Management Decision Making Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5500 words

Management Decision Making - Assignment Example It is seen that communication does not follow the proper hierarchy. It is a large organization comprising big information channels. There is a general tendency among employees to bypass their superiors and communicate with their heads directly because he is from the same company. This is a major communication issue as it leaves the supervisors unaware of important information. This creates problems for them in coordinating activities of subordinates. The project tries to analyze the situation using Viable Systems Model (VSM) under the present structure of the organization. Having done this, it tries to look at the other issues that the organization has been facing. A big part of the problem can be attributed to the cultural issues arising out of the fact that the company is owned by three shareholders from three different countries. This is considered to be the minor metaphor. The project then presents the reasons why the above two problems have been chosen as the major and minor met aphors respectively. A particular methodology has been chosen from the system of systems methodologies and the choice for the same has also been justified. Finally, Senge’s five disciplines have been applied to this organization along with examples showing how each weakness can be converted to strength. The project talks about a big organization which has a number of business divisions. The business divisions are distributed among three different shareholders from three different companies. These are well-known companies established in three different countries. The major metaphor looks into the communication problems existing in the organization. The main problem exists in the communication channel in the organization. It is seen that in spite of the presence of a proper hierarchy, employees in the organization tend to bypass their supervisor and communicate with the second level in the organization.

College Scholarship Essay Example for Free

College Scholarship Essay Being involved in my community wasnt a priority in my schedule, I really had overlooked the importance of really being involved in my community and the beneficial aspects that it will have on me rather then I would have on my community. Community service lately has become a big consumption of my weekends, which have had multiple positive effects on me and only has it brought hope and happiness to people, but it also lead to spiritual and personal growth. It is an experience that cannot be bought with any amount of money. A volunteer benefits himself or herself because they get to see how their contribution has made a difference. This experience contributes to personal development especially in areas such as self-fulfillment, self-confidence, and self-esteem that often flourish in the midst of volunteering experiences. The contributions that I have made to my community, volunteering countless hours at the local two general hours during weekends and summers has really impacted me as a person. I now am more involved with my community then ever through a club that I have joined at school (California scholarship foundation) and have started the year off by volunteering with AID’s walk Los Angeles and many more to come over the year. I now don’t see volunteering as a sacrifice of my time rather an opportunity to become a better person through community outreach.

Women as Societies Change Agents During the 1950s Polio Epidemic Essa

The 1950's represented the cold war era, symbolized by the red scar, anti-communism, potential nuclear war, and McCarthyism. Patriotic loyalty was stressed, any citizen who spoke out against the US government policies was labeled a communist and was often black listed and put under surveillance. The sensationalized conviction and execution of the Rosenberg's for spying, jeopardized our countries' national security and reinforced anti-communism propaganda. Moreover, students practiced emergency ducking under their desk drills to prepare for a nuclear fallout and families purchased bomb shelter for protection. The hyper-vigilance, fear, paranoia, and post traumatic stress that permeated our country's landscape of being under siege, intensified with the polio epidemic. Verbally expressing the word â€Å"POLIO† brings forth anxiety, trepidation, and thoughts of mortality, crippled bodies, and iron lungs. Once the initial shock wears off that you-- in fact, have the disease than the fight for your life begins. This highly contagious illness was passed by close contact and through fecal matter, despite improved sanitation practices. Unfortunately, many poor and middle class families' contracted this viral disease, which rapidly destroyed motor-neurons to arms, legs, and diaphragm muscles. Ironically,improved sanitation practices were blamed for this delayed childhood disease. Younger breastfeeding children received maternal antibodies whereas older children did not have this similar immune advantage. Sadly, children under fifteen years old, experienced the highest rates of contracting this malady. Adults also experienced severe poliomyelitis complications rendering them total care or requiring the iron lung to perform their br... ...ine, restricting community activities, discouraging mingling among all socioeconomic classes at the pools, theaters, and camps, good hygiene, sanitation practices and effective handwashing techniques. Works Cited BIBLOGRAPHY 1. Naomi Rogers, Dirt and Disease: Polio before FDR (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992). 2. Wilson, D.J. A Crippling Fear: Experiencing Polio in the Era of FDR Bulletin of the History of Medicine 72.3 (1998) 464-495. 3. Oshinsky, D. M. Polio: An American Story oxford university press (2005) 350 4. Foertsch, J. Bracing accounts, the literature and culture of polio in postwar america. Associated university press (2008) 223. 5. Bocker, A. and Brandt, V. Living in fear:northeast wisconsin's polio epidemics. Voyager Winter/Spring (2007) 10-25.

The Problems With Affirmative Action Essay -- affirmative action argum

The Problems With Affirmative Action Tim was working as a college professor for many years at an ivy-league school. Tim was a very well liked by the students and by the administration. Tim's qualifications were hard to beat, with a book and many other writings to his credit. One day he went to work and found out that he had been replaced by a woman that had less experience and fewer credentials (McElroy). The definition of affirmative action is as follows: Affirmative action means taking positive steps to recruit, hire, train, and promote individuals from groups that have traditionally been discriminated against on the basis of race, sex, disability, or other characteristics. In this sense, affirmative action goes beyond equal employment opportunity, which requires employers to eliminate discriminatory conditions, whether inadvertent or intentional, and to treat all employees equally in the workplace ( What ... action? ). Tim lost his job to a procedure that had the main purpose to make the process of hiring workers and accepting people to colleges equal for the minorities and women. However, the process, affirmative action, does not make it equal and it gives minorities and women extra rights. Affirmative action is a procedure that is unfair and unjust to the majority of the people. It is not ethical to cure discrimination of minority's and women with another form of discrimination when the majority is discriminated against. Discrimination is hard to correct, but if laws are for discrimination of any kind, it will never be corrected. Plous argued against this and said, "the most effective way to cure society of exclusionary practices is to make special efforts at inclusion." In the statement, the word "special"... ...ww.now.org/press/04-03/04-01.html>. Jorgensen, Eric T. "Affirmative Action is Not So Bad." The Back Page. 4 Sept. 1998. 21 Oct. 2003 <http://www.sff.net/people/ericj/backpage/1998/affirmac.htp>. McElroy, Wendy. "What does Affirmative Action Affirm." wendymcelroy.com. 24 Oct. 2003 <http://www.zetetics.com/mac/affirm.htm>. Plous, S. "Ten myths about affirmative action." Understanding Prejudice and Discrimination. 2003. 21 Oct. 2003 <http://www.UnderstandingPrejudice.org/readroom/articles/affirm.htm>. Smith, Peter J. "Affirmative action can hurt qualifited whites." The State News: Michigan State University's Independent Voice. 15 Sept. 1998. 21 Oct. 2003 <http://www.statenews.com/editionsfall98/091598/op_ltr3.html>. "What is affirmative action?" Hrnext.com. 2003. 21 Oct. 2003 <http://www2.hrnext.com/Article.cfm/Nav/1.41.105.0.6829.6829>.

