Bias and Heuristics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Bias and Heuristics - Essay Example In the scenario presented, the supervisor clearly demonstrates bias when he uttered his statements regarding the Volvo and its unreliability. To be more specific, the supervisor's heuristic or bias was the availability bias or error. According to the Wikipedia Encyclopedia, the availability bias is described as, "The distortion of one's perceptions of reality due to the tendency to remember one alternative outcome of a situation much more easily than another." (2006) Furthermore, one's judgment about the relative frequency of an event often depends upon the availability or accessibility of objects or events in the processes of perception, memory or construction in the imagination In the case of the supervisor, he only recalled the bad experience of his brother-in-law. He failed to take into account the experiences of the larger group of people who may have had experiences different from that of his brother-in-law. The reaction of the supervisor also demonstrates another bias. In particular, this is the base rate neglect bias. The base rate neglect, otherwise known as the base rate fallacy, explains how humans, in making inferences about probability, often tend to ignore the background frequencies. (Garns, 1997) In the case of the supervisor, this was clearly demonstrated because he failed to take into consideration the various reviews that were presented to him. He instead focused on one occurrence of the failure of a Volvo car. By doing so, the supervisor neglected the numerous data that supports the good performance of Volvo cars. He was influenced by the base rate neglect which led him to react in the way that he did. With further research suggesting that the initial recommendations regarding the superiority and reliability of the Volvo, one will one be led to deciding that the Volvo should be the car to buy. In making decisions, it is imperative that biases or heuristics are avoided as much as possible. Decision-makers must at all times remain as objective and logical as possible. Biases and heuristics affect the way people view situations and choices. In certain cases, heuristics simplify the decision-making process by making the situation appear simpler. However, there are cases when heuristics, when viewed in the wrong way, may lead erroneous judgments or decisions. With additional information supporting the earlier claim that the Volvo is the better choice, the main heuristic that one must employ is the representativeness heuristic. According to Garns, "An event is judged to be probable to the extent that it represents the essential features of the parent population or of its generating process." In other words, what this means is that a certain sample of the population has the essential features in order for it to be judged as representative of the entire population. In this case, the information gathered through further research may be used to judge the entire population of Volvo cars. Using such a sample as basis for judgment, one can conclude that Volvo cars are indeed reliable and mechanically superior over other brands. Knowing that the supervisor is insensitive to the base rate and judges based on available information, one possible course of action that maybe taken in order to convince him to agree to the purchase of Volvo cars is to present him with all substantial information. It is essential that the available information that the supervis

Crimes Against the Public Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Crimes Against the Public - Essay Example On most occasions when dialogue does not bear fruit, agitators opt to go rioting thus distracting public peace. In that regard, the following case briefs will shed some light on how various previous cases involving the same were handled. This will guide on how to look at the two happenings that involved offences against the public. Crimes Against the Public Introduction Crimes against the public are those intentional acts and behaviors that tend to disrupt the order in which the members of the public run their daily operations (public order). The Law checks to ensure that minimum standards of decency and civility must be upheld by all individuals as long as they are in public. For that reason, there are set rules and guidelines which must be observed by all members of the public which attract respective penalties upon breach. The following are some case briefs. Case briefs Edward v. South Carolina, 372 U.S. 229 (1963) Facts of the case: A peaceful demonstration was organized by 187 A frican-Americans to South Carolina State House grounds. The protestors divided themselves into small groups as they pushed to convey their grievances against policies of segregation in their state. This process did not disrupt the normal activities of the public and everything ran normally and no property was destroyed. This demonstration was however disrupted by thirty police officers who ordered the protesters to stop or be arrested. The students defied the order and instead chanted songs of freedom and patriotism. This led to their arrest and conviction for disruption of peace. Issues present in the case: Was the arrest of the protestors in violation of their rights and freedoms to express themselves, to gather to push for their grievances as provided for in the First and Fourteenth Amendments? Decision: The court’s ruling was that the arrest violated the marcher’s right of speech, press and assembly. Reasoning: It was held that the arrest and conviction of the marc hers was against their rights. The Court could not clearly identify the crime alleged against the protestors. The evidence provided was insufficient and did not portray acts of violence. Therefore the judge for the case ruled that there was a violation of constitutional rights by arresting the peaceful protestors. Justice Stewart said that the protestors were only exercising the First Amendment rights and that the state was not allowed to criminalize protests against controversial rules. Dissenting opinions: there were no dissenting opinions regarding this case and the court went by the judge’s ruling. Looking at the above cited case, (Edwards v. South Carolina 372 U.S. 229 (1963), 1963) we find that these marchers pushed for their grievances peacefully and did not destroy public property nor blocked traffic. It was because of that that the court regarded their acts as an exercise of constitutional rights. However, it was a different case altogether where two angry students s ent e-mails to Texas government agencies with threats to blow up a building in protest over U.S. involvement in several controversial international issues. The students were arrested and charged with threats to use weapons of mass destruction. In this case, the government did not succeed in convicting the students because the threat to blow up a building was just an expression of their thoughts (U.S. v Wise, 221 F.3d 140 (5th Cir.200), 2000). They would not be convicted because there wasn’

Role of the Military in Establishing Democracy

