Elise Smart's Problem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Elise Smart's Problem - Essay Example As the discussion highlights the various factors that influence sustained performance (ability, motivation, resources, role clarity, reinforcement) are examined, as well as steps leaders can take in improving performance of those for whom they are responsible. Since Elise Smart was so sure about the rating of Ketchum, Elise will suggest that Ketchum will undergo further training and understanding of her position in the organization. Because of the appraisal that she was getting Darlene Ketchum maybe is assuming that she is still doing the right thing. But Elise Smart sees it in a different way. Ketchum is no longer functioning as what she was before. Maybe because of several factors the performance of Ketchum declines without her knowing it. Elise Smart must show proof and facts that her observation on Ketchum performance is valid and accurate. This study outlines that the case of Elise Smart in the Milleneum Insurance are quiet tough. Smart must be able to show proof and facts that Darlene Ketchum deserves to have a very low appraisal such as data on poor performance and other mistakes that Ketchum has committed to correlate it with Elise’s report. It will be hard for Smart to convince the organization since Ketchum was appraised before as to be one of the excellent employees of the company. The problem is how will Smart will be able to show that her assessment and observation to Ketchum is valid. In the company during appraisal Elise need to discuss the assessment made to Ketchum and she will sign the assessment form. The problem of Elise is that whether Darlene Ketchum will accept the evaluation or not. How will Elise show the appraisal if Ketchum still assumes that she will have the excellent rating? Darlene Ketchum needs to sign the said evaluation before Elise Smart will be able to forward it to the vice-presid ent.  

Event leadership Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Event leadership - Research Paper Example It is not only the basic reputation that would have allowed status as a shareholder to seem valuable. The measurement of the event was known to influence those that were in business and which attended the event. The responses that were given from the survey stated that the event impacted each of the businesses in a positive manner. This was combined with the analysis that stated over 95% of the businesses received a contract in return for the investment to the event. These two measurements showed that the positive response would lead to more opportunities for the businesses in the future. Showing this as the first element was able to provide a sense of value to ComCo’s worth and the way that they provided the event. The second component that was a part of this was the potential value that was included in the event. This was measured by the reputation that ComCo had before the event, and which attracted business leaders to the event. In past events, it was found that there was a reputation built out of word of mouth and by what business leaders expected. This led many of the same business leaders to this event as one of the best areas to go. The potential value that is associated with this shows that it will continue to be worth the investment as a shareholder. At the same time, there were lessons on how to improve the reputation of ComCo by diversifying the sales of the event. As a shareholder, it is not only important to see how the potential value is measured, but also to see how this can change. One of the missing keys that were a part of the potential value was the estimated revenue that could have been made. The estimates would have made the shareholder investment seem more valuable. The report of the value as well as the improvements that could be made was also stated in this particular report. The value was measured by the overall revenue as well as responses from business

Analysis of the Armed Special Forces Act 1943 in India

Analysis of the Armed Special Forces Act 1943 in India Civil society is a term oft-repeated in democratic contexts today. Seen as an essential component of the liberal framework of political structures, it is essentially the space of free association for the masses. India, a multicultural democratic country, boasts of a vibrant civil society. At the same time, it also has accusations of being one of the worst offenders of human and civil liberties of some of its people, in the form of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. This chapter seeks to introduce the motivation, hypothesis, methodology and key concepts of this paper. Introduction The spotlight of global affairs and the ‘march to democracy has been on the Middle East in 2011. Mass rebellions against autocratic, unjust and oppressive regimes have swept the region in a sort of domino-effect swarming hordes of people rose up to replace what seemed no more applicable or tolerable in Tunisia to Tahrir Square in Egypt, in a bid to in-state the only form of governance that allowed ‘power to the people i.e. democracy. This phenomenon has come to the West as a pleasant surprise, that have viewed the Islamic world as essentially subject to notions of conservatism, violence and religion all seen as harbingers of a pre-modern past that the West feels it has left behind for good. â€Å"What is happening in Tunisia and Egypt is the completion of the 1989 revolutions the Egyptians are reclaiming the values of the Solidarnosc and the Civic Forum from the neo-liberals who usurped them The people in Tahrir Square and elsewhere are giving us back the meaning of c ivil society a place where people can talk, discuss and act freely,† says Mary Kaldor , examining the notion of civil society and how it has changed since the last time it was picked up from the annals of a rejected history and reinvented to bring monumental political change in Eastern European states. Closer home, the beginning of summer this year has seen a heated campaign against corruption being driven by a single mans Satyagraha Anna Hazare would definitely qualify as a ‘non-entity even by the modest standards of celebration that Indian civil society activists enjoy. Yet, this army truck driver of the 1960s is today the poster-boy of ‘publicness, coming to symbolise the space for mediation and political interference to bring out moral dividends that is the hallmark of a vibrant democracy. Some have called his actions ‘Gandhian, one of the few attempts at reform emerging from among the non-political that post-independence India has seen, otherwise witnessed only in Irom Sharmilas consistent campaign from Manipur against the travails of militarisation of the north-east region and abuse of power that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958 has become synonymous with. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which the Indian government has thought fit to implement in two contexts all the North Eastern states and Jammu Kashmir is arguably among the most contentious legislations of post-Independence India. Said to be based on a 1942 British ordinance intended to contain the Indian independence movement (Quit India movement) during World War II, it was enacted as a short-term measure to allow the deployment of the army in Indias north-eastern Naga Hills but since has been in existence for five decades. It has, since then, also been implemented in Jammu Kashmir which has shown violent separatist aspirations since the late 1980s. The Act has been controversial because of the fact that it gives to the armed forces extended powers of action without accountability, which has led to abuse of power and gross violation of human and civil rights, building around it a sense of impunity. In a democratic framework, this move to retain the sovereign integrity of the Indian state has been vociferously derided by people both within and outside these regions. Even though justifications for the laws existence abound from freedom of operation to existence of provisions for accountability and redress within the armed forces set up, the Act in itself has become a symbol of oppression at the hands of the Indian state and therefore a part of the problem, not the solution. Hypothesis This paper attempts to therefore study civil society in India its role and scope with specific focus on this nugget of legislation that has a strong reference to the case of maintaining or violating civil liberty in a democracy. It seeks to analyse the effectiveness of the Indian democracy in this respect, considering whether ‘power to the people is just another catchphrase or if it goes deeper than that. This researcher is of the view that even though the definition of a modern civil society in a multicultural context as India needs to be revisited, and even though largely (as in the case of the AFSPA) political, military, judicial and legislative action has a will of its own, there is scope for activism and there are voices that get heard. The necessity of such a space of negotiation in a democracy cannot be stressed hard enough. The arbitrariness of power, possible marginalisation of the ‘have-nots and the dilemma of national unity versus individual rights need to be examined in the light of modern liberal rhetoric of freedom and equality that are foundational aspects of the Indian constitution. Methodology The study has used both primary and secondary sources of data along with analysis using both the deductive and inductive methods. I have analyzed government records, media reports, library sources, existing literature on the subject, archival data, think-tank reports as well as spoken / interviewed a few primary sources within the civil society. The study has also use information and experience gathered at symposiums, lectures and workshops related to the topic. It has been largely qualitative in approach, since the issue required an exploration of theory and potential policy-making role of civil society in situations of conflict and civil unrest. Chapterisation The paper shall follow this sequence: the first chapter will examine the trajectory of conceptualisation of civil society in the corpus of philosophy and political studies and its relevance globally as well as in India. The second chapter will elaborate upon the Act, the controversy and the issues surrounding it. In the third chapter, I will look at civil society initiatives regarding this aspect, both in terms of humanitarian redressal and rehabilitation and attempts at political negotiation and policy amendment. It will also look critically at the degree to which these initiatives have worked in mitigating the more negative consequences of the law. The last chapter, in conclusion, will critically analyse the role that civil society has played so far in the dynamics of the Indian democracy and the scope for positive change it contains. The rest of this chapter is dedicated to elaborating on the key concepts of this paper: civil society and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Key Concepts Civil Society: It is crucial to understand what civil society in a changed global context means. Historically, it has been understood to mean the public space that exists between the family and the state that seeks to mitigate the preponderance of individualism as well as the ‘tyranny of the majority. Based on principles of voluntarism, association and pluralism and tolerance, this was an imagination that sought to negotiate with power structures in every context it arose in, whether during industrialisation of England where a new bourgeois class of powerful traders emerged that sought to bargain with the state and the Church for power, or in Eastern Europe of the 1980s where a bid to parlay Communism resulted in associational uprising that stemmed out of sports clubs, trade unions, bars and basements. After 1989, civil society got the rejuvenation that had been missing for the past couple of centuries since Marx and Gramsci had derided it as yet another excuse for state/power domination and co-option of the masses. It has since been taken much more seriously, both academically and in its practical application, although consensus on what it constitutes is hard to come by. However, with democracy becoming the chosen form of ‘correct government, where representation and election to power is ‘by the people, for the people and of the people, civil society assumes new meaning as the arena of civilised battle. There is more to a democracy than public participation through ballot-box approval. This, in a nutshell, could be the motive for a functional civil society.   