Genetically Foods Essay

Genetically-modified foods (GM foods) have made a big splash in the news lately. European environmental organizations and public interest groups have been actively protesting against GM foods for months, and recent controversial studies about the effects of genetically-modified corn pollen on monarch butterfly caterpillars1, 2 have brought the issue of genetic engineering to the forefront of the public consciousness in the U. S. In response to the upswelling of public concern, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held three open meetings in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Oakland, California to solicit public opinions and begin the process of establishing a new regulatory procedure for government approval of GM foods3. I attended the FDA meeting held in November 1999 in Washington, D. C. , and here I will attempt to summarize the issues involved and explain the U. S. government’s present role in regulating GM food. What are genetically-modified foods? The term GM foods or GMOs (genetically-modified organisms) is most commonly used to refer to crop plants created for human or animal consumption using the latest molecular biology techniques. These plants have been modified in the laboratory to enhance desired traits such as increased resistance to herbicides or improved nutritional content. The enhancement of desired traits has traditionally been undertaken through breeding, but conventional plant breeding methods can be very time consuming and are often not very accurate. Genetic engineering, on the other hand, can create plants with the exact desired trait very rapidly and with great accuracy. For example, plant geneticists can isolate a gene responsible for drought tolerance and insert that gene into a different plant. The new genetically-modified plant will gain drought tolerance as well. Not only can genes be transferred from one plant to another, but genes from non-plant organisms also can be used. The best known example of this is the use of B. t. genes in corn and other crops. B. t. , or Bacillus thuringiensis, is a naturally occurring bacterium that produces crystal proteins that are lethal to insect larvae. B. t. crystal protein genes have been transferred into corn, enabling the corn to produce its own pesticides against insects such as the European corn borer. For two informative overviews of some of the techniques involved in creating GM foods, visit Biotech Basics (sponsored by Monsanto) http://www. biotechknowledge. monsanto. com/biotech/bbasics. nsf/index or Techniques of Plant Biotechnology from the National Center for Biotechnology Education http://www. ncbe. reading. ac. uk/NCBE/GMFOOD/techniques. What are some of the advantages of GM foods? The world population has topped 6 billion people and is predicted to double in the next 50 years. Ensuring an adequate food supply for this booming population is going to be a major challenge in the years to come. GM foods promise to meet this need in a number of ways: Pest resistance Crop losses from insect pests can be staggering, resulting in devastating financial loss for farmers and starvation in developing countries. Farmers typically use many tons of chemical pesticides annually. Consumers do not wish to eat food that has been treated with pesticides because of potential health hazards, and run-off of agricultural wastes from excessive use of pesticides and fertilizers can poison the water supply and cause harm to the environment. Growing GM foods such as B. t.corn can help eliminate the application of chemical pesticides and reduce the cost of bringing a crop to market4, 5. Herbicide tolerance For some crops, it is not cost-effective to remove weeds by physical means such as tilling, so farmers will often spray large quantities of different herbicides (weed-killer) to destroy weeds, a time-consuming and expensive process, that requires care so that the herbicide doesn’t harm the crop plant or the environment. Crop plants genetically-engineered to be resistant to one very powerful herbicide could help prevent environmental damage by reducing the amount of herbicides needed. For example, Monsanto has created a strain of soybeans genetically modified to be not affected by their herbicide product Roundup  ®6. A farmer grows these soybeans which then only require one application of weed-killer instead of multiple applications, reducing production cost and limiting the dangers of agricultural waste run-off7. Disease resistance There are many viruses, fungi and bacteria that cause plant diseases. Plant biologists are working to create plants with genetically-engineered resistance to these diseases8, 9. Cold tolerance Unexpected frost can destroy sensitive seedlings. An antifreeze gene from cold water fish has been introduced into plants such as tobacco and potato. With this antifreeze gene, these plants are able to tolerate cold temperatures that normally would kill unmodified seedlings10. (Note: I have not been able to find any journal articles or patents that involve fish antifreeze proteins in strawberries, although I have seen such reports in newspapers. I can only conclude that nothing on this application has yet been published or patented.) Drought tolerance/salinity tolerance As the world population grows and more land is utilized for housing instead of food production, farmers will need to grow crops in locations previously unsuited for plant cultivation. Creating plants that can withstand long periods of drought or high salt content in soil and groundwater will help people to grow crops in formerly inhospitable places11, 12. Nutrition Malnutrition is common in third world countries where impoverished peoples rely on a single crop such as rice for the main staple of their diet. However, rice does not contain adequate amounts of all necessary nutrients to prevent malnutrition. If rice could be genetically engineered to contain additional vitamins and minerals, nutrient deficiencies could be alleviated. For example, blindness due to vitamin A deficiency is a common problem in third world countries. Researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Institute for Plant Sciences have created a strain of â€Å"golden† rice containing an unusually high content of beta-carotene (vitamin A)13. Since this rice was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation14, a non-profit organization, the Institute hopes to offer the golden rice seed free to any third world country that requests it. Plans were underway to develop a golden rice that also has increased iron content. However, the grant that funded the creation of these two rice strains was not renewed, perhaps because of the vigorous anti-GM food protesting in Europe, and so this nutritionally-enhanced rice may not come to market at all15. Pharmaceuticals Medicines and vaccines often are costly to produce and sometimes require special storage conditions not readily available in third world countries. Researchers are working to develop edible vaccines in tomatoes and potatoes16, 17. These vaccines will be much easier to ship, store and administer than traditional injectable vaccines. Phytoremediation Not all GM plants are grown as crops. Soil and groundwater pollution continues to be a problem in all parts of the world. Plants such as poplar trees have been genetically engineered to clean up heavy metal pollution from contaminated soil18. How prevalent are GM crops? What plants are involved? According to the FDA and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), there are over 40 plant varieties that have completed all of the federal requirements for commercialization (http://vm. cfsan. fda. gov/%7Elrd/biocon). Some examples of these plants include tomatoes and cantalopes that have modified ripening characteristics, soybeans and sugarbeets that are resistant to herbicides, and corn and cotton plants with increased resistance to insect pests. Not all these products are available in supermarkets yet; however, the prevalence of GM foods in U. S. grocery stores is more widespread than is commonly thought. While there are very, very few genetically-modified whole fruits and vegetables available on produce stands, highly processed foods, such as vegetable oils or breakfast cereals, most likely contain some tiny percentage of genetically-modified ingredients because the raw ingredients have been pooled into one processing stream from many different sources. Also, the ubiquity of soybean derivatives as food additives in the modern American diet virtually ensures that all U. S. consumers have been exposed to GM food products. The U. S. statistics that follow are derived from data presented on the USDA web site at http://www. ers. usda. gov/briefing/biotechnology/. The global statistics are derived from a brief published by the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA) at http://www. isaaa. org/publications/briefs/Brief_21. htm and from the Biotechnology Industry Organization at http://www. bio.org/food&ag/1999Acreage. Thirteen countries grew genetically-engineered crops commercially in 2000, and of these, the U. S. produced the majority. In 2000, 68% of all GM crops were grown by U. S. farmers. In comparison, Argentina, Canada and China produced only 23%, 7% and 1%, respectively. Other countries that grew commercial GM crops in 2000 are Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Mexico, Romania, South Africa, Spain, and Uruguay. Soybeans and corn are the top two most widely grown crops (82% of all GM crops harvested in 2000), with cotton, rapeseed (or canola) and potatoes trailing behind. 74% of these GM crops were modified for herbicide tolerance, 19% were modified for insect pest resistance, and 7% were modified for both herbicide tolerance and pest tolerance. Globally, acreage of GM crops has increased 25-fold in just 5 years, from approximately 4. 3 million acres in 1996 to 109 million acres in 2000 – almost twice the area of the United Kingdom. Approximately 99 million acres were devoted to GM crops in the U. S. and Argentina alone. In the U. S. , approximately 54% of all soybeans cultivated in 2000 were genetically-modified, up from 42% in 1998 and only 7% in 1996. In 2000, genetically-modified cotton varieties accounted for 61% of the total cotton crop, up from 42% in 1998, and 15% in 1996. GM corn and also experienced a similar but less dramatic increase. Corn production increased to 25% of all corn grown in 2000, about the same as 1998 (26%), but up from 1. 5% in 1996. As anticipated, pesticide and herbicide use on these GM varieties was slashed and, for the most part, yields were increased (for details, see the UDSA publication at http://www. ers. usda. gov/publications/aer786/). What are some of the criticisms against GM foods? Environmental activists, religious organizations, public interest groups, professional associations and other scientists and government officials have all raised concerns about GM foods, and criticized agribusiness for pursuing profit without concern for potential hazards, and the government for failing to exercise adequate regulatory oversight. It seems that everyone has a strong opinion about GM foods. Even the Vatican19 and the Prince of Wales20 have expressed their opinions. Most concerns about GM foods fall into three categories: environmental hazards, human health risks, and economic concerns. Environmental hazards Unintended harm to other organisms Last year a laboratory study was published in Nature21 showing that pollen from B. t. corn caused high mortality rates in monarch butterfly caterpillars. Monarch caterpillars consume milkweed plants, not corn, but the fear is that if pollen from B. t. corn is blown by the wind onto milkweed plants in neighboring fields, the caterpillars could eat the pollen and perish. Although the Nature study was not conducted under natural field conditions, the results seemed to support this viewpoint. Unfortunately, B. t. toxins kill many species of insect larvae indiscriminately; it is not possible to design a B. t. toxin that would only kill crop-damaging pests and remain harmless to all other insects. This study is being reexamined by the USDA, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and other non-government research groups, and preliminary data from new studies suggests that the original study may have been flawed22, 23. This topic is the subject of acrimonious debate, and both sides of the argument are defending their data vigorously. Currently, there is no agreement about the results of these studies, and the potential risk of harm to non-target organisms will need to be evaluated further. Reduced effectiveness of pesticides Just as some populations of mosquitoes developed resistance to the now-banned pesticide DDT, many people are concerned that insects will become resistant to B. t. or other crops that have been genetically-modified to produce their own pesticides. Gene transfer to non-target species Another concern is that crop plants engineered for herbicide tolerance and weeds will cross-breed, resulting in the transfer of the herbicide resistance genes from the crops into the weeds. These â€Å"superweeds† would then be herbicide tolerant as well. Other introduced genes may cross over into non-modified crops planted next to GM crops. The possibility of interbreeding is shown by the defense of farmers against lawsuits filed by Monsanto. The company has filed patent infringement lawsuits against farmers who may have harvested GM crops. Monsanto claims that the farmers obtained Monsanto-licensed GM seeds from an unknown source and did not pay royalties to Monsanto. The farmers claim that their unmodified crops were cross-pollinated from someone else’s GM crops planted a field or two away. More investigation is needed to resolve this issue. There are several possible solutions to the three problems mentioned above. Genes are exchanged between plants via pollen. Two ways to ensure that non-target species will not receive introduced genes from GM plants are to create GM plants that are male sterile (do not produce pollen) or to modify the GM plant so that the pollen does not contain the introduced gene24, 25, 26. Cross-pollination would not occur, and if harmless insects such as monarch caterpillars were to eat pollen from GM plants, the caterpillars would survive. Another possible solution is to create buffer zones around fields of GM crops27, 28, 29. For example, non-GM corn would be planted to surround a field of B. t. GM corn, and the non-GM corn would not be harvested. Beneficial or harmless insects would have a refuge in the non-GM corn, and insect pests could be allowed to destroy the non-GM corn and would not develop resistance to B. t. pesticides. Gene transfer to weeds and other crops would not occur because the wind-blown pollen would not travel beyond the buffer zone. Estimates of the necessary width of buffer zones range from 6 meters to 30 