Role of the Military in Establishing Democracy ABSTRACT Under the conditions of globalization the term governance does not point to governmental and state actors, but it refers to intertwined governmental and non-governmental, private, transnational, national and local actors and networks, which guide and govern. Efficient and democratic governance has become an intended end of the state for the external assistance provision, notably for the United States. Analyzing the changes within the Defense Department and State Department after September 11, 2001, the author argues that, by militarizing the civil spheres of assistance such as foreign developmental aid, the USA jeopardize the main goal mentioned above. There is a tendency in USA to equalize military occupation with the modern concept of governance, which is an oxymoron as the military is one among many actors of governance and it can support democratic and efficient governance only by the establishment of security and its own accountability. Key words: military, governance, USA, democratization, developmental aid, militarization, stability and reconstruction, security INTRODUCTION Moving a society from insecurity toward security has been a perpetual goal of every community in the history of mankind. After the end of the Cold War hopes were raised that a global security concept would emerge which would embrace political, economic, diplomatic and other aspects of security; instead of narrow, defense-oriented concepts aimed at exclusive security for states and alliances. The rhetoric of commitments to democracy and human rights has become a central issue in current world politics. The number of states ruled by the military has declined sharply, and the democratic control of the military, has started to become a norm. Between 1985 and 2001, world military expenditures declined by one-third; the arms trade underwent a 65 percent contraction at the same period. The concept of security sector reform is being developed by academic and practitioners as a framework for addressing the provision of security within the state in an effective and efficient manner, and in the framework of democratic civilian control. Simultaneously, globalization and growing interdependence have questioned conventional conceptualization of hierarchical dominance by a central government. Namely, it has been noted that large number of both international and domestic actors and growing importance of networks and other forms of interaction between state and society limit the capacity of states to govern in an autonomous manner to certain extent. Hence, both academic and practitioners have started to point out that more cooperative forms of governance are essential. Until the 1980s, the term governance was used as synonymous with government, but in the last two decades, political scientists and practitioners use it to refer to something broader. The new use of governance does not point to state actors and the institutions as the only relevant, but focuses on the role of networks in the pursuit of common goals: intergovernmental or inter- organizational, transnational, or networks of trust and reciprocity crossing the state-society divide.6 Providing for effective and democratic governance has become an intended end state for numerous actors dealing with various forms of external assistance. Keeping in mind all these changes, it should have been expected that the military is only one actor in dense web of horizontal and vertical networks governing local societies, and that its role, as a hierarchical, top-down institution, is declining. This paper systematize opposite practice within the U.S. military/Department of Defense and the U.S. foreign assistance, and outlines possible consequences for democratic governance. After the first part on the concept of governance in various academic and policy context, the main characteristic of military doctrine, budget and procurement practice of the United States after the end of Cold War will be outlined. The next part will research basic documents issued by the US government after the 9/11, 2001, and elaborate gradual transfer of civilian responsibilities to the military in areas related to foreign assistance and in stabilization and transition operations abroad. Finally, the effects of military build-up after 9/11 on the transparency and accountability of defense-related matters within the U.S. and securitization of the U.S. foreign assistance without consideration for the democratic governance in numerous states worldwide will be elaborated. THE CONCEPT OF GOVERNANCE In this section the concept of governance within the academic and policy context will be defined, and the content of democratic and effective governance is elaborated. The approach toward governance applied in the US practitioners discussions related to the military and intervention will be presented. Until the 1980s, the term governance was used as synonymous with government. However, there are important differences in the current discourse. Anglo-American political theory uses the term government to refer to the formal institutions of the state and their monopoly of legitimate coercive power. Government is characterized by its ability to make decisions and its capacity to enforce them. In particular government is understood to refer to the formal and institutional processes which operate at the level of nation state to maintain public order and facilitate collective action. As of the 1980s, political scientists and practitioners refer to the term as distinct from government and as something broader, including civil-society actors, and the role of networks intergovernmental or inter-organizational (Rhodes); transnational (Rosenau), or networks of trust and reciprocity crossing the state-society divide (Hyden). The term is used in different subfields of political science: public administration and policy, international relations, comparative politics. Governance refers to self-organizing, interorganizational networks characterized by interdependence, resource-exchange, rules of the game, and significant autonomy form the state. Rod Rhodes refers to governance as a vogue word for reforming the public sector. Such approach can be placed within the filed of public administration and policy. Scholars in this field study the tasks, organization, management and accountability structure of the public sector. This approach is echoed within policy circles in the World Bank definition of governance as the institutional capability of public organizations to provide the public and other goods demanded by the countrys citizens or their representatives in an effective, impartial, transparent and accountable manner, subject to resource constraints. The World Bank subdivides the public sector into three broad categories: policymaking, service delivery, and oversight and accountability. Institution development cuts across all these sectors. The efficient governance is also related to this subfield, as opposite to poor governance, which the Bank identified as the cause of the prolonged economic crisis in developing countries. Other synonyms in use are good and weak governance respectively. It is important to note that, keeping in mind decentralization, transfer of authority to supranational organizations, and the delivery of public services by private actors, the distinction between public and private that characterizes traditional public administration theory is not clear. There is a baseline agreement that governance refers to the development of governing styles in which boundaries between and within public and