In his Anatomy of Revolution, Crane Brinton suggested that revolutions have a life cycle passing through phases of increasing fervor and zeal for radical transformation until they reach a climax of intensity, which is followed by the “Thermidorian” phase of disillusionment, declining revolutionary energy, and gradual moves towards the restoration of order and stability. The Russian Bolsheviks, bearing in mind the same French-Revolution model that lies at the basis of Brinton’s analysis, feared a Thermidorian degeneration of their own Revolution, and half suspected that one had occurred at the end of the Civil War, when economic collapse forced them into the “strategic retreat” marked by the introduction of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921.

Yet at the end of the 1920s, Russia plunged into another upheaval–Stalin’s “revolution from above,” associated with the industrialization drive of the First Five-Year Plan, the collectivization of agriculture, and a “Cultural Revolution” directed primarily against the old intelligentsia–whose impact on society was greater even than that of the February and October Revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War of 1918-1920. It was only after this upheaval ended in the early 1930s that signs of a classic Thermidor can be discerned: the waning of revolutionary fervour and belligerence, new policies aimed at restoring order and stability, revival of traditional values and culture, solidification of a new political and social structure. Yet even this Thermidor was not quite the end of the revolutionary upheaval. In a final internal convulsion, even more devastating than earlier surges of revolutionary terror, the Great Purges of 1937-8 swept away many of the surviving Old Bolshevik revolutionaries, effected a wholesale turnover of personnel within the political, administrative, and military elites, and sent more than a million people (by latest counts) to their deaths or imprisonment in Gulag.

In deciding on a timespan for the Russian Revolution, the first issue is the nature of the “strategic retreat” of NEP in the 1920s. Was it the end of the Revolution, or conceived as such? Although the Bolsheviks’ avowed intention in 1921 was to use this interlude to gather strength for a later renewal of the revolutionary assault, there was always the possibility that intentions would change as revolutionary passions subsided. Some scholars think that in the last years of his life, Lenin (who died in 1924) came to believe that for Russia future progress towards socialism could only be achieved gradually, with the raising of the cultural level of the population. Nevertheless, Russian society remained highly volatile and unstable during the NEP period, and the party’s mood remained aggressive and revolutionary. The Bolsheviks feared counter-revolution, remained preoccupied with the threat from “class enemies” at home and abroad, and constantly expressed their dissatisfaction with NEP and unwillingness to accept it as the final outcome of the Revolution.

A second issue that has to be considered is the nature of Stalin’s “revolution from above” that ended NEP in the late 1920s. Some historians reject the idea that there was any real continuity between Stalin’s revolution and Lenin’s. Others feel that Stalin’s “revolution” does not deserve the name, since they believe it was not a popular uprising but something more like an assault on the society by a ruling party aiming at radical transformation. In this book, I trace lines of continuity between Lenin’s revolution and Stalin’s. As to the inclusion of Stalin’s “revolution from above” in the Russian Revolution, this is a question on which historians may legitimately differ. But the issue here is not whether 1917 and 1929 were alike, but whether they were part of the same process. Napoleon’s revolutionary wars can be included in our general concept of the French revolution, even if we do not regard them as an embodiment of the spirit of 1789; and a similar approach seems legitimate in the case of the Russian Revolution. In common-sense terms, a revolution is coterminous with the period of upheaval and instability between the fall of an old regime and the firm consolidation of a new one. In the late 1920s, the permanent contours of Russia’s new regime had yet to emerge.

The final issue of judgement is whether the Great Purges of 1937-8 should be considered a part of the Russian Revolution. Was this revolutionary terror, or was it terror of a basically different type–totalitarian terror, perhaps, meaning a terror that serves the systemic purposes of a firmly entrenched regime? In my view, neither of these two characterizations fully describes the Great Purges. They were a unique phenomenon, located right on the boundary between revolution and postrevolutionary Stalinism. This was revolutionary terror in its rhetoric, targets, and snowballing progress. But it was totalitarian terror in that it destroyed persons but not structures, and did not threaten the person of the Leader. The fact that it was state terror initiated by Stalin does not disqualify it from being part of the Russian Revolution: after all, the Jacobin Terror of 1794 can be described in similar terms. Another important similarity between the two episodes is that in both cases the primary targets for destruction were revolutionaries. For dramatic reasons alone, the story of the Russian Revolution needs the Great Purges, just as the story of the French revolution needs the Jacobin Terror.

In this book, the timespan of the Russian Revolution runs from February 1917 to the Great Purges of 1937-8. The different stages - the February and October Revolutions of 1917, the Civil War, the interlude of NEP, Stalin’s “revolution from above,” its “Thermidorian” aftermath, and the Great Purges - are treated as discrete episodes in a twenty-year process of revolution. By the end of that twenty years, revolutionary energy was thoroughly spent, the society was exhausted, and even the ruling Communist Party was tired of upheaval and shared the general longing for a “return to normalcy.” Normalcy, to be sure, was still unattainable, for German invasion and the beginning of Soviet engagement in the Second World War came only a few years after the Great Purges. The war brought further upheaval, but not more revolution, at least as far as the pre-1939 territories of the Soviet Union were concerned. It was the beginning of a new, postrevolutionary era in Soviet history.

________________________

Warning! This is a free term paper example on Russian Revolution cannot be used as your own term paper research. This sample term paper can be easily detected as plagiarism by any plagiarism detection tool.

Our online term paper writing service MidTerm.us can provide college and university students with 100% non-plagiarized custom written term papers on any topic. All custom term papers are written from scratch by qualified writers. High quality, fast delivery and professional term paper help are guaranteed.

Those fifteen women were the members of the 1996 Olympic softball team. They were standing on that podium after beating China in the championship game, to receive their gold medals. Twenty-five years earlier no one would have thought that so many people would be excited about a women’s team. In 1971 most schools and community activities had little opportunity for girls and women to play sports. In 1972, Title IX of the Educational Amendments Act of 1972 was made a federal law.

Title IX states:
No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, or denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal aid. (Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972)

Before Title IX, “many schools saw no problem in refusing to admit women or having strict limits” (Women’s Sports Foundation). Once Title IX was put into effect, officials could no longer refuse to allow women to participate in sports. Although the law gave women the right to participate in any sport, it didn’t stop officials from making it difficult for them. There were few opportunities for them to participate and little support from society. In the 1800’s the Declaration of Independence proclaimed, “all men are created equal,” and yet we seem to forget this when it comes to women playing sports. There have always been more opportunities for men than for women.

Early Women
Historians present women’s sporting experiences as if they were rooted only in modern society and became increasingly more complex and common. The latter description is accurate for a particular period, such as the twentieth century, but across time, their sporting experiences were more episodic than evolutionary. They were constantly being shaped by the social, economic and political experiences. Women’s role in sport in the United States can be divided into three major periods: the colonial era, the transitional nineteenth century, and the age of modern sports (Women’s Sports Foundation).

In the colonial era, around the 1600’s before the Europeans occupied the land that would eventually become the United States, the earliest American sportswomen were Native Americans who lived traditional lives in which sports and other displays of physical strength were portrayed in their everyday lives. For example, in religious ceremonies women were called upon to dance for hours at a time, and the transition from maidenhood to womanhood included physical displays and tests (Women’s Sports Foundation History). This life may have had women doing physical tasks and things that were sport-like, but they only did them because these sports were woven into their ordinary tasks and rituals. There were no organized sports for women. Not that it was unusual for women to be seen doing anything of the sort. In fact, by the middle of the eighteenth century, some African American women found some solace on their days off, when they danced, played simple games, and ran races (Women’s Sports Foundation History). Although it wasn’t frowned upon, it was obviously not seen as acceptable for the women to participate in any organized sport.
During the second half of the eighteenth century, a series of changes gradually altered gender roles. “Enlightenment ideology and the emergent capitalist economy combined to redefine women’s place, to move them into the home and away from public activity, and to emphasize biological differences (from men) as grounds for keeping them there” (Women’s Sports Foundation History). The immediate impact of these changes was the movement of many women off the tracks and fields and into the stands or out of public view, unless they were with a man. The middle and upper class people came to believe that the woman’s role was to bear and nurture children and families. There was no time for them to be out playing games, they should be in the homes cooking dinner and taking care of the children. They also saw women to be physically inferior to men. Even though by this time the Declaration of Independence had already declared, “all men are created equal,” it wasn’t really seen that way.

During the first half of the nineteenth century, people began to believe that the health of middle and upper class women was declining. Educators believed that to improve their health they needed to physically exert themselves by playing games and doing exercises. In order for them to fulfill their roles as caretakers of families they needed to maintain their physical and mental health. So women began doing calisthenics, and domestic exercises such as sweeping (Women’s Sports Foundation History). Once again, women are only allowed to do certain things, no organized sports and only because they have to be able to take good care of the children and run the house. Not because they want to or because it’s something that they enjoy but because it’s seen as socially acceptable to be a fit parent. Once women began participating more in sporting events, it quieted some of the fears of doctors who believed that physical movement in sports might have a negative effect on women’s biology and reproductive functions. But that didn’t last long. Many of the women who controlled the few sports for girls and women, had accepted the medical opinions that athletic competition could harm females, physically and psychologically, and even diminish their femininity. That’s when they began changing the rules of some games, like basketball, so that it wasn’t so strenuous for the women. Then in 1943, there was an important event that allowed women to leave the homes and go to work in the factories and play professional baseball. A new league was formed called the All American Girls Professional Baseball League.

All American Girls Professional Baseball League
In 1943, with many of the popular baseball players, such as Joe DiMaggio, drafted into the army, Philip K. Wrigley the chewing gum magnate founded a new league so that baseball fans would still be entertained. This league was first called The All-American Girls Softball League because Wrigley believed in the common idea that women could not play baseball. For ten years before, women were limited to playing softball so that’s what Wrigley decided his league would be. But it wouldn’t stay that way for long. Since a former major leaguer managed each team, they began to teach the women the techniques used in baseball. By the beginning of the second season, they had begun playing baseball and pitching overhand, instead of playing softball (All American Girls Professional Baseball League). This wasn’t the only change that took place. Even though they were playing baseball the rules were a little different for the women.

The main differences are in the size of the diamond and the size of the ball. Men’s baseball calls for 90-foot baselines, whereas girls’ baseball calls for 72-foot baselines. It is 60 feet six inches from the pitcher’s mound to home plate in men’s baseball, and 50 feet in girl’s baseball. The balls are very similar. Men’s baseball rules call for a ball “not less than five ounces nor more than 5 ј ounces and from 9 to 9 ј inches in circumference.” The girls’ baseball rules call for a ball “of 5 1/8 ounces, with a tolerance of an eighth of an ounce and 10 3/8 inches in circumference, with a tolerance of an eighth of an inch” (Ken Burns). These differences show us how the men perceived women. They didn’t think the women could handle playing the real game of baseball as it was made it be played. They felt they had to change the rules thinking that it would make it easier on them. If they let them play baseball the way the men did, they believed that it wouldn’t be fun to watch because the women wouldn’t be able to handle it.

Another major difference in women’s baseball was the appearance of the players. Wrigley believed that although the ladies were participating in a masculine game, they should remain feminine. As seen in the movie “A League of Their Own,” the players were required to go to charm school where they were taught how to eat, drink, walk, talk, and dress properly. Not only that but instead of wearing the regular baseball uniform of pants and a jersey, they were required to wear one-piece dress uniforms. These shorter skirts resulted in lots of abrasions, scrapes, and cuts on the players’ legs. This makes no sense, especially since they are expected to wear dresses in public outside of games. When they are wearing these dresses or skirts their legs will show at some point and that’s not very lady like if you ask me. Also, no matter what their ailment, including broken fingers, deep bruises, and even pregnancy, they continued to play like nothing was wrong. I have seen many baseball players who can’t play with broken fingers or cuts and bruises so don’t try and tell me that women can’t play with guys.