meters or more30. This planting method may not be feasible if too much acreage is required for the buffer zones. Human health risks Allergenicity Many children in the US and Europe have developed life-threatening allergies to peanuts and other foods. There is a possibility that introducing a gene into a plant may create a new allergen or cause an allergic reaction in susceptible individuals. A proposal to incorporate a gene from Brazil nuts into soybeans was abandoned because of the fear of causing unexpected allergic reactions31. Extensive testing of GM foods may be required to avoid the possibility of harm to consumers with food allergies. Labeling of GM foods and food products will acquire new importance, which I shall discuss later. Unknown effects on human health There is a growing concern that introducing foreign genes into food plants may have an unexpected and negative impact on human health. A recent article published in Lancet examined the effects of GM potatoes on the digestive tract in rats32, 33. This study claimed that there were appreciable differences in the intestines of rats fed GM potatoes and rats fed unmodified potatoes. Yet critics say that this paper, like the monarch butterfly data, is flawed and does not hold up to scientific scrutiny34. Moreover, the gene introduced into the potatoes was a snowdrop flower lectin, a substance known to be toxic to mammals. The scientists who created this variety of potato chose to use the lectin gene simply to test the methodology, and these potatoes were never intended for human or animal consumption. On the whole, with the exception of possible allergenicity, scientists believe that GM foods do not present a risk to human health. Economic concerns Bringing a GM food to market is a lengthy and costly process, and of course agri-biotech companies wish to ensure a profitable return on their investment. Many new plant genetic engineering technologies and GM plants have been patented, and patent infringement is a big concern of agribusiness. Yet consumer advocates are worried that patenting these new plant varieties will raise the price of seeds so high that small farmers and third world countries will not be able to afford seeds for GM crops, thus widening the gap between the wealthy and the poor. It is hoped that in a humanitarian gesture, more companies and non-profits will follow the lead of the Rockefeller Foundation and offer their products at reduced cost to impoverished nations. Patent enforcement may also be difficult, as the contention of the farmers that they involuntarily grew Monsanto-engineered strains when their crops were cross-pollinated shows. One way to combat possible patent infringement is to introduce a â€Å"suicide gene† into GM plants. These plants would be viable for only one growing season and would produce sterile seeds that do not germinate. Farmers would need to buy a fresh supply of seeds each year. However, this would be financially disastrous for farmers in third world countries who cannot afford to buy seed each year and traditionally set aside a portion of their harvest to plant in the next growing season. In an open letter to the public, Monsanto has pledged to abandon all research using this suicide gene technology35. How are GM foods regulated and what is the government’s role in this process? Governments around the world are hard at work to establish a regulatory process to monitor the effects of and approve new varieties of GM plants. Yet depending on the political, social and economic climate within a region or country, different governments are responding in different ways. In Japan, the Ministry of Health and Welfare has announced that health testing of GM foods will be mandatory as of April 200136, 37. Currently, testing of GM foods is voluntary. Japanese supermarkets are offering both GM foods and unmodified foods, and customers are beginning to show a strong preference for unmodified fruits and vegetables. India’s government has not yet announced a policy on GM foods because no GM crops are grown in India and no products are commercially available in supermarkets yet38. India is, however, very supportive of transgenic plant research. It is highly likely that India will decide that the benefits of GM foods outweigh the risks because Indian agriculture will need to adopt drastic new measures to counteract the country’s endemic poverty and feed its exploding population. Some states in Brazil have banned GM crops entirely, and the Brazilian Institute for the Defense of Consumers, in collaboration with Greenpeace, has filed suit to prevent the importation of GM crops39,. Brazilian farmers, however, have resorted to smuggling GM soybean seeds into the country because they fear economic harm if they are unable to compete in the global marketplace with other grain-exporting countries. In Europe, anti-GM food protestors have been especially active. In the last few years Europe has experienced two major foods scares: bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) in Great Britain and dioxin-tainted foods originating from Belgium. These food scares have undermined consumer confidence about the European food supply, and citizens are disinclined to trust government information about GM foods. In response to the public outcry, Europe now requires mandatory food labeling of GM foods in stores, and the European Commission (EC) has established a 1% threshold for contamination of unmodified foods with GM food products40. In the United States, the regulatory process is confused because there are three different government agencies that have jurisdiction over GM foods. To put it very simply, the EPA evaluates GM plants for environmental safety, the USDA evaluates whether the plant is safe to grow, and the FDA evaluates whether the plant is safe to eat. The EPA is responsible for regulating substances such as pesticides or toxins that may cause harm to the environment. GM crops such as B. t. pesticide-laced corn or herbicide-tolerant crops but not foods modified for their nutritional value fall under the purview of the EPA. The USDA is responsible for GM crops that do not fall under the umbrella of the EPA such as drought-tolerant or disease-tolerant crops, crops grown for animal feeds, or whole fruits, vegetables and grains for human consumption. The FDA historically has been concerned with pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and food products and additives, not whole foods. Under current guidelines, a genetically-modified ear of corn sold at a produce stand is not regulated by the FDA because it is a whole food, but a box of cornflakes is regulated because it is a food product. The FDA’s stance is that GM foods are substantially equivalent to unmodified, â€Å"natural† foods, and therefore not subject to FDA regulation. The EPA conducts risk assessment studies on pesticides that could potentially cause harm to human health and the environment, and establishes tolerance and residue levels for pesticides. There are strict limits on the amount of pesticides that may be applied to crops during growth and production, as well as the amount that remains in the food after processing. Growers using pesticides must have a license for each pesticide and must follow the directions on the label to accord with the EPA’s safety standards. Government inspectors may periodically visit farms and conduct investigations to ensure compliance. Violation of government regulations may result in steep fines, loss of license and even jail sentences. As an example the EPA regulatory approach, consider B.t. corn. The EPA has not established limits on residue levels in B. t corn because the B. t. in the corn is not sprayed as a chemical pesticide but is a gene that is integrated into the genetic material of the corn itself. Growers must have a license from the EPA for B. t corn, and the EPA has issued a letter for the 2000 growing season requiring farmers to plant 20% unmodified corn, and up to 50% unmodified corn in regions where cotton is also cultivated41. This planting strategy may help prevent insects from developing resistance to the B.t. pesticides as well as provide a refuge for non-target insects such as Monarch butterflies. The USDA has many internal divisions that share responsibility for assessing GM foods. Among these divisions are APHIS, the Animal Health and Plant Inspection Service, which conducts field tests and issues permits to grow GM crops, the Agricultural Research Service which performs in-house GM food research, and the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service which oversees the USDA risk assessment program. The USDA is concerned with potential hazards of the plant itself. Does it harbor insect pests? Is it a noxious weed? Will it cause harm to indigenous species if it escapes from farmer’s fields? The USDA has the power to impose quarantines on problem regions to prevent movement of suspected plants, restrict import or export of suspected plants, and can even destroy plants cultivated in violation of USDA regulations. Many GM plants do not require USDA permits from APHIS. A GM plant does not require a permit if it meets these 6 criteria: 1) the plant is not a noxious weed; 2) the genetic material introduced into the GM plant is stably integrated into the plant’s own genome; 3) the function of the introduced gene is known and does not cause plant disease; 4) the GM plant is not toxic to non-target organisms; 5) the introduced gene will not cause the creation of new plant viruses; and 6) the GM plant cannot contain genetic material from animal or human pathogens (see http://www. aphis. usda.gov:80/bbep/bp/7cfr340 ). The current FDA policy was developed in 1992 (Federal Register Docket No. 92N-0139) and states that agri-biotech companies may voluntarily ask the FDA for a consultation. Companies working to create new GM foods are not required to consult the FDA, nor are they required to follow the FDA’s recommendations after the consultation. Consumer interest groups wish this process to be mandatory, so that all GM food products, whole foods or otherwise, must be approved by the FDA before being released for commercialization. The FDA counters that the agency currently does not have the time, money, or resources to carry out exhaustive health and safety studies of every proposed GM food product. Moreover, the FDA policy as it exists today does not allow for this type of intervention. How are GM foods labeled? Labeling of GM foods and food products is also a contentious issue. On the whole, agribusiness industries believe that labeling should be voluntary and influenced by the demands of the free market. If consumers show preference for labeled foods over non-labeled foods, then industry will have the incentive to regulate itself or risk alienating the customer. Consumer interest groups, on the other hand, are demanding mandatory labeling. People have the right to know what they are eating, argue the interest groups, and historically industry has proven itself to be unreliable at self-compliance with existing safety regulations. The FDA’s current position on food labeling is governed by the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act which is only concerned with food additives, not whole foods or food products that are considered â€Å"GRAS† – generally recognized as safe. The FDA contends that GM foods are substantially equivalent to non-GM foods, and therefore not subject to more stringent labeling. If all GM foods and food products are to be labeled, Congress must enact sweeping changes in the existing food labeling policy. There are many questions that must be answered if labeling of GM foods becomes mandatory. First, are consumers willing to absorb the cost of such an initiative? If the food production industry is required to label GM foods, factories will need to construct two separate processing streams and monitor the production lines accordingly. Farmers must be able to keep GM crops and non-GM crops from mixing during planting, harvesting and shipping. It is almost assured that industry will pass along these additional costs to consumers in the form of higher prices. Secondly, what are the acceptable limits of GM contamination in non-GM products? The EC has determined that 1% is an acceptable limit of cross-contamination, yet many consumer interest groups argue that only 0% is acceptable. Some companies such as Gerber baby foods42 and Frito-Lay43 have pledged to avoid use of GM foods in any of their products. But who is going to monitor these companies for compliance and what is the penalty if they fail? Once again, the FDA does not have the resources to carry out testing to ensure compliance. What is the level of detectability of GM food cross-contamination? Scientists agree that current technology is unable to detect minute quantities of contamination, so ensuring 0% contamination using existing methodologies is not guaranteed. Yet researchers disagree on what level of contamination really is detectable, especially in highly processed food products such as vegetable oils or breakfast cereals where the vegetables used to make these products have been pooled from many different sources. A 1% threshold may already be below current levels of detectability. Finally, who is to be responsible for educating the public about GM food labels and how costly will that education be? Food labels must be designed to clearly convey accurate information about the product in simple language that everyone can understand. This may be the greatest challenge faced be a new food labeling policy: how to educate and inform the public without damaging the public trust and causing alarm or fear of GM food products. In January 2000, an international trade agreement for labeling GM foods was established44, 45. More than 130 countries, including the US, the world’s largest producer of GM foods, signed the agreement. The policy states that exporters must be required to label all GM foods and that importing countries have the right to judge for themselves the potential risks and reject GM foods, if they so choose. This new agreement may spur the U. S. government to resolve the domestic food labeling dilemma more rapidly. Conclusion Genetically-modified foods have the potential to solve many of the world’s hunger and malnutrition problems, and to help protect and preserve the environment by increasing yield and reducing reliance upon chemical pesticides and herbicides. Yet there are many challenges ahead for governments, especially in the areas of safety testing, regulation, international policy and food labeling. Many people feel that genetic engineering is the inevitable wave of the future and that we cannot afford to ignore a technology that has such enormous potential benefits. However, we must proceed with caution to avoid causing unintended harm to human health and the environment as a result of our enthusiasm for this powerful technology.