However, the proprietorship of the West over the concept of civil society is often criticised. By linking it with modernity, it is seen to be a concept both inherently Western and also as the Wests boon to the world. Ernest Gellner paints civil society as the space of the profane that gives freedom to the baser aspects of human beings and their relationships. Having associated it with capitalist liberalism, he posits many upcoming rivals to it such as Islam, Asiatic capitalism, fierce nationalism- leading one to believe that this essentially Western notion is one under threat from more preponderant forces in different parts of the world that do not essentially derive from rationality. Mary Kaldor finds in this a patronising approach of the entire West, evident also in US and Europes response to the upheaval in the Middle East. She observes that there already exists a term for civil society in Arabic Almujtamaa Almadani and therefore finds that the concept has more antiquated roots than otherwise presumed. To offset this overlordism, she says, â€Å"Instead of imposing yet another neo-liberal formula, western countries and institutions should consult the people of the Middle East about how they can help to construct a fairer, more sustainable economy. Instead of giving governments money to buy western weapons, they could discuss with civil society how they could help to restructure the armed forces to provide human security, to establish civilian control over the military, and to convert the substantial military industries to peaceful uses.† Ruminating on the changed idea of civil society, she says disappointedly, â€Å"After 1989, everyone celebrated the idea of civil society. But it was rapidly reduced within the framework of neo-liberal thinking to mean western-supported NGOs who would help to smooth the path of neo-liberal transition.† In the post-Cold War phase, since the world has gone more global, the meaning of civil society has veered towards international-level cooperation and institutionalism, through NGOs, forums, transnational networks of activities to work on a ‘global humanitarian regime. It has now become a buzzword relating to democracies, liberalism, neo-liberalism, anti-war movements, global justice and so on, and thereby is seen as a platform inhabited by activists of all sorts. In the normative sense, civil society is and always has been seen as the arena where consent is generated for and in opposition to concentrated authority. In the descriptive sense, or in considering what all should be included in this realm, lies the tensions should regulatory bodies such as the UN and the World Bank be considered part of civil society? Should one include international NGOs that depend on government funding? Does civil society include religious or ethnic organisations? Does it include militant or sece ssionist organisations that are fighting against an oppressive state or for some defined nationalism? As the concerns that occupy minds in a global world change (such as todays preoccupations include AIDS, landmines, terrorism, nuclear disarmament/disaster, receding water levels etc), the definitions of all realms of society would change too. This paper, taking insights from the corpus of philosophy on the subject, defines civil society as the associational space, lying between the family, state and market, where autonomous individuals voluntarily come together to define and pursue common goals to reap collective benefits. Schmitters definition of civil society, as a set or system of self-organised intermediary groups that: (1) are relatively independent of both public authorities and private units of production and reproduction, that is, of firms and families; (2) are capable of deliberating about and taking collective actions in defence or promotion of their interests or passions; (3) do not seek to replace either state agents or private (re)producers or to accept responsibility fo r governing the polity as a whole; and (4) agree to act within pre-established rules of a civil, i.e. mutually respectful, nature. It is civil society based on the four characteristics of dual autonomy, collective action, nonusurpation and civility that this paper will refer to. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA): The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act is a law, enacted by the Parliament of India, to meet violent internal situations created by underground militant outfits to further their illegal and ‘unconstitutional causes. The law was enacted to provide necessary powers and legal support to the Armed forces for carrying out proactive operations against the militants in a highly hostile environment that was threatening the integrity and sovereignty of the Indian nation-state. The Act dates back to September 11, 1958, when the Parliament of India passed the act bestowing more power on the armed forces in â€Å"disturbed areas†. First introduced in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, the Act was later extended to Jammu and Kashmir as the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990 in July 1990. The Act allows an officer of the armed forces to fire upon or otherwise use force, even to the causing of death, against any person who is acting in contravention of any law against assembly of five or more persons or possession of deadly weapons, to arrest without a warrant and with the use of necessary force anyone who has committed certain offenses or is suspected of having done so, to enter and search any premise in order to make such arrests. The act also bestows legal immunity to the officials, which means that they cannot be sued or prosecuted. While the law was enacted to mitigate militant action, violence and to quell secessionist tendencies that violated the essence of the Indian union, it has since inception over half a century ago turned into a controversial aspect of governance in the country. An increasing militarisation of areas branded as ‘disturbed and a consequent violation of human rights and civil liberties has resulted in a worsening of conditions in both the regions it has been applied to. Instead of bringing about greater cohesion, or of managing to bring the north-east and Jammu Kashmir peacefully into the fold of the Indian union, the law has become just another reason for the strengthening of secessionist demands. This is in contradiction with the reasoning given for consistent political will to keep the Act in place in the two regions: in a response to the United Nations Human Rights Committee questioning the validity of the AFSPA under the Indian law and in light of Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ICCPR, the Attorney General of India responded that the AFSPA is a necessary measure to prevent the secession of the North Eastern states. He said that a response to this agitation for secession in the North East had to be done on a war footing. He argued that the Indian Constitution, in Article 355, made it the duty of the Central Government to protect the states from internal disturbance and that there is no duty under international law to allow secession.â€Å"The shrill rhetoric demanding that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act be repealed, if allowed to hold sway, may drive us deeper into the dark world of both Islamist terror and the Maoist insurgency, † Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd) has warned more recently. The primary issue of controversy here is the violation of human and civil rights. According to a Human Rights Watch report, the act is in violation in the following respects: The right to life is violated by section 4(a) of the AFSPA, which grants the armed forces power to shoot to kill in law enforcement situations without regard to international human rights law restrictions on the use of lethal force. The right to liberty and security of person is violated by section 4(c) of the AFSPA, which fails to protect against arbitrary arrest by allowing soldiers to arrest anyone merely on suspicion that a â€Å"cognizable offence† has already taken place or is likely to take place in the future. Further, the AFSPA provides no specific time limit for handing arrested persons to the nearest police station. The right to remedy is violated by section 6 of the AFSPA, which provides officers who abuse their powers under the AFSPA with immunity from legal accountability. This section of th e AFSPA prohibits even state governments from initiating legal proceedings against the armed forces on behalf of their population without central government approval. Since such a sanction is seldom granted, it has in effect provided a shield of immunity for armed forces personnel implicated in serious abuses. In practice the AFSPA also facilitates violation of the right to be free from torture, and from cruel or degrading treatment. Since the AFSPA provides powers to arrest without warrant and then detain arrested persons for unspecified amounts of time, the armed forces routinely engage in torture and other ill-treatment during interrogation in army barracks. However, the support from within the armed forces and certain other sections of the political and academic circles is strong for the continuance of this act. Northern Army Commander General Jaswal in Jammu Kashmir gave the following reasoning: I would like to say that the provisions of the Armed Forces Special Power Act are very pious to me and I think to entire Indian ArmyWe have religious books, there are certain guidelines which are given there, but all the members of the religion do not follow it, they break it also, does it imply that you remove the religious book or you remove this chap. My take on it is to find someone guilty, take him to task, but dont touch this pious document or provision of the Armed Forces Special Power Act giving the similarity to religious book.† In the past couple of months Army has argued that without the Act it will not be able to launch proactive operations. The Army will also not be able to use force except in self-defence and not have powers to destroy ammunition dumps and IEDs. The army also says that a majority of human rights abuse cases are found to be false and those found true have been severely dealt with. Human rights activists have however contended time and again that the Act gives excessive powers to the soldiers. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has said in recent past that there is a need to revoke the Act since it is prone to abuse. One of the grounds that the citizens have stated is that the people arrested or otherwise detained should be allowed to plead their case under section 130 and 131 of the Criminal Code. The Article 21 of the Constitution also gets violated in the process. In spite of the various cases filed and protests initiated there has been no revocation or dialogue towards the same. The issue revolving the AFSPA is that the principle of national integrity and sovereignty is in direct conflict with the liberal democratic frameworks of human rights and the civil society has the potential to the site for this negotiation. This is the premise under which the rest of this paper seeks to examine how the civil society and the Indian state have sought to deal with the AFSPA. CIVIL SOCIETY This Chapter seeks to chart the history of philosophy on civil society, in political sciences and social sciences. It will then look at civil society in India specifically, in todays context, and some of the major criticisms levelled against the concept and its real-time manifestation. Civil Society: The Concept At the abstract level, civil society has historically been conceptualised as a mediating space between the family, state and recently, also separate from the market. It is the site of association, voluntariness and community engagement, set apart from the politics and compulsions of the state as well as the individuality and liberty of the family. Bruce Sievers identifies seven strands that go into the making of civil society: nonprofit and voluntary institutions, individual rights, rule of law, the common good, philanthropy, freedom of expression and tolerance. Emerging in the context of the 18th century industrialisation rampant in Europe that gave rise to a new class of bourgeoisie and the new ideas of utilitarianism and capitalism, civil society gets inextricably linked with libertarian ideals that seek to carve out spaces for autonomous action in every individual and societal aspect.   â€Å"A ‘civil society was civilized and ordered by the rule of law. Unlike tribal so ciety, it was also large-scale and held together by impersonal bonds of interest rather than ties of kin and blood. It was also, to a degree some found frightening, a self-correcting mechanism in which the selfish actions of myriad individuals, brought together only by the rule of law, managed to produce an orderly and dynamic accumulation of prosperity unprecedented in human history,† observes Michael Ignatieff The importance of social engagement and principle of tolerance have only gained more importance in a globalised world that is characterised by multi-cultural, multi-ethnic nations. Robert Putnam identifies civic engagement, dense networks of interaction, political equality, solidarity, trust and tolerance and a strong associational life as crucial to the generation of ‘social capital the resource that could help to facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit in societies. He says that networks of civic engagement foster norms of generalised reciprocity, encourage the emergence of social trust, facilitate communication, collaboration and therefore collective action on common dilemmas and endorse the idea of collective benefits. Through its history, a number of philosophers have vouched for and expanded upon this realm of an advanced society. Alexis de Tocqueville , in Democracy in America, says that Americas answer to the problem of limiting the absolutist state was to have a constitution defined in law and protected by a counterbalancing force of independent bodies. These were the local associations of citizens acting together in the affairs of daily life. This was a civil society engaged in politics, voluntary by nature. His idea of civil society was based in the observation of an absolute sovereignty of the majority, but this principle, which could just as well turn into a tyranny of the majority, was also mitigated through a non-centralised frame of governance that set importance to localised chains of command and responsibility. Civicness emerged in America, he observed, through the relentless formation of associations: â€Å"Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition ar e forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different typesreligious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. . . . Nothing, in my view, deserves more attention than the intellectual and moral associations in America.† Civil Society, for Hegel , is the site that lies between the Family and the State in the Ethical Life, as described in his Philosophy of Right. It is the site where the ‘determination of particularity as per individual rights is given free rein, but which has to acquire a mantle of universality for the rights to become acquirable or even legitimate, so to speak. Here, therefore, are two elements: the concrete person who is out to pursue self-interest and personal motive, and the form of universality, or the generation of common motive, through forming bonds and finding over-lapping areas of interest. A particular end, therefore, assumes the form of universality through this relation to other people, and it is attained in the simultaneous attainment of the welfare of others. It has three dimensions: the system of needs, the administration of justice and the police and the corporation. The system of needs refers to the generation of ‘universal human capital through human beings exceptional capacity to generate needs and spot commonness with others and then to satisfy those needs through work and labour. A single persons particularity of interest can be recognised if he manages to associate himself with one sphere of the needs. The administration of justice is the principle of rightness that becomes universally known through a public legal code. Not only does this embed within the principle of freedom in both subjective individual and universal platforms, it also makes wrongdoing an infringement on the people that live within such an ethical life. The polizei, then, is the bearer and the guardian of this publicly generated and accepted principles of right, the public authority that also looks after public utilities and regulation activities as well. The corporation, on the other hand, is the arrangement whereby common interests are brought to fore through voluntary association as in sports or religious clubs etc. All these aspects together form the civil society for Hegel, the space where freedom of self-interest is allowed to reign but within the limits of the principle of universality.   Antonio Gramsci, however, had a more critical view of civil society, from a Marxist vantage point. He saw civil society not as the benign space that afforded a voice and power to the masses, but as an instrument of domination linked in an unholy alliance with the bourgeois elements in the civil society seeking to protect propertied interests . He was also convinced that the intricate, organic relationships between civil society and political society enable certain strata of society not only to gain dominance within the state but also, and more importantly, to maintain it, perpetuating the subalternity of other strata. In other words, the site of hegemony was civil society it was the arena wherein the ruling class extends and reinforces its power by non-violent means through components such as the press, the libraries, schools, associations and clubs that could all become media for propaganda and homogenisation of the masses. The state and the civil society in his purview are inextri cably linked, which only facilitates subordination by the state without coercion, focussing instead on ‘manufacturing consent. However, he does acknowledge the potential of civil society as a site for breeding revolutions and for newer ‘conceptions of the world to take place. However, the manifestation of this fairly utopian concept is fraught with tensions and dichotomies. Ernest Gellner, in Conditions of Liberty, analyses the role of civil society in the Marxist, socialist and capitalist frameworks and has also assessed post-modern rivals to it that have emerged, such as Islam. The Eastern European states found the concept of civil society useful in gaining independence from a Communist stronghold precisely because of the possibility here for mobilisation of the masses in opposition to totalitarian militarist regimes. Through meetings of trade unions, religious groups, bars etc, the emphasis was on autonomy, self-organisation and withdrawal from the state to create islands of civic engagement for the emergence of a ‘parallel polis. For Gellner, a civil society was â€Å"a profane society, a society that explicitly sought to put the lowest of human desires to productive uses. Mandevilles paradox private vices make public virtues naturalized the profane by demonstrating that â€Å"capitalist individuals were more likely to promote the public good when they looked exclusively to their private interest.† He found the Marxist, and therefore the socialist strain of civil society, that stressed on driving religion out of life and also investing the economic with the ultimate sacredness, as faulty for it denied space to the profane, the self-interest and avarice of human nature that could be harnessed and channelled into collective action. With the ‘disenchantment of the world that comes with modernity and its powerful agencies of science and capitalism came the advent of ‘the modular man    who associates voluntarily with other prototypes, giving rise to a Gesellschaft, the inorganic form of social bonding, through fostered ties, rather than a Gemeinschaft, the organic community based on ties of blood and kin. â€Å"The genius of capitalist civil society is that it not only harnesses our profane energies, b ut relieves us of the moral burden of thinking of them as profane. In so doing, it relieves us of the strain of constant longing for unattainable self-transcendence in desperate simulations of paradise,† says Ignatieff. He also observes that liberty in civil society is essentially negative because there cannot be, in principle, agreement among human beings about the positive ends of political communities, beyond the protection of the liberties of the individuals who compose it. If people seek to overcome their own alienation and separateness, they can do so only as individuals or in voluntary groups. Civil society, then, becomes crucial for maintaining checks and balances, says Ignatieff. The realms of politics, economics and culture are neatly segregated, and power in any one domain does not endow power in another. The society is free, acting through a vibrant media and elected representatives, all functioning within the ambit of law. â€Å"Needless to say, no civil society has ever lived up to this goalyet the formal promise is more than hypocrisy: it remains the standard against which civil society judges itself and from which it finds renewed impetus to reform.† In this sense, civil society, albeit being a flawed ideal, also has the potential for redeeming itself simply by virtue of being embedded in the notion of reform, of itself as well as of society, simply by virtue of allowing private trajectories of interest being followed.   Despite changing meanings, civil societys core rests in a rule-governed society based on the consent of individuals. The ‘social contract that Hobbes defined is another way of understanding the liberal ideas behind the conception of civil society through different phases, civil society can be seen as the process or the space through which different individuals negotiate, argue, struggle against or agree with each other and with the centres of political and economic authority. The element of autonomy, voluntariness and collective action through association remain hallmarks through all definitions of the term. Civil Society in India: It would seem natural that civil society, as has been described and conceptualised above is an integral part of a democracy, with its accompanying notions of equality, public participation, and masses-oriented governance. Robert Post and Nancy Rosenblum describe a consensus among contemporary theorists â€Å"that democracy depends on the particularist, self-determining associations of civil society, where independent commitments, interests, and voices, are developed . Civil society is the precondition for democratic decision making, whether democracy is conceived as deliberation or as interest group pluralism, and this is true even if the goal of democracy is to transcend particularism and arrive at uncoerced agreement or a common will.