Finally, the players had a set of what were called “Rules of Conduct.” These rules were to be followed or have a penalty of a fine and if repeated offenses a suspension will be imposed. Some of these rules include: always appearing in feminine attire when not actively engaged in practice or playing ball, no smoking or drinking in public places, no obscene language, their hair should be well groomed at all times with longer hair preferable to short hair, and lipstick should always be worn (AAGPBL). This was just a way for the men to keep their pride. They figured that by the players dressing in skirts while playing it made them look like less of a ball player and that way people wouldn’t forget that men are supposed to be the ones playing baseball, not women. Their attire while playing also shows how society perceived women at the time, as feminine, prissy objects that are just good to look at.

Stereotypes
For too long, girls and women have been discouraged from playing sports by a long list of myths and stereotypes. Some of these are:
· If she plays sports, she will become “mannish” and “unfeminine”.
· If she plays sports, she will develop an eating disorder
· Women who play sports are lesbians
· Women aren’t physically able to play at the same level as men
· If she trains too hard, her ovaries and bladder will drop.

Even in the 1880’s there were myths. Doctors tried to say that women who rode bicycles would suffer from a disease they called “bicycle face”, which is the distortion of facial muscles from the pain and suffering from the female sitting on the bicycle seat. All of these myths and stereotypes are known today to not be true and many of them come from a lack of knowledge. Men don’t understand the female body and how it works, therefore they have a fear of the unknown, and they are afraid that the women will take away their sports by playing. They want sports to be something that only guys do. And the men who play them aren’t the only ones responsible for these stereotypes. The media, our parents, coaches and even the government have helped them come along.

The combination of lack of knowledge and the widespread belief of these myths and stereotypes has been helped along by the fact that “the print and electronic media have failed to fairly portray the female athlete or rendered her invisible” (Women’s Sports Foundation Know Your Rights). Up until about 1990, the sports pages devoted more column space to dogs and horses then they did to women’s sports. Even today, about 90% of newspapers, and television shows that contain sports focus on men’s sports (Women’s Sports Foundation). For example, while watching the Olympic coverage a few summers ago, I was looking for the score to the women’s Olympic softball team game. The show spent almost the entire time on men’s track and field, and men’s volleyball, and men’s everything else. They showed bits and pieces of the games and had some really good highlights. But when they got to the women’s sports, like the softball team, all they showed was the score. There were no highlights, just the fact that they had won. If women and men are supposed to be equal then why aren’t the women given as much media coverage as the men? Even when the Olympic softball team won the gold medal there was no coverage. What kind of message is this sending to young girls who play sports? It’s telling them that the stereotypes are true and that men and women really aren’t equal when it comes to sports.

Growing up I was always very athletic. I loved to play sports and I was good at them. For a while it was ok that I played with the boys. We all saw each other as equals. It didn’t matter that I was a girl and I played with the boys. But as I got older, it wasn’t as accepted for me to play with the boys. They began to say things like, “You can’t play because you’re a girl,” even though I may have been just as good as them. It made me not want to be a girl just so I could play with them. I was kept from doing a lot of things because I was a girl and I am not the only one who had this problem. Olympic softball player Dot Richardson did too.

In her book, Living the Dream, she describes an instance where she was asked to be something other than who she was in order to play:
My brothers Kenny and Lonnie had joined little league baseball and I would go to all their games. One day, while waiting for one of their games to start, I was pitching to them…A coach walked over to me and commented on how impressed he was with my throwing arm. Then he asked if I would like to join his little league team…but there was on catch: He wanted me to cut my hair and answer to the name Bob. (Richardson, 19-20)

The only way she would have been able to play was to be a boy because society felt that it was only right for boys to be playing sports. Women just got in the way and made things more complicated.

The coaches of men’s football and other money producing sports that receive the majority of the financial support argue that sharing with the women will disadvantage the men…suggesting that the fact that the already disadvantage of the women is justifiable. The men are more important. Football and other major men’s sports coaches are paranoid over their budgets being cut in order to give money to the women’s sports. In reality, women have less than 37% of all athletic participation opportunities, 36% of all scholarship dollars, 36% of sport budgets and 28% of recruiting budgets (Women’s Foundation Know Your Rights). Which means that men have over half of everything the school receives. I hardly think it’s an equal opportunity for women. Apparently there is reluctance on the part of the administrators and officials to confront the problem because they do not want to take opportunities away from the men and give them to women. They still believe that it is “right” for boys and men to play sports and a “privilege” for women and girls.

Conclusion
In conclusion, even though Title IX states that women are to be given the same opportunities as men when it comes to sports, and the Declaration of Independence proclaimed, “all men are created equal,” it’s still not portrayed that way. Women are still thought to be the weaker sex and not capable of playing at the level of the men. This is proven by the simple fact that women’s rules in sports are different than men’s even when it’s the same sport, and their uniforms are made so that they are still seen as lady like. No matter what law is made, women have always had fewer opportunities to play sports than men. Even in those few opportunities that they do play they are not supported wholly by society. And we all know that when something isn’t accepted in society, nothing ever comes of it. That in itself is the problem. In order for women to get the opportunities they have a right to, society has to change its views and give women a chance.

________________________

Warning! This is a free term paper example on Sports cannot be used as your own term paper research. This sample term paper can be easily detected as plagiarism by any plagiarism detection tool.

Our online term paper writing service MidTerm.us can provide college and university students with 100% non-plagiarized custom written term papers on any topic. All custom term papers are written from scratch by qualified writers. High quality, fast delivery and professional term paper help are guaranteed.

In 1809 John Haslam and Philip Pinel observed first symptoms. As time went another man by the name of B. Morel came up with a term demence precoce, which he observed in little boy. But it was still not until the 1800’s when a German psychiatrist, Dr. Emil Kraepelin had actually categorized the subtypes of a single syndrome. The three subtypes were hebephrenia, catatonia, and paranoia. He was mistaken when he said that this syndrome was incurable and early onset. In the 20th century a Swiss psychiatrist Dr. Eugen Bleuler had a different idea where he explained that schizophrenia might in fact be curable and possibly manifested later on in life. He was the one that explained that schizophrenia meant split of the mind and not split of personality. His four primary symptoms included loosening of associations, ambivalence, autism, and affective disturbance (Nietzel, Speltz, McCauley, Bernstein, 1998). While Europeans used Kraepelin’s criteria, North Americans used Bleuler’s. In 1959, K. Schneider had conducted a research and classified delusions and hallucinations as primary symptoms of schizophrenia.

During the last half of the nineteenth century different subtypes of what we now call schizophrenia were described as separate diseases. Paranoid psychosis was characterized in 1868, hebephrenia in 1871, and catatonia in 1874 and were all grouped together by E. Kraepelin. This group was given the name dementia praecox. Bleuler changed the name to schizophrenia in 1911.

The differentiation of the subtypes is based exclusively on the symptoms of the illness. Paranoid schizophrenia is characterized by delusions and/or hallucinations. Hebephrenic schizophrenia has as its predominant symptoms disorganized speech, disorganized behavior, and flat or inappropriate affect. Catatonic schizophrenia is diagnosed when the outstanding features of the disease are behavioral disturbances, such as posturing, rigidity, stupor and often mutism. Also simple schizophrenia is characterized by an insidious loss of interest and initiative, withdrawal, blunting of emotions and the absence of delusions or hallucinations.

Another method of subtyping schizophrenia that has been used by researchers divides patients into those with positive symptoms, and those with negative symptoms. The term positive signifies those symptoms which are present but should be absent. Negative symptoms on the other hand, indicate symptoms which are absent but should be present. This subtype has been elaborated into type I (those with “positive” symptoms) and type II (those with “negative” symptoms) by Dr. Timothy Crow and his colleagues in London who claim that these are separate diseases. Type II is a subtype of schizophrenia that most resembles traditional brain diseases.

Some of the positive symptoms of schizophrenia include:
• Delusions- false, strong beliefs
• Hallucinations- hearing, seeing, or sensing something that is really not there
• Thought disorder- thoughts and speech are jumbled that a person thinks someone is interfering with their mind

Negative symptoms:
• Loss of drive- lack of drive and motivation which is part of illness and not laziness
• Blunted emotions- ability to express emotions are lost as well as lack of response or inappropriate response
• Social withdrawal- fear with interacting with others because they may harm you in some way
• Lack of insight- their experiences with delusions and hallucinations are so real that they deny they are ill and therefore refuse treatment

Schizophrenia is more common than other genetic conditions such as Huntington’s disease or PKU. It is more common than multiple sclerosis, six times more common than diabetes and sixty times more than muscular dystrophy. Not all schizophrenics suffer same illnesses but they do show similar symptoms.

Symptoms %
Tense and nervous 80.4
Eating less 71.7
Trouble concentrating 69.6
Trouble sleeping 67.4
Enjoy things less 65.2
Restlessness 63.0
Can’t remember things 63.0
Depression 60.9
Preoccupied 59.6
Seeing friends less 59.6
Feeling laughed at 59.6
Loss of interest 56.5
More religious thinking 54.3
Feeling bad for no reason 54.3
Feeling too excited 52.2
Hearing voices/seeing things 50.0

There is no one single cause for schizophrenia. Family relationships, environment, biochemical, and genetic factors are included. Studies with twins have proved to us that genes are involved. Genes are a critical part in determining what you will inherit.

Brain activity is another important element. Devices like CAT scans, MRI’s and PET scans have allowed scientists to study the brain and its function. They found abnormalities in he brain, which reveal that schizophrenia may or may not be hereditary. Overall chemical reactions are lower but dopamine levels are higher in the left side of the brain than normal. It is pointing to some nutritional deficiencies of the neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters enable neurons to communicate and are essential to the working part of the brain. Some of the examples are serotonin, dopamine, and acetylcholine, which maintain homeostasis. Too much or too little of these chemicals in the brain will throw off the normal function of the brain. If the proper enzymes are not responding to the overflow of these neurotransmitters, a poisonous substance will build up. It will penetrate into the blood and interfere with the other messengers of the body for proper contact. To prevent neurotransmitters from being disturbed and for proper functioning, vitamins like B12, zinc, Vitamin C, E, thiamine, and folic acid are administered. There has been evidence on reduced flow of the blood in the frontal cortex in schizophrenics vs. non- schizophrenics. Pure adrenochrome is a poisonous form of adrenaline that is left in the body and if it is not converted into leuco- adrenochrome with the help of the vitamin C, it will leave the subject anxious and tense. Adrenochrome is primarily changed into adrenolutin, another poisonous form of adrenalin and will cause changes in behavior. If adrenochrome is present there will not be enough GABA. GABA is a regulator allowing for the proper message sending between neurons. The neurons will fire without a break and the result will cause patients to be irritable.
There are visible physical changes in the brain as well. Enlarged ventricles of the brain will, in turn decrease the cortex that is adjacent brain tissue. Other research also shows difference in weight of the brain. The limbic is smaller in size, a part of the brain that is involved with feelings such as anger, joy, and sexual arousal. Family relationships show no evidence of schizophrenic onset however, patients with the disorder are sensitive to family tensions and typically associated with relapse. We also should consider the environment. Schizophrenia occurs more frequently among people in the lower social class. They live in poverty rather than luxury. They tend to have lower paying jobs, lower salaries, occupy less prestige positions in the society.

