Asylum in Farmington since l937. Diagnosed schizophrenic, she has recently undergone a bilateral prefrontal lobotomy to control her aggressive behavior and overtly sexual preoccupations. During this stay at home, Williams visits Rose for the f irst time since her surgery. He f inds her behavior more ladylike, but she remains clearly delusional. The lobotomy, Williams realizes, was â€Å"a tragically mistaken procedure† that deprived her of any possibility of returning to â€Å"normal life† (Williams 1972, p. 251). â€Å"The poor children,† he will write of his St. Louis childhood, â€Å"used to run all over town, but my sister and I played in our own back yard. . . . We were so close to each other, we had no need of others† (Nelson 1961. p. 4). Now, for Tennessee, Rose is irretrievably lost except as a memory, alternately recalled in pain and shut out in self-defense. Williams cannot abide his situation, thrown amid his parents’ bitter quarrels, the slow death of his grandmother, and the terrible absence of his sister. His only escape: the hours of writing he does every day in the basement of the family home. Here, between washing garage windows and repairing the gutters on the back porch, he writes the â€Å"memory play† that he f irst calls The Gentlemen Caller and then Downloaded from http://apa. sagepub. com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 9, 2009 DECLARATIVE MEMORY IN THE GLASS MENAGERIE The Glass Menagerie. The play is a brilliant, profound, and intricate study of declarative memory and its psychological uses. DECLARATIVE MEMORY Declarative memory is the system that provides the basis for conscious recollection of facts and events. But this system, we know, is not just a warehouse of information, of veridical memories of actual happenings that can be retrieved at will. Rather, like an autobiographical play, declarative memory is a creative construction forged from past events and from the fears, wishes, and conf licts of the one who is remembering. As Schacter (1995) notes, â€Å"The way you remember depends on the purposes and goals at the time you attempt to recall it. You help paint the picture during the act of recalling† (p. You read "The Glass Menagerie (Critical Article #1)" in category "Papers" 23). It was just this complex and creative aspect of memory formation that led Freud (l899) to write that â€Å"our childhood memories show us our earliest years but as they appeared in later periods when memory was aroused† (p. 322). The stories we tell of our lives are as much about meanings as they are about facts. In the subjective and selective telling of the past, our histories are not just recalled, but reconstructed. History is not recounted, but remade. Williams understood this when he wrote, in the stage directions of The Glass Menagerie, that â€Å"memory takes a lot of license, it omits some details, others are exaggerated to the emotional value of the article it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart† (p. 21). Williams has Tom Wingf ield, the play’s protagonist, tell us this. In his opening speech, Tom is both creative artist and unreliable rememberer: â€Å"I have tricks in my pockets. I have things up my sleeve. . . . I give you truth in the pleasant guise of illusion† (p. 2). In this way, Williams warns us from the play’s beginning that memory is a tricky business—f ickle, changeable, susceptible to distortion and embellishment, but always true to the current emotional needs of the rememberer. This paper is an exploration of the emotional needs of the rememberer—of Tom Wingfield, the rememberer in the play, and Tom Williams, the rememberer as writer. Williams could have chosen any f irst name for his protagonist. He chose his own to emphasize the loosening of boundaries between fact and f iction. It is as though he is telling us that autobiography—which is, after all, organized declarative memory—is Downloaded from http://apa. sagepub. com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 9, 2009 1261 Daniel Jacobs 1262 an elaborate f iction based on facts. And that f iction (the creative use of memory) is at its heart emotional autobiography. Both Tom Wingf ield and Tom Williams carry a burden of guilt for leaving the family, especially a disabled sister, and have a need to justify their behavior through the use of recollection. Both Toms live with deep sorrow alongside a wish to retaliate against loved ones who have disappointed them. Remembering is for both Toms, as for all of us, a coat of many colors, worn to set us apart from others as well as link us to them, to justify our choices, to take revenge on others, to compete with them, to kill them once again, or to resurrect them from the grave. The distortions and selective uses of memory are as manifold as the needs of the rememberer. Williams endows each character in his play with his or her own dynamic uses of memory. Amanda can escape the harshness of her current situation by evoking memories of a triumphant past. She is like a patient Kris (l956b) describes who â€Å"while the tensions of the present were threatening . . . was master of those conjured up in recollection† (p. 305). Amanda’s use of memories is aggressive as well, used as a weapon against her husband and children. In constantly contrasting the memories of a happy youth with the unhappiness of her marriage and the bleakness of her children’s lives, her anger and competitiveness take a brutal form. Unlike Amanda, her daughter Laura, who is crippled, has relatively few memories. But the memory of Jim, the gentleman caller, provides her a modicum of comfort. In a pale and pathetic imitation of her mother’s recollections of a house f illed with jonquils, she recalls that Jim gives her a single bouquet of sorts, the sobriquet â€Å"blue roses. † It is a nickname derived from his psychologically intuitive misunderstanding of the illness â€Å"pleurosis,† which had kept Laura out of school. She cannot compete with her mother in the fond memory department and retreats to the concrete but fragile satisfactions of her glass menagerie, where memory and imagination are safely stored—until Jim arrives. The gentleman caller is a man who lives in the present and seems to have little use for the past. It is the future to which he looks. In fact, one feels that memory of his high school greatness are both a satisfaction and a threat to him. For he, like John Updike’s Harry Angstrom (1960) will never experience the glory days of the past. He says as much to Laura: â€Å"But just look around you and you will see lots of people disappointed as you are. For instance, I had hoped when I was going to high school that I would be further along at this time, six years later, Downloaded from http://apa. agepub. com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 9, 2009 DECLARATIVE MEMORY IN THE GLASS MENAGERIE than I am now. You remember that wonderful write-up I had in ‘The Torch’ † (p. 94). While Amanda revels in her triumphant past as a way of dealing with the present, Jim runs from his into the future. Seeing in the crippled Laura some aspect of his own feared limitati ons, he tries to help her overcome hers through encouragement and f inally a kiss. His inability to help her in the end may be a harbinger of his own failures. MEMORY AND LOSS Williams was aware also that declarative memory is paradoxical in that it resurrects and keeps alive in the present what is dead and gone forever. Referring to this paradoxical aspect of memory, he wrote that â€Å"when Wordsworth speaks of daffodils or Shelley of the skylark or Hart Crane of the delicate and inspiring structure of the Brooklyn Bridge, the screen imagism is not so opaque that one cannot surmise behind it the ineluctable form of Ophelia† (Leverich 1995, p. 536). The very presence of memory implies loss. Memory, if you will, is the exquisite lifelike corpse that both denies and acknowledges what has passed away. There is for all of us that double vision that memory imparts, one that at once has the capacity to help and to hurt. Declarative memory provides coherence and direction to our lives, but also reminds us that our path inevitably leads to disintegration and death. The daffodils recollected in tranquility are, at the same time, Ophelia’s garland. Amanda Wingf ield’s recollection of her past social triumphs only reminds us of how much time has passed and how many hopes have been dashed. Laura’s attachment to the happy memories of childhood innocence represented by her glass menagerie only makes harsher the realities of her adult life and the bleakness of her future. Laura and Amanda are represented as having a choice between the infantile omnipotence of their past or a feeling of victimization in the present. When Amanda stirs up old memories as a hedge against the painful present and uncertain future, they are only partially effective. For the contrast between past and present, and the knowledge that what is past will never come again, lead only to further depression and anxiety (Schneiderman 1986). Similarly, behind Tom the protagonist’s memory of Laura at home lies, for Tom the author, the real Rose in a current state of institutionalized madness. Downloaded from http://apa. sagepub. com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 9, 2009 1263 Daniel Jacobs MEMORY AND RESILIENCE 1264 Davis (2001) points out the contribution declarative memory can make to resilience â€Å"through soothing af fects that are evoked in recalling a declarative memory of a loving relationship with a parent or other important person† (p. 459). Such memories can grow directly out of warm relationships or â€Å"they can be achieved through retrieving and modifying memory of more problematic attachments† (p. 466). Davis illustrates his point with the example of Mr. Byrne, a subject in a longitudinal study of adult development. Davis focuses on the fact that in interviews at different times in adult life, Mr. Byrne’s memories of his father changed. At age forty-six, surrounded by a supportive community and family, Mr. Byrne had no memories of his alcoholic and neglectful father and did not think his father’s being a f ireman had inf luenced his own decision to become one. At sixty-six, retired and with his children grown, Mr. Byrne â€Å"had succeeded in ‘f inding’ his father inside as a sustaining inner object in declarative memory (p. 465). He did so through creating or retrieving warm memories of their times together in the f irehouse and by ‘misremembering’ the humiliating events of his father’s death so as to have a more positive image of him. Mr. Byrne’s father had committed suicide, alone and away from the family. But late in life, Mr. Byrne spoke frequently of his father’s having taken him to the f ire station when he was a youngster. He was now sure these happy times with his father had inf luenced his decision to become a f ireman himself. He placed his father’s death in a family setting and claimed to have been the one who found him. Davis points out that we often create the memories we need in order to maintain psychological resilience and mental health. Whatever good experiences Mr. Byrne did have with a diff icult and neglectful father seem to have been magnif ied through the lens of memory aided by imagination in the service of wish fulf illment. It is an example of what Kris (1956a) meant by describing autobiographical memory as telescopic, dynamic, and lacking in autonomy: â€Å"our autobiographical memory is in a constant state of f lux, is constantly being reorganized, and is constantly being subject to the changes which the tensions of the present tend to impose† (p. 299). In a way, Williams does the same thing by creating a memory play. Lonely, guilty over his sister’s fate, f inding St. Louis and his family unbearable, Williams begins writing a play that both ref lects his current Downloaded from http://apa. sagepub. om at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 9, 2009 DECLARATIVE MEMORY IN THE GLASS MENAGERIE suffering and at the same time assuages it. In writing The Glass Menagerie, he creates for himself one of those delicate glass animals— a small tender bit of illusion that relieves him of the austere pattern of life as it is lived in the present and makes it more bearable. He does so not by setting his play in the harsh realities of the present, too painful to write about, but in creatively altered memory. Sitting at his writing table, Williams reclaims his sister (Laura in the play) from the State Asylum and places her at home again. She is not frankly delusional and lobotomized. She is not even in Rose’s presurgical state of illness—a state of aggressiveness and talkativeness made worse by utter and unending vulgarity. Instead, she is portrayed as painfully shy, weak, and schizoid. And Cornelius, the real-life father he must face daily, is gone. Gone from the play for dramatic purposes to be sure: the play would lose a certain edge were there another breadwinner in the house. But in the play, Williams expresses his wish to reconstruct reality and, in this play of memory and desire, rid himself of the old man. Yet he is not entirely gone, for the father’s picture hangs on the wall, like Hamlet’s ghost, reminding us of a son’s ambivalent longing for a father. For in 1943 and throughout his life, Williams longed for some man to comfort and