† According to Joerg Forbrig, a vibrant and functional civil society can contribute to strengthening a democracy in five ways: control of state power through the incorporation of a body of laws, individual rights and thereby becoming a space that overlooks the relationship between the pr Analysis of the Armed Special Forces Act 1943 in India Analysis of the Armed Special Forces Act 1943 in India Civil society is a term oft-repeated in democratic contexts today. Seen as an essential component of the liberal framework of political structures, it is essentially the space of free association for the masses. India, a multicultural democratic country, boasts of a vibrant civil society. At the same time, it also has accusations of being one of the worst offenders of human and civil liberties of some of its people, in the form of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. This chapter seeks to introduce the motivation, hypothesis, methodology and key concepts of this paper. Introduction The spotlight of global affairs and the ‘march to democracy has been on the Middle East in 2011. Mass rebellions against autocratic, unjust and oppressive regimes have swept the region in a sort of domino-effect swarming hordes of people rose up to replace what seemed no more applicable or tolerable in Tunisia to Tahrir Square in Egypt, in a bid to in-state the only form of governance that allowed ‘power to the people i.e. democracy. This phenomenon has come to the West as a pleasant surprise, that have viewed the Islamic world as essentially subject to notions of conservatism, violence and religion all seen as harbingers of a pre-modern past that the West feels it has left behind for good. â€Å"What is happening in Tunisia and Egypt is the completion of the 1989 revolutions the Egyptians are reclaiming the values of the Solidarnosc and the Civic Forum from the neo-liberals who usurped them The people in Tahrir Square and elsewhere are giving us back the meaning of c ivil society a place where people can talk, discuss and act freely,† says Mary Kaldor , examining the notion of civil society and how it has changed since the last time it was picked up from the annals of a rejected history and reinvented to bring monumental political change in Eastern European states. Closer home, the beginning of summer this year has seen a heated campaign against corruption being driven by a single mans Satyagraha Anna Hazare would definitely qualify as a ‘non-entity even by the modest standards of celebration that Indian civil society activists enjoy. Yet, this army truck driver of the 1960s is today the poster-boy of ‘publicness, coming to symbolise the space for mediation and political interference to bring out moral dividends that is the hallmark of a vibrant democracy. Some have called his actions ‘Gandhian, one of the few attempts at reform emerging from among the non-political that post-independence India has seen, otherwise witnessed only in Irom Sharmilas consistent campaign from Manipur against the travails of militarisation of the north-east region and abuse of power that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act 1958 has become synonymous with. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act, which the Indian government has thought fit to implement in two contexts all the North Eastern states and Jammu Kashmir is arguably among the most contentious legislations of post-Independence India. Said to be based on a 1942 British ordinance intended to contain the Indian independence movement (Quit India movement) during World War II, it was enacted as a short-term measure to allow the deployment of the army in Indias north-eastern Naga Hills but since has been in existence for five decades. It has, since then, also been implemented in Jammu Kashmir which has shown violent separatist aspirations since the late 1980s. The Act has been controversial because of the fact that it gives to the armed forces extended powers of action without accountability, which has led to abuse of power and gross violation of human and civil rights, building around it a sense of impunity. In a democratic framework, this move to retain the sovereign integrity of the Indian state has been vociferously derided by people both within and outside these regions. Even though justifications for the laws existence abound from freedom of operation to existence of provisions for accountability and redress within the armed forces set up, the Act in itself has become a symbol of oppression at the hands of the Indian state and therefore a part of the problem, not the solution. Hypothesis This paper attempts to therefore study civil society in India its role and scope with specific focus on this nugget of legislation that has a strong reference to the case of maintaining or violating civil liberty in a democracy. It seeks to analyse the effectiveness of the Indian democracy in this respect, considering whether ‘power to the people is just another catchphrase or if it goes deeper than that. This researcher is of the view that even though the definition of a modern civil society in a multicultural context as India needs to be revisited, and even though largely (as in the case of the AFSPA) political, military, judicial and legislative action has a will of its own, there is scope for activism and there are voices that get heard. The necessity of such a space of negotiation in a democracy cannot be stressed hard enough. The arbitrariness of power, possible marginalisation of the ‘have-nots and the dilemma of national unity versus individual rights need to be examined in the light of modern liberal rhetoric of freedom and equality that are foundational aspects of the Indian constitution. Methodology The study has used both primary and secondary sources of data along with analysis using both the deductive and inductive methods. I have analyzed government records, media reports, library sources, existing literature on the subject, archival data, think-tank reports as well as spoken / interviewed a few primary sources within the civil society. The study has also use information and experience gathered at symposiums, lectures and workshops related to the topic. It has been largely qualitative in approach, since the issue required an exploration of theory and potential policy-making role of civil society in situations of conflict and civil unrest. Chapterisation The paper shall follow this sequence: the first chapter will examine the trajectory of conceptualisation of civil society in the corpus of philosophy and political studies and its relevance globally as well as in India. The second chapter will elaborate upon the Act, the controversy and the issues surrounding it. In the third chapter, I will look at civil society initiatives regarding this aspect, both in terms of humanitarian redressal and rehabilitation and attempts at political negotiation and policy amendment. It will also look critically at the degree to which these initiatives have worked in mitigating the more negative consequences of the law. The last chapter, in conclusion, will critically analyse the role that civil society has played so far in the dynamics of the Indian democracy and the scope for positive change it contains. The rest of this chapter is dedicated to elaborating on the key concepts of this paper: civil society and the Armed Forces Special Powers Act. Key Concepts Civil Society: It is crucial to understand what civil society in a changed global context means. Historically, it has been understood to mean the public space that exists between the family and the state that seeks to mitigate the preponderance of individualism as well as the ‘tyranny of the majority. Based on principles of voluntarism, association and pluralism and tolerance, this was an imagination that sought to negotiate with power structures in every context it arose in, whether during industrialisation of England where a new bourgeois class of powerful traders emerged that sought to bargain with the state and the Church for power, or in Eastern Europe of the 1980s where a bid to parlay Communism resulted in associational uprising that stemmed out of sports clubs, trade unions, bars and basements. After 1989, civil society got the rejuvenation that had been missing for the past couple of centuries since Marx and Gramsci had derided it as yet another excuse for state/power domination and co-option of the masses. It has since been taken much more seriously, both academically and in its practical application, although consensus on what it constitutes is hard to come by. However, with democracy becoming the chosen form of ‘correct government, where representation and election to power is ‘by the people, for the people and of the people, civil society assumes new meaning as the arena of civilised battle. There is more to a democracy than public participation through ballot-box approval. This, in a nutshell, could be the motive for a functional civil society.   However, the proprietorship of the West over the concept of civil society is often criticised. By linking it with modernity, it is seen to be a concept both inherently Western and also as the Wests boon to the world. Ernest Gellner paints civil society as the space of the profane that gives freedom to the baser aspects of human beings and their relationships. Having associated it with capitalist liberalism, he posits many upcoming rivals to it such as Islam, Asiatic capitalism, fierce nationalism- leading one to believe that this essentially Western notion is one under threat from more preponderant forces in different parts of the world that do not essentially derive from rationality. Mary Kaldor finds in this a patronising approach of the entire West, evident also in US and Europes response to the upheaval in the Middle East. She observes that there already exists a term for civil society in Arabic Almujtamaa Almadani and therefore finds that the concept has more antiquated roots than otherwise presumed. To offset this overlordism, she says, â€Å"Instead of imposing yet another neo-liberal formula, western countries and institutions should consult the people of the Middle East about how they can help to construct a fairer, more sustainable economy. Instead of giving governments money to buy western weapons, they could discuss with civil society how they could help to restructure the armed forces to provide human security, to establish civilian control over the military, and to convert the substantial military industries to peaceful uses.† Ruminating on the changed idea of civil society, she says disappointedly, â€Å"After 1989, everyone celebrated the idea of civil society. But it was rapidly reduced within the framework of neo-liberal thinking to mean western-supported NGOs who would help to smooth the path of neo-liberal transition.