A person that is diagnosed with schizophrenia has many problems which he/she has to face that for the most part a normal person doesn’t have to worry about. Employment is an area of particular difficulty for those with the illness. Work of any kind is a practical impossibility. Homelessness is another major problem faced by schizophrenics. The breakdown of family relationships or a simple urge to isolate oneself can all lead to homelessness. SANE estimates that 40 percent of homeless people suffer mental illness of some kind; many of these are schizophrenics. Once homeless, the vicious cycle of downward social drift rapidly manifests itself. The abuse of drugs and alcohol is also very common throughout the sick people. While it is perfectly true that people in close and stable families or with caring and responsible friends do suffer these problems, they are far more pronounced among those living rough, in cities particularly.

Although many people say that schizophrenia occurs equally in men and women, that generalization neglects some important gender differences in this disease. Most striking is the earlier age of onset for men, which in the United States occurs two to three years earlier than in women. An analysis of a group of 17 or 18 year old individuals with schizophrenia will reveal four or five males for every female.

Schizophrenia is also a more serious disease in men than it is in women. Men do not respond as well to antipsychotic drugs, they require higher doses of the drugs, they have a higher relapse rate, and their long-term adjustment is not nearly as good as women’s. There are, of course, many women with schizophrenia who have had a severe course and many men who have done well, but statistics clearly show that schizophrenia occurs earlier and in more severe form in males.

The reasons for such gender differences are still unknown. It should be noted that both infantile autism and childhood schizophrenia also have a strong predominance for males, and that male fetuses generally are known to be more susceptible to environmentally caused problems such as infections. The fact that males get schizophrenia both younger and more severely, then, may simply be another reflection of Mother Nature’s dictum that in many ways men are the weaker sex. Another speculation about why schizophrenia might be more severe in males is the possibility that female sex hormones (estrogens) may exert an antipsychotic effect and be protective. It is also possible, although unlikely, that schizophrenia resembles diabetes in having two major subgroups: an early-onset, more severe variety that affects mostly men, and later-onset, less severe variety more likely to strike women.

Another facet of male-female differences in schizophrenia is the effect of the menstrual cycle on the disease in some women. Although it has not been sufficiently studied, clinicians and families have noted for many years that some women with schizophrenia have a worsening of their symptoms in the days immediately preceding their menstrual period. This is almost certainly caused by the reduction and flow of hormones during the cycle, and lends further support to theories linking male-female differences in schizophrenia to hormonal differences.

It is believed that childhood schizophrenia is simply an early version of the adult disease, although much rarer. Approximately two males are affected for every female. Only about two percent of individuals with schizophrenia have the onset of their disease in childhood although that percentage varies, depending on where one fixes the childhood-adult line. Schizophrenia beginning before age 5 is exceedingly rare and between ages 5 to 10 it increases slowly. From age 10, schizophrenia increases in incidence until age 15, when it begins its sharp upward peak as the adult disease.

The symptoms of childhood schizophrenia are very similar to those of adult schizophrenia with the predictable expectation that their content is age-related. For example, one study of young children with schizophrenia reported that the source of auditory hallucinations was frequently believed to be pet animals or toys and that “monster themes were common…. As age increased, both hallucinations and elusions tended to be more complex and elaborate.” The other distinguishing feature of childhood schizophrenia is that the affected child also often has one or more of the following: seizures, learning disabilities, mild mental retardation, neurological symptoms, hyperactivity, or other behavioral problems.

Like adult schizophrenia, childhood schizophrenia is thought to have some genetic roots, although their relative importance is unclear. It is also unknown that these children have an excess number of minor physical abnormalities and mothers’ history of having had excess pregnancy and birth complications. The fact that childhood schizophrenia is a brain disease has been demonstrated by the findings of EEG abnormalities on electroencephalographs and enlarged cerebral ventricles on MRI scans.

Childhood schizophrenia is treated with the same antipsychotic medication used for adult schizophrenia. A follow-up of ten children with this disease from fourteen to thirty-four years after its onset found them still diagnosed with schizophrenia but with relatively few delusions or hallucinations. Instead they tended to be quiet and withdrawn with poverty of thought and lack of drive. A minority of children with schizophrenia will recover can do quite well as adults, but what percentage this constitutes is uncertain. It is generally thought that the earlier the age of onset of schizophrenia, the worse the outcome is likely to be, but there are major exceptions to this rule.

Just as there is a form of schizophrenia that begins early in childhood, there is also a form that begins later in life. Late on-set schizophrenia is variously defined as beginning after the age of 40 or 45. Almost all studies of it have been done by Europeans, with little interest having been shown by American researchers.
Clinically, late-onset schizophrenia is similar to the earlier- onset variety except for having a predominance of females affected; having more schizoid and paranoid personality traits in the person before he/she becomes sick; and having more paranoid delusions and more visual, tactile, and olfactory (smell) hallucinations. Neuropsychological tests and MRI scans shows deficits similar to early- onset schizophrenia. The other way in which late- onset schizophrenia differs is in having a more chronic course and less favorable prognosis that would be expected that the later the onset of the disease, the better the prognosis is likely to be.

The most successful treatment at this point in time is medication. These medicines were discovered accidentally and now carry a large responsibility by changing the state of mind. Antipsychotic drugs are used and these drugs are available in different forms such as liquid and tablet form. Scientists are not completely sure why they work but they are known to change chemicals in the brain to slow down the activity rate. Some of the drugs prescribed include, Proxilin, Mellaril, Thorazine, Haldol, Moban, and Clocaril. Not all patients respond to the medications so the best drug is found by trial and error. Many of the medications cause side effects. They include allergic reactions, weight gain, and shakes but overall, for the most part they keep the ill ones out of the hospital. It reduces symptoms of the hallucinations and delusions bring the person to a calm and ground state.

Psychotherapy is unquestionably needed to go hand in hand with medication. Patient has to understand what is happening to them and needs to learn to deal with this aspect. Professionals that work with the disordered patient train him/her to build self-esteem and self-confidence. Other programs help patients learn basic skills like expressing needs and interacting appropriately. Sometimes if the patient is released from the hospital and put into a community, they may lose that training. In that case, group therapies are available to the patient to enable him/her to adjust. Group therapy is much cheaper than one on one.

Schizophrenia is a problem for family members such as brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, uncles, aunts, grandfathers, and grandmothers. They may all be profoundly involved in the care of family members with schizophrenia. Family members may be extremely embarrassed by the psychotic behavior of their ill relative. A common reaction is to move as far away from the family home as possible.

Individuals with schizophrenia frequently occupy an inordinate amount of their family’s energy and time, leaving little for other family members. When a person develops schizophrenia, other family members may lose a relationship. The family members who did not develop schizophrenia may develop survivor guilt. The siblings or children of individuals with schizophrenia often try to compensate for their ill family member by being as perfect as possible. Most children and siblings of individuals with the disease are themselves haunted by a fear that they too will develop the illness. As an interviewee said, “Growing up with a mentally ill mother was oppressive and worrisome and it interfered with the development of my sense of self. I was terrified that I was like my mother and therefore had something wrong with me.”

Schizophrenia changes family relationships very heavily. Husbands and wives whose spouse becomes ill often must become their spouse’s parent. There are many things that family members can do to ease some of the burden of having relative with such a harsh disease. Education is most important, and this should always include even small children in the family whose ability to understand is much greater than most adults assume.

There is, as yet, no simple lab test to make a diagnosis. Therefore, the diagnosis is based on the symptoms - what the person says and what the doctor observes. To reach a diagnosis of schizophrenia, other possible causes such as drug abuse, epilepsy, brain tumor, thyroid or other metabolic disturbances, as well as other physical illnesses that have symptoms like schizophrenia, such as hypoglycemia and Wilson’s disease, must be ruled out. The condition must also be clearly differentiated from bipolar (manic-depressive) disorder (see Glossary). Some patients show the symptoms of both schizophrenia and manic depression. This condition is termed “schizoaffective” disorder. Its relation to schizophrenia is unclear at present.

No matter what happens during the first visit to the doctor, the diagnosis of schizophrenia usually takes a long time. This is because it can be a very difficult diagnosis to make: the symptoms necessary for diagnosis either go unrecognized, or do not show themselves fully, until the illness is advanced. There are also many differences among individuals in the way in which symptoms present themselves. Most doctors, well aware of the stigma that still surrounds this illness, don’t like to voice their suspicions until they are sure that this diagnosis is correct.

If your doctor does diagnose schizophrenia, do not assume that he or she has ruled out the possibility of another illness. Do not hesitate to ask about other illnesses and ask on what grounds the doctor has determined that schizophrenia is the problem. Where an illness as confusing and variable as schizophrenia is concerned, you should ask for a second medical opinion and a psychiatric referral, whether or not you are satisfied with your doctor’s response. A request of this nature is perfectly acceptable. Do not feel that the doctor will take it as a personal criticism.

Most families reported that a crisis or psychotic episode - that is, a severe break with reality - occurred a few months to a year after they began to notice unusual behavior. Some said, however, that the crisis occurred with little or no warning.

During a crisis episode, your relative will exhibit some or all of the following symptoms: hallucinations, delusions, thought disorder, and disturbances in behavior and emotions. Families who have been through these psychotic episodes warn that no amount of preparation can fully protect you from the shock, panic, and sickening dread you will feel when your relative enters this stage of schizophrenia. Understand also that your relative may be as terrified as you are by what is happening: “voices” may be giving life-threatening commands; snakes may be crawling on the window; poisonous fumes may be filling the room. You must get medical help for your relative as quickly as possible, and this could mean hospitalization. If your relative has been receiving medical help, phone the doctor or psychiatrist immediately. Ask which hospital you should go to and for advice about what to do.

Don’t shout. If your relative appears not to be listening to you, it may be because other “voices” are louder. Don’t criticize. Your relative cannot be reasoned with at this point. Don’t challenge your relative into acting out. Avoid continuous eye contact. Don’t block the doorway. Don’t argue with other people about what to do.

It is far better, if possible, to have your relative go to the hospital voluntarily. If you do not think your relative will listen to you, see if a friend can talk the person into doing so. Some have found that presenting their relative with a choice seemed to work. “Will you go to the hospital with me, or would you prefer that John take you?” Such an approach may serve to reduce the person’s feeling of helplessness. Offering choice, no matter how small, provides some sense of being in control of the horrible situation in which they find themselves.

Schizophrenia is not only hard for a patient to live with but for families of the patient as well. Medication has made treatments a lot easier and patients don’t have to spend much time in hospitals. It is crucial for families to learn how to build trust and be in contact with a patient in order to offer the support to the ill person that they so desperately require. My family had a first hand experience with a schizophrenic. It was hard on all of us, especially when they did not know much about the illness or its treatments in Russia. They did not want my great-grandmother in the hospital because she was unruly. Giving her medication was a constant struggle each time it was administered to her. I remember being about 9 and watching her sit in a chair with no back for five-six hours at a time with no motion. She would sit in a corner of the room and mumble to herself. I remember thinking “What is wrong with her?” I never understood or knew what she had; I only could assume she was crazy. I remember asking her what she was mumbling and she responded “I inherited 5.5 million rubbles and I will give you some part of it when you’re older.” She also said that the President of Russia wanted to marry her. She had gone to the red house looking for him. The police had taken her to the station and questioned her, ultimately realizing that she belonged in the hospital. She never seemed to be violent, although sometimes she gave me a sense of fear because she would sit in the dark and stare at one point. I felt bad and tried to talk to her but reaction was unpleasant. My great-grandmother never wanted to eat.

This experience emotionally affected me in a positive as well as a negative light. It was hard to watch her suffer, as much as she did. I feel that ultimately I learned to be more empathetic to people with those types of disorders.

Although schizophrenia is a tragic disease, with the advances today there is definitely hope for it. Recovery can be successful if the proper steps are taken. Knowledge of this mental illness is crucial to understand and cope with. Getting involved with the patient to help increase their self-esteem is most important of all. Different forma of treatments are available, such as drugs and supportive psychotherapy. Our immediate concern should be to open lines of communication and to express the concern. Optimistic attitude is needed because being pessimistic will not lead us anywhere.