help him. In the play, his own wish for a supportive, loving father is transformed into the wish for the gentleman caller—someone who, unlike his father, will help Laura, satisfy Amanda, and, by his assuring presence, bless Tom’s own departure. He is not only the person Williams longs for, but also the one he longs to be, though he knows it is a role he can never play. It is no accident then that Jim, the gentleman caller, conveys an uncomfortable uncertainty about his future. He is, in a sense, the failed high school â€Å"hero,† with perhaps unrealizable dreams for the future. Jim already hints that the realities of life may not meet his expectations. He expresses resentment at having to work at two jobs: his work and his marriage, in which he has to â€Å"punch the clock† every night with Betty. He is f lirtatious with Laura, even going so far as to kiss her, showing a clear sympathy and attraction to women other than his f iancee. Tennessee’s father, a bitter man from a prominent Southern family, a heavy drinker and a womanizer, while banned from the play, haunts it through his portrait and is resurrected in the f lesh in Jim, who is likewise disappointing and cannot be counted on and who, in the future, may come to resemble Cornelius. In his own life, Williams found and lost gentlemen callers hundreds of times over. And when he was Downloaded from http://apa. sagepub. com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 9, 2009 1265 Daniel Jacobs ot looking for the gentleman caller, he was being one, abandoning and disappointing those who loved him. The only one he was truly faithful to was Rose. Memories are like dreams or fantasies in that all the characters remembered at a particular moment may represent aspects of the rememberer’s own personality. Amanda’s steely will to survive is ref lected in Tom’s stubborn insistence on leaving. Laura’s fragility and submissiveness are wha t he must try to get away from in himself. Jim is the artist manque, the average joe Tom fears he will become if he doesn’t leave. THE STAGING OF MEMORY 1266 Through the very structure of his play and the physical placement of its characters, Williams shows us that we cannot have a past without a present or a present uninf luenced by the past. He takes us back and forth in time as Tom Wingf ield literally steps in and out of the railroad f lat of his memory. He both ref lects on his past and participates in it, as his memories come alive. All the play’s characters slip in and out of memory, from present to past and back again, as they interact with one another, forging their current identity and present relationship in the anvil of a past they selectively remember. The stage set that Williams proposed concretizes the alternating forward and backward movement of time that takes place in the characters’ and in all of our minds. Tom’s opening soliloquy is stage front in the present and is often played outside the apartment. The scene that follows is from the past, set in a dining room at the back of the stage, as if to emphasize the remoteness of memory. The f igures move backward and forward on stage, like memories themselves, coming into consciousness and then receding. Lighting is used in a similar way: to emphasize through spotlighting the highly selective and highly cathected aspects of memory. Lightness and darkness, dimness and clarity, play an important role in the ambience of the play, heightening the shifting play of memory. Williams is specif ic about the use of lighting in his production notes for The Glass Menagerie: â€Å"The lighting in the play is not realistic. In keeping with the atmosphere of memory, the stage is dim. Shafts of light are focused on selected areas or actors, sometimes in contradistinction to what is the apparent center. . . . A free and imaginative use Downloaded from http://apa. sagepub. om at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 9, 2009 DECLARATIVE MEMORY IN THE GLASS MENAGERIE of light can be of enormous value in giving mobile, plastic quality to plays of more or less static nature† (Williams 1945, p. 10). By commissioning an original musical score, Williams makes a deliberate attempt to evoke memory in members of the audience— memories of their own youthful stirrings, with all the fears and pleasures that attend them. Schac ter (1996) notes that it is the memories of adolescence and early adulthood that are most often retained as we grow older. In asking Paul Bowles to write a new piece of music for his play, Williams, I think, is playing with the notion that memory is a new creation, similar to Bowles’s new music, Williams counts on the fact that while the score has never been heard before by the audience, it nevertheless feels familiar and seems a part of one’s previous experience. While the music may stimulate declarative memories of young adulthood in the audience, by its wordlessness it is designed to evoke nondeclarative memory experienced as a feeling state (Davis 2001). By using a new score rather than relying on familiar tunes, Williams insists that memory is an invention of the present rather than a reproduction of the past. CONCLUSION 1267 So we have Tom Williams in his basement room writing about Tom Wingf ield. His protagonist is thrust both forward and backward in time: Tom Wingf ield in 1945 is ref lecting on a time before World War II began. Tom Wingf ield is Tennessee and not him at the same time. The memories Williams calls forth from his own experiences are transformed in ways that are not only dramatically but psychologically necessary for the author. Rendering the truth through selective and transformed memory, Williams creates his own glass menagerie to which he could each day retreat from the harsh realities of his life in St. Louis in l943. He creates fragile f igures he can control, moving them around the imagined setting of creative memory. In creating the play, he can always be near Rose. On the page and on the stage, the two are bound forever, like f igures on a Grecian urn. At the same time, the play is a justif ication for Tennessee’s departure from the family, a plea for understanding as to why he must leave the altered Rose (his castrated self) behind and pursue his own path. Freud (1908) pointed out how both in creative writing and fantasy â€Å"past, present, and future are strung together, as it were, on the thread of the wish that runs through Downloaded from http://apa. sagepub. com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 9, 2009 Daniel Jacobs 1268 them† (p. 141). In the process of writing The Glass Menagerie, the infantile wish to reunite with Rose, to rid himself of a hateful father, and to overcome the threats of castration that Rose’s situation and his own imply, f inds a solution to his torments. He does what Tom Wingf ield does in the play. He leaves. By May of l943, Tennessee is on his way to Hollywood to become, for a short time, a screenwriter. But like Tom Wingf ield, Tennessee cannot leave his past behind. He will be as faithful to Rose as Tom Wingf ield is to Laura when at the play’s end he says, â€Å"I tried to leave you behind me, but I am much more faithful than I intended to be† (p. 115). Of their relationship, Rasky (l986) wrote, â€Å"Just as Siamese twins may be joined at the hip or breastbone, Tennessee was joined to his sister, Rose, by the heart. . . In the history of love, there has seldom been such devotion as that which Tennessee showed his lobotomized sister† (p. 51). Peter Altman, former director of Boston’s Huntington Theater, points out how with the writing of The Glass Menagerie Williams blows out the candles on an overtly autobiographical form of writing and moves on to create full-length plays less obviously reliant on t he concrete details of his own history (private communication, 1997). While he could never psychologically free himself from the traumatic events of his upbringing, artistically he was able to move ahead. By creating within and through the play his own glass menagerie, where the characters are f ixed and can live forever in troubled togetherness, he grants himself permission to leave St. Louis once again. Such a creation is akin to Kris’s description of the personal myth (1956a): â€Å"A coherent set of autobiographical memories, a picture of one’s course of life as part of the self-representation [that] has attracted a particular investment, it is defensive inasmuch as it prevents certain experiences and groups of impulses from reaching consciousness. At the same time, the autobiographical self-image has taken the place of a repressed fantasy . . † (p. 294). But in the patients Kris described, sections of personal history had been repressed and the autobiographical myth created to maintain that repression. In Williams’s case, he is quite conscious of the distortions in his â€Å"memory play,† but creativity serves a function for the artist similar t o that served by personal myth in Kris’s patients. Williams is able to separate further from his family by keeping himself, through his memory play, attached to them forever, selectively remembered and frozen in time in a way painful, yet acceptable, to him. By writing the play, a visual representation of memory and Downloaded from http://apa. sagepub. com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 9, 2009 DECLARATIVE MEMORY IN THE GLASS MENAGERIE wish, Williams creates a permanent wish-fulf illing hallucination providing gratif ication and psychic survival (see Freud 1908). Of his sister Rose’s collection of glass animals, which was transformed into Laura’s glass menagerie, Williams wrote that â€Å"they stood for all the small tender things (including, I think, happy memories) that relieve the austere pattern of life and make it endurable to the sensitive. The areaway [the alley behind his family’s f lat in St. Louis, where cats were torn to pieces by dogs] was one thing—my sister’s white curtains and tiny menagerie of glass were another. Somewhere between them was the world we lived in† (Nelson 1961, p. 8). What enables Williams to survive psychically and adds to his resilience in St. Louis in l943 is, I believe, his ability to create a space between the bitter realities of family life and his impulse to f lee and forget it all—to blow out the candles of memory. That space was his memory play, a space he inhabited daily through his writing, a space of some resilience where psychologically needed memories are created amid the pain and sorrow of the present. And in so doing, he reminds us all of the role memory plays in our survival. Our memories are like glass menageries, precious, delicate, and chameleonlike. We can become trapped by them like Laura and Amanda. Or, as in the case of Tennessee and Mr. Byrne, we can gain resilience from their plasticity that allows us to move forward psychologically. Williams wrote, in his essay â€Å"The Catastrophe of Success† (1975), that â€Å"the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition† (p. 17). Tennessee felt that for him the heart’s opposition could best be expressed through writing. He felt that the artist, his adventures, travels, loves, and humiliations are resolved in the creative product that becomes his indestructible life. (Leverich 1995, p. 268) I think he might have agreed that while creative work plays that role for the artist, memory and fantasy are its equivalent for all of us. Williams knew that it is through the creative transformation of experience, sometimes in verse, sometimes in memory, that we draw nearer to that â€Å"long delayed but always expected something we live for† (1945, p. 23). REFERENCES 1269 DAVIS, J. (2001). Gone but not forgotten: Declarative and non-declarative memory processes and their contribution to resilience. Bulletin of the Downloaded from http://apa. sagepub. com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 9, 2009 Daniel Jacobs 1270 Menninger Clinic 65:451–470. FREUD, S. (1899). Screen memories. Standard Edition 3:301–322. ——— (1908). Creative writers and day-dreaming. Standard Edition 9:143–153. K RIS , E. (1956a). The personal myth. In The Selected Papers of Ernst Kris. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975, pp. 272–300. ——— (1956b). The recovery of childhood memories in psychoanalysis. In The Selected Papers of Ernst Kris. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975, pp. 301–340. LEVERICH, L. (1995). Tom: The Unknown Tennessee Williams. New York: Norton. NELSON, B. (1961). Tennessee Williams: The Man and His Work. New York: Obolensky. RASKY, H. (1986). Tennessee Williams: A Portrait in Laughter and Lamentation. Niagara Falls: Mosaic Press. SCHACTER, D. (1995). In Search of Memory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. SCHNEIDERMAN, L. (1986). Tennessee Williams: The incest motif and f ictional love relationships. Psychoanalytic Review 73:97–110. UPDIKE, J. (l960). Rabbit, Run. New York: Knopf. WILLIAMS, T. (1945). The Glass Menagerie. New York: New Direc-tions, l975. ——— (l972). Memoirs. New York: Doubleday. ——— (l975). The catastrophe of success. In The Glass Menagerie. New York: New Directions, 1975, pp. 11–17. 64 Williston Road Brookline, MA 02146 E-mail: Danjacobs@rcn. com Downloaded from http://apa. sagepub. com at CALIFORNIA DIGITAL LIBRARY on September 9, 2009 How to cite The Glass Menagerie (Critical Article #1), Papers