† In the post-Cold War phase, since the world has gone more global, the meaning of civil society has veered towards international-level cooperation and institutionalism, through NGOs, forums, transnational networks of activities to work on a ‘global humanitarian regime. It has now become a buzzword relating to democracies, liberalism, neo-liberalism, anti-war movements, global justice and so on, and thereby is seen as a platform inhabited by activists of all sorts. In the normative sense, civil society is and always has been seen as the arena where consent is generated for and in opposition to concentrated authority. In the descriptive sense, or in considering what all should be included in this realm, lies the tensions should regulatory bodies such as the UN and the World Bank be considered part of civil society? Should one include international NGOs that depend on government funding? Does civil society include religious or ethnic organisations? Does it include militant or sece ssionist organisations that are fighting against an oppressive state or for some defined nationalism? As the concerns that occupy minds in a global world change (such as todays preoccupations include AIDS, landmines, terrorism, nuclear disarmament/disaster, receding water levels etc), the definitions of all realms of society would change too. This paper, taking insights from the corpus of philosophy on the subject, defines civil society as the associational space, lying between the family, state and market, where autonomous individuals voluntarily come together to define and pursue common goals to reap collective benefits. Schmitters definition of civil society, as a set or system of self-organised intermediary groups that: (1) are relatively independent of both public authorities and private units of production and reproduction, that is, of firms and families; (2) are capable of deliberating about and taking collective actions in defence or promotion of their interests or passions; (3) do not seek to replace either state agents or private (re)producers or to accept responsibility fo r governing the polity as a whole; and (4) agree to act within pre-established rules of a civil, i.e. mutually respectful, nature. It is civil society based on the four characteristics of dual autonomy, collective action, nonusurpation and civility that this paper will refer to. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA): The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act is a law, enacted by the Parliament of India, to meet violent internal situations created by underground militant outfits to further their illegal and ‘unconstitutional causes. The law was enacted to provide necessary powers and legal support to the Armed forces for carrying out proactive operations against the militants in a highly hostile environment that was threatening the integrity and sovereignty of the Indian nation-state. The Act dates back to September 11, 1958, when the Parliament of India passed the act bestowing more power on the armed forces in â€Å"disturbed areas†. First introduced in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura, the Act was later extended to Jammu and Kashmir as the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990 in July 1990. The Act allows an officer of the armed forces to fire upon or otherwise use force, even to the causing of death, against any person who is acting in contravention of any law against assembly of five or more persons or possession of deadly weapons, to arrest without a warrant and with the use of necessary force anyone who has committed certain offenses or is suspected of having done so, to enter and search any premise in order to make such arrests. The act also bestows legal immunity to the officials, which means that they cannot be sued or prosecuted. While the law was enacted to mitigate militant action, violence and to quell secessionist tendencies that violated the essence of the Indian union, it has since inception over half a century ago turned into a controversial aspect of governance in the country. An increasing militarisation of areas branded as ‘disturbed and a consequent violation of human rights and civil liberties has resulted in a worsening of conditions in both the regions it has been applied to. Instead of bringing about greater cohesion, or of managing to bring the north-east and Jammu Kashmir peacefully into the fold of the Indian union, the law has become just another reason for the strengthening of secessionist demands. This is in contradiction with the reasoning given for consistent political will to keep the Act in place in the two regions: in a response to the United Nations Human Rights Committee questioning the validity of the AFSPA under the Indian law and in light of Article 4 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ICCPR, the Attorney General of India responded that the AFSPA is a necessary measure to prevent the secession of the North Eastern states. He said that a response to this agitation for secession in the North East had to be done on a war footing. He argued that the Indian Constitution, in Article 355, made it the duty of the Central Government to protect the states from internal disturbance and that there is no duty under international law to allow secession.â€Å"The shrill rhetoric demanding that the Armed Forces Special Powers Act be repealed, if allowed to hold sway, may drive us deeper into the dark world of both Islamist terror and the Maoist insurgency, † Brigadier S K Chatterji (retd) has warned more recently. The primary issue of controversy here is the violation of human and civil rights. According to a Human Rights Watch report, the act is in violation in the following respects: The right to life is violated by section 4(a) of the AFSPA, which grants the armed forces power to shoot to kill in law enforcement situations without regard to international human rights law restrictions on the use of lethal force. The right to liberty and security of person is violated by section 4(c) of the AFSPA, which fails to protect against arbitrary arrest by allowing soldiers to arrest anyone merely on suspicion that a â€Å"cognizable offence† has already taken place or is likely to take place in the future. Further, the AFSPA provides no specific time limit for handing arrested persons to the nearest police station. The right to remedy is violated by section 6 of the AFSPA, which provides officers who abuse their powers under the AFSPA with immunity from legal accountability. This section of th e AFSPA prohibits even state governments from initiating legal proceedings against the armed forces on behalf of their population without central government approval. Since such a sanction is seldom granted, it has in effect provided a shield of immunity for armed forces personnel implicated in serious abuses. In practice the AFSPA also facilitates violation of the right to be free from torture, and from cruel or degrading treatment. Since the AFSPA provides powers to arrest without warrant and then detain arrested persons for unspecified amounts of time, the armed forces routinely engage in torture and other ill-treatment during interrogation in army barracks. However, the support from within the armed forces and certain other sections of the political and academic circles is strong for the continuance of this act. Northern Army Commander General Jaswal in Jammu Kashmir gave the following reasoning: I would like to say that the provisions of the Armed Forces Special Power Act are very pious to me and I think to entire Indian ArmyWe have religious books, there are certain guidelines which are given there, but all the members of the religion do not follow it, they break it also, does it imply that you remove the religious book or you remove this chap. My take on it is to find someone guilty, take him to task, but dont touch this pious document or provision of the Armed Forces Special Power Act giving the similarity to religious book.† In the past couple of months Army has argued that without the Act it will not be able to launch proactive operations. The Army will also not be able to use force except in self-defence and not have powers to destroy ammunition dumps and IEDs. The army also says that a majority of human rights abuse cases are found to be false and those found true have been severely dealt with. Human rights activists have however contended time and again that the Act gives excessive powers to the soldiers. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has said in recent past that there is a need to revoke the Act since it is prone to abuse. One of the grounds that the citizens have stated is that the people arrested or otherwise detained should be allowed to plead their case under section 130 and 131 of the Criminal Code. The Article 21 of the Constitution also gets violated in the process. In spite of the various cases filed and protests initiated there has been no revocation or dialogue towards the same. The issue revolving the AFSPA is that the principle of national integrity and sovereignty is in direct conflict with the liberal democratic frameworks of human rights and the civil society has the potential to the site for this negotiation. This is the premise under which the rest of this paper seeks to examine how the civil society and the Indian state have sought to deal with the AFSPA. CIVIL SOCIETY This Chapter seeks to chart the history of philosophy on civil society, in political sciences and social sciences. It will then look at civil society in India specifically, in todays context, and some of the major criticisms levelled against the concept and its real-time manifestation. Civil Society: The Concept At the abstract level, civil society has historically been conceptualised as a mediating space between the family, state and recently, also separate from the market. It is the site of association, voluntariness and community engagement, set apart from the politics and compulsions of the state as well as the individuality and liberty of the family. Bruce Sievers identifies seven strands that go into the making of civil society: nonprofit and voluntary institutions, individual rights, rule of law, the common good, philanthropy, freedom of expression and tolerance. Emerging in the context of the 18th century industrialisation rampant in Europe that gave rise to a new class of bourgeoisie and the new ideas of utilitarianism and capitalism, civil society gets inextricably linked with libertarian ideals that seek to carve out spaces for autonomous action in every individual and societal aspect.   â€Å"A ‘civil society was civilized and ordered by the rule of law. Unlike tribal so ciety, it was also large-scale and held together by impersonal bonds of interest rather than ties of kin and blood. It was also, to a degree some found frightening, a self-correcting mechanism in which the selfish actions of myriad individuals, brought together only by the rule of law, managed to produce an orderly and dynamic accumulation of prosperity unprecedented in human history,† observes Michael Ignatieff The importance of social engagement and principle of tolerance have only gained more importance in a globalised world that is characterised by multi-cultural, multi-ethnic nations. Robert Putnam identifies civic engagement, dense networks of interaction, political equality, solidarity, trust and tolerance and a strong associational life as crucial to the generation of ‘social capital the resource that could help to facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit in societies. He says that networks of civic engagement foster norms of generalised reciprocity, encourage the emergence of social trust, facilitate communication, collaboration and therefore collective action on common dilemmas and endorse the idea of collective benefits. Through its history, a number of philosophers have vouched for and expanded upon this realm of an advanced society. Alexis de Tocqueville , in Democracy in America, says that Americas answer to the problem of limiting the absolutist state was to have a constitution defined in law and protected by a counterbalancing force of independent bodies. These were the local associations of citizens acting together in the affairs of daily life. This was a civil society engaged in politics, voluntary by nature. His idea of civil society was based in the observation of an absolute sovereignty of the majority, but this principle, which could just as well turn into a tyranny of the majority, was also mitigated through a non-centralised frame of governance that set importance to localised chains of command and responsibility. Civicness emerged in America, he observed, through the relentless formation of associations: â€Å"Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition ar e forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different typesreligious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. . . . Nothing, in my view, deserves more attention than the intellectual and moral associations in America.