________________________

Warning! This is a free term paper example on Schizophrenia cannot be used as your own term paper research. This sample term paper can be easily detected as plagiarism by any plagiarism detection tool.

Our online term paper writing service MidTerm.us can provide college and university students with 100% non-plagiarized custom written term papers on any topic. All custom term papers are written from scratch by qualified writers. High quality, fast delivery and professional term paper help are guaranteed.

Over the last 50 years in particular, family life and the way it is organised in different societies has been a very popular area of study for sociologists. This has resulted in a great body of information being assembled which needs to be continually updated. This term paper will discuss the place of the family in society and different forms it may take.

The family may be defined as a unit within a society where people who are related to one another, either through birth or marriage, live together. The word “family” itself can have many meanings and uses. For instance it may be used to describe any group of persons, animals, plants, or items that are related to each other in some way. This is a very simple definition, but the fact is that “family”, either in its popular or academic use, is possibly one of the most ambiguous words in the English dictionary.

The functions of the family as seen from the theoretical perspective of functionalism includes such things as: the legitimising of sexual behaviour, the care and rearing of children, the roles of husband and wife, and the provision of a safe, secure environment for the emotional needs of the family members. The belief that the family provides all or any of the above for its members, especially for children, can be as true as it is false. With this in mind it is easy to see why the functionalist approach has lost its popularity with sociologists in recent times. Family life for some people is anything but safe and secure, and the reality for a lot of men, women and children, is that the family can be a source of misery and pain. This view is supported by the continuous news reports and court cases relating to violence of a sexual, physical or emotional nature directed towards a family member by other family members. An additional failing of the functionalist approach is its failing to take on board the effects of whatever economical situation people find themselves in. As economic systems can vary greatly from society to society, they have an enormous effect on family life.

Writing about the Kgatla tribe, who live in Botswana in southern Africa, Isaac Shapera tells us that the family in this case is seen as a man, his wives, their children, and other relatives. The family units in this tribe were self-sufficient. They produced their own food, built their own houses, and assisted one another in times of personal difficulties. They also socialised together. In addition, they bartered with other families if there was something needed that they could not produce themselves. This type of economy is known as a subsistence economy, and it provides just the bare necessity for survival.

In comparison to the families living in and depending on an industrial society, those depending on a subsistence economy live in poverty. They are very vulnerable to starvation and disease and in times of freak weather conditions and natural disasters rely on each other more, as they do not have the backup of state intervention in times of great need.

Before the Socialist Revolution of October 1917 in Russia, family life was controlled by various religious groups under the tsars. When the Bolsheviks took power, they immediately took steps to reduce the power of those groups, who they saw as upholding the concerns of the bourgeoisie. Using the Marxist ideal, they attempted to liberalise marriage relationships and divorce. The new rulers saw the old ways and ideas as an obstacle to building a socialist state.

1918 saw the introduction of civil marriage in place of the religious ceremony. It was now no longer for a wife to take her husband’s name. A wife was no longer bound to live with her husband, and the prejudicial treatment of illegitimate children was abolished. By the 1920s and 1930s, family life in Russia was breaking down and was being threatened from all sides. Juvenile delinquency and promiscuity were on the rise. The Soviet press and western observers blamed the newfound sexual freedom for the breakdown of the family.
In China, the subjugation and oppression of women and young girls was carried to extreme lengths both within and outside the family. The people of this society lived by the philosophy of Confucius, which was particularly cruel to women. There were three “obediences” demanded of women: 1) when young, women were bound to obey their fathers and older brothers, 2) when married, they had to obey their husbands and 3) if widowed, they were bound to obey their sons. Women also had to possess four virtues: 1) they should know their place, 2) hold their tongue, 3) look attractive and 4) love housework. Marriages were like business arrangements, and the marriage of children was not uncommon. The selling of young girls into prostitution was also used as an alternative to marriage. Chinese women were used to produce children, and had their feet bound when they were very young to keep their movements to a minimum. Divorce was impossible for women, though a man could divorce his wife at any time.

In 1949 the People’s Republic of China was founded under the leadership of Mao Tse Tung. This brought about an immediate change. The buying and selling of young girls was prohibited, and new laws of marriage were enacted. Discrimination against illegitimate children, which was also part of this society, was forbidden, and divorce was allowed if both husband and wife wanted it, though it was not encouraged.

China today encourages its young people not to marry at a very young age, believing that education should go on until the early twenties. The early part of a person’s life should not be burdened by the responsibilities of marriage. Marriage ceremonies are very brief affairs, and only require a visit to the local government office.

A great deal of co-operation takes place between families in China, and it is not uncommon for families to be sharing such things as kitchen and bathroom facilities. In addition, the elderly members of families provide childcare and look after the domestic side of family life, allowing younger family members to work outside the home. Another point of interest is that in China the state has introduced measure whereby the burden on working women is reduced by the provision of childcare, washing and sewing facilities, and public dining facilities. Family planning, contraception, sterilisation, and abortion are freely available in China.

Because of the many and diverse societies in the world, this makes for many different types of family unit. The nuclear or conjugal family came into being as a result of the development of capitalism in western societies. It is made up of a wife, husband, and children, and though it is accepted as a modern development, parish and town records in Britain show that families of this nature have existed as far back as the 16th century. There are certain rules and values which govern the nuclear family, regardless of what society it belongs to. For example, one of these rules is that sexual relations between family members is forbidden, except between husband and wife. Some societies also prohibit divorce, as was the case in Ireland until recently. However, this prohibition, which was written into the Irish constitution in 1937, was amended in 1995.

The needs of a capitalist economy are served well by the versatile nuclear family. This versatility is assisted by the concept of “division of labour” within the family. This concept has several uses, but for the purposes of this paper, the focus will be on difference between “wage labour” and “domestic labour”. Domestic labour is taken on by one of the partners in the family, usually the woman, while wage labour is done by the other partner. The independence of the family unit and the division of labour within it is fundamental to the capitalist system. This independence from other families makes them more reliant on the capitalist system for which they provide the labour, plus they are also the market on which the system survives.

Ireland is home of many variations of family life. One of these is the “stem” family. This was made up of the parents, one of their married sons (usually the eldest), his wife and children, and his brothers or sisters. It was similar to a family type which exists within the Hindu religion and consists of married sons and their wives and children sharing the one household. In this patriarchal family the oldest male managed its affairs.
Another form of family was reported by Fox, this time on Tory Island. On this island, out of 50 recorded marriages, ten couples conformed to a system whereby the husbands and wives lived with their own parents and had a visiting relationship with their spouse.

Yet another family type which is rapidly increasing in number is the single parent family. These were initially the result of a rising divorce rate, but more recently it has gained popularity with a growing population of young mothers who have no desire to marry. It is no longer necessary for a young pregnant woman to rush into a marriage because of the stigma attached to being pregnant out of wedlock.

Family ties are not limited to the nuclear or conjugal relationship. The stem family or the Hindu joint family mentioned above is basically an expansion of the nuclear family. The term “extended family” is used by sociologists to describe that type of family which exists when a number of nuclear families live in close proximity to one another and are socialising on an ongoing basis.

The family as the primary unit of society has been discussed in this paper. It is quite clear that for the survival of humanity some form of family is vital. This reason alone is a sufficient indication of its primacy in society.

________________________

Warning! This is a free term paper example on Family cannot be used as your own term paper research. This sample term paper can be easily detected as plagiarism by any plagiarism detection tool.

Our online term paper writing service MidTerm.us can provide college and university students with 100% non-plagiarized custom written term papers on any topic. All custom term papers are written from scratch by qualified writers. High quality, fast delivery and professional term paper help are guaranteed.

The nature of money, according to Gioia’s poem titled simply “Money”, shapes the reality of life for both the rich and the poor, according to how much they have or don’t have. Gioia’s poem reminds us of the many meanings we accord to money, how we need it and spend it, and how it functions in our economy. One of the clear messages in Gioia’s poem is that money, itself, does not discriminate. It is what it is regardless of who has it, but for those who have it, it grows and multiplies. For those who don’t have it, or don’t have enough of it, it does not.

If money itself does not discriminate, how do we account for the gap between those who are affluent and those who are poor? What prevents some from getting it, while others have enough for it to grow? How we answer this question, and the logic behind our answer, is very connected to policy decisions we make concerning poverty, and how effective we are in addressing it. One of our traditional explanations for the why the poor are poor and the rich are rich, according to the American ideology, is that the poor are those who have not worked sufficiently to gain money. Likewise, those who have money, according to the same ideology, are those who have been frugal, worked hard, saved, wisely invested, and who have otherwise ‘lived right’. Takaki, in his article “Race at the End of History”, provides a summary of how this is embedded in our ideology: “ The American dream still holds promise to all us as Americans. Everyone, regardless of race, can make it into the mainstream through hard work and private effort.” (p. 387).

This kind of definition, and the ideology behind it, makes it possible to approach policy issues in such a way that places overwhelming responsibility on those who are poor for their own plight. As Takaki points out, our emphasis is on the fact that success is to be achieved through ‘private’ means, rather than government assistance (p.387). Addressing poverty then becomes a question of getting those who are not working hard enough, not ‘living right’, to do so. This definition of poverty allows us to say, those who have a lion’s share of wealth deserve that wealth, and those who are in poverty, deserve that poverty. Viewed this way, there is no reason, then, to seriously listen to claims of ‘glass ceilings’ or discrimination, or to look in any other way at prejudices built into our social and legal structures that unfairly increase the odds for some, and reduce them for others.

How is it that, in the face of evident continued poverty among certain ethnic or racial groups, we continue to believe in this ideology? Surely, by now enough evidence of systematic discrimination, glass ceilings, and other obstacles for specific racial and ethnic (and gender) groups has shown us that the American dream as summed up by Takaki is based at least partially on a myth. Yet many people still agree with, for example, what Takaki suggests (p. 385) Francis Fukuyama’s explanation is: that poverty is a matter of cultural difference. Parillo, in “Causes of Prejudice”, and Fallows in “The Invisible Poor” each help us to understand forces at work that help to perpetuate the myth even in the face of a contradictory reality. Parillo points to prejudice and the continuation of prejudice through the socialization process. Defining prejudice as “an attitudinal ‘system of negative beliefs, feelings, and action-orientations regarding a certain group or groups of people’” (p. 548), Parillo argues that, through the socialization process, prejudicial views consciously or unconsciously adopted during childhood can then continue into adulthood, and translate into prejudicial choices and behavior in work, social life, and life choices. Additionally, widespread and generally shared prejudicial beliefs and attitudes toward specific groups can be implicitly (or explicitly) reinforced by society at large through, for example, the legal system and cultural norms (p. 557). New generations may not be alert to these subtle reinforcers of prejudicial attitudes and practices, and therefore may not question them. The prevailing stereotypes and prejudices are thus maintained and continued as they are adopted by new generations, and as they continue to be sanctified by the surrounding legal and societal framework. If children acquire their beliefs from their parents through socialization, what prevents them from questioning those values? Surely, we are not all sheep, that unthinkingly accept everything we hear. One explanation that Parillo offers (pp. 550-551) is ‘Self-Justification’, that we need “reassurance that the things we do and the lives we live are proper, that good reasons for our actions exist.” One way in which this surfaces, he argues, is through a dominant group convincing itself that it is superior to other groups, causing them to associate less frequently or not at all with those groups it deems inferior.