Informative Essay Sample on Tornado What Are the Dangers

Informative Essay Sample on Tornado What Are the Dangers Throughout history, humans have been amazed and intrigued by the various forces of nature, particularly those associated with weather. This fascination can most readily be attributed to the fact that so many different weather patterns exist throughout the world. This diversity in climates results in a wide range of weather conditions; from relatively calm weather to dangerously violent storms. Despite the great variation in weather patterns among the worlds many climates, tornadoes are one weather phenomenon that have been known to occur in almost every climate on Earth. Because a tornado is one of the worlds most deadly forces of nature, it is important for humans to strive to understand what tornadoes are, how they are formed, their potential dangers, and how to better predict the formation of tornadoes so that effective warnings can be issued. In order to completely understand the dangers of tornadoes, it is important to examine the current explanations for how and why tornadoes form. Tornadoes are most often generated by supercell storms. Supercell storms are particularly large, severe storms that develop in highly unstable environments in which cool, dry air lies above warm, moist air. Supercells typically form in the United States during the Spring as warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico flows north and comes in contact with cooler, dryer layers of air. The Midwestern section of the United States tends to be the location for the majority of the countrys tornadoes. Because of this, the area from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes, spanning over one thousand miles wide, is referred to as tornado alley. Although the number of tornadoes reported in the United States each year may seem rather high, in actuality only one percent of all thunderstorms make tornadoes. Of the total number of tornadoes recorded each year, on average, seventy-nine percent are considered to be weak, twenty percent are rated as strong, and one percent are recorded as violent. Although tornadoes appear mostly in the United States, they have been reported worldwide. It is evident that tornadoes are not isolated to the tornado alley of the United States, but do occur in all different types of regions all over the earth. Once it is understood of how and why tornadoes form, the next step is to attempt to predict their behavior. Due to the strength of the winds within a tornado, the path that it takes may highly unpredictable. The tornado may move in a circular motion or turn to the left or right. Due to their extremely high wind speed, tornadoes have the ability to cause a great deal of damage, but they also have been known to produce some extremely unusual events. They are known to carry cars and even houses miles. And leave people homeless and without any belongings on the street. Because some tornadoes appear to be more damaging than others, a system has been created to rate these storms according to their destructive potential. The Fujita scale ranks tornadoes according to their speed and the size of their path. The scale ranges from F0 to F5 (F0 being least destructive and F5 being most destructive). An F0 tornado causes light damage to chimneys, shallow-rooted trees, and sign boards. In the middle of the scale, an F2 tornado causes considerable damage by tearing roofs off frame houses, demolishing mobile homes, snapping large trees, and carrying light objects. On the most destructive end of the scale, an F5 tornado causes incredible destruction. Such tornadoes can lift strong frame houses off their foundations and carry them considerable distances to disintegrate, carry automobile-sized objects through the air for hundreds of feet, and even de-bark trees. With the help of modern technology, meteorologists and weather researchers have gotten a lot more experience in the area of tornado forecasting. Through satellite images meteorologists have made it possible to detect the shape of the clouds. Knowing the shape and the type of the cloud system that produces a storm helps meteorologists to predict whether or not a tornado will be produced. This method of tornado monitoring has been useful in the past. However, the most effective method of monitoring severe storms is the use of Doppler radar. It measures wind speeds by bouncing microwaves off rain, dust, and other objects in the air. Doppler radar is proving to be a valuable tool in predicting the formation of tornadoes. Using radar images of a storm, meteorologists can identify rotation within clouds thirty minutes before a tornado will emerge. Forecasters issue tornado warnings at the first sign of a developing tornado. This gives the public more time to be ready for the tornado to touch down. The Optical Transient Detector(OTD) was invented in 1995, by NASA. This was the first invention able to detect lightning events during both day and night. Its job was to detect and increased number of cloud to cloud lightning flashes. The OTD was able to detect more lightning passes from cloud to cloud than between clouds and Earth just before tornadoes are made. Its limitations are that its only use is that its only able to find tornados only moment before they hit the ground. The OTD technology, however, is useful in that it can detect the formation of a tornado much quicker than Doppler radar. The more we learn about tornadoes and storms that can create them, the more they seem to become even more of a mystery. It is possible that some insight we have yet to find will help in our understanding of tornadoes. On the other hand, new research may not result in a quick understanding, but may raise new and even more confusing issues scientists will have to deal with. Until the many questions about tornadoes are answered, tornadoes will remain one of mother natures biggest destructors.

Painting from History Essays

Painting from History Essays Painting from History Essay Painting from History Essay This Is an OLL palpating on canvas. Basically Its a very old picture, but the color Is still very bright. The painter would like to describe a picture that fruits stacked on a market stand, there were many different kinds, with a lot of colors. The picture looked so beautiful that people always stopped and appreciated it. Fruits were not displayed disorderly. All the fruits were placed into three columns. Some of them with bigger sizes were put in both sides, while the smaller ones such as plums, green grapes, rapes, were placed in sequence from top to bottom in the middle of the picture. The fruits with a similar color were not also put together. Pink peaches were placed on the upper right corner, while red tomatoes were put under them, and yellow pears were displayed in the bottom right corner. Red apples, oranges and green apples were also placed in order on the left sides. It was a trenchancy comparison, and the customers can easily find what they want, save their time and feel more confident. The business of this counter must be very prosperous because the colors of the fruit coked so bright that It made us feel they must be very delicious, so did the customers. When I was looking at the picture, I even couldnt help picking the fruits off to eat. The fruits were not just on the table, but you couldnt see the table in the painting because the sellers spread a piece of cloth below each bigger fruit, in order to keep them fresh and clean, and the table had been hide. But instead, each smaller one would be put into a box, because these small fruits would be easily scattered all over the floor without containers. Whats more, there were some plants with dark green leaves placed behind the fruits. The whole scene gave us a comfortable feeling. It would help the customers felt more relax and enjoyed their shopping. Z This picture was Just painted a common fruit shelf in a market. But the seller not only sold his fruit, but also beat his brain to layout the table. Customers came here to buy some fruits, liked watching a fruit exhalation with varies of colors. It Is sure that the painters also loved this scene, so he painted It, and let the reader be personally on he scene. Descriptive Essay By Sirocco This is an oil painting on canvas. Basically its a very old picture, but the color is still looked so bright that it made us feel they must be very delicious, so did the customers. When I was looking at the picture, I even couldnt help picking the fruits off to eat. The fruits were not Just on the table, but you couldnt see the table in the some fruits, liked watching a fruit exhibition with varies of colors. It is sure that the painters also loved this scene, so he painted it, and let the reader be personally on