† Civil Society, for Hegel , is the site that lies between the Family and the State in the Ethical Life, as described in his Philosophy of Right. It is the site where the ‘determination of particularity as per individual rights is given free rein, but which has to acquire a mantle of universality for the rights to become acquirable or even legitimate, so to speak. Here, therefore, are two elements: the concrete person who is out to pursue self-interest and personal motive, and the form of universality, or the generation of common motive, through forming bonds and finding over-lapping areas of interest. A particular end, therefore, assumes the form of universality through this relation to other people, and it is attained in the simultaneous attainment of the welfare of others. It has three dimensions: the system of needs, the administration of justice and the police and the corporation. The system of needs refers to the generation of ‘universal human capital through human beings exceptional capacity to generate needs and spot commonness with others and then to satisfy those needs through work and labour. A single persons particularity of interest can be recognised if he manages to associate himself with one sphere of the needs. The administration of justice is the principle of rightness that becomes universally known through a public legal code. Not only does this embed within the principle of freedom in both subjective individual and universal platforms, it also makes wrongdoing an infringement on the people that live within such an ethical life. The polizei, then, is the bearer and the guardian of this publicly generated and accepted principles of right, the public authority that also looks after public utilities and regulation activities as well. The corporation, on the other hand, is the arrangement whereby common interests are brought to fore through voluntary association as in sports or religious clubs etc. All these aspects together form the civil society for Hegel, the space where freedom of self-interest is allowed to reign but within the limits of the principle of universality.   Antonio Gramsci, however, had a more critical view of civil society, from a Marxist vantage point. He saw civil society not as the benign space that afforded a voice and power to the masses, but as an instrument of domination linked in an unholy alliance with the bourgeois elements in the civil society seeking to protect propertied interests . He was also convinced that the intricate, organic relationships between civil society and political society enable certain strata of society not only to gain dominance within the state but also, and more importantly, to maintain it, perpetuating the subalternity of other strata. In other words, the site of hegemony was civil society it was the arena wherein the ruling class extends and reinforces its power by non-violent means through components such as the press, the libraries, schools, associations and clubs that could all become media for propaganda and homogenisation of the masses. The state and the civil society in his purview are inextri cably linked, which only facilitates subordination by the state without coercion, focussing instead on ‘manufacturing consent. However, he does acknowledge the potential of civil society as a site for breeding revolutions and for newer ‘conceptions of the world to take place. However, the manifestation of this fairly utopian concept is fraught with tensions and dichotomies. Ernest Gellner, in Conditions of Liberty, analyses the role of civil society in the Marxist, socialist and capitalist frameworks and has also assessed post-modern rivals to it that have emerged, such as Islam. The Eastern European states found the concept of civil society useful in gaining independence from a Communist stronghold precisely because of the possibility here for mobilisation of the masses in opposition to totalitarian militarist regimes. Through meetings of trade unions, religious groups, bars etc, the emphasis was on autonomy, self-organisation and withdrawal from the state to create islands of civic engagement for the emergence of a ‘parallel polis. For Gellner, a civil society was â€Å"a profane society, a society that explicitly sought to put the lowest of human desires to productive uses. Mandevilles paradox private vices make public virtues naturalized the profane by demonstrating that â€Å"capitalist individuals were more likely to promote the public good when they looked exclusively to their private interest.† He found the Marxist, and therefore the socialist strain of civil society, that stressed on driving religion out of life and also investing the economic with the ultimate sacredness, as faulty for it denied space to the profane, the self-interest and avarice of human nature that could be harnessed and channelled into collective action. With the ‘disenchantment of the world that comes with modernity and its powerful agencies of science and capitalism came the advent of ‘the modular man    who associates voluntarily with other prototypes, giving rise to a Gesellschaft, the inorganic form of social bonding, through fostered ties, rather than a Gemeinschaft, the organic community based on ties of blood and kin. â€Å"The genius of capitalist civil society is that it not only harnesses our profane energies, b ut relieves us of the moral burden of thinking of them as profane. In so doing, it relieves us of the strain of constant longing for unattainable self-transcendence in desperate simulations of paradise,† says Ignatieff. He also observes that liberty in civil society is essentially negative because there cannot be, in principle, agreement among human beings about the positive ends of political communities, beyond the protection of the liberties of the individuals who compose it. If people seek to overcome their own alienation and separateness, they can do so only as individuals or in voluntary groups. Civil society, then, becomes crucial for maintaining checks and balances, says Ignatieff. The realms of politics, economics and culture are neatly segregated, and power in any one domain does not endow power in another. The society is free, acting through a vibrant media and elected representatives, all functioning within the ambit of law. â€Å"Needless to say, no civil society has ever lived up to this goalyet the formal promise is more than hypocrisy: it remains the standard against which civil society judges itself and from which it finds renewed impetus to reform.† In this sense, civil society, albeit being a flawed ideal, also has the potential for redeeming itself simply by virtue of being embedded in the notion of reform, of itself as well as of society, simply by virtue of allowing private trajectories of interest being followed.   Despite changing meanings, civil societys core rests in a rule-governed society based on the consent of individuals. The ‘social contract that Hobbes defined is another way of understanding the liberal ideas behind the conception of civil society through different phases, civil society can be seen as the process or the space through which different individuals negotiate, argue, struggle against or agree with each other and with the centres of political and economic authority. The element of autonomy, voluntariness and collective action through association remain hallmarks through all definitions of the term. Civil Society in India: It would seem natural that civil society, as has been described and conceptualised above is an integral part of a democracy, with its accompanying notions of equality, public participation, and masses-oriented governance. Robert Post and Nancy Rosenblum describe a consensus among contemporary theorists â€Å"that democracy depends on the particularist, self-determining associations of civil society, where independent commitments, interests, and voices, are developed . Civil society is the precondition for democratic decision making, whether democracy is conceived as deliberation or as interest group pluralism, and this is true even if the goal of democracy is to transcend particularism and arrive at uncoerced agreement or a common will.† According to Joerg Forbrig, a vibrant and functional civil society can contribute to strengthening a democracy in five ways: control of state power through the incorporation of a body of laws, individual rights and thereby becoming a space that overlooks the relationship between the pr

Moral Sentiments and Determinism Essay -- Philosophy Philosophical Pap

ABSTRACT: P. F. Strawson’s essay "Freedom and Resentment" was a landmark in the study of determinism, free-will, and morality. It contributed a much-needed correction to the problem of overintellectualization as found in twentieth-century compatibilist literature. Although most of the central claims in Strawson’s essay are important and true, it fails to fill the lacuna in the analysis, discussion and proposals of traditional compatibilism. The reasons may be summarized as follows. The web of moral demands, feelings and participant attitudes comprises a set of facts within human social life which must be investigated in order to understand the relation (or lack thereof) between determinism and morality. If the facts themselves fill the gap, then it must be some adequate and coherent understanding of them. According to Strawson, the incompatibilist has an understandable dissatisfaction with his opponent’s account because, among other things, the latter fails to de al with the condition of desert and of the justice of moral condemnation and punishment. However, the theory of "Freedom and Resentment" fails equally on this point. What is now needed is a combination of factual study with ethical inquiry. The former would draw on the results of social psychology, the psychology of moral development, the social sciences of morals, and (philosophical) moral psychology. I In the light of a well-known distinction between participant moral attitudes and objective ones, the traditional issue of free will and morality is rephrased, in P.F.Strawson’s ‘Freedom and Resentment’ (henceforth FR), as follows: Could, or should, determinism lead us always to look on everyone exclusively in the objective way? The negative answer is defended and ... ...egal punishment, and the sociology and anthropology of morality. As far as the latter is concerned, that would amount to a sort of revival of the late l9th Century and early 20th Century studies in the social sciences of morals. In an age of multidisciplinary studies such as ours, FR may retrospectively be looked on by present-day students of our philosophical problem as containing an ‘ahead-of-its-time’ invitation, and an especially attractive one, for the philosopher to embark on such a multidisciplinary enterprise. References Honderich, T. (Ed.), Essays on Freedom of Action, Routledge and Kegan Paul, l973. Schlick, M., Problems of Ethics , Dover Publications, N.York, l939. Strawson, P.F., ‘Freedom and Resentment’ in Freedom and Resentment and other Essays, Methuen, l974 Skepticism and Naturalism: some varieties, Columbia University Press, l985.