Divorced, Beheaded, Survived free essay sample

Death is a peculiar thing. Everyone reacts to it in different ways. And no one seems to fully understand what to do, what to say and how to react when death occurs in the family or in the family in one’s circle of friends. It seems that man can’t really understand why it happens. At least not when it is someone one cares about. But it happens, and there is nothing else to do about it, than survive and move on with one’s life. This is the subject treated in Robin Blacks shortstory â€Å"†¦ Divorced, Beheaded, Survived† (2010). The shortstory is the story of a woman who loses her big brother, Terry, to sickness at a very young age. It is also a story about how her brother and she used to play with the other children who lived close by, and how they stopped playing after Terry died. The main character also describes how she tries to protect her children from this awful phenomenon that death is, but how she is unable to do so as her son’s friend dies in the end. We will write a custom essay sample on Divorced, Beheaded, Survived or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The main character who acts as a past tense narrator, does not tell much about herself. To be clear she does not describe many of the characters at all. The fact that there are very few adjectives and adverbs shows the reader that one must use ones imagination, the characters are not important for they could be anyone in such a neighborhood. The reader relates to the story in a different way than they normally would, because they have to use their own experiences to fill out the missing pieces of the personalities of the characters. The person the narrator tells about the most, is Terry or Terrance as he is actually called. The narrator describes how he plays Anne Boleyn with much character and liveliness. Page 2, line 6-9 â€Å"(†¦) was undoubtedly the most convincing. Once, he stole a dress from our mother’s closet – a red-and-white Diane von Furstenberg wraparound so he could use the beltlike part to hold the couch-pillow baby, the future Queen Elizabeth, in place. ‘Oh, Hal,’ he cooed. † He is a happy boy and has no worries, until he gets sick. This turns his life upside down and it changes him, which one could imagine is only natural for a child when it gets sick. Page 4, line 103-104 â€Å"He stopped being the boy who would throw himself into anything that seemed like fun. † The narrator loves seeing her brother play Anne Boleyn, she thinks he is very convincing in the role. Page 2, line 12 â€Å"It was worth giving up the role yourself just to watch Terry give it his all. † The fact that it is Terry that is often chosen to play Anne Boleyn, even though they all want to play her, could be a symbol of fate choosing him to get sick and die. It might as well have been one of the other kids, as well as it could have been one of the other kids who could have played the role. This is shown in the part of the story where Anne Boleyn dies, and Terry has to play the dying woman. Page 4, line 99-101 â€Å"And Terry would hold his face in both hands, his shoulders heaving in enormous, racking, make-believe sobs. But in real life, it was all silent hours. Vacant stares. † The game of playing Anne Boleyn could also be a symbol of the children losing something. Anne Boleyn loses her head and life, Terry loses his life and the narrator loses her brother, her friends and a part of her childhood. At this point it is only the first part of the rhyme that is used. Page 3, line 43 â€Å"Divorced, beheaded, died. † But as the children move on with their lives, learn to live with the loss of a friend and a brother, and some of them meet again even though they do not talk, the rest of the rhyme appears in their life. And this time it holds a whole new meaning. Page 6, line 174 â€Å"Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. † The structure of the text is a bit messy but it still manages to give the reader a good and continuous view of the narrator’s life. The fact that the first 1,5 pages focuses on her childhood with the games and her brother, gives the reader a strong sense that it is a chapter of her life that ended when her brother died. But as she continuously mentions her brother, one also understands that her brother is still with her, even though he belongs to an ended chapter. And as she moves on with her life, and survives, she keeps him with her in a more secure way and without getting scared of forgetting about him. Page 5, line 153-156 â€Å"the truth is sometimes even more than a day goes by before I remember to think of my brother (†¦) Maybe it’s a gift to be able to let go of remembering. Some times. Some things. † The narrator tells us about her family and how her son loses his friend in the end of the text, this is a way to tell the reader that it can happen to anyone, and that it is possible to move on. It is possible to survive the death of someone dear. But never to forget it, a person lost will always be remembered one way or another, intentionally or not.

Puritan Plain Style Definitions Essay Example

Puritan Plain Style Definitions Paper Puritan Plain Style Puritans favored simple, short words rather than long, fancy ones. They got to the point immediately, no exaggerated descriptions. Syntax The arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language. Inversion Reversal of the normal order of words, typically for rhetorical effect but also found in the regular formation of questions in English. Paraphrase Express the meaning of a writer or speaker or something written or spoken using your own words. Quench Satisfy a feeling of needing something. Recompense To reward someone for doing something for you. Manifold Something that can be done many ways. Persevere Persist in doing something, to overcome.

Computer Crimes essays

Computer Crimes essays Times have changed and the world of technology is growing. These new times are also bringing new crimes. The crimes that I am talking about are crimes committed with computers. Computer crimes started in the early 1970s and have become more and more prevalent. The reason computer crimes have increased is because of the popularity of the internet and the fact that people are becoming more and more computer literate. Many types of crimes are done on the computer. The most common crimes committed on the Internet are: Forgery (of E-mail), assault (on your Web site, E-mail box, or computer system), fraud (cyber scams), and robbery (theft of valuable information). Computer crimes can be done against the government, companies, and even everyday people. In my paper I will discuss computer crimes dealing the government, computer stalking, and computer criminals. When some commits a crime against the Government , it effects the whole country. In 1995, the Internal Revenue Service instituted new regulations on electronic tax filing and returns. The reason for this action was to stop a rash of fraud that cost tax payers million of dollars in 1994. Returns that were filed using the computer turned out to be process by fictitious companies. Terrorists are becoming more computer literate because they realize the amount of information regarding the government defense are stored and found on computers. Terrorists are also targeting technology and utility companies because they realize the damage caused would be wide spread and devastating. There are six common types of computer attacks: Military/Intelligence Attacks, Business Attacks, Financial Attacks, Terrorist Attacks, Grudge Attacks, and Reasonless Attacks. . Our national security is at jeopardy simply because the militarys system is susceptible to computer crime just as is any network sy stem. The U. S. Air Force once hired a hacker to try to break into their systems. The...

See intructions Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

See intructions - Research Paper Example During the global warming process, the sun’s harmful ultraviolet and other solar radiation particles freely passes through the umbrella formation of the greenhouse gasses. The greenhouse gasses include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone elements. There are social and political aspects of global warming. Classroom learning, specifically science subject learning, should focus on incorporating the economic, ethical, and political aspects of global warming. Global warming political themes include implementing laws that will force companies to reduce global warming activities will improve agriculture product outputs. Global cooperation will fix the current global warming speed. The best solution is to implement laws that penalize violators of the global warming-based laws and persuading conserve electricity and other energy use. Lastly, the government encourages the people to ride the trains and public buses will help reduce car use, reducing global warm ing increase. Evidently, compliance with the government’ laws and government persuasions will reduce global warming. Introduction and Background of Global Warming. The political theme focuses on governance. Specifically, governance includes controlling the climate change factor, global warming (Kutting 2010, 107). The earth’s temperature is on a faster global warming path. ... Historically, global warming includes increased amounts of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. The first carbon dioxide concentration was discovered at 13,000 feet above Peak of Mauna Loa, Hawaii in 1958. In 1998, the carbon dioxide concentration rose to 369 parts per million by volume (ppmv). The statistics is higher than the 316 ppmv carbon dioxide concentration during 1958 (Maslin 2007 12). In terms of the history of global warming, global warming is the side effect of population increase and technology. Human life started with the invention of the wheel. During the past, horses and small boats were used as means transportation. Later, trains and bigger vessels were used as means of transportation. Today, factories use fossil fuel and electricity to produce their finished products. Jet planes are currently being used as a faster means of transportation. The horses were replaced by modern day cars. With the geometric increase in the population, there is a corresponding geometr ic increase in car owners and factory outputs. Consequently, global warming increased to unprecedented modern day levels. Political Issues. In terms of theories and concepts, the government’s political will implies the legitimacy and authority to implement a carefully orchestrated policy. Consequently, the public popularity and responsible government are difficult to achieve simultaneously. The government’s challenge to provide stability in the global environment entails enacting laws that must serves the public interest. Public interest includes implementing environmental protection policies. Global warming falls under the environmental protection policies (Brink 2004, 71). Political will includes balancing between implementing laws that will protect the community and

Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Business - Essay Example From the very beginning of transport industry development, there was a need to regulate this sphere of human activity. There is a necessity to develop new regulations in transport industry covering peculiarities of a modern society’s development. Therefore, the government is responsible for regulations in transport industry, because it is an integral part of any society. Public interests are protected under conditions of governmental regulations of transport industry. In case development of transport industry is protected by economical regulations and governmental protection, then public interest is in safety. Modern transport regulations are developed with regard to economical factors. Unfortunately, there is a lack of considerations about social and environmental factors. Consequently, it is necessary to consider properly about environmentally health vehicles development and exploitation. There is a direct connection between transport environmental safety and human health. M odern manufacturers often neglect this fact and their main goal is to gain profits hand over fist. This point should be corrected and regulated in favor of humans and public interest. A modern look on regulation in transport industry Regulation is developed in order to â€Å"balance concerns for the public interest within a competitive framework driven by private enterprise† (Coyle, 20011). ... is put on a truck at some point. As a result, the trucking industry hauled 68.9% of all the tons of freight transported in the United States in 2003, equating to 9.1 billion tons† (The trucking industry). If to suppose that all regulations are based on a common law principle: â€Å"Businesses affected with the public interest† (Coyle, 2011), then a central focus on societal and individual needs should prevail. Thus, a modern paradigm of transport industry regulations is anthropocentric and focused on public interest. In spite of the fact that there are numerous regulations in transport industry, such as Aviation and Transportation Security Act (2001), Creates Transportation Security Agency (TSA), Maritime Transportation Security Act (2002), Homeland Security Act of 2002 etc, there is a need to focus on deregulation acts. There is such kind of deregulation acts, as 4R Act (1976), Airline Deregulation Act (1977), Motor Carrier Act and Staggers Rail Act (1980) and others. T hus, economic regulations are violated in trucking industry. Surface Transportation Board (STB) is responsible for all surface mode regulation. Nevertheless, railroads are deregulated as well as air carrier industry, water carriers and pipelines. In order to protect public interests, there is a need to introduce anti-trust laws. In the transportation industry there is especially important social factor. Transportation industry is significant for social unity and economic and national defense of the country is on behalf of this industry. Transportation industry requires essential capital investments and different resources allocation (Martland, 1997). STB regulation of modes considers the following issue: to protect advantage of each mode. The development of

John Stuart Mills Harm Principle Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

John Stuart Mills Harm Principle - Essay Example If we count mere hurt, offence, annoyance, and mental distress as harms, the principle will countenance political interference with nearly every activity, and liberty will amount to naught. On the other hand, if we count only physical damage to persons as harm, most every activity will be permitted and there will be little scope for the political protection of persons. (Kernohan, 1993, 2-5) Certain harms, however, had an interesting structure which straddles these extremes; sometimes activities which, individually, are merely annoying, innocuous, or even beneficial add up to doing physical damage or severe harm. Following Feinberg, R.V Brown call these "accumulative harms," and argue that, even on a stringent conception of harm. Mill's harm principle should be interpreted as requiring political interference to prevent them. There is a related ambiguity in the interpretation of the harm principle. Should the principle offer protection against harms or only against harmful conduct Harmful conduct is activity done either maliciously or recklessly that causes harm to others. (Kernohan, 1993, 2-5) The harmful conduct interpretation fits most naturally with the background, individualist assumption of our legal system regarding the assignment of blame and responsibility to individuals. Harms must be assigned to individuals in order for legal mechanisms of guilt and liability to work1. Hence individual harmful conduct must be identified in order to use the harm principle. Harms, though, are setbacks to people's interests whether or not brought about by harmful conduct. All harmful conduct, by definition, results in harm, and, most often, harms result from harmful conduct. But these two notions come apart in the prevention of accumulative harms. An accumulative harm is a harm done by a group, not to a group. It is a harm to another person brought about by the actions of a group of people where the action of no single member of that group is sufficient, by itself, to cause the harm. Most often, an accumulative harm will also be a public harm, a harm which cannot be done to one individual without at the same time being done to a whole community or populace, but there is no conceptual necessity to this fact; accumulative harms may be serious individual harms. (Kernohan, 1993, 2-5) Feinberg describes the accumulative harm of air pollution like this: Sometimes one individual source of pollution may cross the threshold into harm all by itself, but often many sources are needed. The accumulative harm cases, however, cannot be said to involve harmful conduct; no individual, maliciously or recklessly, causes the accumulative harm2. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them. Public opinion, ostracism, harassing environments, and pornography are all accumulative harms. In this essay R.V Brown mostly focus on forms of pollution as examples of accumulative h

