Why is soccer not popular in the United States an Example by

Why is soccer not popular in the United States? Hypothesis Soccers popularity in the United States has been overshadowed by the emergence of another sport. This led to a shift in the followers and supporters of the sport, thus resulting to the late bloom of the countrys professional soccer league. Since the United States focus on sports which has a high following, soccer has not been given enough attention. It could have also be rooted with the Americans outlook and way of life, that hindered the flourishing of a sport such as soccer, thus making the country lag down in this aspect as compared to other countries. Need essay sample on "Why is soccer not popular in the United States?" topic? We will write a custom essay sample specifically for you Proceed Introduction When David Beckham, former captain of Englands soccer squad and one of the most successful soccer superstars, decided to sign a five-year multimillion dollar contract to the Los Angeles Galaxy, the United States professional soccer league was given the spotlight (Hylands). Many people were really surprised not only by Beckhams transfer but also with the fact that the United States has a professional soccer league, the Major League Soccer. This could be explained by peoples unfamiliarity with the sport, wherein it doesnt have much following as compared to other major league sports like basketball and baseball. Aside from Beckham choosing to play for US, anyone could see the great difference with the other countries when it comes to soccer. Soccer has a huge following worldwide but a rather small following in the United States. For a nation that is proud of having the best athletes in virtually every professional sport, the United States considerably has fewer concerns when it comes to soccer. What could have affected the country, if not, the majority of Americans to develop small interest in this ballgame? Human condition and psychology. Looking at the psychologists point of view, US soccer world could be suffering from the effects of a socio-economic difference between Americans and other people from the world. Taking into consideration the fast-paced lifestyle, Americans would rather prefer an intense high scoring basketball game in the NBA rather than a slow, low-scoring match in the countrys major league soccer. An interview with a sports analyst showed that a lot of Americans prefer watching baseball and basketball because of its fast paced game type. Unlike pro soccer games, those sports have higher scoring rates. This could be a reason why Americans are not that enthusiastic with soccer. Majority of people would watch games that have a lot of followers. It is like a bandwagon, where people appreciate what others appreciate. They wouldnt venture on sports which is not known mainstream, in this case, major league soccer (Millward). Between soccer and other sports: looking back to history. Analyzing the roots of the sport, it was introduced to the US in the mid 1800s. It was the Oneida Football club of Boston Massachusetts to first play association football outside Britain, meaning, the US comparably had an early start as compare to other countries today who has a great soccer following. But this doesnt support the idea about soccer not getting enough support form American sports enthusiasts and fanatics. Thus the research delves into the realm of other sports and its effect on soccer. Looking at another perspective, there are other sports which are somewhat similar with soccer. Rugby is a good example. It is a contact sport composed of two teams which aims to outscore each other by bringing a ball in the goal at the opposite end. With comprehensive research, information about rugby was obtained and it was found out that the basic principles of soccer plus an extremely physical contact between players has been boiled down and converted to rugby. A sports historian said during an interview about how soccer was reformatted to suit the American players, hence led to the creation of the Boston Game. In this game, players were allowed to kick the ball and pick it up, as well as running around with it. Analyzing the concept, this is the basic principles of one of Americas favorite game, the American Football (Thakkar). The emergence of American Football. From the basic principles of soccer, with modifications and alterations to fit the American way of life, the United States sports community was able to create the American football. Research showed that this sport gained a lot of following in the country, just like basketball and baseball. It drew attention away from soccer, the sport where it was patterned. This was the primary reason that diverted peoples attention towards other sports (Anderson). Conclusion Tom Weir, a Scottish author and broadcaster once said, The rest of the world loves soccer. Surely we must be missing something. Uh, isn't that what the Russians told us about communism? There's a good reason why you don't care about soccer - it's because you are an American and hating soccer is more American than mom's apple pie, driving a pick-up and spending Saturday afternoon channel-surfing with the remote control ("Quotations About Soccer"). The implication of this statement is that it has been a way of life of the Americans why they dont give much importance to soccer as a major sport in the country. This is how they look at the sport, and it is their choice, not anyone elses. References: Anderson, Shelly. "Beckham Won't Boost U.S. Soccer". 2007. February 2 2007. . Hylands, Alan. "David Beckham Signs for La Galaxy". 2007. February 1, 2007 2007. . Millward, Robert. "Soccer in America No Beckham". 2007. February 2 2007. . "Quotations About Soccer". February 2 2007. . Thakkar, Natasha. "David Beckham: Good for U.S. Soccer? Yes." 2007. February 2 2007. .