private sectors have become blurred. The essence of governance is its focus on governing mechanisms which do not rest on recourse to the authority and sanctions of government. The governance concept points to the creation of a structure or an order which cannot be externally imposed but is the result of the interaction of a multiplicity of governing and each other influencing actors. The last two points are very important as they imply that military governance, particularly externally imposed, is an impossible construction. The term global governance belongs in the field of international relations and it challenges the realist paradigm about the states as the most important units and the international system as anarchic, as there is no government reigning over all states. Global governance is conceived to include systems of rule at all levels of human activity from the family to the international organization in which the pursuit of goals through the exercise of control has transnational repercussions. Or, it could be defined as a shift from hierarchical and territorial relations of government to polyarchical, non-territorial and networked relations of governance networks and complexes that are bringing together governments, NGOs, military establishments, and private companies in new ways, as a part of an emerging system of global liberal governance.15 At least three perceptions of governance can be identified in international relations: a narrow perception of governance that refers to practically all activities in transnational networks; a broader perception of global governance as a meta affair, the process of coordinating the sum of transnational and intergovernmental activities; and third, the minimal definition of neo-realism that equates it with world government and therefore dismisses it as naive.16 Another field which refers to governance is comparative politics. Governance is the stewardship of formal and informal political rules of the game. Governance refers to those measures that involve setting the rules for the exercise of power and settling conflicts over such rules. Within comparative politics, governance focuses on state-society interactions, and deals particularly with the role of the state in economic development how to incorporate societal actors in order to gain the capacity to formulate and implement efficient economic policies; as well as with the theories of democratization. Governance is not equal to democracy democracy is one institutional setup that may or may not be the outcome of processes of governance. Additionally, as some democratic societies are not very efficient, particularly in post-conflict periods, and an important dimension of governance is to provide goods demanded by the countrys citizens or their representatives in cost-effective manner, for the Western/liberal actors it is necessary to underline both democratic and effective governance as the desired end state. As it is demonstrated above, governance is a very complex and multilayered term; nevertheless, the approach toward governance applied in the US practitioners guidebooks related to the external support and intervention is quite straightforward. Recent The Beginners Guide to Nation-Building by prominent RAND Corporation, for example, threats governance separately from rule of law, democratization, development, economic stabilization, and practically equates government and basic service provision with the governance. The opening under heading Governance is as follows: Societies emerging from the conflict may be able to wait for democracy, but they need a government immediately to provide law enforcement, education, and public health care. Electricity, telecommunications, water, and other utilities also require a government to regulate them, and, in some instances, to provide the service. Sometimes the intervening authorities initially serve as the government The intervening authorities need to choose partners carefully with a view to creating a government and distribution of power that will survive their departure. Similarly, regardless recent changes in the meaning of the term governance, it is used with regard to past events, again as synonymous for rule/government: The idea that the military has a central and key role to play in terms of democratization and governance is not new. The U.S. military has experience in military governance in Cuba and the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, in Germany during World War I, in Latin America during the Banana Wars, in Germany and Japan and other territories during World War II. To meet the World War IIs requirements a Military Government Division was established on the Army Staff and a School for Military Government was created at the University of Virginia in 1942. Linkage of governance and military goes back in openly colonial times, as the roots are found in 1899, when the Bureau of Insular Affairs was created as Americas first colonial office, created to support the Armys reconstruction and occupation duties in the Philippines, Cuba and Puerto Rico. THE U.S. MILITARY AFTER THE END OF COLD WAR Within this section the main characteristics of military doctrine, budget and procurement practice of the United States after the end of Cold War are outlined, and security gaps within peacekeeping missions noted by the Clinton administration. By contrast to substantial declines in defense budgets and arms trade worldwide, US military spending declined by only 17 percent between 1985 and 2001. Actually, the United States moved from spending only 80 percent as much as the (perceived) adversary group in 1985 to spending 250 percent as much in 2001. While the world changed rapidly and radically after 1990, Americas armed forces did not apart from reducing in size. Between 1990 and 2001, the US armed forces bought 45 major surface combatants and submarines, more than 900 combat aircraft, and more than 2000 armored combat vehicles (while upgrading another 800). Defense Planning Guidance drafted in 1992 by Paul Wolfowitz, Under Secretary of Defense, proposed the following: With the demise of the Soviet Union, the US doctrine should be to assure that no new superpower emerges to challenge the USAs benign domination of the globe. The US would defend its position by being military powerful beyond challenge. The USA would act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated through ad-hoc coalitions. Pre-emptive attacks against states seeking to acquire nuclear, biological or chemical weapons were desirable. The paper was buried during the Clinton administration, but still the Defense Department had basically spent the nineties buying one type of military while operating another. The military was split into two rival camps over decade: one that had to deal with the international security environment as it was (Military Operations Other Then War MOOTW) and another that preferred to dream of the one that should be. Or, in other words, during the decade prior to the terrorist attacks against the United States in September 2001, thinking about defense was driven by a theory about the character of future war rather than by clear visions of emerging threats in the context of history and contemporary conflict. Proponents of what became known as military transformation argued for a capabilities based method of thinking about future war. In