The effectiveness of dispute resolution techniques as used in hong kong

The effectiveness of dispute resolution techniques as used in hong kong Construction in the past Years ago a construction project was a relatively simple arrangement. The owner retained an architect or engineer to develop the design and prepare the specifications for the desired project. The owner and architect or engineer then engaged the general contractor to perform the physical construction of the work leaving the methods of performance to him or her. Contractors and subcontractors were relatively straight forward, simple agreements without extensive exculpatory clauses. At that time, contracts were completed with appropriate time extensions with liquidated damages or pay for delay are depending of who was responsible for delay. Usually the work was of excellent quality because all parties of the team were working together. Nowadays, everything among the construction industry become complex and likewise resulted in a complex dispute resolution whether for a settlement of minor issue. Construction Claims In many construction projects, the argument always arisen among the parties, i.e., in between the contractor, consultant, material supplier and employer and in relation to the conditions of contracts, construction design, buildability, construction methodology and construction standard and etc. Likewise the argument will gradually step into a claim as the parties are intents to preserve their rights, interest and responsibilities as the argument of the works will always result delay and disruption to the construction progress and consequently incurred in an additional time and cost to the project under several particular circumstances. Nowadays, the construction projects are becoming more and more complex due to the innovation, evolution and technology development in the industry, the understanding and interpretation of the project requirement may differs among the parties (Malak and Saadi and Zeid 2002). In the meantime, the increased complexity of construction project, the construction processes, specification, documents and conditions of contracts has been contribution to higher possibilities of conflict that results a higher frequency of claims issue. There are many different types of construction claims are into categories relative to terms and generally defined in a contract. The parties are required to process the claim in accordance with the requirement specified in the main contract. Normally the claims are raised by the contractor as they were the first party acknowledge the construction progress is delay or disrupted by some kinds of event and responsible to identify the circumstances for reporting to the employer. The employer will then require assessing the claim issue. However, the basis of the identification of claims issue is often not exhaust enough by the contractor and therefore the employer will have a difficulty during the assessment process that results an adverse desire to the claimant, which is the contractor. Consequently, the claims cannot satisfy the claimant by extension of time or additional money during the construction period and become a higher degree of dispute that is requires further dispute resoluti on. All claims have the potential to be time consuming and expensive once the claims has different understanding among the employer and contractor (Barnard 2005). To reduce the potential time cost and expensive, usually the associated parties in the claims will proposed to a dispute resolution, i.e., Litigation, Mediation, Conciliation, Adjudication, Arbitration and etc. for minimize the unnecessary cost. Though these dispute resolutions are very common, the effectiveness is questioned by the industry due to the higher cost and time are still required for processing these resolutions. Research Aim, Objective(s), Hypotheses AIM The aim of this research paper is to investigate the effectiveness of dispute resolution techniques as used in Hong Kong. And, the investigation is concentrate on the review and quantifying the process and outcome effectiveness of one of the common use dispute resolution Mediation. OBJECTIVES * To conduct a critical review of literature relating to the definition and process of Mediation. * To conduct a critical review of literature relating to the history of dispute resolution of Mediation in Hong Kong. To review and investigate existing common use of dispute resolutions in Hong Kong. * To research and detail the actual processes, the difference in between these dispute resolutions, analyse the advantage and disadvantage of these dispute resolutions and summerise the general conclusion of these resolutions. * To collect data by face to face interview through the professional body that has experience involves in construction claims and mediation process. * To summerise and analyse the effectiveness of mediation which in the basis of time cost and reflection by the disputants. * To draw conclusion on the quantified effectiveness of mediation to testify the recognition by the construction industry and evaluate the future development of the applicable of mediation. Literature Review How claims propagate to a dispute A claim may be defines as a request, demand, application for payment of notification of presumed entitlement to which the (claimant), rightly or wrongly at this stage, considers himself entitled and in respect of which an agreement has not yet been reached (Barber and Hughes, 1992). For protect their own interest, the claimant will promptly reserves his rights to claim and presents a detailed account of the claims only a the need of the project where they can take advantage of any losses and delays and incorporate them into a claims. Therefore, the prevalence of the reservation of rights approach a construction claims. Normally, the contractor is the host and navigate the claims as the change to the project is always request by their employer, owner, consultant, employer or employers representative and the proof of contractor is breach the contract by the employer is often a difficult task (Hassanein and Nemr 2007). The change orders were the most prevalent causes of claims. The frequent appearance of a change order on a project is due to the engineer do a less thorough job in the design and planning stage and thereafter, the employer try to minimum the costs by not planning the project as real-time since initial planning. As a result the employer is put in a position where they are less likely to anticipate adverse conditions before they arise and are less capable of dealing with the variable. Accordingly, numerous cases had been reported about the contractor was received direct inductions from the employers representative or consultants due to their poor management in the pre-contract phase and outdate realization of the project. The consequence was additional incurred expenses. The increasing scope of work and poorly coordinated designs result change order and easier to propagate a construction claims. In addition, the differing site conditions, defective construction documents, suspensions of the work at the direction of the employer or consultant, wrongful delays in handling shop drawings, late deliveries of owner-furnished equipment and materials, interference by other prime contractors, lack of site access and etc. are easier to constitute a contractor claims once the poor management practice occurs in the employers team. The construction project is often delayed by the change and a claim may arise on account of a delay disruption. The nature of the construction claims leads to adversarial relationships regarding impacts and changes and often results in disputes. Background of Mediation The settlement of disputes arising from construction industry by methods other than litigation is common practice. The main reason for this is, where the substantial questions of the dispute are matters of fact rather than of law, a final and conclusive decision can be obtained in a manner which is quicker and cheaper than the formal legal. Construction disputes have used mediation since 1985 (Phillips, 1997). Compared to litigation, mediation has proved to be a faster, less expensive, more confidential, and more satisfactory way to resolve disputes. There is a national trend in favor of alternative methods of dispute resolution and away from the trench warfare style of litigation which has become so costly in recent decades. Mediation reflects a shift in the balance of power between employers and their lawyers. In scorched earth litigation the dispute is in the hands of litigators whose strength lies in motion practice and mammoth discover regimens. Mediation cuts through the posturing and tactics of litigation to get the merits of the dispute, where the employer is more of an authority, and to get to settlement negotiations, where the employer controls decision making (Fisher 1994). In fact, Mediation is a popular mode of dispute resolution in the United States (Bush and Folger 1994). As it is a non binding, consensual process of resolving conflicts through settlement conferences expedited by an impartial third party who facilitates negotiations (stories and their interpretation) between the disputants (Gillie et al. 1991;Rondeno and Rumbaugh 1999). Mediation may be considered a form of distributive justice, even though the contending parties control the discussion of the conflict and is ultimate resolution. It can be entered into voluntarily or as a result of a court order, and it does not bind the parties in any way other than by mutual agreement. Obviously, the mediation has been introduced and widely applied as a settlement method of dispute to construction industry for more than twenty years. As mediation describes a voluntary process which either side may abandon at any time without prejudice, whereby each side to a dispute is brought together before a neutral mediator, whose function is to assist the parties to arrive at common position by joint open session and private caucus (Hills 1995). During this process the mediator acts only as catalyst, not expressing his or her own opinion and not disclosing confidential information imparted by one of the parties, to the other. Through this process the parties move closer together until they reach a common position when settlement is reached. Because the mediation process itself is non binding and entirely without prejudice, it is necessary to record the agreement, in contract form, if it is to have legal effect. Although mediation is not regulated process, some rules do exist and are published by a few organizations that is applicable to Hong Kong construction industry. For example, the Construction Industry Mediation Rules published by the National Arbitration Committee in the United States, and the Hong Kong Government Mediation Rules published by the Government of Hong Kong. Mediation Process The Mediation is begins with the agreement of disputants that intents to settle certain amount of money and employ a mutually agreed mediator to commence mediated meeting to define issues and confirm each sides commitment. Agreement to mediate in the event of a dispute is either through terms of the contract (such as a mediation clause), or by mutual consent when the dispute arises. More commonly, one party approaches the mediation company to begin mediation proceeding. A representative then contracts the other side inviting them to cooperate in a mediation and consequence assists the disputants in negotiating a settlement. This is a form of collective decision making in which the mediator facilitates voluntary agreements between the parties in dispute. During this decision making process, the mediator compiles information, evaluates alternatives, and makes suggestions to the disputants aiming for a consensual agreement. The mediator will meet each party in turn to assist them to exa mine and highlight the respective strengths, and weaknesses of their case and, if he is so authorized, carry offers from one side to the other until the parties reach a common position, as a result, the mediator helps in breaking barriers and pulling communalities. In these contexts, mediation is regarded as nonthreatening, and effective in suppressing or even settling construction dispute. Thus, mediation is used because of the prospect of achieving settlements that are mutually satisfying, win-win situation, cost effective, flexible, speedy, confidential, and voluntary. At this point a settlement is usually agreed and, if the parties so wish, a contract will be drawn up to make the terms of the settlement legally binding (Hills 1995). Why Mediation This method is aimed to employ an independent third party for assist to agreed certain specified desires from the disputants in a short time and most likely they will satisfy the mediation result as the lightly litigation is applied and cost saving in comparing with other dispute resolutions. And, mediation can restart the usual course of construction claim resolution by carving out one or more of the simpler claims for early agreement. Even if the parties cannot agree that those compromises will be paid right away, at least they can stipulate that they will be paid as part of any arbitration award or court judgment. The real value of such partial settlements is that they improve the atmosphere. They demonstrate to each side that the other is acting on good faith and deserves some credibility. A good mediation advocate helps identify the clients real interests and needs, so that it is possible for the parties to reach a bargain. For example, a contractor may be less interested in mon ey than in having additional time to complete the job, or in obtaining future work, while the owner wants the project completed as quickly and as economically as possible. Because the parties craft their own settlement, they are more likely to honor their agreement voluntarily. Mediation also provides a forum wherein the aggrieved party can present its position or defense directly to the opposing party rather than through an attorney (Trantina 2001), thereby giving the aggrieved party voice or recognition of being heard. Also, mediation can preserve the partys relationship (Lederman 1997). Mediation display of commercial acumen and far from being soft, it is a continuous process of structured, condensed, guided and intense negotiation requiring quickness of mind, flexibility and imaginative thinking. And mediation can be used at the same time as litigation or arbitration procedures or can replace litigation. So it is possible to litigate or arbitrate to show serious intentions but t o negotiate with mediation to get a better result. Even the mediation fails, it has more benefits than risks. Mediation can be tried fast and at little extra cost. Parties are free to leave the process if it is unproductive (Harmon 2003). At the same time, using mediation helps clarify the issues, helps with preparation for trial or further negotiations and encourages a realistic assessment of the case more rapidly than the adversarial process. Conclusion The principle finding of this paper is aimed to have a brief review of an understanding of mediation in construction industry. An investigation is also held for realised the consequential effect is resulted by construction claims to the industry. Nevertheless, the outcome of initial finding on the literature review is not ideal as original thought. The construction claims detailed in many literature papers are mainly focusing on the claims effect how delay and disrupt the project that very limited reports are specified, i.e., the outcome effect of mediation, the problematic occurs during the mediation. For the research aim regarding dispute resolution in this report is assess the effectiveness of the mediation. As this report is only focusing the dispute resolution on Mediation, quite a lot of literature reports actually already have concluded the effectiveness of this resolution methods. Unfortunately the concluded result is limited to list out the advantage and disadvantage of this resolution and leads to have a personal (author) bias which seems not neutrally enough(Yiu Cheung Mok 2006). Furthermore, it is not difficult to have the knowledge of the process of dispute resolution but the key information or real mediated case is hard to obtain. Most likely the reason is mediation is not open to public. As a result, the critical information of real case for consolidates substantiation to this report is relatively very limited. In summary, the topic actually has a greatly development space as the gap of the above said research objective do exist in the industry. The general description on the outcome effect of mediation by limited reference to real dispute case is the key finding during this investigation of literature review. And as above mentioned the papers are only listed out the particulars of the mediation without any consolidated data, i.e., amount to settle, time consumed and cost of mediation. Accordingly, the mediation application has not been clear identified for which scale or what kind of disputes. The difficulty of data collection is recognised and foreseeable. Thus, the further development of the final report will be initially focusing on the real case data collection and the development of quantify effectiveness of mediation. Methodology Based on the concerning to the objectives of this research paper, the research methodology is considerate to choose combining a case study and face to face interview with associated professional body in the construction industry who has similar experience that involves in the construction claims and mediation process. The presentation of a case study can reflected the cause and consequence of a claims event as a full story broad and accordingly indicate how the claims falls into a dispute. From the review of the claims process by a case study method, we can easier to understand the fundamental reason why the claims event is arisen and defining the claims type or determining the validity of claims by the point of view as an external third party. Thereafter, based on the stances of the relevant parties on the claims can evaluate the necessarily of the dispute as the claims somehow is without any contractual ground backup but become as a dispute shortly. For the method of face to face interview that is an effectiveness and straight forward path to obtain the result. The professional bodies who has experience on a claims and mediation process are able to tell what the consequence and subsequence of a construction claims and how the dispute resolution process. Moreover, the method for assess the effectiveness of the dispute resolution is by quantified the time cost by these peoples contributed on each case. The case study will select the construction project that has a dispute for detail analysis and illustrate the disputes among the construction industry in Hong Kong. The case study will be considered a recent completed bridge project in Hong Kong. This project is one of the longest cable stayed bridges in the world. The bridge was just completed recently and has 2 years delay from the originally planning. Mediation has had been carried out for settle the claims dispute in early construction stage. For the face to face interviewer selection, it is very depend on the availability of those personnel. Nevertheless, the target interviewer is decide to meet minimum 4 professional body involved in this project, assuming the key data can be obtained among these professional body. Restraints/Limitations In this research paper, it can be foreseeable the difficulty to systemize and identify the dispute nature among the construction industry. Initially, to collect the claims issue event from the as-built real construction project is time consuming and require lots of contacts to meet this objective but the outcome may not be satisfied to achieve the original idea as the industry always keep the claims as a confidential issue and not open to irrelative parties. Eventhough the claims was settled completely and not necessary proceed to kinds of litigation or arbitration, the information regarding the settlement definitely involves a sum of monies that the industry still inclined not to release the details as a reference for any further similar claims. Whilst the peoples who involves in the claims process of a construction project are very limited to Claims consultancy, Q.S. or senior manager. These peoples are always difficult to reach and as the industry norms, the fact of the claims event may not present thorough. It means the realistic of claims event may be questionable due to the limitation of the sources. Nevertheless, for simplify the evaluation of the effectiveness of the dispute resolutions is quantifying the time cost and feedback from the disputants, further measure the applicable frequency of this resolution. Research Programme Please refer to Appendix A Ethics and Safety Approval Please refer to Appendix B REFERENCES: Fisher, T. (1994) Construction Mediation. Dispute Resolution Journa, March 1994, pp.8-16. Harmon, K. (2003) Resolution of Construction Disputes:A Review of Current methodologies. Leadership and management in Engineering, October 2003, pp.187-197. Flake, R. and Perin, S. (2003) Mediating Construction Disputes:What Works and What Doesnt. Construction, May/July 2003, pp.24-34 Hassanein, A. and Nemr, W. (2007) Construction Claims in Egypt:Contrasts and Similarities With Published Literature. AACE International Transactions, INT.04, pp.1-5 Mcdonald, P. (1984) Construction claims costing for owners and contractors. Construction management and Economics, 2, pp.1-12. Baki, M. (1999) Delay Claims management in Construction A Step-by-Step Approach. Cost Engineering, 41(10), pp.36-48. Chester, M. and Hendrickson, C. (2005) Cost Impacts, Scheduling Impacts, and the Claims Process during Construction. Journal of construction engineering and management, January 2005, pp.102-107. McDuff, C. And Ray, M. (2002) Total Cost Construction Claims Tactics. AACE International Transactions, CDR 11, pp.1-3. Goyal, B. (1996) Consturciton Claims and Disputes:Causes and Cost/Time overruns. Journal of construction engineering and management, June 1996, pp.197-198. Brooker, P. And Lavers, A. (1997) Perceptions of alternative dispute resolution as constraints upon its use in the UK construction industry. Construction management and Economics,15, pp.519-526. Thompson, M. and Vorster, m. and Groton, J. (2000) Innovations to Mange Disputes:DRB and NEC. Journal of construction engineering and management, October 2000, pp.51-59. Cheung, SO. and Yiu, TW. and Yeung, SF. (2006) A study of Styles and outcomes in Construction dispute Negotiation. Journal of construction engineering and management, August 2006, pp.805-813. Treacy, T. (1995) Use of alternative dispute resolution in the construction industry. Journal of construction engineering and management, January 1995, pp.58-63. Mcgreevy, S. (2005) Arbitration, mediation, ligtigation:Whats best?. Mcgreevy on Law. Joyce, W. (2008) Returning Arbitration to an effective process in construction contracts. Dispute resolution journal, July 2008, pp.15-18. Shapiro, J. (2002) using Mediation and Arbitration to Resolve Construction Disputes. Business Credit, November 2002, pp.59-61. Kuzma, S. and Hoffman, D. and Bradley, L. (2002) The Impact of Daubert on Expert Testimony in Construction Disputes. Construction Law and Business, 3(1), pp.19-23. Gransberg, D. and Joplin, A. (2000) Developing Construction Claims for Arbitration:Two Arbitrators Viewpoint. Cost Engineering, 42(7), pp.29-31. Yiu, TW. and Cheung, SO. and Mok, FM. (2006) Logistic Likelihood analysis of mediation outcomes. Journal of construction engineering and management, October 2006, pp.1026-1036. Spalj, G. (2005) Construction Disputes. Construction Bulletin, 14 October 2005, pp.3-6. Hills, M. (1995) Building Contract procedures in Hong Kong. 3rd ed., Hong Kong:Longman.