Pharaoh Hatshepsut of Egypt Biography

Pharaoh Hatshepsut of Egypt Biography Hatshepsut (Hatshepsowe), one of the rare women pharaohs of Egypt, had a long and successful reign marked by remarkable building projects and lucrative trading expeditions. She campaigned in Nubia (perhaps not in person), sent a fleet of ships to the land of Punt, and had an impressive temple and mortuary complex built in the Valley of the Kings. Hatshepsut was the half-sister and wife of Thutmose II (who died after only a few years on the throne). Hatshepsuts nephew and stepson, Thutmose III, was in line for the throne of Egypt, but he was still young, and so Hatshepsut took over. Being a woman was an obstacle, although a Middle Kingdom female pharaoh, Sobekneferu/Neferusobek, had ruled before her, in the 12th dynasty, so Hatshepsut had precedent. After her death, but not immediately. her name was erased and her tomb destroyed. The reasons continue to be debated. Occupation Ruler Dates and Titles Hatshepsut lived in the 15th century B.C. and ruled in the early part of the 18th Dynasty in Egypt the period known as the New Kingdom. The dates of her rule are variously given as 1504-1482, 1490/88-1468, 1479-1457, and 1473-1458 B.C. (according to Joyce Tyldesleys Hatchepsut). Her reign dates from the start of Thutmose III, her stepson, and nephew, with whom she was co-regent. Hatshepsut was pharaoh or king of Egypt for about 15-20 years. The dating is uncertain. Josephus, quoting Manetho (the father of Egyptian history), says her reign lasted about 22 years. Before becoming pharaoh, Hatshepsut had been Thutmose IIs main or Great Royal Wife. She had not produced a male heir, but he did have sons by other wives, including Thutmoses III. Family Hatshepsut was the oldest daughter of Tuthmose I and Aahmes. She married her half-brother Thutmose II when their father died. She was the mother of Princess Neferure. Other Names WosretkauMaat-ka-reKhnemetamun Hatshepsut Feminine or Masculine Appearance of Hatshepsut A fascinating New Kingdom ruler, Hatshepsut is depicted in a short kilt, a crown or head cloth, a collar and a false beard (Tyldesley, p.130 Hatchepsut). One limestone statue shows her without a beard and with breasts, but usually, her body is masculine. Tyldesley says a childhood depiction presents her with male genitalia. The pharaoh seems to have appeared female or male as need dictated. The pharaoh was expected to be a male in order to maintain the right order of the world Maat. A female upset this order. Besides being male, a pharaoh was expected to intervene with the gods on behalf of the people and be fit. Hatshepsuts Athletic Skill Wolfgang Decker, an expert on sport among the ancient Egyptians, says that at the Sed festival, pharaohs, including Hatshepsut, made a circuit of the pyramid complex of Djoser. The pharaohs run had 3 functions: to demonstrate the pharaohs fitness after 30 years in power, to make a symbolic circuit of his territory, and to symbolically rejuvenate him.[Source: Donald G. Kyle. Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World] It is worth noting that the mummified body, thought to be that of the female pharaoh, was middle-aged and obese. Deir El-bahri (Deir El Bahari) Hatshepsut had a mortuary temple known and without hyperbole as Djeser-Djeseru Sublime of the Sublimes. It was built of limestone at Deir el-Bahri, near where she had her tombs built, in the Valley of the Kings. The temple was primarily dedicated to Amun (as a garden to her so-called [divine] father Amun), but also to the gods Hathor and Anubis. Its architect was Senenmut (Senmut) who may have been her consort and seems to have predeceased his queen. Hatshepsut also restored Amuns temples elsewhere in Egypt. Sometime after Hatshepsuts death, all temple references to her were chiseled off. For more information on this temple, see Archaeology Guide Kris Hirsts The Cache at Deir el-Bahri - Hatshepsuts Palace in Egypt. Hatshepsuts Mummy In the Valley of the Kings is a tomb, called KV60, that Howard Carter found in 1903. It contained 2 badly damaged mummies of women. One was of Hatshepsuts nurse, Sitre. The other was an obese middle-aged woman about 51 tall with her left arm across her chest in a royal position. Evisceration had been performed through her pelvic floor instead of the normal side cut because of her obesity. Sitres mummy was removed in 1906, but the obese mummy was left. American Egyptologist Donald P. Ryan rediscovered the tomb in 1989. It has been suggested that this mummy is that of Hatshepsut and that it was removed to this tomb from KV20 either following a robbery or to protect her from the attempted obliteration of her memory. Egypts Minister of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, believes a tooth in a box and other DNA evidence proves this is the body of the female pharaoh. Death The cause of Hatshepsuts death, according to a New York Times article from June 27, 2007, citing Zahi Hawass, is thought to be bone cancer. She also appears to have been diabetic, obese, with bad teeth, and about 50-years-old. The body of the pharaoh was identified by a tooth. Sources Chronicle of the Pharaohs, by Peter A. Clayton; Thames Hudson: 1994.Silent Images: Women in Pharaonic Egypt, by Zahi HawassHatchepsut: The Female Pharaoh,  by Joyce A. Tyldesley

Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 13

Business - Essay Example The movie profiles the cases of seven employees who have acquired injuries in the course of their employment. One of the victims is Marcos Lopez. He has worked in the company since high school. Marcos suffers serious back injuries from working form long hours sometimes up to sixteen hours in a day. The company Tyler pipe has a record of violating the safety rules. A former engineer with the company, Ron Howard describes the company’s policies that safety is sacrificed to increase productivity and make profits at the expense of humans. In a scene on the movie, a man dies when moving iron parts. The corporation responds by saying that he was a good man who made a very big mistake. Other actors featured are Kennedy Valve and Frank Wagner. They are ordered to dispose of toxic paint into an incinerator. Frank Wagner dies from an explosion in the oven. The company also does not provide adequate training for the job. Mc Wane Company also requires employees to sign a contract that they should never sue it and therefore benefiting from the compensation. The movie also features a single director for the entire plant known as Clyde Doran. The director does not have authority to stop production. He is also ordered to withhold information from officials. After the death of Frank Wagner, criminal charges were forwarded against the company. They were charged with criminal negligence. Consequently, Mc Wane threatened a massive loss of jobs if forced to change its policies. Other late discoveries were made. Delaware River had an eight-mile oil stick that came from a Mc Wane pipe plants holding tank. The companies holding tanks were not big enough for toxic waste that the company produced. In response, Mc Wane defended itself by saying that with competition from all over the world mainly China and Latin America, it is hard to maintain the environmental

Capital punishment Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Capital punishment - Research Paper Example At present capital punishment is abolished in maximum countries but there are some countries like USA, India and China where it is still practiced though in the rarest of the rare cases. The idea behind capital punishment crops from the medieval concept which means to repay back in blood for the blood taken. Their thinking behind favoring capital punishment is that it reduced state expenses by putting the person to death immediately, sending a strong message to the society against the crime and thus allows a retribution of the crime. The argument can thus be stated that As capital punishment or death penalty is a debatable issue, there are many scholarly reviews that focused on both the aspects of this situation. The paper would focus on those scholarly resources where death penalty has been favored over its abolishment. In the article â€Å"Should we reintroduce the death penalty?† capital punishment has been shown to be favored by the people of Australia. In the article it was seen that people of Australia reacted in favor of capital punishment over a particularly brutal murder of a nurse named Anita Cobby in 1986 (Should we reintroduce the death penalty?, 1990, p.6). The article was divided into two groups of persons. The group against it said that it was the most barbaric and medieval form of torture inflicted on the person. It could increase violence. The group favoring it said that death penalty helped to reduce the threat to the social order as in the absence of such an extreme measure, solidarity of the society could be hampered. They also argued that imprisonment cannot guarantee that upon release the person would not commit the same crime again. They also stated that keeping a criminal in prison would simple add up to the cost of the state economy (Should we reintroduce the death pe nalty?, 1990, p.6). So it would be judicious

Credit card frauds Literature review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Credit card frauds - Literature review Example Gomez (2008) observes in this regard that a rich businessman of United States Frank X. McNamara helped to enhance the concept of credit in regards to making purchases of consumer products and other utilities. McNamara worked to bring about the Diners Club cards which helped many people to avail meals on credit (Gomez, 2008, p.461). Definition and Type of Credit Cards Credit cards emerge as a better substitution for cash through which the consumers can go for purchasing different categories of commodities. Sander (2003) observes in this respect that credit card companies relate different types of products and services with the credit cards. However these companies are largely complained for charging high amount of interests and large amount of fees from the customers. Further, Sander (2003) observes that there are essentially three main different types of credit cards viz. ... In this regard, Bailyn (2007) states that use of credit cards helps in generation of protection to the consumers in regards to purchase of commodities. The consumers can easily return such purchases if availed through credit cards rather than cash. Again the use of credit cards also helps the financial organisations to gain easy access to potential information pertaining to the credit position of the individuals before rendering credit cards (Bailyn, 2007, p.30). Definition and History of Credit Card Frauds Fraud activities have earned a new dimension through the manipulative measures taken with the help of credit cards. Joshi (2006) states in this respect that fraudulent activities concerning misappropriation of financial resources through the use of credit cards constructs the basic premises of credit card fraud. Unauthorized access to accounts through the use of credit card or activities to gain possession of large number of goods and services through adulterated use of credit car ds are examples of credit card fraud (Joshi, 2006, p.40). Enhancement of fraudulent activities pertaining to credit card came into emergence with the development of internet. Montague (2004) observes in this respect that after the period of 1990s the development of internet technology has helped in the progress of electronic commerce. The use of credit cards to conduct such transactions online has led to the growth of hackers to retrieve potential information relating to such cards (Montague, 2004, p.43). Types of Credit Card Frauds With the growth of sophistication in consumerism the use of credit cards has gained huge momentum. Consumers around the world are found to increasingly gain hold of large number of consumer products through the extensive use of plastic

Nathaniel hawthorne Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Nathaniel hawthorne - Essay Example Particularly, I will compare these protagonists, Hilda and Prynne Hester. The Marble Faun is a story that tells of Donatello, a faun, who found himself among the human race. The narrative explored themes such as innocence corrupted by passion, the progress from a guilty despair to penitence and responsibility, and happiness regained but tinged with sorrow. This would also be the theme examined in The Scarlet Letter as the novel criticized the Puritan morality with characters created to challenge not only traditional basis of morality but also the more recent foundation in the gender conventions of the nineteenth century. Few characters are more objectionable to the modern reader than Hawthorne’s Hilda, the daughter of the Puritans. She is accused of being egotistic and frigid, and her rejection of Miriam is considered inexcusable. The principle that Hilda represented was that of a mortal’s first duty to his own salvation. While Hawthorne sufficiently underscored the objectionable characteristics of Hilda as seen and highlighted by other characters, he strived to suggest that the unswerving virtue in the pursuit of her salvation, though others may find selfish, is a valid and important religious conduct. He stressed this through Kenyon’s character: while he depended upon a reasoned morality, he believed that Hilda’s heart knows the truth and that like a steel blade to which she is twice compared, she sliced a clear distinction between good and evil. In the end, in an approach that would also be employed in Scarlet Letter’s Prynne, Hawthorne, would not condemn but so ften Hilda’s flaws as some form of redemption. The daughter of the Puritan was placed in a position to that in which she had found Miriam when she rejected her and hence, carried an overwhelming burden and needs to confide in someone. The ensuing experiences would let us find Hilda changed. She still affirmed that there