Fallows article “The Invisible Poor” clearly shows how this phenomenon is a reality of our current era of ‘tech wealth’, describing the invisible social barrier between rich and poor people – a barrier so great as to make the poor ‘invisible’ to the rich. Within the tech wealth era, according to Fallows, the production of wealth involves fewer ‘blue collar workers’, so that those directly benefiting from it are not confronted with the realities, struggles, and needs of those less like them. In terms of economic background, there is more similarity between the ‘workers’ producing and benefiting from the new wealth. Second, the nature of work within the tech industry isolates those within it into an insulated world. Long working hours, a minimal amount of leisure time, and social lives primarily focused around those within the same world further contributes to the lack of awareness and connectedness to the rest of the world around them. Third, he points to the ‘racial meritocracy’ of the tech industry, with workers and contributors coming from all corners of the globe. He argues that this racial mix among the tech wealthy leaves them out of touch with the more basic and traditional racial tensions among the less wealthy, and the ways in which those in minority groups not associated with the tech wealthy are still disadvantaged.

While Fallows offers a great deal of support for these specific phenomena of the tech wealth era as objective phenomena, which may indeed be at work, combining an analysis of these phenomena with Parrillo’s analysis of prejudice and self-justification offers a fuller understanding of our current era. Sharon Olds, in her poem “From Seven Floors Up” shows, for example, how even if there are objective forces at work such as those discussed by Fallows, there is still an attitudinal factor at work: when those more affluent are confronted with the reality of poverty, they are looking from seven floors up, through prejudice and self-justification, will more likely (however unwittingly)do not believe it could be a reality of their lives.
In sum, given that money itself does not discriminate, and given the overwhelming evidence that there are obstacles to wealth other than the personal failure to achieve the ‘American Dream’, we must look for a fuller explanation of the gap between the rich and the poor. The relationship between affluence and poverty consists not only of objective forces such as new forms of wealth production or characteristics of new economic eras, but more concretely of prejudice. The very real obstacles to wealth encountered by specific societal groups, and embedded in our social and legal structures ,are not only due to the transference of values from one generation to the next, but due to the continued need for self-justification among the affluent. The product of self-justification, prejudice, is the link between affluence and poverty that needs to be analyzed and addressed if social policies concerning poverty are to be effective.

________________________

Warning! This is a free term paper example on Poverty cannot be used as your own term paper research. This sample term paper can be easily detected as plagiarism by any plagiarism detection tool.

Our online term paper writing service MidTerm.us can provide college and university students with 100% non-plagiarized custom written term papers on any topic. All custom term papers are written from scratch by qualified writers. High quality, fast delivery and professional term paper help are guaranteed.

Over the last 25 years, global developments have contributed to an increase in organised criminal activity, more than ever before. These global developments include the dramatic advances in transportation systems facilitating organised crime activities, especially the movement of drugs and weapons in and out of countries.
Communication and information systems, too, have been developed to such an extent that organised crime syndicates are able to network their activities to a greater extent than before. Information warfare entails the sabotage of national and global information systems. In this way organised crime moves into the arena of white-collar crime, as financial fraud and embezzlement become added to the list of organised criminal activity. The advancements in information infrastructures also allows organised criminal groups to engage in extortion, their capacity to harm information and communication infrastructures (through hacking) can be used as a potential bargaining tool for extortion or act as a deterrence to inhibit law enforcement successes. (Williams, 1997).

Past trade and travel restrictions have been lifted as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Not only has the high level of social control diminished but organised crime syndicates within and without the former Soviet Union are able to diversify and expand their activities - since many Cold War policies have been rendered obsolete. Lower tariffs, free trade arrangements and the integration of former Soviet Bloc countries into the global trading arena have all contributed to the rise in global trade. Thus world trade has reached an all time high since Middle Eastern, Third World and Eastern European countries are participating more actively in global trade. In fact world economic interdependence is a feature of this. Organised crime syndicates have more opportunities to take advantage of the global trade and financial system. Globalisation is the key to the increasing threat of transnational organised crime. The world is, in effect, shrinking due to technological advances, the world’s population is also rising - more social problems are the result (such as disease, poverty, the huge influx of people across borders), and so too possible increase in the opportunities and reasons for engaging in criminal activity. Especially when that activity guarantees profit, which most organised criminal activity does. (Balzer, 1996).

Due to the relative ease of travel and migration (which governments find increasingly difficult to monitor and control due to the permeability of national borders), ethnic networks have gradually been created, resulting from diasporas. Ethnic networks are an important resource for transnational criminal organisations in that they provide foreign cover; recruits and transnational linkages. Law enforcement agencies have difficulty in penetrating immigrant communities, thus they have an in-built security mechanism against police interference. So Chinese, Nigerian, Italian and Russian diasporas have resulted in global networks whereby criminal contacts and foundations for criminal activity have been created in countries world-wide (Williams, 1997).

The development of the world’s financial infrastructure has also led to a linking of countries, banks and other financial systems, not necessarily under state control. This offers many opportunities for transnational criminal organisations, since the increase in financial business has not been matched by parallel regulatory measures. The global financial market has a large number of access points, trade can be conducted anonymously and rapidly. Origin and ownership is obscured and so too the distinction between ‘dirty’ and ‘clean’ money - as the global financial system provides safe havens for ‘dirty’ money. Not only is regulation lagging but there are also divergent levels of regulation. Thus there are always opportunities for transnational criminal organisations to take advantage of zones which are unregulated (such as in former Soviet Bloc countries, and in developing countries). Transnational criminal organisations merely move their activities from areas where they are illegal and strict regulation is prevalent, to areas where regulation is lapse and the origin of the source of money is irrelevant. Global efforts to counter this is thwarted by the countries without the means and power to engage with the problem (Williams, 1997).

Large, cosmopolitan global cities, connected to one another by telecommunications and transportation links are a haven for criminal organisations. Within many mega-cities are areas in which inhabitants live in terrible conditions. In these alienating circumstances inhabitants may be forced to form criminal social organisations in the form of street gangs, in order to survive. Global cities become the incubators for these gangs to develop into powerful transnational criminal organisations. Global cities not only cause transnational crime development but also maintain them by becoming congenial environments providing anonymity, encouraging survival skills and promoting bonding mechanisms. Thereby facilitating the success of criminal organisations and increasing the opportunities for the establishment of connections among criminal groups (Williams, 1997).
The above factors create an ideal environment for organised crime syndicates to engage in illegal activities and, at times, without the constant threat of police interference. State authority has become contracted as states have lost control of markets. The rise of grey and black markets; the undisturbed flow of illicit goods across various borders; the rise of illegal migration; as well as the development of informal economies all profess to this loss of state control. The more the state attempts to take control over these parallel markets (through law enforcement strategies), the more incentive transnational organisations have to step up their operations. They stand to profit from their ability “to circumvent national and international regulations and supply illicit goods and services with some degree of predictability” (Williams, 1997:18). Concerted state responses are vital, but not always obtainable. The challenges facing law enforcement agencies and organisations are thus formidable, some of these challenges, briefly stated, are as follows

The global nature of organised crime
Organised crime syndicates have largely taken advantage of the process of globalisation. Globalisation, in effect, has contributed to the rise of transnational organised crime. Advances in technology, transportation, information, communication and financial systems has led to transnational criminal organisations making use of these innovations to facilitate their activities. Drugs can be more easily transported, as well as weapons, ‘dirty’ money and any form of contraband. The very developments that have contributed to the transnational functioning of modern (legitimate) corporations have also contributed to the rise of the black market and emergence of transnational criminal organisations.

The effects of globalisation and the proliferation of advanced communications and, for example, the development of cyberspace have resulted in states not being able to maintain a high level of authority. The advances in technology have largely diminished state authority as many more avenues have been created to facilitate illegal activities, at times, largely beyond the control of state authority (Williams, 1997).
The challenge to law enforcement is to keep pace with the increasing sophistication of transnational criminal organisations. There is also a need to develop ways of eliminating or containing illegal cyberspace activities. Law enforcement agencies and organisations have to decrease the gap in sophistication between them and organised crime syndicates, not only through advances in technology but through concerted efforts and state co-operation.

STRATEGIES EMPLOYED BY THE USA, UN AND EUROPEAN UNION TO COUNTER ORGANISED CRIME
The following section will be devoted to the strategies adopted by the law enforcement arena to contain the organised crime and related drug trafficking threat and so the methods adopted to face the new challenges that organised crime has to offer. The USA, UN and European Union will be used to represent international efforts to do this.

Organised crime syndicates in general weaken institutions concerned with public security (such as the police and judiciary) due to their capacity to corrupt officials and/or intimidate those who are as yet, not corrupted. Their activities have far-reaching consequences, domestically and internationally - they may block legislation and treaties and weaken economies due to the vast sums of money moved in and out of countries, uncontrolled. The emphasis once again is on the damage that organised syndicates cause - globally. It is of no use to address a global problem without the co-operation of the countries involved.

The drug problem, too, is of major concern, as the UN World Drug Report (1997:9) aptly states:
“No nation, however remote a corner of the globe, is immune to the adverse consequences of drug abuse and trafficking…”

The drug problem as one instance of organised crime, really is a worldwide phenomenon and worldwide problem. Even though specific countries may not have, for example, drug trafficking problems per se, other countries directly involved in the problem will suffer economic distortions and possibly effect the worldwide economic situation and hamper international drug enforcement treaties.

The USA
The USA has by far emphasised the international security threat that organised crime poses, it has also realised the serious threat it has to US security in particular, reflected by the current American President,

Bill Clinton:
“We have to combat those who would destroy democratic societies, including ours, through terrorism, organized crime and drug trafficking…organized crime now plagu[es] the former Soviet Union, so much that one of the first requests we get in every one of these countries is, send in the FBI…the drug cartels…threaten the open societies and fragile democracies there - all these things we know can emerge from without our borders and from within our borders.” (Quoted in Winer, 1997:44).

As far as the drug trade is concerned the USA is the leader in international drug enforcement. Nadelmann (1993) points out that this is but one area in which the USA has declared its leadership (other areas of leaderships include providing intelligence, military and economic support as well as providing financial aid to countries in need, also in the struggle against remaining communism and terrorism). In fact US government activities include involving anything that has a political or regulatory interest. For example, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have increased their transnational responsibilities by opening offices in many countries, the US Customs Service has conducted courses in border, air and seaport control for various countries, including South Africa and the Southern African region. The US Marshals service has offered technical assistance, specifically to South Africa, in terms of the witness protection programme, and the DEA has held drug enforcement seminars and, in South Africa, helped SANAB (South African Narcotics Bureau) establish a database in this field (Callahan, 1997). The FBI has also been responsible for training foreign police. Thus, the DEA and FBI are seen to be the most prolific in the fight against drug trafficking specifically and organised crime more generally.

As Nadelmann (1993:129) states:
“The DEA’s principal objective, broadly stated, is to stem the flow of drugs to the United States, yet it has devoted considerable efforts to assisting foreign law enforcement agencies in countering drug trafficking that has little or no impact on the United States.”

A unique feature of the DEA is that its agents are beholden to the US and responsible to the US ambassador, when abroad, yet its instruction and mission are authorised by the UN and international conventions. The main role that the DEA plays is that of liaison. The DEA was in actual fact the first transnational and nonimperial police organisation ever (after being the successor of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in the 1970’s).

Since the late nineteenth century the USA has promulgated transnational controls. Factors, (besides the explosion in international drug trafficking in the early 1960’s), which have led to a globalisation of US law enforcement are economic and security responsibilities that the USA adopted after World War II. During the 1940s and 1950s military criminal investigative agents were sent abroad to police the many American military personnel stationed overseas. A police training programme was created and the Customs Service, the FBI and Secret Service all asserted their efforts overseas during this time.

