Policy Sciences Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Policy Sciences - Essay Example It was more often that the advisors did not have any 'consideration of intellectual underpinnings, honesty, cumulative knowledge or independent evaluations' of the political and social scenario. There were also no recordings of the decisions and the reasons for such decisions written down. Most of advises, according to DeLeon, remained 'particularistic, ad hoc exercises' taken up when something was needed by the prince or the monarch. Documenting the decisions and supporting ideas were done during the later half of the nineteenth century. Subsequent growth of the policy science was based on the foundations and concepts that stemmed from these days. During and after World War II, there were major upheavals that were taking place all over the world. The concept of the nation state had taken firmer shape in the world and so did the concept of independence or freedom. The political economy and the political science itself underwent major changes in the way decisions were made. ... The advisors had to change their color based on the rising trend in these nation states and those states that were coming up just then. The fight against and for separatism is another major change in the thought process to become an independent state or nation! This was a serious motivator for the change in policy sciences in line with the thoughts that entered the circle. Similarly, the changes in the economic scenario and the rise of the new economic and political power in the form of the United States also meant that the entire political scene has to be reworked. While there are some uprisings that were anti imperialistic and others socialistic, all that it meant was that the advisors had a different role to play4. The social requirements and the needs of the people, had to be reflected to the monarch or to the heads of the government through these advisors or duly elected members of the parliament or governing council. Immediately after the World War II, the impact on the advisory policy took a major turn5. With more stress on economic growth and industrial growth, the rights of the labor and the people became more pronounced. In all the nations, the monarchies gave way to socialistic and democratic systems that took its power from the people. The advisory policy made a complete U turn here and slowly but steadily moved away from the monarchy and the power center shifted to the ministers or the advisory boards. And the major turn in the policy is the twist that could be visibly seen in terms of ethics and humanitarian issues6. Equality of human beings, racial equality and equality of nations were the main thrust of most of the policy advisors in this period of the policy making history. War on Poverty up to late 1970s War on Poverty was again

Segregation along gender lines Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Segregation along gender lines - Essay Example Horizontally, women are disproportionately clustered into a narrow range of jobs that are regularly regarded to be ‘ghetto occupations’. Ghetto occupations have been classified as those which are female dominated and of low status, poor pay, with narrow job content, and that have few prospects of promotion. Introduction Occupational segregation is an obstacle used in the workplace to prevent women from realising their full potential in the market. It can also prevent employers from finding the most qualified personnel to fill job vacancies. Occupational segregation negatively affects the national as well as global economy. In Britain, many female workers are affected by vertical as well as horizontal segregation. This basically means that female workers tend to hold different jobs from the male workers which are of lower status and have lower pay packets. Female workers also tend to be directed towards industries that have a huge demand for workers who only work part tim e. Occupations which are usually peopled by female workers, and which tend to have low pay are often referred to as ‘pink-collar’ jobs or even ‘ghetto’ occupations. Causes of Segregation in the Workplace Limited Access to Career Options Gender stereotyping experienced by women during their formative years can affect their choice of occupation (Van Langen, Bosker and Dekkers, 2006). Gender stereotyping includes implicitly and explicitly expressed social attitudes within a person’s community. ... Even in developed nations like Britain, these attitudes are still present. When women are socialised to take on the ‘helping professions’ such as teaching, nursing, and secretarial work, it affects their decisions about the type of university courses they choose (Tracey and Nicholl, 2007). There are other institutional as well as structural barriers like biased marketing which discourage women from taking advantage of measures such as vocational training programmes for traditionally male jobs. Corporate culture and practice Other realities that compel women to choose to work in occupations that may not afford them large salaries or even a chance for promotion is because of the lack of the implementation of female-friendly practices in many corporate organisations. There are many organisations today that have instituted the acceptance of progressive employment agendas as one of their main objectives (Wynarczyk, 2007). However, this is not often implemented in the corporat e culture. Many women working in corporate organisations have to handle the reality of long hours which leave the worker with no time for his or her family, for example. The abilities of women are also not often viewed as strengths but as good personal skills. For example, the role of teaching young children has traditionally been occupied by women. Pre-school teachers play a very important role in society and are virtually responsible for teaching children all the social skills that are necessary to function in society. However, their importance is downplayed and their salaries are not at par with their services. This means that female workers face constraints in being