Week4Journal PHI445 Personal & Organizational Ethics Assignment

Week4Journal PHI445 Personal & Organizational Ethics - Assignment Example 1). Customers value affordability and are willing to shift to cheaper options while competitors discount their products. This occurs amidst high production costs. Competitiveness of the fast food industry, cost of production, and scarcity of resources among consumers are the reasons for the pressure and identifies competitors, consumers, and production resources as the responsible factors to the problem that strains McDonalds’ profit margin. Reducing production costs through retrenching some workers and increasing workload of remaining workers, developing a brand image that will attract and retain customers are some of the possible solutions to the problem. Brand imaging is the better solution because of its focus on the market and its high probability of success through marketing initiatives. in addition and contrary to reducing number of employees and increasing their workload that promises harm to the society, brand imaging promises benefits to the company, its employees wh o will retain their jobs, and consumers who will derive greater utility. Marketing challenges and scepticism are however significant to brand image development (Wong, 2013). Change in taste and preferences challenge the company’s objectives by reducing perceived value of its products and increasing competition from retailers that the changes favour. The changes may be pushed by customers needs or pulled by competitors’ innovation and this identify responsibility of the two classes of stakeholders. The change leads to reduced demand and therefore lower profitability of the organization. Sensitivity to customers’ needs and market trends, and innovation into influencing customers’ taste are the possible solutions. Research based innovation is the suitable solution because of its wide scope and benevolence even though it faces the cost challenge (Wong, 2013). CARE International is an international nongovernmental organization that deals in

Nathaniel hawthorne Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Nathaniel hawthorne - Essay Example Particularly, I will compare these protagonists, Hilda and Prynne Hester. The Marble Faun is a story that tells of Donatello, a faun, who found himself among the human race. The narrative explored themes such as innocence corrupted by passion, the progress from a guilty despair to penitence and responsibility, and happiness regained but tinged with sorrow. This would also be the theme examined in The Scarlet Letter as the novel criticized the Puritan morality with characters created to challenge not only traditional basis of morality but also the more recent foundation in the gender conventions of the nineteenth century. Few characters are more objectionable to the modern reader than Hawthorne’s Hilda, the daughter of the Puritans. She is accused of being egotistic and frigid, and her rejection of Miriam is considered inexcusable. The principle that Hilda represented was that of a mortal’s first duty to his own salvation. While Hawthorne sufficiently underscored the objectionable characteristics of Hilda as seen and highlighted by other characters, he strived to suggest that the unswerving virtue in the pursuit of her salvation, though others may find selfish, is a valid and important religious conduct. He stressed this through Kenyon’s character: while he depended upon a reasoned morality, he believed that Hilda’s heart knows the truth and that like a steel blade to which she is twice compared, she sliced a clear distinction between good and evil. In the end, in an approach that would also be employed in Scarlet Letter’s Prynne, Hawthorne, would not condemn but so ften Hilda’s flaws as some form of redemption. The daughter of the Puritan was placed in a position to that in which she had found Miriam when she rejected her and hence, carried an overwhelming burden and needs to confide in someone. The ensuing experiences would let us find Hilda changed. She still affirmed that there

Irish Catholic Church Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Irish Catholic Church - Essay Example The Church was the moral watch dog of Irish society, which was reflected in the Irish Law. This influence of the Catholic Church was diluted leading to the dilution of the strength of influence that the Catholic Church had over all spheres of life in Ireland (Social Changes). The present generation of Catholics in Ireland no longer demonstrated the same devotion that their parents demonstrated to the Catholic Church and in that show a detachment from the institutional church. These changes in Catholic belief and practice have resulted in the reduced attachment for the morals and values that emanate from the institution of the Catholic Church (Inglis, 2007). This reduced attachment for Catholic morals and values as dictated by the Catholic Church has meant the diminished influence of the Catholic moral against excess of economic prosperity and the diminished concentration of the Irish people on an attempt to reunite Protestant dominated Northern Ireland with Ireland. This change in the morals and values of the people of Ireland have allowed for the people of Ireland to concentrate on agricultural and industrial growth and development (Shirlow, 2003). The decline of the Irish Catholic Church in Ireland has seen the rise of new a religion in Ireland and that is the religion of economic growth that leads to prosperity in society. It is this embracing of the religion of economic growth that has influenced changes in the industrial and agricultural spheres of activity in Ireland and Ireland earning the name of the Celtic Tiger (Gormley, 2000). The result of removal of the narrowed concentration of the people of Ireland on Northern Ireland coupled with the embracing of the religion of economic growth and prosperity has resulted in the dramatic changes in the industry and agriculture in Ireland, leading to Ireland becoming wealthy from the mid-1990s. This growth in prosperity, which has resulted from changes in