During the 1960s, the rapid nationalisation of American law enforcement took place parallel to crime attaining a national political status (Nadelmann, 1997). In the early 1970s political policies were adopted by the likes of American presidents such as Richard Nixon - and his extension of the war on drugs to other countries - in the beginning of the 1970’s (Ronald Reagan and George Bush following suit in the 1980’s).
The late 1970s 1980s and 1990s saw a rise in extradition and mutual legal assistance relations with foreign governments. The Office of International Affairs (OIA) and the Office of Law Enforcement and Intelligence (LEI) (both created in 1979), in this regard, assumed leading roles. Treaties with foreign countries were signed as a result of these efforts and improved co-operation in drug and securities law enforcement was at the top of the agenda. After the 1980’s US jurisdiction was spread to terrorist acts against American citizens overseas. But it has been the real threat of drug trafficking by organised crime syndicates and the American engagement with this threat that has led to a substantial internationalisation of American organised crime and drug enforcement policies, laws, treaties and the like. A few decades ago this need for a globalised approach was non-existent - the nature of the drug trafficking problem today is such that a globalised approach is necessary. Not only a globalised approach but an adapted globalised approach - adapted to keep ahead with evolving drug syndicates and organised crime technology with regard to drug trafficking, but also smuggling in general, money laundering and computer fraud. Other developments that have taken place in the last few decades of US international criminal law enforcement include the creation of an office devoted to international enforcement matters (handled by the Securities and Exchange Commission). The US national central bureau of Interpol and federal police agencies have expanded their extraterritorial activities. US military forces have become increasingly involved in international criminal law enforcement. Congressional hearings have stimulated incentives to confront the transnational drug trafficking problem and other criminal problems. (Nadelmann, 1997).

US law enforcement agencies such as the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) US Customs Service, US Marshals Service and the Secret Service to name a few, have become increasingly involved in the international activities of syndicates specifically involved in the drug trade.

However the enforcement of internationalised organised crime and drug enforcement activities are beset with problems, particularly with regard to the state sovereignty of foreign countries. US agencies working abroad may not have authorisation from foreign agencies to effectively promote their strategies. Foreign countries may inadvertently harbour criminals, in virtue of their policing inadequacies and economic opportunities. American enforcers’ efforts may, too, be thwarted by political problems. The USA is faced with challenges, which include more specifically, factors such as the following:

Governments that are hostile, politically, may not be co-operative, even those governments that do co-operate may nevertheless hamper progress by virtue of conflicting viewpoints. There is a need to work out the fundamental differences in the styles of law enforcement as well as convince foreign governments that change is necessary if any effective containment of organised crime is to occur. These and other problems related to procedural, cultural and institutional differences slow co-operation between governments. Consequently the US agencies, confronting organised crime and drug trafficking, have had to evolve their means of creating co-operation and infiltrating drug syndicates. Nadelmann mentions that the USA has achieved this by adopting unilateral measures such as enforcing laws extraterritorially through domestic legal processes; keeping track of foreigners within American borders; compiling records of domestic transactions, and so forth. Despite this, unilateral measures are fraught with difficulties particularly with regard to tense foreign relations and lack of sovereign powers. Therefore, bilateral and multilateral agreements are necessary. Bilateral agreements between two states or multilateral agreements globally, facilitate co-operation against transnational crime. However multilateral agreements promote harmonisation. Part and parcel of this harmonisation is:

Regularisation of relations between law enforcement officials of different countries.
Accommodation among law enforcement systems that retain essential differences.
Homogenisation of law enforcement systems towards a common norm (Nadelmann, 1993).

Due to American efforts, a global Americanisation of foreign systems has occurred:
“The internationalisation of US law enforcement during the twentieth century has shaped the evolution of criminal justice systems in dozens of other countries”. (Nadelmann, 1993:11).

Foreign countries in response, have signed extradition and law enforcement treaties, hosted American agents, adopted American approaches and basically, followed in America’s footsteps.

Gerber and Jensen (1998) point out that although America has not solely spread the war on drugs and transnational crime it has taken the lead - its approaches are dominant. The transnational nature of the drug trafficking business makes its unavoidable for countries not to establish some control mechanisms. A helping hand in this regard is that of the American mass media - cultural diffusion of the American drug control policy has thus exposed the world to the American manner of interpretation.

But it’s interesting to note why America has been relatively successful in the promotion of its policies. In this regard Gerber & Jensen, (1998) mention three possible reasons:
Firstly, they point out that state managers will attack enemies that are politically safer to attack. Illicit drugs and organised crime, in general, is a useful “enemy” - even though there is a kernel of truth to the claims made about drugs and other organised criminal activities, the issue is nevertheless sufficiently ambiguous to attack without leading to political losses.

Secondly, the collapse of the Soviet Union led to the American military being available for new missions (that is, combating drugs) and more importantly, left the USA as the only superpower - thus able to enforce its ideology on other countries without interference from Soviet expansionism.

Thirdly, the USA has become the police force of the world, due to the necessity of the transnational co-ordination of law enforcement against drug trafficking and transnational organised crime.

The US has law enforcement representatives in the most foreign countries, it also has a multitude of law enforcement agencies, more so than any other country. The US has demonstrated the most powerful influence on criminal laws, procedures and investigatory tactics - it is the first country to create a global police presence and thus its role in the containment of transnational organised crime has been invaluable (Nadelmann, 1997).

The strategies employed by American agencies and organisations have been directed at global co-operation and the sharing of initiatives to combat organised crime. The United Nations, too, has attempted to establish mutual agreements between countries so as to unite them in the struggle against organised crime.

The United Nations
The UN is a key player in the fight against organised transnational crime and drug trafficking, it is a global body incorporating many countries, thus perpetuating state co-operation. On the policing level its Security Forces also reflect a new world consensus in terms of policing strategies. Its tireless efforts in the fight against organised crime have led to the establishment of bilateral, co-operative agreements based on mutual respect between foreign countries thus actively attempting to globalise international efforts against organised crime.

The UN approves funds, accepts resolutions, conventions, protocols and such, through the UN General Assembly. Governments relate their opinions or views through this UN body. For example, in the Economic and Social Councils Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (International Co-operation in Combating Transnational Crime, 1998) it is stated that the General Assembly approved a Global Action Plea against Organised Transnational Crime and that it urged countries to implement the plan. The General Assembly also asked the Commission to consider an international convention against organised transnational crime. Thus the General Assembly forms a vital function within the UN, generally and specifically in terms of organised crime prevention and co-ordinating global activities in this regard.

The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is a key structure - this body is concerned with policies regarding drug abuse control and co-ordination, and it also makes recommendations to governments. From this, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is responsible for implementing and monitoring UN Drug Conventions. It is an independent body and is also responsible for ensuring government compliance and assisting governments where necessary (particularly with regard to treaties). Thus it corrects weaknesses and boosts capacity in national and international control of illicit drugs. The Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) is a functional commission of ECOSOC and aids ECOSOC in the supervision of international conventions and agreements (that is, ensuring their application). New conventions may also be prepared by the CND, and it is the central policy making body of the UN (World Drug Report, 1997).

From these two bodies (the INCB and CND) one derives the United Nations Drug Control Programme or UNDCP which was established in 1991. The UNDCP promotes change and assists the progress of international co-operation with regard to drug control. Thus advising and aiding governments and agencies on the issue of the international drug control treaty system. Some of the functions of this system are: To be prepared for phenomenon which could worsen illicit drug production and trafficking, and so deal with it timeously; to aid the INCB and CND; to offer technical assistance and co-operation to governments so as to aid governments with regard to plans of action in a joint operations venture (World Drug Report, 1997). Also, the UNDCP may actively provide collaboration between two or more parties, particularly when these countries need an independent collaborator due to political tension. The result of such collaborations could be the establishment of bilateral agreements and multi-faceted, sub-regional or regional co-operation arrangements (World Drug Report, 1997).

The UN also facilitates MoUs (Memorandums of Understanding). Such memorandums may be intergovernmental, or between governments and agencies (such as police or customs agencies) or between governments or agencies and commercial organisations (such as airlines). Such MoUs are not legally binding and not necessarily ratified by national parliaments.

A MoU:
“…derives from the existence of convergent interests between two countries with similar problems and the political will to deal with them.”(World Drug Report, 1997: 176).

Other technical assistance and resolutions offered by the UN and outlined by the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice is that of the implementation of the Political Declaration and Global Action Plan against Organised Transnational Crime which was adopted by the World Ministerial Conference on Organised Transnational Crime in Italy in 1994; also (in 1990’s) the UN Crime Prevention and Crime Justice Programme and its contribution to the implementation of the UN New Agenda for the Development of Africa.
The Conventions on Mutual Legal Assistance and on Extradition of the Economy Community of West African States also provide for forms of international co-operation. The Declaration and Plan of Action on Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Africa was adopted at Cameroon in 1996 by the Organization of African Unity (OAU). But most importantly the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice has provided advisory services and technical aid to African States. Due to efforts of the UN, a proliferation of extradition and mutual legal assistance treaties has resulted, thus improving and encouraging global co-operation in the war against drug production trafficking and abuse (Nadelmann, 1993). Also the World Drug Report (1997) itself has clarified many blurred areas of the drugs issue by analysing exactly what is and is not known, and by giving an overview of the global drug situation. It has, in this regard pointed out the major organised crime groups (involved with production and distribution) throughout the world and also their connections across the globe. These syndicates consist of Cocaine Cartels in Columbia and Mexico; Triads - worldwide; Yakuza, mainly operating in Asia; Cosa Nostra - worldwide; La Cosa Nostra in New York and the USA; and Mafia groups in former Eastern Bloc countries. (World Drug Report, 1997). More recently (1998) the UN Draft Convention for the Suppression of Transnational Organised Crime, attended by approximately 50 countries, has made attempts to create an international convention against organised crime.

The European Union
Along with the ‘Americanisation’ of law enforcement is the ‘Europeanisation’ of policing (Van der Spuy, 1997). This is a complex and ambitious goal as European countries are largely diverse in their organisational structures and attitudes or viewpoints (van Dijk, 1991). The UN is engaged with the attempted collaboration of different European countries - but due to different needs different countries want different kinds of treaties (from bilateral to multilateral treaties) - thus despite British and American encouragement - progress in the area of negotiation has been slow. (Dorn & South, 1991)

The UN points out two important international agencies in drug control - Interpol (International Criminal Police Organisation) and the World Customs Organisation. Interpol comprises 175 member states and encourages co-operation and the exchange of information and the heightening of abilities to control organised crime and specifically drug trafficking. Interpol also has a responsibility to increase the difficulty for fugitives to find haven in Europe, so an international wanted notice issued by Interpol, alerts (or should alert) police agencies in the countries wherein it operates. Interpol also holds annual meetings and regional conferences, as it is an international professional association for police. In these conferences information exchange is possible and thus provision is made for the spread of new police methods and techniques. Consequently, through Interpol, the US government has access to the means to internationalise law enforcement against organised crime syndicates (Nadelmann, 1993)

However more specific to Europe, is Europol created in 1995 as a result of the Trevi agreement in 1975 between European states, and the Schengen Convention in 1985 (Van der Spuy, 1997). The International Criminal Police Review of 1989 aptly summarises the history of European Unity in terms of police co-operation: the European Economic Community was founded in 1957 and composed of 6 countries, its goal was to create a common market. A treaty was made in 1957 for this purpose and revised by the Single European Act of 1987 that had its main objective, politically, of recommending the creation of a European Union (however at the time no account was made for international police co-operation). The Trevi groups came about before the Single European Act came into force and it accounted for the lack of mention of international police co-operation as not only was it the first intergovernmental counterpart of Interpol but it directly addressed the need for collaboration. Thus, for example, top-level FBI officials have attended Trevi sessions in which improved co-operation against (amongst others) drug trafficking and organised crime is arranged. Five European Community Countries with a view to facilitating police co-operation and mutual assistance, co-operation and communication by abolishing border controls and harmonising drug-related laws and regulations created the Schengen Agreement. The Schengen group countries (forming the European Union) have consequently made contributions to police co-operation of external and internal borders of the European Union.