Dramatic literature Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Dramatic literature - Essay Example The extent of the sin is reflected by the severity of the resultant fate. Both the plays explore the genre of tragedy in a very plausible manner. Following is a sequential comparison of both the plays. Sophocles: Oedipus the King In Oedipus the Kind, Sophocles emphasizes upon the inevitability of fate. A man cannot escape his fate notwithstanding his struggles. Even if a man sets out on a path to escape his fate, it may later be disclosed that the path was actually leading him to his fate. Same may be the theme in this play. The play represents that the lives of humans depend upon the choices they make in their lifetimes. If the choices are good, they will be rewarded with good fate; and if the choices are evil, they will be given a similar fate. However, in case of Oedipus, his fate was decided at the time of his inception (Frank, 5). He was never given an option to change his path. A prophecy was disclosed at the time of Oedipus’s conception and it was this fate that determi ned an uneven life for Oedipus with tragic consequences. The way the role of fate has been emphasized in this play is highly plausible. All the successes and failures of Oedipus’s life depended upon his underlying fate. The prophecy disclosed that he was bound to kill his own father and then marry his own mother, and his whole life led him to that one inevitable moment when he fulfills his destiny. Upon hearing the prophecy, his father attempted to get the infant Oedipus killed and he had several narrow escapes from death. His mother was supposed to kill him but due to her motherly love, she was unable to do so. The servant, instead of killing him by hand, decides to leave the infant at mountain top to die due to exposure to severe weather. After escaping death once already, Oedipus does it again when a shepherd finds him and saves him from the mountain top. This is where the actual tragedy of life decided by his fate starts to unfold. The shepherd takes Oedipus to Corinth wh ere he is taken by King Polybus. Oedipus is raised believing that King Polybus and his wife Merope are his actual parents. He remains unaware of this fact throughout his life. This is one of the ways of fate through which he is led towards his ultimate destiny of killing his own father and marrying his own mother. The way every single event of Oedipus’s life has been depicted in the play emanates his underlying fate. No matter how far he gets from his actual parents, he comes across them in the most unlikely of circumstances and fulfills his destiny without even realizing the truth. He ultimately kills his own father on his way to Thebes and takes over the throne. He marries the King’s widow who was his own mother and he bears several children. He remains satiated until the truth unfolds. He comes across the truth when he is teased by the following riddle:   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Revealed at last, bro ther and father both   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   to the children he embraces, to his mother   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   son and husband both- he sowed the loins   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   his father sowed, he spilled his father’s blood. (1313). The full force of the underlying tragedy hits when truth is revealed. There is a mix of pain, grief, and loathing. The play touches the boundaries of tragic storytelling by

Discussion for African American study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Discussion for African American study - Essay Example Today, beauty values, as well as white European features over the others especially on women’s appearances. I choose to discuss the constructs with skin color, as well as the beauty discourse of women, as beauty concepts are usually directed mostly to the women. A lingering question on my mind is â€Å"Are white women beautiful or is it the society that makes them?† According to Gilman (2001), beauty is an appearance created for women to use as a mechanism to boost their self-worth (p. 255). Dark women are particularly exposed to the effects of Europeans standards of beauty because the European ideals emphasize on skin color and hair texture. This automatically excludes the black women especially the one with the dark skin (Bryant, Para1). This is noted because mostly in the United States, the main stream beauty ideal is exclusively white, making it difficult for women with dark skin. Although there are women with dark skin who have made it in the United States for example; Jennifer Hudson, the media and the culture of these women have been ‘white washed’ with lighter colored, straight hair, lots of makeup, and artificial eye contacts among others so as they would resemble the white women (Admin, Para 5). Even though a woman is recognized for something else rather than their beauty, the magazines, or the media still feel that they need to white wash her in order to feature her image. Pecolas insanity and obsession with blue eyes still is pertinent in the United States. According to Valdivia (2000), the people of the United States consider individual with blue eyes as beautiful. The society has always believed in the idea that the white are better than the dark colored, thus preferring the blue-eyed individuals (p. 146). It is known that only the white people can acquire blue eyes naturally. The dark colored people often are