Lamb to the Slaughter Essay

Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl uses the literary devices of dramatic irony, foreshadowing, and imagery to depict a dark comedy by grasping the idea of a tragedy becoming humorous. There are multiple uses and examples of irony throughout this short story that relate to the idea of a dark comedy. One key quote of dramatic irony comes from the end of the book stating, Personally, I think its right here on the premises.? Probably right under our very noses. What do you think, Jack This quote here shows us as that the detectives have no idea that they are actually eating the evidence of the murder right then and there. We, as the audience, obviously know what is going on and by Mary Maloney chuckling at that statement shows us that Dahl turned something as horrible as murder into something that she laughs at in the end referring to the idea of dark comedy. Verbal irony is also represented in this piece of literature. When she goes to the market, she talks to the grocer and states, ? No, Ive got meat, thanks. I got a nice leg of lam, from the freezer.? (pg. 20) This is verbal irony because it shows that what she is saying is basically telling the grocer what she used for the murder of her husband. The irony here is amusing, knowing the fact that killed the supposed love of her life and can so easily lie about it. So again, the verbal irony really catches the tone of the dark comedy that Dahl is trying to capture here. Both dramatic and verbal irony relate to eac h other in the sense that the audience feels the ideas of a tragedy as something funny therefore, relating back to the overall picture of the piece of literate as a dark comedy in the short story

Big Fat Globalization Essay

ABSTRACT: It has often been observed that obesity follows a socioeconomic gradient which adversely affects the poor. This paper proposes the outline of a sociological theory of obesity as a consequence of ‘globalisation factors, such as labour market deregulation. Forced to work longer hours – and with lower levels of job-security – workers in low paid jobs have fewer opportunities to burn calories, and are more likely to consume fast-food. This combination has led to higher levels of obesity among the poor in countries that have adopted neo-liberal labour market reforms. There are some human phenomena, which seem to be the result of individual actions and personal decisions. Yet, these phenomena are often – on closer inspection – as much a result of social factors as of psychological ones. In 1897, Emile Durkheim (1997) showed that the suicide – perhaps the most personal of all decisions – could be analysed through the conceptual lenses of sociology. Obesity, much like suicide, is often regarded as a personal problem; result of an inability to control ones desires in front of the fridge. Obesity does have a psychological, and, indeed, a medical, dimension, yet like the suicide, this growing phenomenon also has a social dimension. This paper is an attempt to do the same for obesity as Emile Durkheim did to the study of suicide; to analyse it in the light of the theories of sociology. Obesity and Social Science Interest in the social aspects of obesity is nothing new. Jeffrey Sobal has written extensively about the social and psychological consequences of obesity , including the stigmatisation and discrimination of obese and even overweight individuals (Sobal 2004). Scholars with a more anthropological twist have written about the different social perceptions of obesity, e.g. the positive view of fatness among some indigenous peoples (Swinburne et al. 1996). In an article entitled, â€Å"An anthropological Perspective on Obesity â€Å" (Brown and Konner 1987), the authors found that â€Å"cross cultural data about body preferences for women reveal that over 80% of cultures for which shape preference data are available, people prefer a plump shape† (cited in Sobal 2004, 383). That these ideals are embedded in their respective cultures is perhaps best evidenced by the small statuette Venus of Willendorf, by common archaeological consent the oldest known work of art. Stone age man evidently preferred a big girl complete with multiple love-handles, someone who could both carry and nurture his offspring under the harsh conditions of the Palaeolithic world. Other examples of the cultural acceptance of large people obese Buddha statues in the Far East and rituals of prenuptial fattening in many cultures, where fatness is seen as sexually attractive (Brink 1989). That fat has often been a symbol of status is not merely an anthropological observation. In the 19th Century, in Britain, according to Williams and Germov, â€Å"a large, curved, body†¦connoted fertility, wealth and high status. While poor women were occupied with physical work, the voluptuous women of the middle classes were often viewed as objects of art, luxury, status, virtue and beauty† (Williams and Germov 2004, 342). â€Å"Fatness†, they go on, â€Å"was linked to emotional stability, strength (stored energy), good health, and refinement to leisure† (Ibid). These observations are worth bearing in mind when we discuss obesity. Obesity is – to a certain extend – a social construct. But obesity is also more than this. As an increasing medical problem, obesity is not merely a condition that can be – or should be – analysed in the light of perception and aesthetics. Obesity is also a product of biological, psychological, and social conditions. While not ignoring the importance of the former two factors, this paper presents an account of the latter. While correlations between obesity and  social and economic background variables have been reported (Flegal et al. 2000), sociological analyses have thus far not addressed the question of the social aetiology of obesity. This paper seeks to present a first step towards remedying this. The Obesity Debate ‘Why are we so fat?’ asked American magazine The National Geographic in a feature article in the summer of 2004 (National Geographic 2004). The use of the collective noun ‘we’ seemed particularly warranted as recent statistics show that more than 65 percent of us (the British) are overweight. (defined as having a Body-Mass Index of 25 or above). Still more alarming; 20 percent of us are clinically obese (defined as having a Body-Mass Index of 30 or above).(House of Commons Select Committee on Health 2004). Britain is not alone in this. In America the figure is even higher; 30 per cent of the Americans are obese (US Department of Health and Social Services 2000). According to a recent study of obesity in the USA, diet related illnesses are responsible for four out of the ten leading causes of death. (Bush and Williams 1999, 135). These figures matter for more than psychological and aesthetic reasons. It is estimated that more than 30.000 deaths per year in the UK are attributed to obesity or obesity related illnesses (House of Commons Select Committee on Health 2004, 6). In the colourful words of one medical expert: â€Å"this is an epidemic†¦the likes of which we have not had before in chronic disease†¦[obesity is] making HIV look, economically, like a bad case of the flu† (William Dietz quoted in Greitser 2000, 42). Add to this that close to ten percent of the total NHS budget is allocated to obesity and related illnesses, and it is difficult to dispute that obesity is a major health concern as well as a major socio-political problem. Facts1 such as these more than justify the Chief Medical Officer’s conclusion that obesity is â€Å"a health time bomb† that needs diffusion (Chief Medical Officer quoted in HC Select Committee on Health 2004, 8). But public health is not just about diagnosing and treating conditions, it is also about understanding causes, the identification of which will enable us to take the appropriate prophylactic measures to combat the epidemic. Yet, there is far from agreement on what these causes are. The explanations for the obesity epidemic cited in the popular press, e.g. in The National Geographic and in Newsweek (2004) were all biological in origin and medical in consequence. Quoting the work of medical geneticist Rudolph Leibel, The National Geographic concluded that obesity was down to genetics. â€Å"Our overeating†, the magazine quoted Leibel as saying, â€Å"is not the wilful result of deranged upbringing. It is genes talking† (National Geographic 2004, 62). This biochemical reductionism is not new – though the underlying science has changed. As far back as 1924, the editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association editorialised that ‘obesity’ was purely the result of ‘malfunctions in normal metabolic processes’ (Editorial: The Journal of the American Medical Association 1924, 1003). Contrary to the impression left by features such as those in Newsweek, the National Geographic and the octogenarian editorial, the picture is a good deal more complex than that. This is increasingly recognised within medicine. A report from the American Institute of Medicine is an example of a critique of the geneticist view: â€Å"there has been no real change in the gene pool during this period of increasing obesity. The root problem, therefore must lie in the powerful social and cultural forces that promote an energy-rich diet and a sedentary lifestyle† (Institute of Medicine 1995, 152). There is evidence to support the veracity of the hypothesis that social and cultural forces play a role (Flegal et al. 2000, 6). What is striking about the obesity epidemic is the extent to which it reflects social class conditions. To cite but one example; the Health Survey  for England has shown that in 2001, 14 percent of women in professional groups were obese, while 28 percent of women from unskilled manual occupations were categorised as such (House of Commons Select Committee on Health 2004, 16). Similar examples are legion. As a study concluded; â€Å"the largest rates of obesity occur among population groups with the highest poverty rates and the least education† (Drewnowski and Specter 2004, 6). This correlation between poverty and obesity is likely to be the result of underlying social factors. It is not that there is an automatic relationship between poverty and obesity. This relationship is a new phenomenon, which, consequently, needs to be analysed in the light of recent social, political and economic developments. As Ulrich Beck has observed; ‘the struggle for one’s ‘daily bread’ has lost its urgency as the cardinal problem overshadowing everything