practice, however, capabilities-based analysis focused narrowly on how the United States would like to fight and then assumed that the preference was relevan t. Defense transformation was firmly rooted in a widely accepted yet fundamentally flawed conception of future war: the belief that surveillance, communications and information technologies would deliver dominant battlespace knowledge and permit US forces to achieve full spectrum dominance against any opponent mainly through the employment of precision-strike capabilities. Readiness was defined as being fully prepared to execute the two-war scenario, although after 1989 the rising requirement was for a capacity to handle frequent and multiple smaller-scale contingencies of a complex sort: not just traditional combat missions, but also non-traditional missions, including stability and humanitarian operations. Despite that, during the 1990s the lions share of the militarys time and resources was devoted to traditional activities and threats. The vaunted two-war strategy made claims on almost all of Americas conventional assets; it dominated planning, training, and procurement. By the decades end, operations other than war especially peace, stability, and humanitarian operations were considered anathema.28 Baseline is that the military was expected to wage a major war (or two) against raising peer competitors, and no connection with democratic governance was established. In reality, the Clintons administration in the 1990s was involved in many peacekeeping or humanitarian interventions, within the UN framework or without it. Since Korea, the U.S. military has resisted performing police duties. However, it become obvious that the security gaps created during various international missions required putting boots on the ground, as actual security threats could not be eliminated by high-tech equipment pilled under the pressure of defense industry and Cold War era military officers mentality. The Americans had to press its European allies to provide police and constabulary forces for the growing number of missions, and frequently faced with difficulties. In 1997, the Clinton administration began an interagency effort to analyze and learn from the experience of the peace operations. The National Security Council (NSC) requested from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to prepare the first draft of a Presidential Decision Directive on international polic e and judicial assistance in countries emerging from ethnic conflict to find ways in which the United States could improve its capacity and that of the United Nations to rapidly deploy effective civilian police forces and rebuild criminal justice system during peace operations.29 U.S. military leaders believed that peace operations dull combat skills, expend resources, and reduce readiness; in addition, soldiers were neither trained nor equipped to deal with civilians. This predilection to avoid nation building was reinforced by the traumatic experience of Somalia. At the Pentagon, the majority view was that discussions on this topic were to be avoided, stressing a myriad of problems and uncertainties involving legal authority, funding, administrative restrictions, and interagency differences.30 But the assignment went to Office of Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which believed that future peacekeeping missions were inevitable and that the Pentagon had a duty to provide clear guidance regarding constabulary functions. The process stretched into three years and only on February 24, 2000, Presidential Decision Directive 71 (PDD-71) on Strengthening Criminal Justice Systems in Support of Peace Operations was unvei led. It was under the pressure of the Department of State, as its officials were concerned about the UNs inability to stem violence in Kosovo.31 The Directive extensively addressed the role of civilian police, but also elaborated the understanding reached within the Defense Department on the need for U.S. military forces to perform constabulary functions during peace operations if necessary. Also, it provided a list of areas in which the U.S. military agreed it would cooperate and coordinate its activities with civilian police forces; and instructed the State to enhance U.S. capability to provide civilian police, including the increase of the speed with which is able to recruit, train, and deploy American civilian police abroad (through commercial contractors). However, at the time president Clinton left office, the efforts of assigned leading agency, State Department, to implement PDD-71 made little progress as differences arose between agencies with conflicting organizational cultures and institutional priorities.32 THE BUSHS ADMINISTRATION RESPONSE TO 9/11 This part analyses basic documents issued by the US government after the 9/11, 2001, and elaborate gradual transfer of civilian responsibilities to the military in areas related to foreign assistance and in stabilization and transition operations abroad. During the Bushs administrations first months in office, Washington agencies began an internal debate over the property of U.S. involvement in what were called complex contingency operations, stability and support operations, or multidimensional peace operations. To many it seemed safer and intellectually more comfortable to retain the U.S. militarys Cold War mission and to leave responsibility for peacekeeping to others.33 PDD-71 was abandoned and forgotten, so that even superb experts years later claim that the United States has been engaged in non-stop nation building since the end of the Cold War, but every one of this operations started virtually from the scratch, with little attempt to tap the expertise developed in the past. The terrorists attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, inflicted massive casualties, but could not be seen as a purely military threat. The response to terrorist threat has been possible within three layers: nonmilitary international solutions, military options, and homeland security measures. An examination of federal spending since September 11, 2001, in light of such framework reveals that in budgetary terms, military solutions are clearly preferred, even though much of the new money devoted to the defense department have little effect in addressing the problems of terrorism. Nonmilitary international measures are the clear losers of the budget sweepstakes.35 With the attack on 9/11 a new Big One threat was found possible pear competitions like China dropped off the radar, to be replaced by terrorist groups with global reach and any rogue nation suspected of supporting them.36 Global War On Terror (GWOT) was proclaimed, and although the Bush administration touts a multi-faceted campaign to disrupt and destroy terrorism worldwide one that balances military measures with diplomatic and economic ones, it has reached primarily for the handy one the military actions. Only after initial military operations quickly removed the Taliban and Ba-athist regimes from power, the disconnection between the true nature of these conflicts and pre-war visions of future war was revealed. Previous reluctance toward Military Operations Other Than War helps explain the lack of planning for the aftermath of both invasions as well as why it took so long to adapt to the shifting character of the conflicts.37 