Major Theoretical Perspectives Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Major Theoretical Perspectives - Assignment Example The main question which is put forward by functionalist sociologists is that how is a society kept close together at all times and how is its order maintained? To begin with functionalists concentrate upon two ideas that are closely related to their idea of how societies are held together. Firstly, how is order maintained in our society, and secondly, what are the major reasons behind the stability which exists in our society. Functionalists do not focus upon the differences found in different parts of the society. They in fact focus on how the shared norms, values and mores help create social solidarity and cohesion. (Browne, 2006) The ideas of functionalists are based on the concept of organic analogy. These ideas were initially discussed by patron sociologists like Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim. They explained that the society was like a human body. If there was pain in one part of the body it will affect the functioning of the whole society. Therefore, it was necessary for the society to be in equilibrium. Durkheim ("The Rules of Sociological Method", 1895) emphasizes on two concepts. The first concept is of social solidarity. Solidarity is based upon such things as common culture, socialization, basic values and norms. It is these common ideas which bring about social cohesion in the society thereby, giving it the form of a human body. The second concept is that of collective conscience - the "external expression" of the collective will of people living in a society. This represents the social forces that help bind people together (to integrate them into the collective behavior that is society). It can be likened to the "will" of society. The most popular functionalist of America, Talcott Parsons (1951), focused on the behavior of the people while under the influence of social institutions. For Parsons, the key to the survival of the society was the shared norms and values held by its individual members. Deviation from those norms leads to

Human Resource Management - Case Study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Human Resource Management - Case Study - Essay Example Complicating the problem is the problems faced in the continuing task of recruiting and hiring qualified and experienced workers out of a pool of individuals that are almost nomadic in their habit of moving around. The first step to effective recruiting is to fully understand the type of employees the store needs and what skills and knowledge the employees need to succeed. Skills are those abilities needed to perform the job while knowledge is what the employee needs to know to perform the job. The second step is to identify potential employees who have the necessary skills and knowledge. Here the store needs to draw people in from outside its traditional pools like former employees, volunteers, homemakers, students, family members of present employees, older workers, people with mental or physical disabilities, ethnic minorities, people new to the community, people looking for part-time work ,people currently on welfare or assistance. The next step is to how to reach the people in these groups and let them know about opportunities at the store. Traditional methods such as job postings or classified advertising should not be ignored but the store should be prepared to expand beyond this especially when the store is trying to reach groups of people who have not been reached through traditional recruiting techniques. Here are some creative ways to notify people about employment opportunities: Meet representatives from minority agencies within the community, post notices at youth centers, advertise on bulletin boards, at the supermarket, library, health club, child care center, family restaurants, etc. ,place fliers on car windshields in parking lots, distribute leaflets at immigrant settlement centers, have an older worker to speak at a senior