Whats Next for Administrative and Executive Assistants

Whats Next for Administrative and Executive Assistants Over at The Effective Admin, Karen Porter has some advice for Executive Assistants and Administrative Assistants who are ready for the next big rung up the ladder.If you like providing administrative support, you may find reassurance in the predictable climb  upwards every time someone leaves or someone new is hired and needs an assistant. Or maybe you stumbled into admin work and are just happy to have a desk and a paycheck! But maybe now that youre settled and have  started to look around, youve realized youre on a conveyor belt of sorts. That can often feel too limited.What if you didnt have to follow a predefined path? What if you could develop your own path based on a 5- or 10-year plan?What this may mean is letting go of your title, or even your professional category and focusing instead of what responsibilities you want to hold a year or several years from now. Does your company have   roles that would afford you those opportunities? If not, is there any way you can stil l acquire some of those responsibilities outside of your normal job parameters, so they can translate on to your resume and make you appealing to a company that does have room for that position?Ask yourself: What kind of jobs offer  your dream work activities (and whatever benefits, perks, salaries, working conditions etc are your top priorities)? What sort of tasks can you add to your current roster- without changing your title- that will get you ready for your next move?Define your strengths, look for holes in your experience, and work to fill them. Make your own path, ladders and rungs optional!

Education unit Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Education unit - Essay Example Education has a long history. The early centres of civilization embraced education way back beyond the 14th century. Education is an English word that emanates from the Greek word e-ducere that has a meaning of â€Å"to lead out† (Yero 1). Early scholars had diverse opinions of what education entails hence coming up with different lines of thought. Socrates contributes to this debate mentioning that the sole purpose of education was to draw what was the student knew. This has a basis given that most teachers focus on trying to retrieve what their learners have acquired through examinations and regular assessments. Education is a posterity process that only ends at death. Learners are expected to grow from one degree on knowledge to another. Despite the educational systems providing this platform, the world also has a way of inculcating certain knowledge into individuals. This can happen through friends, colleagues in workplaces, family members among others. All these aspects prepare individuals to be responsible people in the society as well as enriching them with the necessary skills required for socio-economic growth. In the informal type of education, the learner can be the teacher and vice versa since there are no set rules of who should learn from whom. However, older members of the society have played a key role in imparting knowledge to the younger generation through counselling and mentorship. For effective learning, the teacher should be at a position of guiding the learner efficiently. Firstly, the teacher should be proficient in disseminating the required information to the learners. The information should be relevant and articulated in a manner that raises the learner’s curiosity. Secondly, socialization among the learners and teachers enhances learning. It is also worth noting that a good teacher keeps on evaluating their teaching strategies as well as assessing the learners to ensure they grasp the knowledge delivered to them. Among other

Tort of Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Tort of Law - Essay Example c injury to liability will also turn on questions relative to the duty of care and the extent to which that duty can be extended to Peggy and her injury was reasonably foreseeable.4 Ian’s possible defence turns on whether or not he can legitimately claim contributory negligence or non volenti fit injuria on the part of the victim: Ben.5 To begin with, a duty of care exists in cases where injury of the kind suffered is reasonably foreseeable, there is proximity between the parties, and the imposition of a duty of care is fair.6 In determining whether or not a duty of care exists it is also necessary to ascertain if the defendant assumed the duty of care and if the plaintiff could have reasonably relied on the fact that the defendant assumed the duty of care.7 In assessing the duty of care in potential claims against WTW and Marcus it is necessary to examine the duty of care in respect of claims for pure economic loss: monetary award where no physical damages are claimed.8 In Hedley Bryne v Heller, it was established that liability for pure economic loss in cases of negligent misstatement arise where the plaintiff is relying on the advice or information of the defendant based upon trust that the defendant will exercise a degree of care and knew or ought to have known that the plaintiff was relying on that information and/or advice.9 In addition, the defendant is required to have represented that he had the unique skills and knowledge with respect to the advice and/or information requested by the plaintiff.10 Based on the facts of the case for discussion there is no doubt that WTC held itself out has having a specific skill and knowledge: investment expertise. Through its agent, WTC as an investment business held itself out as having special investment skills that it ought to know Ian relied on in seeking its services with respect to investing his profits. Based on the special skill and expertise that WTC held itself out to have, the company ought to have known