But how such adaptation to the character of the conflict has been carried out Alongside the threats to national security of the United States on its own soil, since September 11, democracy has become critical for the legitimization of interventions and post-conflict engagements. In the States it has been embraced by both supporters and opponents of Bush administration policies, and has become the proposed solution to all sorts of global challenges: terrorism, civil war, corruption, post-communist transitions, economic backwardness While the moral dimension of encouraging democratization through a foreign military presence is complex and multifaceted,38 or blatantly highly dubious, within this paper only concrete changes related to the U.S. foreign assistance are discussed. The U.S. arm sales and military assistance have been controversial form the aspect of human rights and democracy promotion for long time. However, the changes in these areas as of 9/11 are of major significance. Although weak and failed states are defined as a security threat,39 much of the expansion of military-to-military relations occurs with countries that fit the criteria of poorly performing states as determined by the UN Development Program, the World Bank, and Freedom House.40 At the same time, the bar has been raised for developmental aid, and weak and failing states are explicitly excluded from a new program which promotes development on the ground that the aid would not be effective for the areas of poor governance. Namely, The Millennium Challenge Account, proposed by President G. W. Bush in March 2002 and authorized by the Congress, promises to deliver substantial new flows of foreign assistance to low-income countries that are ruling justly, investing in their own peopl e, and encouraging economic freedom. More specifically, U.S. military and police aid to 47 poorly performing states, analyzed in a massive research conducted by a think-tank in the States, began to multiply in 2002, so that taken together these countries received 114 times as much assistance in 2004 as they did in 2000. The bulk of money went to seven countries classified as war on terror states Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Yemen, Indonesia, Tajikistan and Djibouti. U.S. government documents claim that an underlying purpose of aid to all of these states is to encourage human rights and pluralistic politics. In fact, on September 11 three of these seven countries were legally banned from receiving U.S. security assistance by Foreign Assistance Act which prohibited aid to countries whose government reached power through a military coup and countries developing nuclear weapons. Additionally, Congress had prohibited most aid to Indonesias security forces due to serious human rights concerns. However, the Bush adminis tration waived these prohibitions in the weeks following the attacks on 9/11.42 The aid was channeled for various purposes, primarily weapons and equipment, but also even food, uniforms, and salaries for some militaries in Central Asia so unestablished, unprofessional or underequpped. Additionally, the United States trained 4.5 times as many military and police personnel from the war on terror countries in 2003 as it did in 2000, excluding joint military operations and joint training exercises, which do not appear in official reports to Congress. Within the same research, another group of 12 poorly performing states were categorized as strategically important: Georgia, Nigeria, Kenya, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Guinea, Eritrea, Cameroon, Zambia, Chad, Tanzania and Niger. The principal U.S. interest served by security aid has been to maintain governments friendly to the United States; these countries have something US whishes to protect natural resources, geographic location, or a position of regional leadership. The aid for these states in 2004 raised about 70 percent over 2000 levels. For majority of them the State Departments 2004 foreign aid request called for improving the recipient countrys ability to participate in peacekeeping missions. Peacekeeping means interoperability, i.e. that militaries have similar structures and training and use similar weapons and equipment. It benefits U.S. defense industries; and peacekeeping mission provides US with a politically palatable reason for maintaining close military ties with troubl ed countries. Transferring weapons and teaching lethal skills are less controversial for the U.S. Congress to approve, if the goal is to create a corps of blue-helmeted guarantors of human rights and regional stability.44 The adaptation to culture-centric warfare within the U.S. military itself has been slow. For example, the Army released its first counter-insurgency manual in decades and West Point has offered its first-ever class entirely focused on counterinsurgency warfare only three years after 9/11.45 On 28 November 2005, the Department of Defense issued Directive 3000.05 Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction Operations (SSTR). Military support to SSTR is defined as Department of Defense (DoD) activities that support U.S. Government plans for stabilization, security, reconstruction and transition operations, which lead to sustainable peace while advancing U.S. interests. It practically represents a new doctrine as defines a new policy for Do D. Stability operations are a core U.S. military mission that the Department of Defense shall be prepared to conduct and support. They shell be given priority comparable to combat operations and be explicitly address and integrated across all DoD activities including doctrine, organizations, training, educations, exercises, material, leadership, personnel, facilities, and planning.47 A December 2005 Presidential Directive was issued to promote the security of the U.S. through reconstruction and stabilization for foreign states and regions at risk of, in, or in transition from conflict or civil strife. The directives states the response to these crises will include among others, activities relating to internal security, governance and participation, social and economic well-being, and justice and reconciliation. DoD Quadrennial Defense Review from early 2006 includes increased funding for fighting non-state actors, new efforts to improve interagency cooperation, and emphasis on agility and speed to counter emerging, asymmetric threats; and plans for over 30 percent increase in civil-affairs units.49 It provides roadmaps for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR), Irregular Warfare, and Building Partnership Capacity to address new military requirements and to advance them in future defense programs.50 However, while the directive demonstrates the importance of incorporating democracy as well as governance efforts in this work, it doesnt define both the Department of States and Defenses roles in these kinds of endeavors, along with how they can coordinate with other actors including NGOs, contractors, foundations, universities, and the private sector. The three roadmaps call for increased military involvement in establishing and supporting democratic and effective governance across the spectrum of conflict, but the concepts in these roadmaps are underdeveloped.51 THE CONSEQUENCES FOR DEMOCRATIC AND EFFICIENT GOVERNANCE Same important improvements have been made both