else†¦for many people the problems of ‘overweight’ take the place of hunger’ (Bech 1997, 21). The interesting question from a sociological point of view – as well as from a medical one – is why. Globalisation and Obesity: Towards a Pattern It is difficult to dispute that obesity is a social condition, which adversely affects those in low paid/short term jobs. Needless to say, obesity does have a significant biomedical component; what happens inside the body after you have munched your Big Mac obviously requires a physiological/biochemical explanation. However, it is (from a sociological and public health point of view) equally important to determine the factors which lead you to eat the Big Mac in the first place. What we endeavour to answer is the social aetiology of obesity; the social causes, which lead to weight gain. The aforementioned research findings strongly indicate that weight problems and poverty are highly statistically correlated. As a oft-cited study said:  Ã¢â‚¬Å"diet affects the health of socially disadvantaged people from cradle to grave† (James, Nelson, Ralph, and Leather 1999, 1545). Of course a quote does not establish a fact, nor does a statistical association. The question is what lies behind these correlations? Some could – with some justification – argue that these class differences merely reflect and reconfirm the existence of serious inequalities in health – as reported in the Black Report in the early 1980s (Working Group on Inequalities in Health 1982). What has hitherto been missing from the literature on obesity – as well as that on health in general – has been more ambitious theoretical explanations linking medical conditions – in this case obesity – to more general sociological discourses and theoretical trends (such as modernisation and globalisation). One obvious – yet overlooked – hypothesis is that societal changes from a traditional industrial society to a globalised (deregulated) economy has created new patterns of life and work, which have had adverse effects on food consumption, exercise, and hence has contributed to the increase in the growth of the obesity epidemic. According to this hypothesis, the advent of a neo-liberal economic regime has had – and continues to have – profound consequences for working patterns – especially for those in low paid/insecure jobs. This hypothesis is, in fact, consistent with observations made by sociologists such as Anthony Giddens who have observed that â€Å"one of the ways globalisation has affected family life in Britain is by increasing the amount of time that people spend each week at work† (Giddens 2004, 62). In addition to working longer hours, individuals are increasingly working in service sector jobs (such as call centres) with provide little opportunity for physical exercise. With ‘flexible’ working hours, individuals are likely to eat later and more likely to consume fast-food (Dalton 2004, 95). The  medical consequence of this is that they are unlikely to burn the extra calories they consume. While no evidence of this has been published using UK figures, data from America confirm this trend; â€Å"Americans now spend almost half of their food dollars on food away from home – 47 percent, or $354.4 billion in 1998† (Dalton 2004, 94) .That the hurried life-style brought about by changes in labour market is – in part – responsible for this, is underlined by figures from the fast food chains reporting that ‘drive-thru’ sales now account for more than half of their total sales (Dalton 2004, 95)2. That this has contributed to the obesity epidemic is underlined by the fact that â€Å"away from home† foods contain more total fat and saturated fat on a per-calorie basis than â€Å"at home food† (Dalton 2004, 94). As a further consequence of the changes in working patterns – and the less free time available – individuals are less likely to engage in sport and social leisure activities – factors which have been shown to be negatively correlated with weight gain (Dalton 2004, 95). Again American figures illustrate the trend. In 1991, 46 percent of high school students and 57 percent of middle school students were enrolled in sport activities (Sallis 1993, 403). By 1999, those figures had dropped to 29 percent of high-school students and 35 percent of middle school students. On average there is a 3 percent decrease in the number of kids who take part in sporting activities on a daily basis (CDC 2000). Viewed in this light is perhaps not surprising that the countries in the forefront of ‘globalisation’ (especially labour market deregulation) are also the countries with the highest incidence of obesity (See table One). Conversely, countries with less globalised economies, have had lower – sometimes much lower – levels of obesity. A few examples will suffice. In Sweden – a country that has not followed the neo-liberal reform agenda – the number of overweight people is 39 per cent  (the same figure as France – another country that has resisted neo-liberal reforms). The figure for Norway another affluent society in the same category is even lower; 25 percent (www.iotf.org). That labour market dergeulation goes hand in hand with obesity, seems to be confirmed when we contrast the obesity figures from ‘globalised’ countries with similar figures from less globalised economies (as measured by the Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom). The Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient between this measure of globalisation (admittedly a gross proxy!) and obesity rate is a Pearson’s R of -.71. In other words, the less globalised the economy, the lower the number of obese people. While this correlation is not all conclusive – and only significant at 0.37 (two-tailed), it does suggest the existence of a causal link between obesity and globalisation. Table One: Index of Economic Freedom and Obesity Rates CountryIndex of Economic Freedom %Obese Australia1.8820 France2.63 8 Finland1.9513 Netherlands2.04 8 Norway2.25 7 United Kingdom1.7917 USA1.8525 Sources: The Heritage Foundation and www.iuns.com (accessed 14 August 2004) While governments of the most globalised economies – such as Australia, the UK and the USA – have gone to great lengths in their efforts to deregulate the economies and give ‘the market’ a stronger role, other countries – especially those with strong corporatist traditions (See Lijphart 1999) –have adopted a different approach to globalisation. In the Netherlands the government, trade unions, and employers associations have negotiated responses to globalisation, which have prevented the growing inequalities and levels of job-insecurity associated with globalisation in  Australia (Bessant and Watts 2002, 306)., Britain and the USA (Giddens 2001, 69). Consequently, the Dutch workers are not under the same pressures as their British and American counterparts in having to seek low paid/short term employment, with all the consequent negative implications on food consumption and lack of time for physical exercise (Freedman 2000). The difference between these two ‘pure types’ of welfare capitalism is not merely of importance for the reasons identified above (food intake with little opportunity to burn calories). There is also evidence to suggest that the ‘Dutch model’ is more conducive to the formation of ‘social capital’, which in turn is negatively correlated with levels of obesity (Putnam 2000, 264). Further globalisation is more than just labour market deregulation. Global liberalisation of trade under the WTO and liberalisation of the market for broadcasting are other factors to be taken into account. Globalisation is a mix of contingent factors which – when combined – create social developments. One of the consequences of globalisation is a society, in which consumers both ‘enjoy’ the benefits of cheap food from around the globe, while at the same time, are being subjected to advertisements from multinational food and beverage producers, such as McDonalds, Pepsi, Burger King, Coca Cola, and others. The level of this influence can hardly be exaggerated; in one year McDonald spent in excess of 1 billion US-dollars on advertising for kids (Brownell and Horgen 2003, 60). Globalisation has profoundly affected capitalist democracies, yet not all countries have responded by deregulating labour markets and unleashing market forces. In some cases, countries have (successfully) attempted to regulate the forces of globalisation, e.g. through restrictions on media advertising (especially on TV). In the Netherlands the public broadcasters  are not allowed to interrupt programmes aimed at the Under-12 year olds with advertisements. Similar restrictions have been introduced in Sweden and Norway (www.childrensprogrammes.org). That such restrictions have been introduced in small countries with relatively open economies is an indication – perhaps even a proof – that the effects of globalisation are not inevitable; that political intervention has not been rendered impossible by globalisation Conclusion â€Å"There is no question that the rates of obesity and Type 2 Diabetes †¦follow a socioeconomic gradient, such that the burden of disease falls disproportionally on people with limited resources, racial-ethnic minorities, and the poor†. Thus wrote two dieticians recently (Drewnowski and Specter 2004, 6). Previously, scholarly studies in the social aetiology of obesity have stopped short of developing these statistically based conclusions into a more general theoretical sociological framework. In this paper a case has been made for the view that obesity is – at least in part – a consequence of the recent political and economic developments commonly known as ‘globalisation’. Globalisation has led some governments (e.g. in the USA, Britain and Australia) to enact and implement labour market reforms (flexible job-markets with less job-security). One of the consequences of this development has been pressures on families and individuals in low paid/temporary jobs. Through this ‘globalisation’ has created conditions, which are conducive to over-consumption of high-energy foods. Forced to work longer hours, individuals have less time to prepare meals opting instead for pre-prepared fast food with a high fat content. In addition to this development, the availability of cheap food from around the globe coupled with advertising from multinationals – has resulted in new pressures which have led to a growth in the consumption of energy-rich food  among the poor. 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