Essay --

North Korea China’s North Korean Refugee Dilemma The current state of North Korea’s economy and policy is what has led to the explosive migration of refugees to China and South Korea. The collapse of the Soviet Union as well as the death of Kim Il Sung are two of the biggest factors leading to North Korea’s downward spiral, and the rate of defection continues to increase. The leading reason for this great migration is the serious food crisis, dismal living conditions, labor exploitation, violation of human rights, and political persecution. North Korean’s seek freedom, ironically, in China, North Korea’s biggest political ally and trading partner. As a fellow communist state sharing a border, China is well known for its hostility towards refugees. The country maintains the mindset that it has the moral obligation to return all defectors back to where they came from, where they will most likely be forced to work in concentration camps or killed, along with their families. Even defectors who are successful have the difficulty of living with insecure legal status, and risk of deportat...

Advanced Practice Nursing Role Essay

Health professionals like nurses have a chance to go for autonomy in the nursing career which is beyond the practice of being a staff nurse. Various pathways for advanced specialization in nursing career have been established for the past few decades. This expansion of responsibilities and vision as a health professional helps nurses to fulfill growth as professional and as a person. Among the advanced practice nursing roles, the author deeply prefer Family Nurse Practitioner specialized in cardiology. This will help her utilize skills in nursing science and as a health care specialist with a twist on promotion of health of the cardiovascular system. Creative APN Role in Health Promotion The author has chosen the field of family nursing practitioner because of the challenges and roles that it holds. The current responsibilities of the family nurse practitioner posts promising personal as well as professional growth on the field of the health care industry. The advance practice nursing role of family nurse practitioner is composed of different skills which pertains to the areas of management skills of community health nursing, patient care, primary care, intervention on the desired population, and it also deals with community assessment and actions regarding the said assessment. It focuses on promotion of health and healthy living, avoidance of degenerative diseases, and the supervision of the illnesses in different ages, both chronic and acute. (UTA 2008) The author has chosen a specialized field in cardiology because in reference to the data given by the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention for 2005 Death data table C, the leading cause of death in the United States is cardiovascular related. According to the statistics, 652, 091 deaths were related to heart problems (CDC 2008). The stated data poses a major concern that there is a very big problem related to cardiovascular disorders. In relation to this, the author envisions to help in solving this problem via the career chosen by the author. The family practice nursing with a specialization in cardiology will help the author contribute in building the foundations of a society with healthy cardio vascular systems. Among the probable setting that the author hopes to practice the stated advanced practice nursing role is in the Christ Hospital. It was established for more than 115 years and it was well known to be one of the leading hospitals which continue to promote, plan and innovate for the healthy future of the region. It was noted as one of the best medical institution in the United States for the last few decades consistently. The setting includes 555 beds with more than 1200 physicians and holds the most advanced and sophisticated technology for health care. It is a not-for-profit acute care facility which is supervised by the highly trained specialists that has great passion for health care. It focuses on the services for major surgery, orthopedics, cardiovascular care and other related fields (Christ Hospital 2008). The competencies required for this job ranges from clinical expertise to social relationship within the community. It requires expertise in retrieving records for the data regarding the health, medical history, psychosocial and family records. Ability to conduct physical examination, for the health problems related to the acute and episodic phases are required as well as the ability to interpret the laboratory findings. Provide health assessment to the visited areas or patients and to arrange referrals to other health professional. It is also required to have a knowledge on developing and implementing plans for the supervision of problems in the acute and episodic problems of the assessed in and out patients. In the competencies required to assess patients also include ability to enclose screening evaluation for the cardiovascular health and other relevant information regarding it, distinguishes between normal and abnormal change. Evaluate the pressure of the family or psychosocial factors on patient sickness, situations related to developmental delays and learning disabilities in all ages, reproductive health of both women and men, sexual health, pregnancy, and postpartum care, assess some problems like substance abuse like drugs. Performs and accurately documents appropriate comprehensive or symptom-focused physical assessment on patients of all ages. Recognize health and cardiovascular risk factors of patients of all ages and families in all stages of the family life cycle. Demonstrates proficiency in family assessment; show proficiency in functional assessment of family members. Assesses specific family health needs within the context of community assessment especially the ones that is related to the cardiovascular diseases. Identifies and plans interventions to promote health with families at risk of heart disease (NONPF 2002). Diagnosing of health status focused on the health of heart is also needed, the following competencies are required. Recognize signs and symptoms of acute physical heart disease across the life span. Recognize signs and symptoms of chronic cardiovascular disease across the life span. Evaluates and summarizes collected data for patients of all ages. Plans complete differential diagnoses, with relevance to the epidemiology, environmental and community characteristics, this also includes life stage development and the arrangement seen with increasing age, family, and heart risk factors (NONPF 2002). Upon diagnosis of the members with cardiovascular or heart related diseases. The planning caring and management of the treatment of the disease will proceed which requires a lot of competencies indicated below. It is required for the nurse to have abilities to provide health information for protection, health promotion, formulate strategies for the intervention and prevention of the cardiovascular diseases which aims in improving the cardiovascular system of the family, requires a knowledge on how to treat acute and chronic of cardiovascular diseases in all ages to minimize the risk of developing complications and increase quality of living, prescribe proper medication for the pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics, adapts care for to meet the needs of the at-risk patients, evaluate the effectiveness of the plan in relation to the plans made for the at-risk group. Assist the members of the family of the cardiovascular disorder patient, provide referrals to the health care professionals that can support the treatment of the heart disease, and apply the study regarding the idea that is family centered and can supply positive change in the health of the family. Family or Population Health Promotion Theories & Models The family nurse practitioner specialized in the cardiology focuses on promoting health in relation to individual level and the family level. The health promotion theory that is suitable for the family nurse practitioner in the individual level is the Health Belief Model which focuses on the person’s perception of the possible risk and the evaluation of the actions that would prevent the problem from occurring again. In this case, the author’s future interaction with individuals who are at-risk to cardiovascular diseases will give her chance to use the said model in promoting the health information. Upon approaching, an at-risk patient, the author will be discussing the perceived susceptibility of the subject to cardiovascular diseases and the initial reaction of the patient will more likely to be curios. The next part is the explanation of the perceived severity and the possible consequences of the CVD in the patient; the next step is to discuss with the patient the possible benefits of positive action. In such case, the patient will soon realize the benefits of the perceived action. And will arrive eventually on the conclusion that the patient should consider on performing the perceived actions that could give benefits. The author also considers another theory of which the community level is involved. The community organization is theory which focuses the involvement of the members of the community in evaluating health problems. Upon interaction within community sites, the author will soon be empowering these families in relation to the participation in campaigns for heart related problems. The participation of the community and the relevance of the selected issue to the problem of the community like the cardiovascular diseases will greatly enhance the active development of the community. The most important activity that the author can do is the critical consciousness that she will be spreading in the community (HPA 2008). Agency and Financing of APN Practice The Christ Hospital will be the institution where the author hopes to apply in the mere future it was the medical establishment that was considered in this paper. It was established for more than 115 years and it was well known to be one of the leading hospitals which continue to promote, plan and innovate for the healthy future of the region. It was noted as one of the best medical institution in the United States for the last few decades consistently. The setting includes 555 beds with more than 1200 physicians and holds the most advanced and sophisticated technology for health care. It is a not-for-profit acute care facility which is supervised by the highly trained specialists that has great passion for health care. It focuses on the services for major surgery, orthopedics, cardiovascular care and other related fields (Christ Hospital 2008). The mission of the Christ Hospital is to lead the region in giving the excellent experience in health care especially the personalized one while forwarding clinical excellence, technology and education. The role that the author will be holding will help the institution in a way of providing personalized health care especially in the cardiology patients. The author’s expertise will also help the institution in advancing clinical excellence especially in the field of cardiology. The role will be financially supported by the hospital or allied services institutions relating to cardiology. In the specific case, the Christ Hospital will be responsible for the financial support of the role. The nurse practitioner in the said institution is included in the employee pay. Some stakeholders that can support the role are the health related institutions, hospitals, clinics, nurse organizations and cardiology specialty centers. The role of family practice nurse practitioner goes beyond the limits of a staff nurse which will promote personal and professional growth. The specialization in cardiology will greatly help in the regression of cardiovascular disease cases in the United States. Thus the APN role stated above will surely benefit not only the author but also the society at large.