with the military and civilian authority with regard to the involvement on the ground in foreign (AFRICOM), and the administrations Building Global Partnerships Act.55 Namely, the Office of the Secretary of Defense has developed a proposal, the Building Global Partnership Act that authorizes the military to do nearly everything it has done in Iraq and Afghanistan anywhere in the world, without subscribing to the human-rights and other restrictions that govern State Department dollars. The proposal reaches well past the Pentagons traditional areas: military-to-military training-assistance programs and weapons sales, and it would allow Defense to engage itself in virtually entire architecture of another countrys internal security. The downstream threat is that the State Department becomes the supporting institution for Defense Department initiatives, instead to formulate and lead the foreign policy according to its criteria and priorities .56 The Pentagons expanding foreign assistance role raises concerns that U.S. foreign and development policies are being subsumed by a short-term security agenda, that it will exacerbate the longstanding and glaring imbalance between the military and civilian components of the U.S. approach to state-building, and may undermine long-term U.S. foreign policy and development objectives to advance security, good governance and growth.57 Alongside relying more heavily on military instruments that on civilian ones, the U.S. approach is distinctive from many other donor governments, the European Union, and the United Nations, with regard to its underlying motivations. Whereas many other donors place the emphasis on foreign coherence for development that its, ensuring the alignment of national policy instruments to alleviate poverty and lay the conditions for self-sustaining growth in target countries U.S. engagement with weak and failing states is focused overwhelmingly on what might be termed policy coherence for national security that is, integrating policy tools to prevent weak states from generating transnational security threats that could harm the United States and its allies (rather) than on alleviating the structural causes of instab

Teacher Quality in Education Essay -- essays papers

Teacher Quality in Education Teacher quality has a major influence on how the students will learn and perceive the information given. As time has gone by, teachers have gone through many things that can help them become better teachers. There are tests in which to certify them and to make sure that they can teach to their best ability. In some cases, even if a teacher is certified they might not be fully interested in their teaching so the students might not be getting the full attention that they need and they might not be working to the best of their abilities. They feel that if the teacher isn’t showing interest, then why should they. Teacher burnout is something that occurs in teachers when they become disinterested in their teaching. All of these things are major factors in teacher quality and this essay will prove how these aspects lead to either positive or negative teacher quality. Throughout history it has been a long process in getting teachers to be certified. â€Å"In 1858, the superintendent first authorizes that teachers need to be certified. In the year of 1873, the state board of education created an examination that teachers needed to pass in order to be certified within the school systems. In 1876, the board of education of cities of the first and second class were authorized to certify teachers. In 1893, the state board of education authorized to substitute credit from approved colleges for examination in those subjects as qualification for the certification of teachers. In 1909, the state board of education authorized to issue certificates to high school graduates completing high school normal training courses and passing a state examination. In the year of 1915, the legislature set Bachelor degr... ... 8, 2003. http://npin.org/pnews/2001/pnew1101/int1101d.html This article states that how a teacher teaches their students affects their abilities in and out of the classroom. The article also gives ideas on how parents can get involved and make sure that the kids are getting the best education that they can. Klicka, C. (2003). The Myth of Teacher Qualifications. Obtained from the internet on November 8, 2003. http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000002/00000214.asp This article is stating the things that help to make a teacher more qualified to teach. It also says that even some qualified teachers should not be qualified because they aren’t putting their greatest effort into it. No Author Stated. (2002). Teacher Certification. Obtained from the internet on November 8, 2003. http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/state_school_history/tchr_certification.htm Teacher Quality in Education Essay -- essays papers Teacher Quality in Education Teacher quality has a major influence on how the students will learn and perceive the information given. As time has gone by, teachers have gone through many things that can help them become better teachers. There are tests in which to certify them and to make sure that they can teach to their best ability. In some cases, even if a teacher is certified they might not be fully interested in their teaching so the students might not be getting the full attention that they need and they might not be working to the best of their abilities. They feel that if the teacher isn’t showing interest, then why should they. Teacher burnout is something that occurs in teachers when they become disinterested in their teaching. All of these things are major factors in teacher quality and this essay will prove how these aspects lead to either positive or negative teacher quality. Throughout history it has been a long process in getting teachers to be certified. â€Å"In 1858, the superintendent first authorizes that teachers need to be certified. In the year of 1873, the state board of education created an examination that teachers needed to pass in order to be certified within the school systems. In 1876, the board of education of cities of the first and second class were authorized to certify teachers. In 1893, the state board of education authorized to substitute credit from approved colleges for examination in those subjects as qualification for the certification of teachers. In 1909, the state board of education authorized to issue certificates to high school graduates completing high school normal training courses and passing a state examination. In the year of 1915, the legislature set Bachelor degr... ... 8, 2003. http://npin.org/pnews/2001/pnew1101/int1101d.html This article states that how a teacher teaches their students affects their abilities in and out of the classroom. The article also gives ideas on how parents can get involved and make sure that the kids are getting the best education that they can. Klicka, C. (2003). The Myth of Teacher Qualifications. Obtained from the internet on November 8, 2003. http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000002/00000214.asp This article is stating the things that help to make a teacher more qualified to teach. It also says that even some qualified teachers should not be qualified because they aren’t putting their greatest effort into it. No Author Stated. (2002). Teacher Certification. Obtained from the internet on November 8, 2003. http://www.kckps.org/disthistory/state_school_history/tchr_certification.htm