Extradition arrangements also exist in the European Union with most states being part of the European Convention on Extradition (Benyon, Turnbull, Willis, Woodward & Beck, 1993). Consequently the ideology of a European identity seems to be what is striven for with the attempted introduction of a single market and political economy and specifically legal integration. This has had an effect on policing strategies:
“…one of the key public rationales for intensified police co-operation has been the prospect of abolition of border controls between member states of the Union… [which] will undermine the traditional filter function of frontiers, and remove a major impediment to cross-border criminality…” (Helsenton & Thomas, 1995:190).
The European experience is similar to that of the obstacles faced by the Americans. In that a standardisation of criminal justice systems and co-operation among the policing institutions is difficult, the sovereignty of state could be threatened by a law enforcement system independent of the political sphere of the state. Thus ‘police independence’ and ‘professionalism’ might mask a police system characterised by a resistance to democratic control - alike to an emerging power bloc (Van der Spuy, 1997:48).

Also Europe is much more diverse, culturally, in that attitudes towards ‘crime’ differ from state to state:
“…states remain infused by different cultures sensibilities and criminal justice policies.” (Ibid. p47).
So not only is it difficult for US specialised agencies (like the DEA) to effectively gather intelligence on drug trafficking in alien systems, but European states themselves are struggling for a consensus (Nadelmann, 1993).

However, this is an evolving situation and consequently new areas of development are occurring, such as an increase in contact due to the consolidation of police networks and an exchange of policing artifacts. The joint forces and social interaction of international and regional policing areas may prove beneficial considering what they may have to offer each other (Van der Spuy, 1997).

In summary, the strategies employed by the USA, UN and European Union have been both on the level of politics and policing in an attempt to develop strategies to confront and contain organised crime.

Consequently these strategies have ranged from attempts at public relations to practical developments, such as increased policing co-operation by means of shared intelligence and databases. All these strategies have been made in an attempt to confront the challenges organised crime has to offer. And by doing so, increased effort has been made to expose the activities and priorities of organised crime syndicates; to create unfavourable environments and comprehensive strategies to curb these activities; and, in general, to globalise these attempts so that a concerted effort can be made to normalise these approaches. The best means to contain organised crime would be to simultaneously address the issue on a political and policing level, and thus it has been shown that attempts have been made in this regard - to expose the organised crime phenomenon as a global problem and common enemy to all countries.

The following sections will look at the South African engagement with the organised crime problem and its means to effectively employ strategies - both on a legal and policing level - to contain it.

COMBATING IT
Criminals have expanded their networks beyond national boundaries in order to maximise the returns on their illegal activities. This expansion has made it very difficult for weak national law enforcement agencies to control or investigate the resulting crimes. Legislation as a deterrent is only effective if it is regionally accepted and if it is actively enforced. The absence of such legislation has detrimental social, political and economic consequences. States affected by corruption become targets for drug traffickers, money launderers and organisations that encourage lawlessness. In the process, the rule of law and the democratic process are undermined. The recently adopted SADC Protocol Against Corruption is an indication that the political will to fight corruption is growing. The next step is for national parliaments to incorporate the protocol into national laws.

Definition and nature of organised crime
Organised crime is a term that has proved to be difficult to define exhaustively. Some authors have suggested that it is both impossible and unnecessary to define the term fully.

When most people think of organised crime, their point of reference is what is seen in gangster movies, dominated usually by an Italian ‘Godfather’. In movies one sees the criminals in a ‘family’. For people to become part of the ‘family’, they must pass certain ‘tests’. This ‘family’ is therefore organised into a network of people primarily focused on obtaining profits illegally through committing serious crimes with great social, economic and societal consequences. This has been generally accepted as the definition of organised crime, which usually manifests itself and is carried out by the use of corruption.

It is widely agreed that corruption is the misuse of power, office and authority - be it in the public or private spheres - for private gain. Bribery, fraud, extortion, nepotism and favouritism are among the many forms that corruption takes. In Southern Africa, various legal instruments operationalise the term corruption in a manner that is consistent.

In short, the facets of organised crime therefore include the following:
the criminal activities are ‘organised’ as distinct from ‘isolated’;
the organisation is self perpetuating;
the motive is financial gain and could be political;
the goals are particular business activities which stifle outside competition;
the top men are insulated from the criminal act; and
the activities promote fear and corruption.

Legislation
The New Collins Concise English Dictionary defines legislation as the act or process of making laws. Legislation can also be defined simply as the laws so made.

Legislation is the expression of the will of a people or, in a national context, the will of the sovereign. In a democracy, this becomes the will of the people expressed through those elected to make laws.
There are at least two dangers that law-makers frequently succumb to in coming up with laws. The first is making a law that pleases a noisy minority but which does not have the support of the majority. This is often the case in situations where the law may protect the powerful who have the means and ability to engage in organised crime.

The second danger is of law makers passing laws without adequate provision for their enforcement. As observed by Matsheza and Kunaka (2000),1 Southern African countries have adequate pieces of legislation in their national laws to deal with corruption; the problem is the enforcement of this legislation.

Zimbabwe, for example, has the Prevention of Corruption Act. President Mugabe is quoted as having said he suspects that some of his cabinet ministers are corrupt, but nothing has been done since this admission. This indicates that political will is an important facet of legislation.

For legislation to be of practical value, it is therefore important that the rule of law be adhered to in the strictest sense of the word. No one should be above the law.

If this is not the case, then there is no need to talk of legislation being of any practical value. Organisations engaged in organised crime tend to be very powerful and, as such, can easily manipulate law enforcement agencies. It is important to empower sufficiently these agencies so that they can enforce the laws.
Organised crime, human rights and sustainable human development

The impact and consequences of organised crime, including corruption, is fully appreciated if they are seen in the context of human rights, good governance, democracy and sustainable human development.
“Human rights and human development share a common vision and a common purpose … to secure the freedom, well-being and dignity of all people everywhere.”2

Included in the freedoms are:

• freedom from want to enjoy a decent standard of living;
• freedom from fear of threats to personal security, from torture, arbitrary arrest and other violent acts;
• freedom from injustice and violations of the rule of law; and
• freedom for decent work without exploitation.

Several national, regional and international human rights instruments have been put in place to protect and promote the enjoyment of these rights and to provide the legal and institutional frameworks to fight organised crime and corruption. Among these instruments are national constitutions that protect citizens’ human rights through bills of rights; the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the United Nations (UN) Convention on Civil and Political Rights; the UN Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights.4

All these human rights instruments are intended to ensure that people enjoy the right to life, liberty, dignity and worth. There is a clear symbiotic relationship between sustainable human development, human rights, good governance and democracy. These issues are indivisible as human development cannot be sustained without good governance, the respect and enjoyment of human rights, adherence to principles of democratic governance and the upholding of the rule of law and the fair administration of justice.

It is important to note that the Southern African region is characterised by high levels of illiteracy, high unemployment and under-employment, as well as gender and racial inequalities, thus making it difficult to attain satisfactory levels of sustainable human development. Organised crime and corruption contribute significantly to negate efforts aimed at protecting human rights, adherence to a governance process anchored on ethical and professional conduct and standards and respect of the rule of law as well as fair administration of justice.

The consequences of organised crime are far reaching. These can be looked at from a social, economic and political perspective.

Social
The impact on society of drug trafficking is very destructive. Promoting drugs ultimately creates further crime, though the exact links are still debated. With time, drug users become addicted. This addiction has health implications for those involved and consequently places a burden on a country’s health care system to rehabilitate and to treat these people. Drug addicts may become unemployed, leading to a financial burden on society to look after them. As a result of this addiction, drug abusers turn to petty crime like theft and burglary in order to finance their habit. It can also lead to a cycle of crime, including prostitution. As organised crime generates high profits, younger members of society are encouraged to join in, in order to earn these ‘easy’ profits.

Economic
Economic crime is today a global and omnipresent phenomenon, even though countries may define the concept differently in their respective legislations. It is highly organised and has become more international than ever before. Not so long ago, criminal justice was exclusively a national issue. Nowadays, when an increasing number of countries openly admit to a growing volume of estimated losses due to economic crime, ‘one-rider’ policies no longer work. Nation states have become too vulnerable.

The revolutionary technological developments of recent years have inadvertently facilitated the emergence of organised criminal networks that move across boarders in order to maximise profits. Modern criminal organisations have accrued considerable financial power, enabling them to juggle human and capital resources. The criminal economy is a rationally organised activity capable of producing wealth and power in the same way as any other business and, more often than not, more quickly than legitimate businesses.

Transnational economic crimes are complex in nature especially as they are often combined with legal activities. This is what makes them difficult to trace and quantify. To date, no systematic method of accounting for these crimes exists at national, regional or international level.

Corruption is closely related to money laundering. This is because at some stage, proceeds of the former need to be cleared through the financial system to re-enter the mainstream economy and appear legitimate. The process of knowingly concealing the source of illegally obtained funds for subsequent legitimate use is called money laundering.

Action against money laundering is difficult. Perpetrators often mix ‘dirty’ money with proceeds from legitimate businesses. Commercial secrecy, banking confidentiality and off-shore legislation continue to place obstacles to investigations. If the money has been sent overseas, international co-operation to trace it is required. One laundering action was reported to have taken 45 seconds to complete and 18 months to investigate.

Money laundering is difficult to detect and this makes it difficult to measure, distorting economic data and complicating governments’ efforts to manage economic policy and stability.
In view of the illicit operations of organised crime, the businesses are not declared for tax purposes. The amount of revenue that a country loses from non-taxable profits is impossible to estimate.
Political

The main political problem created by organised crime is that because of the vast profits made, criminals have opportunities with which to by-pass the democratic process. Tymon Katlholo, Director of the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime in Botswana, aptly concluded:
“Corruption is … evil. It undermines democracy and the rule of law. It impedes developments and weakens social stability. It leads to inadequate social services, reduces productivity and encourages laziness. It leads to a sub-standard product especially when through bribery a construction or supply contract is awarded to a person not capable of the job. Hence there is a massive effect on the public purse.”5
The World Bank reiterates that sustainable economic development cannot occur without the rule of law. Accountable systems of governance are necessary to provide the building blocks for economic and human development. Without them, development will stall or be distorted.

The rule of law - the foundation of civilised society - is the first to crumble when corruption is tolerated. Growing lawlessness strains the state’s ability to provide security for citizens. An increase in crime may further erode the state and its institutions. Where the state lacks the capacity to enforce the law, organised crime can undermine and replace the authority of the state. Organised crime then becomes a national security problem.

Legislative linkages are also important in that there is a need to protect whistleblowers. These linkages must be uniform in the region. Given the intricate network of how organised crime is committed, it may be virtually impossible to detect without the assistance of ordinary citizens. These citizens will, however, need the protection of the law and to be protected from the criminals. This will help detect where crime is being committed.

The requirement of legislative linkages to combat organised crime
As stated above, organised crime is now a more global phenomenon. This has been facilitated by the use of information technology which was virtually non-existent in the 1980s and early 1990s. Organised crime knows no boundaries; ever closer co-operation is therefore needed between policy makers, national law enforcement agencies and lawyers at all levels and across national boundaries through the region, as well as on an international scale.