Political Representation for Women

Political Representation for Women Free Online Research Papers Politics and governance involve all aspects of power: who has power, what power relations exist, how power is exercised, the institutions of power, how they operate, what laws and policies are churned out from these institutions and what impact those have on people. Through the patriarchal powers vested in them by society, men become the ‘directors’ of virtually all public life – the ‘face’ of politics and governance. (Lowe Morna, 2004: 25) It is a statement of the obvious to note that women have been discriminated against in the political arena for centuries, enjoying little to no representation and playing no role in the governing of their countries. To effectively give credence to the arguments for women’s representation and to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of various ideologies, electoral systems and the use of quotas in offering women political equity, we must first understand how they have been politically marginalised. To that end, this paper begins with an exploration of the concept of citizenship: what it means, how important is it in having access to rights and representation and how and why the notion is gender-biased. Arguments are then presented that highlight the imperative need for women to have a face in governments, indicating their right to be a part of the policy making process. Women’s representation is, however, not a cut and dried issue for many political theorists and there are a number of debates surrounding the issue including the matter of women’s interests being a part of policy making, the legitimacy of feminists in government and the substantive effect of descriptive representation. Each of these will be discussed and evaluated as will the effectiveness of liberal democracy in terms of women’s rights and representation. Finally, a focused discussion on electoral systems and quotas and how they can be used to ensure fair representation and participation for both genders ensues. Based on this, the required evaluation of their effectiveness in increasing the number of women in government is made. Once again, this is a subject that elicits much debate but has in certain instances, as will be demonstrated in the final section, been immensely successful. 2. Women and Citizenship The term citizen is a broadly used and widely interpreted one that has meant different things to different people across the centuries. The basic understanding of the word is any member of a state who is politically and legally recognised as an individual and who, by democratic principle, therefore has both rights and responsibilities toward that state. Erasmus goes one step further to outline those rights in terms of equal access to judicial, political, social and economic independence. Despite the fact that days where women, ethnic minorities and the mentally ill were not formally considered citizens at all have passed in democratic countries, the question remains whether their inclusion is meaningful to the extent that they have access to the political mechanisms of democracy. A history of the state highlights some of the reasons why the concept of citizenship has traditionally been gender-biased. These include the perception that it is by defending a state in military terms or contributing to it in economic terms, that one has rights to citizenship. As both of these fields have, for centuries, been off limits to most women across the globe, their exclusion was a natural result of their relegation to the lesser-valued private sphere. In addition, land ownership laws, inheritance laws and marriage laws have been used to ensure that women were passed along from the care of their fathers to that of their husbands without ever enjoying either the experience or recognition of being individuals. (Phillips, 1991a:96) While most of these laws have been changed over the last century, the perception that accompanies them has been slow to follow. In her article, Citizenship and Feminist Theory, Phillips explores the notion that citizenship is no longer just viewed as one’s right to show up at a polling station every four or five years, but is an â€Å"evolving complex of civil, political and social rights† that calls for more active participation and â€Å"more substantial citizen involvement and control.† (Phillips, 1991b: 78) This then calls seriously into question any instance where a group is denied the required access to get involved and make a contribution, making them, by implication citizens of a lesser degree, if at all. Lowe Morna comments on this point that women are often â€Å"rendered non-citizens by their virtual non-participation in decision making.† (2004: 26) It is with this in mind that we turn our attention to the arguments for women’s representation, for what more fundamental way to be an active citizen than to represent one’s people in government. 3. Arguments for Women’s Representation While the need for women to be adequately represented in government may be as obvious to some as to defy the need for justification, there are no shortage of tangible reasons for those who are less certain. Phillips poses four arguments in her book, Engendering Democracy, why women should have equal representation to men. The first is a matter of democratic justice. Democracy claims to recognise the human rights of all individuals and this must necessarily include women. It is therefore a violation of human rights to exclude women from public representation just as much as when racial groups or ethnic minorities are given no political say. The second reason is utilitarian in nature, posing that it is an immense waste of knowledge, wisdom and skills to automatically exclude half the world’s population from your list of eligible politicians. As prior discussions on feminist ideologies have illuminated, women have a potentially vast and unique set of attributes to contribute to t he public sphere. This ties closely with the third justification for women’s representation, which is that women bring something distinctly different and unique to political positions. This is important both in recognising that women are different and cannot be adequately represented by males and in creating a socially balanced political arena. â€Å"The representation of women and the inclusion of their perspectives and experience into the decision-making process will inevitably lead to solutions that are more viable and satisfy a broader range of society. (Lowe Morna, 2004: 29) Finally, in a world still battling to attain social equality between the genders, having women represent their communities in government creates a vital role model for upcoming generations. (Phillips, 1991a) Phillips also makes rather astute reference to the renowned ‘for the people, by the people’ slogan, which is so widely associated with democracy, noting that in its truest sense, liberal democracy does not just promote a system that fights, or claims to, for the rights of all its citizens, but rather one in which all of those citizens have an equal say in the governing of their country. (1995: 28) If liberal society has, as it claims, acknowledged that old arguments that women are not possessed of similar reason or intellect to men are both incorrect and uncondonable, then it stands to reason that women are equally qualified and eligible for positions in the political arena. It therefore becomes a moot point to argue for women’s representation but is rather the responsibility of anyone opposed to the notion to offer valid justification for women’s exclusion. As logical or obvious as these arguments may seem, there is not a single country in the world that boasts equal gender representation at this time. There are a number of reasons for this that call into question just how democratic liberal democracy has proven to be for women. Aside from the very pervasive social barriers to women’s participation such as the perception that their characteristics are not suited to the task, that they lack confidence and the support of other women and that they have been socialised into a submissive mindset, there are various more tangible, political constraints as well. A new system of public management, dominant in most liberal democracies has witnessed the devaluation of policy-making expertise in government positions in favour of management skills, a dynamic that tends to marginalise those politicians bent on representing particular issues (which would include most female candidates) in favour of those with financial clout and the ability to outsource. In addition, female candidates suffer from a form of backlash politics where men in authority, closely protecting the old guard, actively prevent their progress. (Sawer, 2006: 121) These hurdles are compounded by theorists that claim that gender equality issues are special interest pleadings and should be treated as such rather than being given a seat in government and that enforcing women’s rights through the mechanisms of government undermines the very foundation of democracy by limiting the rights of the individual in favour of a group. The latter two arguments will be dealt with more extensively in the section on debates surrounding women’s representation, but the constraints mentioned as a collective lead us to explore the relationship between women’s rights and liberal democracy. 4. Liberal Democracy and Women’s Rights Liberal democracy, by its very definition, is both ideologically and pragmatically, a system of government that claims to protect above all else, the rights of the individual. It has as one of its founding tenants, the principle that all people are equal and have equal rights. It is disappointing then, to say the least, that even in countries that have been democracies for centuries, while all members of society have been formally recognised as equal, there are still vast numbers of citizens who do not have claim to the equal rights that should theoretically follow this recognition. In addition, there seems to be little urgency among governments across the globe to rectify this situation. This holds true for women who have been given the vote, but have only the option of voting for male dominated parties. There are theorists who say that this is not simply a failure to implement democracy, but resultant of ideals within the practice that fundamentally oppose equality. Mendus phrases it rather succinctly, claiming that â€Å"democracy is not something that, as a matter of unfortunate fact, has failed to deliver on its promises to women. It embodies ideals that guarantee that it will never deliver unless it embarks upon extensive critical examination of its own philosophical assumptions.† (1992: 208) These ideals include the continued emphasis on the public, private dichotomy, the opposition of the notions of individual rights and rights of minority groups, the ideology’s understanding of citizenship and the male norm as the basis for the entire philosophy. Earlier discussions on the nature of the democratic state revealed that the clear divide between the public and private sphere is not only a result of socially entrenched patriarchy but also a calculated formula that has allowed male dominated governments to legitimise violence, making it an integral part of any state, including modern day liberal democracies. This split effects women’s political rights on two fronts. Firstly, they are still, in a very real sense, perceived to be inferior citizens and the social inferiority that relegation to the private sphere perpetuates severely hinders their access to self-governance (the basis of democracy). As Phillips notes, â€Å"If the supposed equality of the vote is continually undermined by patterns of patronage and subservience and condescension, then society is not democratic.† (1991a: 159) Secondly and on a more practical note, women’s continued responsibilities in the home even in instances where they have entered the workplace, places a double burden or workload on them, restricting the time that they have available for involvement or participation in the political arena. In terms of democracy’s emphasis on the rights of the individual, it is important to note that the concept of an individual in this case is based on a male norm. The term is most often understood in a market context in terms of ownership and activity in the economic arena. Much of the effort that goes into supporting women’s rights in modern politics uses as a basis the fact that women were unfairly judged for being different or deviating from the norm, when in fact it is not the judgment that is the problem but the perception of that norm and women’s deviance from it. (Phillips, 1991a: 150) In this context, liberal democracy assumes success in achieving gender equity as having allowed women ‘into the club’ as it were, by creating employment equity laws and giving them the vote. The very notion of that ‘club’, however, and a male dominated government’s place to allow women to do anything, upholds the strongest notions of patriarc hy. Feminists themselves refer to this type of inclusion or progress for women as assimilation feminism, where women’s success is based on their ability to match up to men in a male defined world and it leads to another major conflict between liberal democratic theory and women’s rights, namely the concept of difference versus equality. Democracy has always held that a belief in equality implies a sameness about all citizens and that areas of difference, interpreted as deviance or disadvantage, should be downplayed or minimised. In order for democracy to truthfully reflect the diversity of modern day states, equality needs to be understood as being independent of, or existing in spite of differences. As Mendus points out, â€Å"where democratic theorists have urged that, in decisions about social policy, we should aim to minimise the disadvantages that spring from difference, feminists ask why such normal states as pregnancy should be categorised as disadvantages at a ll.