Military Essay

With over 12 years of civilian government, can anyone point to any tangible or credible development in our nation apart from the over inflated GSM services which was done by the Obasanjo government and only one or two state governors performing above par. The rest are just useless, this has been the case with every democratic dispensation right from the first republic. The first republic was slightly better, save some regions. The second, third and the current crops are blatant real thieves in agbada and babariga. Shame on the lot of them. I prefer the military as least we know where we stand and how far we can misbehave. Most infrastructural developments in the country where done under the military regime e.g. – the famous lagos-ibadan expressway – Gowon, the plan was to make that expressway all the way to ilorin. – lagos international airport (known now as MMIA) – Gowon – building of oil refineries – Gowon – 3rd Mainland bridge – Babangida – effective law & order – Buhari – dealing with foreign companies (e.g British Airways) – Abacha – plain level exchange rate – Abacha – festac nigeria – Obasanjo -operation feed the nation – Obasanjo The list is endless, but our civilian governments have been just too merciless, taking jumbo pays and doing absolutely nothing. Someone can help us check, how many bills were passed last year, instead they are always eager or will fight if their allowances are being debated Unfortunately and this is sad, we in Nigeria are not yet ripe or intellectuall y developed to operate a democratic government What is needed is a real tough no nonsense military ruler, who specialises in kicking backsides

History and development of Operating Systems Essay

At first, computers lacked any form of operating system. The computer user had sole use of the machine. The user would arrive at the machine armed with his or her program and data, often on punched paper tape. The program would be loaded into the machine, and then the machine set to work, until the program stopped. Later, computers came with libraries of support code which were linked to the user’s program to assist in operations such as input and output. This would become the start of the modern-day operating system. However, these machines still only ran a single job at a time. Originally, each user wrote all of the code necessary to implement a particular application, including the highly detailed machine level input/output instructions. Very quickly, this input/output coding needed to implement basic functions was consolidated into an input/output control system (IOCS). Users wishing to perform input/output operations no longer had to code the instructions directly. Instead, they used IOCS routines to do the real work. This greatly simplified and sped up the coding process. The implementation of input/output control system may have been the beginning of the concept of operating system. Under this system, the user has complete control over all of main storage memory and as a result, this system has been known as the single user contiguous storage allocation system. Storage is divided into a portion holding input/output control system (IOCS) routine, a portion holding the user’s program and an unused portion. The first single-user real storage systems were dedicated to one job for more than the jobs execution time. Job’s generally required a lot of setup time during which the operating system loaded, tapes and disk packs were mounted,  appropriate forms were placed in the printer and time cards been punched in. When the jobs were completed, they required considerable time to teardown, as tapes and disk packs were removed, time cards were punched out etc†¦. During the job setup and job teardown, the computer sat idle. Computer users soon realized that they could cut down the amount of time wasted between the jobs, if they could automate the job-to-job transition. The first major such system, which was considered by many to be the first operating system, was designed by the General Motors Research Laboratories for their IBM 701 mainframe beginning in early 1956 . Its success helped establish batch computing – the groupings of the jobs into a single deck of cards, separated by control cards that instructed computers about the various specification of the job. The programming language that the control cards used was called job control language (JCL). The Era of Timesharing and Multiprogramming 1960s: The systems of the 1960s were also batch processing systems but they were able to take better advantage of the computer resources by running several jobs at once. It was observed by the operating system designers that when one job was waiting for an input/output operation to be completed before the job could continue using the processor, some other could use the idle processor. They realized that running a mixture of diverse jobs appeared to be the best way to optimize computer utilization. The process by which they do so is called multiprogramming. To take maximum advantage of multiprogramming, it is necessary for several jobs to reside in the computers main storage at once. Then, when one job requests input/output, the CPU maybe immediately switched to another, and may do calculations without delay. One of the major developments was timesharing system which enabled many users to share computer resources simultaneously. In timesharing mode, the computer spends a fixed amount of time on one program before proceeding to another. Timesharing systems helped facilitate the software development process significantly. With turnaround time reduced to mere minutes, a  person writing a new program will not have to wait hours or days to correct errors. With timesharing, a programmer could enter a program, compile it, receive a list of syntax errors, correct them immediately and re-execute this cycle until the program is free of syntax errors thereby reducing development time significantly. The personal computer era Early personal computer operating systems were very diverse. Each vendor was producing one or more operating systems specific to their particular hardware. Nearly every operating system could have radically different models of commands, operating procedures, and such facilities as debugging aids. It was the development of microprocessors made inexpensive computing available for the small business and the hobbyist, which in turn led to the widespread use of interchangeable hardware components using a common interconnection (such as the S-100, Apple II, SS-50, ISA and PCI buses), and an increasing need for operating systems to control them. The most important of the early OS’s on these machines was Digital Research’s CP/M-80 for the 8080 / 8085 / Z-80 CPUs. It was based on several Digital Equipment Corporation operating systems, mostly for the PDP-11 architecture. MS-DOS (or PC-DOS when supplied by IBM) was based originally on CP/M-80. Each of these machines had a small boot program in ROM which loaded the OS itself from disk. The BIOS on the IBM-PC class machines was an extension of this idea and has more functions and features in the 20 years since the first IBM-PC was introduced in 1981. The decreasing cost of