Minority Group and Multiculturalism Essay Example for Free

Minority Group and Multiculturalism Essay Ideas about the legal and political accommodation of ethnic diversity — commonly termed â€Å"multiculturalism† — emerged in the West as a vehicle for replacing older forms of ethnic and racial hierarchy with new relations of democratic citizenship. Despite substantial evidence that these policies are making progress toward that goal, a chorus of political leaders has declared them a failure and heralded the death of multiculturalism. This popular master narrative is problematic because it mischaracterizes the nature of the experiments in multiculturalism that have been undertaken, exaggerates the extent to which they have been abandoned, and misidentifies not only the genuine difficulties and limitations they have encountered but the options for addressing these problems. Talk about the retreat from multiculturalism has obscured the fact that a form of multicultural integration remains a live option for Western democracies. This report challenges four powerful myths about multiculturalism. First, it disputes the caricature of multiculturalism as the uncritical celebration of diversity at the expense of addressing grave societal problems such as unemployment and social isolation. Instead it offers an account of multiculturalism as the pursuit of new relations of democratic citizenship, inspired and constrained by human-rights ideals. Second, it contests the idea that multiculturalism has been in wholesale retreat, and offers instead evidence that multiculturalism policies (MCPs) have persisted, and have even grown stronger, over the past ten years. Third, it challenges the idea that multiculturalism has failed, and offers instead evidence that MCPs have had positive effects. Fourth, it disputes the idea that the spread of civic integration policies has displaced multiculturalism or rendered it obsolete. The report instead offers evidence that MCPs are fully consistent with certain forms of civic integration policies, and that indeed the combination of multiculturalism with an â€Å"enabling† form of civic integration is both normatively desirable and empirically effective in at least some cases. To help address these issues, this paper draws upon the Multiculturalism Policy Index. This index 1) identifies eight concrete policy areas where liberal-democratic states — faced with a choice — decided to develop more multicultural forms of citizenship in relation to immigrant groups and 2) measures the extent to which countries have espoused some or all of these policies over time. While there have been some high-profile cases of retreat from MCPs, such as the Netherlands, the general pattern from 1980 to 2010 has been one of modest strengthening. Ironically, some countries that have been vociferous about multiculturalism’s â€Å"failure† (e. g. , Germany) have not actually practiced an active multicultural strategy. Talk about the retreat from multiculturalism has obscured the fact that a form of multicultural integration remains a live option for Western democracies. However, not all attempts to adopt new models of multicultural citizenship have taken root or succeeded in achieving their intended effects. There are several factors that can either facilitate or impede the successful implementation of multiculturalism: Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future 1 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE Desecuritization of ethnic relations. Multiculturalism works best if relations between the state and minorities are seen as an issue of social policy, not as an issue of state security. If the state perceives immigrants to be a security threat (such as Arabs and Muslims after 9/11), support for multiculturalism will drop and the space for minorities to even voice multicultural claims will diminish. Human rights. Support for multiculturalism rests on the assumption that there is a shared commitment to human rights across ethnic and religious lines. If states perceive certain groups as unable or unwilling to respect human-rights norms, they are unlikely to accord them multicultural rights or resources. Much of the backlash against multiculturalism is fundamentally driven by anxieties about Muslims, in particular, and their perceived unwillingness to embrace liberal-democratic norms. Border control. Multiculturalism is more controversial when citizens fear they lack control over their borders — for instance when countries are faced with large numbers (or unexpected surges) of unauthorized immigrants or asylum seekers — than when citizens feel the borders are secure. Diversity of immigrant groups. Multiculturalism works best when it is genuinely multicultural — that is, when immigrants come from many source countries rather than coming overwhelmingly from just one (which is more likely to lead to polarized relations with the majority). Economic contributions. Support for multiculturalism depends on the perception that immigrants are holding up their end of the bargain and making a good-faith effort to contribute to society — particularly economically. When these facilitating conditions are present, multiculturalism can be seen as a low-risk option, and indeed seems to have worked well in such cases. Multiculturalism tends to lose support in high-risk situations where immigrants are seen as predominantly illegal, as potential carriers of illiberal practices or movements, or as net burdens on the welfare state. However, one could argue that rejecting immigrant multiculturalism under these circumstances is in fact the higher-risk move. It is precisely when immigrants are perceived as illegitimate, illiberal, and burdensome that multiculturalism may be most needed. I. Introduction Ideas about the legal and political accommodation of ethnic diversity have been in a state of flux around the world for the past 40 years. One hears much about the â€Å"rise and fall of multiculturalism. † Indeed, this has become a kind of master narrative, widely invoked by scholars, journalists, and policymakers alike to explain the evolution of contemporary debates about diversity. Although people disagree about what comes after multiculturalism, there is a surprising consensus that we are in a post-multicultural era. This report contends that this master narrative obscures as much as it reveals, and that we need an alternative framework for thinking about the choices we face. Multiculturalism’s successes and failures, as well as its level of public acceptance, have depended on the nature of the issues at stake and the countries involved, and we need to understand these variations if we are to identify a more sustainable model for accommodating diversity. This paper will argue that the master narrative 1) mischaracterizes the nature of the experiments in multiculturalism that have been undertaken, 2) exaggerates the extent to which they have been abandoned, and 3) misidentifies the genuine difficulties and limitations they have encountered and the options for addressing these problems. 2 Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE Before we can decide whether to celebrate or lament the fall of multiculturalism, we need first to make sure we know what multiculturalism has meant both in theory and in practice, where it has succeeded or failed to meet its objectives, and under what conditions it is likely to thrive in the future. The Rise and Fall of Multiculturalism The master narrative of the â€Å"rise and fall of multiculturalism† helpfully captures important features of our current debates. Yet in some respects it is misleading, and may obscure the real challenges and opportunities we face. In its simplest form, the master narrative goes like this:1 Since the mid-1990s we have seen a backlash and retreat from multiculturalism. From the 1970s to mid-1990s, there was a clear trend across Western democracies toward the increased recognition and accommodation of diversity through a range of multiculturalism policies (MCPs) and minority rights. These policies were endorsed both at the domestic level in some states and by international organizations, and involved a rejection of earlier ideas of unitary and homogeneous nationhood. Since the mid-1990s, however, we have seen a backlash and retreat from multiculturalism, and a reassertion of ideas of nation building, common values and identity, and unitary citizenship — even a call for the â€Å"return of assimilation. † This retreat is partly driven by fears among the majority group that the accommodation of diversity has â€Å"gone too far† and is threatening their way of life. This fear often expresses itself in the rise of nativist and populist right-wing political movements, such as the Danish People’s Party, defending old ideas of â€Å"Denmark for the Danish. † But the retreat also reflects a belief among the center-left that multiculturalism has failed to help the intended beneficiaries — namely, minorities themselves — because it has failed to address the underlying sources of their social, economic, and political exclusion and may have unintentionally contributed to their social isolation. As a result, even the center-left political movements that initially championed multiculturalism, such as the social democratic parties in Europe, have backed 1 For influential academic statements of this â€Å"rise and fall† narrative, claiming that it applies across the Western democracies, see Rogers Brubaker, â€Å"The Return of Assimilation? † Ethnic and Racial Studies 24, no. 4 (2001): 531–48; and Christian Joppke, â€Å"The Retreat of Multiculturalism in the Liberal State: Theory and Policy,† British Journal of Sociology 55, no. 2 (2004): 237–57. There are also many accounts of the â€Å"decline,† â€Å"retreat,† or â€Å"crisis† of multiculturalism in particular countries. For the Netherlands, see Han Entzinger, â€Å"The Rise and Fall of Multiculturalism in the Netherlands,† in Toward Assimilation and Citizenship: Immigrants in Liberal Nation-States, eds. Christian Joppke and Ewa Morawska (London: Palgrave, 2003) and Ruud Koopmans, â€Å"Trade-Offs between Equality and Difference: The Crisis of Dutch Multiculturalism in Cross-National Perspective† (Brief, Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen, December 2006). For Britain, see Randall Hansen, â€Å"Diversity, Integration and the Turn from Multiculturalism in the United Kingdom,† in Belonging? Diversity, Recognition and Shared Citizenship in Canada, eds. Keith G. Banting, Thomas J. Courchene, and F. Leslie Seidle (Montreal: Institute for Research on Public Policy, 2007); Les Back, Michael Keith, Azra Khan, Kalbir Shukra, and John Solomos, â€Å"New Labour’s White Heart: Politics, Multiculturalism and the Return of Assimilation,† Political Quarterly 73, No. 4 (2002): 445–54; Steven Vertovec, â€Å"Towards post-multiculturalism? Changing communities, conditions and contexts of diversity,† International Social Science Journal 61 (2010): 83–95. For Australia, see Ien Ang and John Stratton, â€Å"Multiculturalism in Crisis: The New Politics of Race and National Identity in Australia,† in On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West, ed. I. Ang (London: Routledge, 2001). For Canada, see Lloyd Wong, Joseph Garcea, and Anna Kirova, An Analysis of the ‘Anti- and Post-Multiculturalism’ Discourses: The Fragmentation Position (Alberta: Prairie Centre for Excellence in Research on Immigration and Integration, 2005), http://pmc.metropolis. Net/Virtual%20Library/FinalReports/Post-multi%20FINAL%20REPORT%20for%20PCERII%20_2_. pdf. For a good overview of the backlash discourse in various countries, see Steven Vertovec and Susan Wessendorf, eds. , The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices (London: Routledge, 2010). Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future 3 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE away from it and shifted to a discourse that emphasizes â€Å"civic integration,† â€Å"social cohesion,† â€Å"common values,† and â€Å"shared citizenship. †2 The social-democratic discourse of civic integration differs from the radical-right discourse in emphasizing the need to develop a more inclusive national identity and to fight racism and discrimination, but it nonetheless distances itself from the rhetoric and policies of multiculturalism. The term postmulticulturalism has often been invoked to signal this new approach, which seeks to overcome the limits of a naive or misguided multiculturalism while avoiding the oppressive reassertion of homogenizing nationalist ideologies. 3 II. What Is Multiculturalism? A. Misleading Model In much of the post-multiculturalist literature, multiculturalism is characterized as a feel-good celebration of ethnocultural diversity, encouraging citizens to acknowledge and embrace the panoply of customs, traditions, music, and cuisine that exist in a multiethnic society. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown calls this the â€Å"3S† model of multiculturalism in Britain — saris, samosas, and steeldrums. 4. Multiculturalism takes these familiar cultural markers of ethnic groups — clothing, cuisine, and music — and treats them as authentic practices to be preserved by their members and safely consumed by others. Under the banner of multiculturalism they are taught in school, performed in festivals, displayed in media and museums, and so on. This celebratory model of multiculturalism has been the focus of many critiques, including the following: It ignores issues of economic and political inequality. Even if all Britons come to enjoy Jamaican steeldrum music or Indian samosas, this would do nothing to address the real problems facing Caribbean and South Asian communities in Britain — problems of unemployment, poor educational outcomes, residential segregation, poor English language skills, and political marginalization. These economic and political issues cannot be solved simply by celebrating cultural differences. Even with respect to the (legitimate) goal of promoting greater understanding of cultural differences, the focus on celebrating â€Å"authentic† cultural practices that are â€Å"unique† to each group is potentially dangerous. First, not all customs that may be traditionally practiced within a particular group are worthy of being celebrated, or even of being legally tolerated, such as forced marriage. To avoid stirring up controversy, there’s a tendency to choose as the focus of multicultural celebrations safely inoffensive practices — such as cuisine or music — that can be enjoyably consumed by members of the larger society. But this runs the opposite risk 2. For an overview of the attitudes of European social democratic parties to these issues, see Rene Cuperus, Karl Duffek, and Johannes Kandel, eds. , The Challenge of Diversity: European Social Democracy Facing Migration, Integration and Multiculturalism (Innsbruck: Studien Verlag, 2003). For references to â€Å"post-multiculturalism† by progressive intellectuals, who distinguish it from the radical right’s â€Å"antimulticulturalism,† see, regarding the United Kingdom, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, After Multiculturalism (London: Foreign Policy Centre, 2000), and â€Å"Beyond Multiculturalism,† Canadian Diversity/Diversite Canadienne 3, no. 2 (2004): 51–4; regarding Australia, James Jupp, From White Australia to Woomera: The Story of Australian Immigration, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and regarding the United States, Desmond King, The Liberty of Strangers: Making the American Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), and David A. Hollinger, Post-ethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism, revised edition (New York: Basic Books, 2006). Alibhai-Brown, After Multiculturalism. 