Weimar Constitution Essay Example for Free

Weimar Constitution Essay To what extent was the effective government of Germany in the years 1919–33 handicapped by the nature of the Weimar Constitution? It is for certain that the Weimar Constitution had an impact in the effective government of Germany in the years of 1919-33. However, it can be argued from both sides whether this constitution had a negative or positive impact on the effective government. One could say that the constitution was a dominant factor in the ineffectiveness of the government, while on the other hand it could be argued that ineptness of the government is due to other external factors such as defeat and the depression A major flaw in the Weimar constitution was the proportional representation electoral system, which was an attempt to become more democratic. Democracy comes at the price of a strong government as it is usually difficult to form a stable government in a democracy. This can be manifested by the fact that in the mere period of 14 years, there were 21 different governments and 13 chancellors. This shows that the Weimar government lacked stability and strength which would make it almost impossible for the government to be effective and tackle the problems. How could the government solve the difficult troubles that Germany was facing, when they could not even manage to cooperate and unite? Since, proportional representation is one of the fairest electoral systems, it was impossible to form a strong single party government who had a good hold in the Reichstag and only weak coalitions which could not agree upon a decision was formed. Weak coalitions meant ineffective and incompetent governments. On the other hand, it could be said that the Weimar governments were not as unstable as it is claimed to be. The Weimar constitution has produced effective and stable governments such as the grand coalition which was seen as a strong government and it stood for the longest amount of time. Also, despite the numerous changes in government, the base parties of the coalition has remained the same as the Z, DVP and DVP provide the foundation of the coalition most of the time. This exhibits stability among the governments as the coalitions do not go thr ough drastic changes in the parties. Therefore, it could be claimed that the Weimar constitution did not handicap the government from being effective. Fair representation of the votes meant that extremist parties thrived under the PR electoral system. Votes translated into fair representation of seats in the Reichstag which enabled the extremist parties such as the Nazi’s to have the majority of the  seats from the July 1932 elections. This made it almost impossible for the government to be effective as they could not pass legislation through the Reichstag as they did not have the co-operation from the largest party. However, it could be argued that the rise of extremism was due to the Wall Street crash in 1929. There is a key correlation between the economic crisis and the successes of extremist parties. Indeed the Nazis only achieved 3% of the vote in 1928 yet in 1933 they received the majority of seats in the Reichstag from any lone party, over 200. If the depression had not occurred, then extremist parties would not have thrived electorally which in turn, would mean that the government would not have been handicapped in the Reichstag. Hence it could be argued that the ineffectiveness of the government towards the late 1920s was due to an external factor as up until the depression, extremist parties were not a problem to the government. The Weimar constitution did not handicap the governments in the sense that it granted Article 48 which the president could use to pass through any decrees in an ‘emergency’. The governments used this to their favour and passed through many legislation and decrees. Since the chancellor had the support of the President as he was appointed by the President, the governments used Article 48 to be effective. This can be seen when Bruning used it to pass his finance bill in 1930, without him using the Article 48, he would not have been able to pass his finance bill or be effective. Henceforth it could be argued that the Weimar Constitution actually gave the governments a chance to be effective in a difficult situation. On the other hand this constant use of the emergency presidential powers in 1930-33 led to the rise of Hitler as the chancellor which spelled doom for the Weimar government. This extensive use of the emergency presidential powers also displays the ineptness of the government as they could not do anything on their own and had to keep relying on Hindenburg. To avoid this constant use of the Article 48 and produce a truly strong government, Hitler was appointed as his party had a majority in the Reichstag and so the government would be able to pass legislation through their own strength. So, the Weimar constitution could even be credited with the fall of Weimar Republic along with the government as it was unable to produce a string of consistent strong and stable governments. In conclusion, I think that the Weimar constitution played a significant role in the handicapping of the governments as under the PR  electoral system, it was impossible to produce a stable single party governmen t. The electoral system only produced coalitions with uncooperative parties which made dysfunctional governments. This meant they had to rely upon Article 48 too much which led to the rise of Hitler and end of the Weimar era. On the other hand, it could be claimed that the coalitions were not as unstable as they were claimed to be with the base parties almost always being the same. Also, I believe that the depression was the most imperative factor in the ineffectiveness of the government as their support was sapped by the extremist parties which led to the rise of Hitler and also it created an impossible situation to get out of for the governments. Without the depression, it is most likely that Hitler would not have risen to power.