display equipment and processors made it practical to provide graphical use interfaces for many operating systems, such as the generic X Window, System that is provided with many UNIX systems, or other graphical systems such as Microsoft Window, the Radio Shack Color Computer’s OS-9 Level II, Apple’s Mac OS, or even IBM’s OS/2. The original GUI was developed at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the early ’70s (the Alto computer system) and imitated by many vendors. The significant types of Operating Systems Microsoft Windows has become the most widely used operating system for personal computers but there have been many others which have made a significant impact upon the development of the personal computer. CP/M : Considered to be the ‘first’ operating system, CP/M was developed by Gary Kildall DOS : A text based operating system developed into MS-DOS by Microsoft to run on IBM machines. MS-DOS (originally QDOS) is alleged by Gary Kildall to be based upon his CP/M operating system which IBM attempted, unsuccessfully, to buy from him, before they asked Bill Gates to create an operating system for their computers. OS/2 : Released by IBM in 1987, OS/2 was perhaps the first real multitasking operating system. It was designed by IBM and the code written at Microsoft. Although OS/2 was expected to outsell and eventually replace MS-DOS, its actual sales figures were very poor perhaps due to an increase in memory costs at the time. LINUX : An open-source operating system developed by Linus Torvalds. Linux was developed originally for use on home PCs but has grown to find homes on PowerPC, Macintosh, Amiga, Atari, DEC Alpha, Sun Sparc, ARM, and many other computer platforms. Linux offers a number of different Graphical User Interfaces and can be set to look like a Windows or Mac operating system. It has been praised for its stability and speed and is, in a relatively small way, offering an alternative to the Windows operating system for PCs. MAC OS : The Apple operating system developed to run on Macintosh machines. The Mac operating system is unique to Apple computers and yet is the second most widely used after Windows. Macintosh computers have often been favoured by computer users working in graphical design fields. Apple and Microsoft have fought over the available market for operating systems with IBM  machines often considered as mainly Windows machines. Apple have lost out in the past but are regaining customers with their innovative approach to computer design and the perceived reliability of Mac OS when compared to Windows. Windows : Now the predominant operating system for personal computers, Windows offers a Graphical User Interface based upon a ‘desktop’ metaphor. Windows has also enabled applications to perform in a consistent manner which means that menu options look similar from one package to another. The Functions of Operation Systems Operating Systems are the software that makes the hardware usable. Operating Systems makes the Hardware conveniently available to users, by managing the hardware carefully to achieve good performance. You may consider Operating Systems to be managers of resources as it determines which computer resources will be used for solving which problem an the order in which they will be used. The three principal types of functions an operating system has are : Assignment and allocation of system resources such as input/output devices, software, central processing unit. Scheduling : This Function coordinates the job an resources and follows certain giving Priority. Monitoring : This function Monitors and keeps track of the activities in the computer system. It maintains logs of job operation, notifies the computer operators of any abnormal terminations or error conditions. This function also contains security monitoring features such as any authorized attempt to access the system as well as ensures that all the security safeguards are in place. Modern operating systems often provide users and applications with a virtual  machine, an interface to the underlying hardware that makes it appear as though the user is the only user of the machine and it’s hardware. Whether the computer has one CPU or several CPUs, it is usually the case that there are more processes than CPUs. Therefore, the operating system is responsible for scheduling the processes on the CPU. There is a finite amount of memory that must be shared among the processes. The way this is done varies between different operating systems, but a commonly used mechanism is that of virtual memory. Several different processes may be trying to access a single IO device and the operating system must manage these accesses. This is a different issue than processes scheduling since often IO is being performed for processes that are not currently executing. Some devices (e.g. disks) have resources that can be shared among users and/or user processes. The operating system is responsible for managing and protecting these resources. Another important operating system function is providing support services for processes. These include: Support for IO operations. File system management. Networking. Protection. Interrupts and Traps. An interrupt is a CPU event that is triggered by some external device. The OS manages these devices. Each device has a diver which is used to communicate with the OS and the device. A trap is a CPU event that is triggered by a program. Traps are sometimes called software interrupts. They can be  deliberately triggered by a special instruction, or they may be triggered by an illegal instruction or an attempt to access a restricted resource. The reason why OS are so critical The main reasons why operating systems are so critical is by the functions that it performs which i have expalined in the last few pages. It is also so critical as it provides a layer of abstraction between the user and the bare machine. Without an OS, it would be very hard and time consuming to do a lot of the jobs on the computer that we take for granted. The users and applications do not see the hardware directly, but view it through the operating system. It is the operating system that lets us to communicate with the external devices. Conclusion Operating systems influence the way in which we communicate with personal computers. They have been developed to manage new technologies. The development of the PC has seen Microsoft grow to be the largest supplier of operating systems. The need for reliable and easy-to-understand operating systems has prompted development of suitable systems to progress at a very quick pace. It is possible that a greater number of competing operating systems will become available to the consumer in the future although this does mean that users may find it difficult to move from a machine running one operating system to a machine running something quite different. The market for operating systems will continue to grow as the number of devices that can use them increase and it is sure to be a competitive area. Bibliography http://computer.howstuffworks.com/operating-system.htm http://www.osdata.com/kind/history.htm http://courses.cs.vt.edu/~cs1104/VirtualMachines/OS.1.html http://www.computinghistorymuseum.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system http://vaidila.vdu.lt/~project2/index.htm http://faculty.kutztown.edu/rieksts/343/notes/osdevpt.html