† (1992: 213) When faced with all of this theory, it is important to remember that individual programmes such as quota systems cannot correct thousands of years of patriarchy in one swift move and that as long as they are making headway in leveling the playing field, they hold value. It is none-the-less, both edifying and helpful to know what the theoretical debates are. 5. Debates Surrounding Women’s Representation In a liberal democracy, where representatives in government are supposed to speak and act for the constituents who have voted them into power, women’s representation is, for many, not as simple as being merely right or wrong. There are several debates of legitimacy and effectiveness of women in government that deserve some attention. The first of these is the issue of women’s interests, which impacts on women’s representation in two ways. Firstly, there is the question of whether there is a common idea of what women’s interests are in any given country, given the diverse cultural and economic make up of most democracies, and secondly, the question is raised whether it is appropriate to use a seat in parliament, congress or similar government bodies to fight for what some people perceive to be special interests. For decades, when women across the globe faced, over and above their more personal experiences of oppression, the common obstacles of total political and economic exclusion, the notion of women’s interests could plausibly be defined as a single set of goals. With suffrage, however, and a fair amount of political and economic liberation, women now face the more intricate and personal portion of their oppression. This creates vast divides between women in varying racial, economic, ideological and religious groups. The likelihood, for example, of an African American, single mother working for minimum wage, a wealthy European stay-at-home mom and a single, lesbian British student sharing common experiences of oppression or fighting for similar goals is highly unlikely. As Philips states, representative democracy cannot produce a perfect reflection of society. (1991a: 14) Although it might be desirable to elect students, pensioners, unemployed, women and men in numbers that mirror their proportion in society there are some practical problems, which electoral systems face trying to increase women’s representation in Parliament. For example, there are no geographical concentrations that could form the basis for women’s constituencies and as long as voting is tied to localities, no women candidate can seriously present herself as representing women alone. The argument then, that women should have a face in government in order to advance the position of all women’s interests becomes an impossible one to justify. This point is illustrated when Dodson refers to a major study done on women in the 103rd and 104th USA congresses, and highlights how female representatives from the two parties and even within parties spend much time feuding bitterly over women’s issues. While Republican women may fight for harsher abortion laws, decreased welfare for single women and incentives for women to stay home with their children, female representativ es for the Democrats may find these notions as oppressive as any that a purely male government might endorse. (Dodson, 2006: 60) The logical rebuttal to this argument, however, lies quite simply in creating the male parallel. No man in government mirrors the profile, needs and beliefs of every man he represents. Quite simply with enough men and women in any parliamentary system, the best that any democracy can hope is that each of the predominant cultures, religions and classes within the country finds a voice. What one can be sure of, is that despite the commonly heard argument that a white man, if he is a responsible politician, will do everything he can to fight for the rights of a black women, women constitute half of every population and every group within that population, making it impossible to claim fair representation until they have an equal showing in the halls of parliament. Turning to the question of whether women in government should be focusing on women’s issues (would we, after all, want men in government fighting solely for the good of men?), critics argue that activists for any particular cause are non-representative of their people. Women are voted into positions of power by both the men and women in their regions and should, therefore focus on the needs of both. As Phillips notes, focusing on statistical representation and women working on gender specific policies can be seen to give credence to competing and exclusionary groups and can produce policy that divides people. (1995: 22) It is, on the other hand, impossible to deny that when weight has been given to one side of any political imbalance, time and effort is required to correct that balance. Therefore, just as it was necessary for the South African government post-1994 to put the weight of parliament and legislature behind combating the oppression so long institutionalised by Apart heid, so governments should necessarily legitimise and make room within their mechanisms for the correction of women’s oppression and exclusion. In doing this, they create a fairer society for all members of the country, both male and female. Interestingly, Dodson’s research showed that with an increase in women’s representation in Congress, there followed a definite increase in governmental focus on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic abuse and employment equity, and that those women undeniably effected both the researching and processing of the related policy as well as the final vote, seemingly putting paid to the notion that women’s interests can not be fairly represented just by putting women in government. 6. Quotas and Electoral Systems Today women constitute only 16% of the members of parliaments around the world with a mere six female head-of-state. (Dahlerup, 2006: 17) The concept of gender quotas for representation emerged in response to the under-representation of women in the formal political arena and involve the use of specified minimum levels of representation for each sex. Surprisingly, Rwanda has taken a world-wide lead in terms of women’s parliamentary representation with 48.8%. â€Å"Rwanda is an example of the new trend to use electoral gender quotas as a fast track to gender balance in politics.† (2006, Internet Source 1) Electoral quotas for women may be constitutional, legislative or in the form of a political party quotas. They can apply to the number of women candidates proposed by a party for election, or be in the form of reserved seats in the legislature. The use of quotas is the topic of much debate with strong arguments both for and against. It is difficult to prove the effectiveness of quotas due to the untenable nature of research regarding women’s impact on policy making. â€Å"Some research has suggested possible changes in the political attitudes of women and in the nature of public policies. However, the actual policy impact of the boost of women’s presence in parliament is still unclear. â€Å" (2006, Internet source 3) Lowe Morna refers to a study on women in the South African legislature, writing that â€Å"greater number of women in legislative bodies have resulted in increased attention to laws and policies dealing with families, women and children. (2004: 30) She also notes that evidence suggests that women can â€Å"impact the nature of the institution itself once they have critical mass.† In favour of a quota scheme implementation are arguments such as the belief that it is the most effective way of translating legal equality between men and women into de facto equality by guaranteeing women’s presence in leadership in the immediate term. By bolstering the number of women working together in parliament, quotas eliminate the stress placed on token female representatives who often find themselves simply towing the party line. (Dahlerup, 2006) The balance created by quotas can also be perceived as creating a good example and a starting point for increased women’s participation in all fields of life and commerce. Lowe Morna’s investigation into the effects of women in South African governmental institutions revealed that positive changes included infrastructure changes to the facilities themselves, more family-friendly hours and work environments, changes to the discursive style of parliamentary debates, an increase in the confidence of women in pow er to fight their causes and positive alterations in the attitudes of men in the environment. (2004: 38) When added to the actual laws and policies that have been created due to a female presence, supported by Dodson’s research on the 103rd and 104th USA Congress, this has to amount to a success story for women’s representation and the quota system. Opponents of quotas, a group composed of both men and women (some of them feminists), argue that they are discriminatory and elevate under-qualified women to power. There are also fears that the introduction of women’s quotas will lead to other groups – ethnic minorities, homosexuals, specific industries and the like – to demand their own quotas (an interesting reference back to the argument that women in parliament fighting for women’s rights amounts to giving special interest groups a place in government.) (2006, Internet source 2) In response to the argument that quotas are undemocratic as they don’t allow voters full control over whom they vote for, Dahlerup comments that political parties always choose the candidates on offer, so nothing is being removed from the power of the voter. In addition, to the theory that quotas allow people who are not necessarily qualified to achieve positions beyond their skill, she counters that representation in a democracy should be based on just that – representation: a shared experience with constituents and the intention to act on their behalf – rather than on qualifications alone. (Dahlerup, 2006) Other controversies include the perception that those elected to office by means of a quota will lack legitimacy and authority because the means of their election will be judged as unfair and manipulative. Quotas have been contested in courts and in industrial tribunal, for example, in the United Kingdom, in 1996, the Labour Party’s all women shortlists were ruled to be in breach of fair employment practices. (2006, Internet source 2) Even those who stand to benefit from quotas have their reservations, voicing concerns that stipulated targets turn a lower limit into a ceiling that should not be breached and focus on the ever controversial ‘category women . In addition, the implementation of quotas comes under scrutiny due to the fact that they are not necessarily self-executing. Under a list system, quotas only work if female candidates are placed in a favourable position on the list, under a single-member constituency system, they work only if the constituencies in which women stand are, in political terms, winnable seats. (2006, Internet source 2) With all of this theory in mind, it remains now to explore the actual effect of quotas on governments around the world. 7. Conclusion Having explored all of the debates and arguments, many of which concern themselves infinitely with semantics and apparent attempts at justifying existing beliefs or structures, it is impossible to deny the basic right of women to be equally represented in and by their governments. Any notion that this can be done effectively in systems where they either comprise a minority portion of parliaments or where they operate within the rigidity of male rules and power plays is absurd. This means that liberal democracies have to rethink existing paradigms and find a way to change both the ideas and principles they promote in terms of a women’s value as well as the mechanisms that govern how the country is represented and run. It is at this juncture that quota systems take their place and while they can not be saddled with the responsibility of correcting women’s political oppression entirely (they do not pretend to be an all-encompassing solution to a centuries-old injustice) th ey have value in speeding up the corrective process necessary for true ideological change. As to how quotas, and in fact the presence of women in government at all, effect the outcome of policy making, we have noted how difficult this is to measure. However, if democracy is founded on the principle of fair representation for all then, as Lowe Morna notes, â€Å"women have a right to equal participation in political decision making, whether they make a difference or not.† (2004: 27) There is, however, no clearly defined and universal concept of quotas as they are conceived and implemented with very different contexts in individual countries. Quotas in themselves do not remove all the other barriers for womens full citizenship. In order to be truly effective, â€Å"it is important that quotas are not just imposed from above, but rest on grass root mobilization of women and the active participation of womens organizations.† (Dahlerup, 2006) (Word Count: 4 371) 9. Bibliography Dahlerup, D. (ed) 2006. Women, Quotas and Politics. Routledge, London. Dodson, DL. 2006. The Impact of Women in Congress. Oxford University Press, New York. Held, D. 1991. â€Å"Between State and Civil Society: Citizenship† in Andrews, G (ed). Citizenship. 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