3 4 4 Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE of the trivialization or Disneyfication of cultural differences,5 ignoring the real challenges that differences in cultural and religious values can raise. Third, the 3S model of multiculturalism can encourage a conception of groups as hermetically sealed and static, each reproducing its own distinct practices. Multiculturalism may be intended to encourage people to share their customs, but the assumption that each group has its own distinctive customs ignores processes of cultural adaptation, mixing, and melange, as well as emerging cultural commonalities, thereby potentially reinforcing perceptions of minorities as eternally â€Å"other. † This in turn can lead to the strengthening of prejudice and stereotyping, and more generally to the polarization of ethnic relations. Fourth, this model can end up reinforcing power inequalities and cultural restrictions within minority groups. In deciding which traditions are â€Å"authentic,† and how to interpret and display them, the state generally consults the traditional elites within the group — typically older males — while ignoring the way these traditional practices (and traditional elites) are often challenged by internal reformers, who have different views about how, say, a â€Å"good Muslim† should act. It can therefore imprison people in â€Å"cultural scripts† that they are not allowed to question or dispute. According to post-multiculturalists, the growing recognition of these flaws underlies the retreat from multiculturalism and signals the search for new models of citizenship that emphasize 1) political participation and economic opportunities over the symbolic politics of cultural recognition, 2) human rights and individual freedom over respect for cultural traditions, 3) the building of inclusive national identities over the recognition of ancestral cultural identities, and 4) cultural change and cultural mixing over the reification of static cultural differences. This narrative about the rise and fall of 3S multiculturalism will no doubt be familiar to many readers. In my view, however, it is inaccurate. Not only is it a caricature of the reality of multiculturalism as it has developed over the past 40 years in the Western democracies, but it is a distraction from the real issues that we need to face. The 3S model captures something important about natural human tendencies to simplify ethnic differences, and about the logic of global capitalism to sell cosmopolitan cultural products, but it does not capture the nature of post-1960s government MCPs, which have had more complex historical sources and political goals. B. Multiculturalism in Context It is important to put multiculturalism in its historical context. In one sense, it is as old as humanity — different cultures have always found ways of coexisting, and respect for diversity was a familiar feature of many historic empires, such as the Ottoman Empire. But the sort of multiculturalism that is said to have had a â€Å"rise and fall† is a more specific historic phenomenon, emerging first in the Western democracies in the late 1960s. This timing is important, for it helps us situate multiculturalism in relation to larger social transformations of the postwar era. More specifically, multiculturalism is part of a larger human-rights revolution involving ethnic and racial diversity. Prior to World War II, ethnocultural and religious diversity in the West was characterized by a range of illiberal and undemocratic relationships of hierarchy,6 justified by racialist ideologies that explicitly propounded the superiority of some peoples and cultures and their right to rule over others. These ideologies were widely accepted throughout the Western world and underpinned both domestic laws (e. g. , racially biased immigration and citizenship policies) and foreign policies (e. g. , in relation to overseas colonies). 5 6 Neil Bissoondath, Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada. (Toronto: Penguin, 1994). Including relations of conqueror and conquered, colonizer and colonized, master and slave, settler and indigenous, racialized and unmarked, normalized and deviant, orthodox and heretic, civilized and primitive, and ally and enemy. Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future 5 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE After World War II, however, the world recoiled against Hitler’s fanatical and murderous use of such ideologies, and the United Nations decisively repudiated them in favor of a new ideology of the equality of races and peoples. And this new assumption of human equality generated a series of political movements designed to contest the lingering presence or enduring effects of older hierarchies. We can distinguish three â€Å"waves† of such movements: 1) the struggle for decolonization, concentrated in the period 1948–65; 2) the struggle against racial segregation and discrimination, initiated and exemplified by the AfricanAmerican civil-rights movement from 1955 to 1965; and 3) the struggle for multiculturalism and minority rights, which emerged in the late 1960s. Multiculturalism is part of a larger human-rights revolution involving ethnic and racial diversity. Each of these movements draws upon the human-rights revolution, and its foundational ideology of the equality of races and peoples, to challenge the legacies of earlier ethnic and racial hierarchies. Indeed, the human-rights revolution plays a double role here, not just as the inspiration for a struggle, but also as a constraint on the permissible goals and means of that struggle. Insofar as historically excluded or stigmatized groups struggle against earlier hierarchies in the name of equality, they too have to renounce their own traditions of exclusion or oppression in the treatment of, say, women, gays, people of mixed race, religious dissenters, and so on. Human rights, and liberal-democratic constitutionalism more generally, provide the overarching framework within which these struggles are debated and addressed. Each of these movements, therefore, can be seen as contributing to a process of democratic â€Å"citizenization† — that is, turning the earlier catalog of hierarchical relations into relationships of liberaldemocratic citizenship. This entails transforming both the vertical relationships between minorities and the state and the horizontal relationships among the members of different groups. In the past, it was often assumed that the only way to engage in this process of citizenization was to impose a single undifferentiated model of citizenship on all individuals. But the ideas and policies of multiculturalism that emerged from the 1960s start from the assumption that this complex history inevitably and appropriately generates group-differentiated ethnopolitical claims. The key to citizenization is not to suppress these differential claims but to filter them through and frame them within the language of human rights, civil liberties, and democratic accountability. And this is what multiculturalist movements have aimed to do. The precise character of the resulting multicultural reforms varies from group to group, as befits the distinctive history that each has faced. They all start from the antidiscrimination principle that underpinned the second wave but go beyond it to challenge other forms of exclusion or stigmatization. In most Western countries, explicit state-sponsored discrimination against ethnic, racial, or religious minorities had largely ceased by the 1960s and 1970s, under the influence of the second wave of humanrights struggles. Yet ethnic and racial hierarchies persist in many societies, whether measured in terms of economic inequalities, political underrepresentation, social stigmatization, or cultural invisibility. Various forms of multiculturalism have been developed to help overcome these lingering inequalities. The focus in this report is on multiculturalism as it pertains to (permanently settled) immigrant groups,7 7 There was briefly in some European countries a form of â€Å"multiculturalism† that was not aimed at the inclusion of permanent immigrants, but rather at ensuring that temporary migrants would return to their country of origin. For example, mothertongue education in Germany was not initially introduced â€Å"as a minority right but in order to enable guest worker children to reintegrate in their countries of origin† (Karen Schonwalder, â€Å"Germany: Integration Policy and Pluralism in a Self-Conscious Country of Immigration,† in The Multiculturalism Backlash: European Discourses, Policies and Practices, eds. Steven Vertovec and Susanne Wessendorf [London: Routledge, 2010], 160). Needless to say, this sort of â€Å"returnist† multiculturalism — premised on the idea that migrants are foreigners who should return to their real home — has nothing to do with multiculturalism policies (MCPs) premised on the idea that immigrants belong in their host countries, and which aim to make immigrants 6 Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE but it is worth noting that struggles for multicultural citizenship have also emerged in relation to historic minorities and indigenous peoples. 8 C. The Evolution of Multiculturalism Policies. The case of immigrant multiculturalism is just one aspect of a larger â€Å"ethnic revival† across the Western democracies,9 in which different types of minorities have struggled for new forms of multicultural citizenship that combine both antidiscrimination measures and positive forms of recognition and accommodation. Multicultural citizenship for immigrant groups clearly does not involve the same types of claims as for indigenous peoples or national minorities: immigrant groups do not typically seek land rights, territorial autonomy, or official language status. What then is the substance of multicultural citizenship in relation to immigrant groups? The Multiculturalism Policy Index is one attempt to measure the evolution of MCPs in a standardized format that enables comparative research. 10 The index takes the following eight policies as the most common or emblematic forms of immigrant MCPs:11 Constitutional, legislative, or parliamentary affirmation of multiculturalism, at the central and/ or regional and municipal levels The adoption of multiculturalism in school curricula The inclusion of ethnic representation/sensitivity in the mandate of public media or media licensing Exemptions from dress codes, either by statute or by court cases Allowing of dual citizenship The funding of ethnic group organizations to support cultural activities The funding of bilingual education or mother-tongue instruction Affirmative action for disadvantaged immigrant groups12 feel more at home where they are. The focus of this paper is on the latter type of multiculturalism, which is centrally concerned with constructing new relations of citizenship. 8 In relation to indigenous peoples, for example — such as the Maori in New Zealand, Aboriginal peoples in Canada and Australia, American Indians, the Sami in Scandinavia, and the Inuit of Greenland — new models of multicultural citizenship have emerged since the late 1960s that include policies such as land rights, self-government rights, recognition of customary laws, and guarantees of political consultation. And in relation to substate national groups — such as the Basques and Catalans in Spain, Flemish and Walloons in Belgium, Scots and Welsh in Britain, Quebecois in Canada, Germans in South Tyrol, Swedish in Finland — we see new models of multicultural citizenship that include policies such as federal or quasi-federal territorial autonomy; official language status, either in the region or nationally; and guarantees of representation in the central government or on constitutional courts. 9. Anthony Smith, The Ethnic Revival in the Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). 10 Keith Banting and I developed this index, first published in Keith Banting and Will Kymlicka, eds. , Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). Many of the ideas discussed in this paper are the result of our collaboration. 11 As with all cross-national indices, there is a trade-off between standardization and sensitivity to local nuances. There is no universally accepted definition of multiculturalism policies and no hard and fast line that would sharply distinguish MCPs from closely related policy fields, such as antidiscrimination policies, citizenship policies, and integration policies. Different countries (or indeed different actors within a single country) are likely to draw this line in different places, and any list is therefore likely to be controversial. 12 For a fuller description of these policies, and the justification for including them in the Multiculturalism Policy Index, see the index website, www.queensu. ca/mcp. The site also includes our separate index of MCPs for indigenous peoples and for national minorities. Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future 7 MIGRATION POLICY INSTITUTE Other policies could be added (or subtracted) from the index, but there was a recognizable â€Å"multiculturalist turn† across Western democracies in the last few decades of the 20th century, and we can identify a range of public policies that are seen, by both critics and defenders, as emblematic of this turn. Each of the eight policy indicators listed above is intended to capture a policy dimension where liberaldemocratic states faced a choice about whether or not to take a multicultural turn and to develop more multicultural forms of citizenship in relation to immigrant groups. While multiculturalism for immigrant groups clearly differs in substance from that for indigenous peoples or national minorities, each policy has been defended as a means to overcome the legacies of earlier hierarchies and to help build fairer and more inclusive democratic societies. Therefore, multiculturalism is first and foremost about developing new models of democratic citizenship, grounded in human-rights ideals, to replace earlier uncivil and undemocratic relations of hierarchy and exclusion. Needless to say, this account of multiculturalism-as-citizenization differs dramatically from the 3S account of multiculturalism as the celebration of static cultural differences. Whereas the 3S account says that multiculturalism is about displaying and consuming differences in cuisine, clothing, and music, while neglecting issues of political and economic inequality, the citizenization account says that multiculturalism is precisely about constructing new civic and political relations to overcome the deeply entrenched inequalities that have persisted after the abolition of formal discrimination. It is important to determine which of these accounts more accurately describes the Western experience with multiculturalism. Before we can decide whether to celebrate or lament the fall of multiculturalism, we first need to make sure we know what multiculturalism has in fact been. The 3S account is misleading for three principal reasons. 13 Multiculturalism is first and foremost about developing new models of democratic citizenship, grounded in human-rights ideals. First, the claim that multiculturalism is solely or primarily about symbolic cultural politics depends on a misreading of the actual policies. Whether we look at indigenous peoples, national minorities, or immigrant groups, it is immediately apparent that MCPs combine economic, political, social, and cultural dimensions. While minorities are (rightly) concerned to contest the historic stigmatization of their cultures, immigrant multiculturalism also includes policies that are concerned with access to political power and economic opportunities — for example, policies of affirmative action, mechanisms of political consultation, funding for ethnic self-organization, and facilitated access to citizenship. In relation all three types of groups, MCPs combine cultural recognition, economic redistribution, and political participation. Second, the claim that multiculturalism ignores the importance of universal human rights is equally misplaced. On the contrary, as we’ve seen, multiculturalism is itself a human-rights-based movement, inspired and constrained by principles of human rights and liberal-democratic constitutionalism. Its goal is to challenge the traditional ethnic and racial hierarchies that have been discredited by the postwar human-rights revolution. Understood in this way, multiculturalism-as-citizenization offers no support for accommodating the illiberal cultural practices within minority groups that have also The same human-righ.