Should Stem Cell Research be Unbound Proposal Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4250 words

Should Stem Cell be Unbound - Research Proposal Example Spinal cord injuries and Parkinson's disease are two examples that have been championed by high-profile media personalities (for instance, Christopher Reeve and Michael J. Fox). The Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research estimates that stem cell research shows promise to develop cures and/or new treatments for 100 million Americans who currently suffer from a wide variety of diseases and disorders. There are several types of issues to consider as we reflect upon stem cell research. ... Many frame the debate about stem cell research around the question of "when life begins," although the issue is not when life begins, but when personhood begins and ends. Human life began millions of years ago when our ancestors reached a stage of evolutionary development that permitted the separate species, Homo sapiens to arise. Human life will end when our species becomes extinct. Stem cell research is a controversial issue in America as, with the present state of technology, the creation of a human embryonic stem cell line requires the destruction of a human embryo. Stem cell debates have motivated and reinvigorated the pro-life movement. There has been a deep and bitter dispute over the conduct of this research; many pro-lifers, for instance, Roman Catholics and conservative Protestants, have opposed this research. According to them, the embryos from which these stem cells are extracted are actually individual entities and have a soul to them. Since the embryos are killed when the stem cells are removed, or stored for long periods of time, long past their viable storage life, pro-lifers view the extraction procedure as murder. In the United States alone, there have been estimates of at least 400,000 such embryos. However, not everyone is opposed to stem cell research. Many groups that even protest it are comfortable with certain forms of cell research. Plent y of experiments and tests have been carried out to determine improved and more efficient ways of saving lives and replacing organs, without having to kill â€Å"pre-embryos.†

What Is New Public Management?

What Is New Public Management? New Public Management, what is it? We have heard the term throughout the first semester and have endeavoured to understand its historical and present relevance as well as its various facets that are supposedly favourable in reforming inefficient public sector enterprises, making them leaner and more efficient. But is New Public Management, all that it is made up to be, is it up-to the tasks it is set, is it the new paradigm for public sector reform in developing countries? These are the questions well be tackling in this paper. The Wikipedia defines New public management (NPM) as a management philosophy used by governments since the 1980s to modernise the public sector. It is a broad and very complex term used to describe the wave of public sector reforms throughout the world since the 1980s. The main hypothesis in the NPM-reform wave is that more market orientation in the public sector will lead to greater cost-efficiency for governments, without having negative side effects on other objectives and considerations.  [i]   The World Bank group thinks that NPM is used to describe a management culture that emphasizes the centrality of the citizen or customer, as well as accountability for results. It also suggests structural or organizational choices that promote decentralized control through a wide variety of alternative service delivery mechanisms, including quasi-markets with public and private service providers competing for resources from policymakers and donors. NPM does not claim that government should stop performing certain tasks. Although the New Public Management often is associated with this policy perspective, NPM is not about whether tasks should be undertaken or not. It is about getting things done better.  [ii]   It is supposed to have evolved as a consequence of the emergence of globalisation and as a response to policies of structural adjustment. NPM was conceived as a means to improve efficiency and responsiveness to political principals. Its origins were in Parliamentary democracies with curiously strong executive powers, centralized governments, and little administrative law. In this archetypal setting, NPM seems to embody the idea of a cascading chain of contracts leading to a single (usually Ministerial) principal who is interested in getting better results within a sector portfolio over which he or she has significant and relatively unchallenged authority.  [iii]   NPM, is a much more outcome oriented and efficient theory than earlier public management theories because it entails a more judicious disbursement of the public budget. It is supposed to be achieved by applying some attributes of the private sector into the public sector, such as competition etc. it can be said to be a policy to run the public sector as though it was the private sector but keeping public sector considerations in mind at the same time. The basis of NPM lay in reversing the two cardinal doctrines of progressive public administration (PPA); that is, lessening or removing differences between the public and the private sector and shifting the emphasis from process account-ability towards a greater element of account-ability in terms of results.  [iv]   It endeavours to better the public sector by restructuring, using tactics such as deregulation, decentralisation, promotion of autonomous agencies, output based evaluation, contracting, introduction of competition between agencies and enterprises etc. From the end of the 1970s to the 1990s governments around the world were engaged in widespread and sustained reforms of their public administration. These reforms started in the USA and the United Kingdom, where the Republican and Conservative governments that came to power championed the New Right campaigns for reforms. In New Zealand, however, where the most acclaimed reforms took place, the political force behind them was a Labour government, i.e. a leftist power. The reforms immediately aroused academic interest and research was carried out and theories developed. Perhaps to facilitate academic discourse, the reforms collectively came to be called the new public management (NPM).  [v]   The major driving force behind the reforms was economic stagnation in many countries. The New Right blamed this economic stagnation seen in huge national debts, balance of payment Sowaribi Tolofari problems, high rates of unemployment, underperforming industries, etc. on the excessive scope of governments engagement in business, mediocrity in administrative performance and the lack of accountability, among other things. In addition, there was also new intellectual thinking developing on how public services should be organised and delivered. This was probably because the populace in various countries were now better educated and more sophisticated in their thinking, tastes and demands.  [vi]   New Public Management has been a worldwide phenomenon in some form or other. Democratic regimes in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom have all implemented some range of reforms consistent with NPM. Malta and Austria have also implemented NPM elements. Each of these initiatives has had some combination of elements including cost cutting, creating of separate agencies or business enterprises to eliminate traditional bureaucracies, separating the purchaser of goods from the provider of those goods, introducing market mechanisms, decentralizing management authority, introducing performance-management systems, moving away from tenure-like civil service systems to contractual and pay-for-performance personnel systems, and increasing use of customer-focused quality improvement systems. Credit for the impetus of these reforms is given to American ideas, particularly the ideas of American public choice economists  [vii]   The philosophy seems to be based in the greatness of private management over public management and therefore suggests that the only logical thing to do is to transfer control to the private sector. Since all government activities cannot be transferred into private hands the theory suggests the next best thing, the application of business management into government. However, public management is different from public administration: the former is derived from commercial operations and is meant to bring about a new mind-set, a new vocabulary and a proliferation of management techniques. It is also meant to debureaucratize government operations and to reduce red tape substantially.  [viii]   If only one element is to be pointed out as characterising the reforms, it would be marketisation. The administration of public services was now benchmarked against private business power should be exercised by those who give the service; the consumer should have choice; the reason to exist should be determined by how well the organisation performs; there should be measures of performance and public accountability. These characteristics were based on certain theories: mainly public choice, transaction cost economics and principal-agent theory.  [ix]   The reforms have majorly been driven by a combination of socio-economic, political and technological factors. One of the similarities between countries going down the NPM route has been the experience of some sort of economic or fiscal crisis, which speeded up these countrys will to streamline their enterprises and cut back costs wherever possible, basically to stabilize their economy any-which way possible. With crisis looming overhead the tenacity of the welfare state came under fire and with it the institutionalised form of state run enterprises. One can say that these reforms are not purely the work of political will, other more sinister external factors were in play. In the case of most developing countries, reforms in public administration and management have been driven more by external pressures and have taken place in the context of structural adjustment programmes. Other drivers of NPM-type reforms include the ascendancy of neoliberal ideas from the late 1970s, the developm ent of information technology, and the growth and use of international management consultants as advisors on reforms. Additional factors, in the case of developing countries, include lending conditionalitys and the increasing emphasis on good governance.  [x]   The literature provides evidence that in many, if not the majority of, developing countries, economic crisis has been by far the most important factor driving the introduction of ambitious reforms in the public sector since the early 1980s. In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) economic and fiscal crises preceded economic reforms, which also triggered public sector management reforms. Many African and Latin American countries suffered from unsustainable external and domestic debts, deteriorating real terms of trade, increasing real interest rates on international financial markets, high inflation, low levels of savings and investment, and shortages of basic consumer goods. More recently, the economic and fiscal crises in the Asian tiger economies have promoted major reforms in the public sectors of countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea. Most countries, especially in Africa, had debilitating underlying problems à ³ severe institutional weaknesses, fiscal indiscipline and weak e xternal competitiveness.  [xi]   Larbi describes the economic and fiscal situation that was the harbinger of NPM reforms in Africa and Latin America. He records that many African and Latin American countries suffered unsustainable rates on international financial markets, high inflation, low levels of savings and investments, and shortages of basic consumer goods. It should be noted, however, that in these cases external pressures from so-called donors and lenders initiated the reforms. Kiiza accounts for the effect of this difference by saying that available comparative evidence shows both a handsome and an ugly face of the reforms: The handsome face of managerialism appears in the developed countries where the review of Weberian public administration has been done deliberately in search of excellence. The ugly face appears in the developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, where Managerialism has been religiously spread by the IMF/World Bank fraternity.  [xii]   Internally, in these countries, policy deficiencies, bad and excessive management of the economy, large-scale institutionalized corruption, weak and demoralized public services, low productivity and political instability, all contributed to a worsening of the crises. Loss-making SOEs contributed significantly to budget deficits and thus to the fiscal crisis.  [xiii]   Going first to the IMF and then to the World Bank meant accepting stabilization and structural adjustment packages with their accompanying conditionalitys in order to obtain credits and debt rescheduling from creditor banks and multilateral lending institutions. Policy-based lending by multilateral institutions was used as an instrument to encourage crisis states to embark on reforms that were pro-market and pro-private sector.  [xiv]   Thus it can be said that in a way NPM was stuffed down these nations throats. But the most primary mistake committed was that the policies and the structures utilized in implementing the NPM in these countries were the same that were proven successful in their more developed counterparts. What was not realized or was ignored was that the manner of functioning of the countrys beuracricies their market, the level of development of their private sectors was markedly different from the developed countries and the same ideas were not liable to work here. Despite all its advantages, one of the premier drawbacks of NPM most of the time was its very little contribution to actual policymaking. Instead, seeing as its main emphasis is private sector managerial techniques, it emphasizes the need for fewer thinkers and more doers. However, if one defines success as substantive involvement of citizens in shaping the direction of policy that affects their lives, there is little indication of such involvement beyond what existed before NPM implementation began. As Pollitt (1993) notes, citizenship is an awkward concept for those promoting managerialism, where the term customer is more common. He argues that the collectivist view of citizenship is alien to an individualist model where the market is the chief focus of transactions and values (125-6). Armstrong (1998) notes in his assessment of Australian implementation of NPM that the concept of meeting customer needs ignores the ability of customers to articulate their needs or make choices, either because they are uninformed or do not have the resources to do so . Rhodes further argues that in Australia, there is no evidence to show that (NPM) has provided customers with any means whatever of holding the government to account (1996, 106-10). Those claiming success for NPM have focused on short-term effects and on issues of efficiency. While it may be too early to assess the long-term impact of NPM in countries such as New Zealand and Australia, the evidence supporting democratic accountability and citizen engagement is not encouraging. This concept of management has little to do with democracy and democratic values, shedding the reality or the facade of democracy found in earlier public-sector reforms. What is left is a core of market orientation to economic efficiency in the public sector. As Borgmann (1992) argues, when citizens are recast as consumers, they operate within an attenuated form of democracy: But to extol the consumer is to deny the citizen. When consumers begin to act, the fundamental decisions have already been made. Consumers are in a politically and morally weak position. They are politically weak because the signals that they can send to the authorities about the common order are for the most part ambiguous. Does the purchase of an article signal approval, thoughtlessness, or lack of a better alternative?  [xv]   Dunleavy and Hood (1994) note concerns among traditional bureaucrats or hierarchists about the potential destabilizing effects of NPM if the processes of change should get out of control, become unmanageable and do irreversible damage to the provision of public services. For developing countries, but not for the World Bank and donor agencies, the price to be paid for such policy mistakes may be great in terms of threats to political stability and loss of economic wellbeing. In the United Kingdom, one of the leading exemplars in NPM applications the internal market in the NHS has been criticized as concentrating too many The New Public Management Approach and Crisis States resources on management and paperwork rather than on front-line service provision. This is illustrated by the almost fourfold increase in the number of managers in the NHS between 1991 and 1994, with administration absorbing 10.5 per cent of all NHS costs in 1994, compared to 6 per cent before the reforms. Overall, public sector managers are seen as a gaining group in the managerial emphasis in reforms.  [xvi]   But at the same time NPM will also be causing problems of morale in the public services because of the basic premise of NPM being the superiority of private sector over the public sector. Moreover, because it also suggests that whenever possible its activities should be transferred to the private sector, the implication is that public service has no intrinsic value. It also belittles the noble side of the public-service profession: public servants became public servants because they wanted to serve their country. If they had wanted to become entrepreneurs, they would have joined the private sector or started their own businesses.  [xvii]   Critics of the NPM, lamenting the collapse of the welfare state, have referred to the increasing inequality that market-type mechanisms produce market niche-seeking behaviour by public service providers. Whereby, conditions of social exclusion may be created given the organizational and cultural changes in social provision, expressed in the concepts of markets and individualism. Thus, those who need state provision and welfare safety-nets most viz a viz the poor and the vulnerable will be harmed by such reforms. Accountability and monitoring becomes tougher with fragmentation. Furthermore, since governments and other purchasers struggle to monitor contracts in various provider organisations, there is a risk of incurring huge transaction costs. According to Le Grand and Barlett (1993) quality in service provision may decline since minimalist, economizing standards are replacing aspirational professional standards. The pursuit of efficiency in flawed policies with short-term gains will be encouraged by NPM, undermining states capability to take a continuing standpoint on education, technology, health and the environment, given the heavy emphasis on cost reduction. One needs to consider these issues before seeking to transfer NPM to crisis states.  [xviii]   When assessing NPM critically, it is noted that there might be a promotion of corruption and self-interest by the senior bureaucrats and policy makers, who will opt for contracting out and for privatization in lieu of opportunities for rent-seeking and other forms of misdemeanour. Furthermore, greed, favouritism and conflicting interests in NPM has also piloted in a decline in ethical standards of public life. In case of developing countries, adopting the NPM will lead to more arbitrary use of judgment since the accountability mechanisms are weak and patronage systems more prevalent. The NPM method may work better in some frameworks than others. Like the public service which covers various activities, some of which are person-centred like, education, while some are not. Some are competitive, others are hard to mould into the competitive format, some high technological content (telecommunications), and others low. Thus, these factors should be kept in mind, as they affect the chances of NPM being a good fit in crisis states. Clarke and Newman have also argued that NPM à ¬is often portrayed as a global phenomenon à ³ a core element in the process of convergence between states, overriding distinct political and cultural characteristicsà ®. Given the different and difficult circumstances of reforms in adjusting economies and the potential risks mentioned above, it is doubtful whether a universalistic and à ¬evangelicalà ® approach to NPM is a tenable option. Even in developed countries such as the United Kingdom, experience suggests that change toward NPM à ¬has not been smooth and linear, but uneven and contestedà ® and that social actors are not shaped unambiguously by large-scale trends or forces for change.  [xix]   NPM-related reforms generally might undermine political control, meaning that administrative leaders in the central departments and agencies, such as leaders in public commercial enterprises, are gaining influence, but also private commercial actors and consumers more generally. The reforms have created more skepticism towards collective solutions, a depolitization of the public sector and increasing conflicts over what is public.  [xx]   While there is relatively little NPM to be found in developing countries when compared to the early predictions, there is even less evaluation of NPMs impact. The most comprehensive overview of NPM type reforms is offered by Batley (1999). Summarizing the conclusions from a 5-year review of the changing role of government in adjusting economies in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and South America, Batley finds that the effect of NPM reforms has been mixed, at best, with some improvements in efficiency and mixed effects on equity. On the downside, he notes that the transaction costs of radical reforms to autonomize service delivery agencies tend to outweigh the efficiency gains of unbundling, and that reforms that seek to separate purchasers from providers sometimes reduce accountability.  [xxi]   Refocusing on the effective state is given prominence in the 1997 World Development Report, The State in a Changing World, which marks a significant shift in thinking about the state and its role in development: the need to factor the state back into development. There is now some recognition by the Bank that reforming the public sector the NPM way does not lend itself to clear, unambiguous solutions. NPM is not a panacea for all problems in the developing economies. conclusion The above-mentioned criticisms of NPM and concerns about social solidity, parity and steadiness have rejuvenated interest in the dynamic role of the state again. The debate has changed. It is how do we re-empower the state so that it is able to do its job effectively. While the new public management method may not be a answer for the problems of public sector management in developing states, a cautious and selective variation of some features to selected areas may be advantageous and their employment needs to be subtle to operative reality. The enthusiasm for neoliberal policies and NPM practices that characterized most of the 1980s and early 1990s is now tempered with caution and, in some cases, rejection of the more extreme forms of the NPM approach. There is recognition that imposing one template of reform on all, irrespective of context, is unwise and unimplementable, and may even breed conflict and undermine stability. The way forward is to make the state work better, not to dismantle it. The Bank suggests two strategies. The first is to match the states role to its capability; the earlier mistake was that the state tried to do too much with few resources and limited capacity. The second approach is to strengthen the capability of the state by reinvigorating public administration institutions to enable them to perform their enabling, regulating, monitoring and co-ordinating roles. This will entail creating effective rules and restraints, encouraging greater competition in service provision, applying measures to monitor performance gains, and achieving a more responsive mix of central and local governance by steering policies in the direction of greater decentralization.  [xxii]   NPM-type reforms in developing states seem to be based on a common framework with those in developed countries and seem to follow a blueprint rather than a process or contingent approach. Yet these countries differ widely in terms of their institutional conditions and their capacity to implement public sector management reforms based on NPM principles and practices.  [xxiii]   There is a need to give consideration to problems of how to implement rather than just what to implement. For some time now, too much attention has focused on the plan content of reforms without suitable attention to suitable preparations for application, partly due to the domination of outside organizations in the design of reform bundles and the resultant dearth of resident ownership and promise to reform.

Zen Buddhisim and Japan Essay -- essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Zen Buddhism and Japan   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Japan and the development of Zen Buddhism went hand in hand towards the beginning of the sixth century. Buddhism was in full bloom in India and the Chinese were adapting it to there Lifestyle when several Japanese clans began picking it up. Zen Buddhism   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Zen Buddhism is a combination of Indian and Chinese thought process revolving around the world as it is and the discipline of finding enlightenment. The idea of enlightenment or Satori as the Japanese called it was the central point of Buddhism The Chinese had several ways of looking at the things that were contradicted by Indian lifestyles and thus you have the creation of Zen Buddhism. The Chinese weren’t as philosophically minded as their Indian counterparts, rather looking at things in a very practical way. The Chinese were always devoted to world affairs, but always kept touch of reality. The Chinese weren’t looking for God, or answers from a higher source, looking within for the answers. This is one way the Zen Buddhism was greatly different from most other religions was its emphasis on asking questions and seeking answers thought the use of meditation. The monks that followed Zen Buddhists weren’t asked to recite group prayer or any oth er deeds of piety, but rather just ask questions and seek answers. The basis of Zen Buddhism also puts an unprecedented emphasis on community. A monk of any level, or the master of of a Monastery all have the same role in community and work together on all levels. No matter how mundane the work might be, the group emphasis rules above all thus creating every man equal. Zen teachings believe in handling a thing rather than an abstraction and this is an example of this. Rather than asking a god figure, or waiting for god’s intervention, Buddhist monks believe in asking the question to themselves or to a higher monk where they can get a grounded answer, although it was usually cryptic.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  These cryptic answers however relate to one way one achieves enlightenment, through the use of Zen verbalism. This verbalism is very characteristic of the Chinese way, as the answer is always grounded in something very real. Most Zen teachings that are written down are reflective of thi... ...d that they will find enlightenment through their determination to die. If left alive these warriors will feel as though they have failed, and are cowardly, thus they fight with an urgency unlike most others. Their desire to obtain complete master of Bushido is unfortunately only obtainable by their demise. This method of training and preparing soldiers is unlike most other and is highly effective in creating the perfect soldier, one that fights with an awareness like none other, and another who trains with the sole purpose of ending up in a fatal situation.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Zen Buddhism has had a tremendous impact on Japan and China, influencing the way everything is today. Today Zen is a commonly used term and is widespread about the world. Many Zen centers have been set up, and a greater focus on meditation is quite popular. The Zen boom is just that though, to many people cannot commit themselves to fully dedicating themselves to its teachings and apply it, but if Japan is any measure its success is very positive. Japan has firmly set itself up as a premier country, with a deep history and a very rich culture of which are developed with the help of Zen Buddhism.