Savona (1995)6 states that there are two types of risk associated with organised crime. These are:
Transnational organised crime risk: This refers to the probability that organised crime groups will expand their structures and activities in countries different from those in which they are initially located. This concept derives from the general assumption that organised crime groups move towards other countries (become transnational) because of two main variables: maximising opportunities and minimising ‘law enforcement risk’. Law enforcement risk refers to the sum of the probabilities of being identified, arrested, convicted and of having one’s assets confiscated.

Illegal enterprise risk: This refers to the risk incurred by organised groups for exercising their criminal activities in more than one country. The two main variables making up illegal enterprise risk are maximising opportunities and minimising law enforcement risk.

Ernesto U. Savona (1995) in his paper entitled ‘Harmonising policies for reducing the transnational organised crime risk’ states that organised crime risk tends to increase when the illegal enterprise risk for the organised crime group is unequally distributed among countries. Organised crime groups tend to internationalism and expand in those countries where opportunities are higher and law enforcement risk is lower. Savona (1995) made the assumption that the more equally the risk is distributed among countries, the less organised criminal groups will be tempted to displace their activities outside the countries where they are traditionally located.

Controlling the distribution of illegal enterprise risk among countries becomes paramount. The greater the external risks for organised criminal groups, the lesser the probability that they will internationalise their activities. If criminal organisations move towards processes of internationalisation because they find areas where law enforcement risk is minimal, co-ordinated international action designed to equalise this risk among countries will minimise or contain the process of internationalisation of organised crime groups. Equalising the risk means putting all countries on the same minimum ground of preventive/control actions.

Linkages between Southern African countries with respect to combating organised crime exist on two levels: the policy level and the practical level. The former involves public declarations regarding the will of the international community in criminal justice matters. The practical approach involves the actual co-operation requested by one country of another in matters such as collecting evidence, arresting a fugitive, freezing assets of criminal origin and extraditing criminals. The political will constitutes the framework for operations at the practical level.

The main purpose or goal of this process of harmonisation is to reduce the transnational organised crime risk and to equalise illegal enterprise risk. Preventive policies are designed to reduce the opportunities for criminal activity and to minimise the vulnerability of legitimate businesses to the infiltration of organised crime.

Crime control policies, in contrast, are intended to control the crimes committed by organised crime groups.
Efforts to combat organised crime

International efforts
It is recognised that the battle against organised crime should be expected to be an arduous and protracted one, requiring attention from national, regional and global levels. Globalisation has profound implications for governance and statehood: it erodes state sovereignty as transnational bodies and institutions increase their influence in national affairs, particularly in developing countries. States are bound together by a network of multilateral and bilateral agreements that create mutually binding obligations, thereby placing governments and their performance under increasing scrutiny.

Globalisation continually manifests itself in the evolution of regional blocs that co-operate in areas of trade, politics and security. Some of the well known regional blocs include the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the Organisation of American States (OAS), the Organisation of African Unity, the European Union, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Common Market for East and Southern Africa. This has reinforced the power of intergovernmental institutions such as the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation, the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the International Monetary Fund, especially in developing countries where the member states are dependent on these institutions to support these regional entities.

In this context, the role of national governments is to find a suitable and sustainable balance between taking advantage of globalisation and cushioning the economy from external pressures, including corruption.

In recognition of the transboundary nature of crime and corruption and the negative impact of globalisation in this regard, there are increasing efforts at international level to fight corruption. Several international conferences and workshops have been held on the need to identify and implement strategies and to establish mechanisms to combat corruption. Notable among these are the Lima Conference of 1997, the Global Forum on Fighting Corruption held in the United States in February 1999 and the 9th International Conference Against Corruption held in Durban, South Africa in 1999.

Some regional instruments on fighting crime and corruption have also recently been put in place in Europe and the US. In December 1999, OECD member countries and five non-members adopted the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, appreciating that:
“bribery is a widespread phenomenon in international business transactions including trade and investment, which realises serious moral and political concerns, undermines good governance and economic development and distorts international competitive conditions.”

The OAS also passed the Inter-America Convention Against Corruption to address corrupt business practices in the western hemisphere. Although there is no regional instrument against corruption in Asia, the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum continues to work on a programme of action to address issues of bribery, corruption and transparency.

The Global Coalition for Africa and some African countries working together with the World Bank have been attempting to promote a possible African anti-corruption agreement.

Several roundtable conferences to discuss strategies on combating corruption in the region have been held since 1998. SADC member countries participating in the Second Roundtable on Ethics and Governance held in Tanzania in 1999, recommended that countries in the region should commit themselves to the adoption of the principles adopted in February 1999 in Washington by 11 African countries as a basis of strategies in fighting corruption in Africa. These developments at global and regional levels make it desirable for Southern Africa to consider seriously establishing similar measures to deal with issues of bribery and corruption.
SADC efforts to combat organised crime

In recent years, Southern Africa has undertaken a number of important initiatives to curb, combat and eradicate corruption. Over the past five years, governments in Southern Africa have enacted legislation and codes of conduct, established anti-corruption institutions, reformed processes of governance to minimise opportunities for corruption and undertaken national consultative processes to design anti-corruption strategies.

At the regional level, Southern Africa has been active in establishing networks of parliamentarians, ombudsmen, auditors general and private sector leaders in order to enhance existing efforts to combat corruption and to promote ethical conduct across national borders. Furthermore, 11 African nations, including four from Southern Africa, issued an African Ministerial Declaration on Corruption, following the Global Forum on Fighting Corruption in Washington DC, in February 1999. Some Southern African countries earlier endorsed a set of anti-corruption principles at the 1997 conference in Mozambique, facilitated by the Global Coalition for Africa.

Studies have been undertaken in the region in an attempt to identify, quantify and qualify the prevalence of corruption in the region in order to establish a common understanding of the concept and its ramifications on the region’s socio-political and economic conditions. This would also assist in identifying strategies in place to combat corruption at national and regional levels. These studies established that corruption is both perceived and experienced as a serious problem in the region in the various sectors of the economy, and particular concern was raised with respect to the magnitude of the problem in the public sector. Studies have revealed that at national levels, several strategies and mechanisms have been put in place to combat corruption, as indicated above. These studies include:
A discourse on the linkage between corruption, human rights and democracy, presented by the Human Rights Trust of Southern Africa at the Third Roundtable on Ethics and Governance in September 2000 and entitled ‘Human rights and democracy norms in governance’.

Diagnostic tools to measure corruption in Africa. These are model data collection instruments for the development of Afro- centric information on corruption.

‘Anti-corruption mechanisms and strategies in Southern Africa’, developed by the Human Rights Trust of Southern Africa.
All these studies call for a more regional approach to combating corruption in Southern Africa.
The SADC protocol against corruption

The adoption of the protocol in mid-August 2001 sent a strong signal to the international community that SADC, on its own initiative, is serious about combating corruption, thus demonstrating the presence of political will to fight corruption. This will almost certainly improve the environment for investment in the region. This statement should be read in line with the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, which requires its members to have an anti-corruption clause in their bilateral trade and finance agreements with third parties.

In the absence of a SADC Anti-Corruption Protocol, SADC countries will be required to sign anti-corruption clauses when dealing with OECD countries. The OECD countries will be using their convention while SADC countries will have no guiding principles. The protocol will therefore be the basis for contracting with third parties, thereby reducing the need for individual country bilateral anti-corruption clauses.

(It is necessary that the legal framework is in the form of a protocol to ensure that it is binding on all members as SADC declarations are of a non-binding nature.)

Now that the protocol has been adopted, it should be incorporated into national laws. This should help curb corruption at national and regional levels, thereby leading to a reduction of corruption, the protection of resources and an increase in investment. The protocol will be the main instrument on which anti-corruption strategies, such as legal frameworks and protection of whistleblowers, are based.
Conclusion

It is evident from what has been discussed that organised crime is a scourge that must be eradicated. It is argued that legislation is the only vehicle that can effectively be used to combat organised crime. But legislation is only useful if it is capable of being enforced.

Legislation will derive its practical value in circumstances where it is generally recognised and is not hampered by political and other non-legal issues when it comes to enforcement. This is one of the main reasons why it was necessary to develop a SADC Protocol Against Corruption.

Legislation is most effective when it is clear and unambiguous, available to everyone, enforceable, drafted to deal with the crime that it is intended to address; and when it is easy to interpret. Legislation is accordingly extremely useful and is much needed to deal effectively with organised crime.

Terrorism as Organised Crime
The fundamental difference between them remains: terrorist groups are ideologically motivated and their goal is to achieve particular ‘power outcomes’, while organised crime groups are profit motivated. One of the more obvious corollaries of this is that terrorist groups seek to overturn or destabilise governments while organised crime groups seek to work within a given governmental system in order to continue operating…. There is, however, ample evidence to show that participants in the new wars engage in the same strategies and tactics in which terrorist and organised crime groups generally engage, namely, terror-violence and the quest for economic gain. However, the means alone are not sufficient to alter the fundamental nature of a given group. The purposes of a given group remain the dominant, though not the exclusive, defining characteristic.10

There is, in this, an implicit and overwhelming presumption that terrorist activities and groups have a consistent and enduring ideology and political purpose, and that any economic activity that they engage in are secondary and subsidiary to these motives. This presumption is unfounded in a large number of cases. Indeed, the experience in India tends to the contrary. Of course, in their preliminary ‘ideological’ stage, most terrorist movements are impelled by political motives, and any non-political criminal activities that they may engage in, are usually intended to secure the resources that are needed to support or achieve clear political ends. Nevertheless, once militancies cross this preliminary stage and enter into settled patterns of continuous conflict, acquiring a certain measure of control or influence over significant geographical areas and populations, this characteristic is systematically eroded. One of the factors that contributes to this erosion is what Robert Michels defined at the turn of the century11 - in the context of bureaucracies, professional unions and socialist organisations - as the ‘iron law of oligarchy’: sooner or later, all organisations form their oligarchy that seizes power and that is then consolidated in perpetuity. Thus, while the original intent may be idealistic or even democratic, such organisations eventually come to be dominated by a small, self-serving group of people who achieve and retain all positions of power. Michels argued that the people in this group would be seduced by their ‘elite’ status, and would be increasingly inclined to make decisions that protect their power rather than represent the ideologies or the will of the groups they are supposed to serve. There are, moreover, other organisational factors that reinforce such a tendency, the most significant of which are the internal dynamics of illegal markets, the impact of increasing financial flows and the management of funds, the progressive diversification of the activities of the terrorist group, and the creeping ascendance of the profit motive among increasing numbers of participants in these activities. All these create a multiplicity of organisational layers between any surviving ‘hard-core’ ideological element within the terrorist organisation and its expanding rank and file. Studies of organised crime and gangs in the West indicate that most gang members are only peripherally involved in drug dealing, violence and crime and that only a small percentage of gang members account for most of the harm done by their gang.12 This hypothesis is endorsed by an analysis of arrest records and offender interviews that showed that the worst 10 per cent of criminals commit approximately 55 per cent of all crimes.13 While no specific studies of this nature have been carried out on terrorist groupings in India, it is fairly well documented that the ‘hard-core’ within terrorist groups is a fraction of their total strength, and the motives even among these elements range across the spectrum - from the ideological, through the criminal to the purely pathological. Thus, the presumption of strong, unitary and enduring ideological motives among all - or even any - members of entrenched terrorist organisations and movements, is somewhat tenuous. This is not to imply that such motives do not exist, but rather that there is a continuous spectrum, both over time, and within organisations, of motives that range from the purely ideological to the purely criminal, with an inexorable natural tendency towards the latter in the long term. There will be exceptions to this tendency, and a variety of local factors may neutralise it. For instance, in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), comprehensive support and funding of militancy by Pakistan eliminates the necessity of extended criminal and extortionary operations - though these may persist on the margin - and hence obstructs the development of the relationships, linkages and dynamics that may otherwise have come into being had such non-political criminal activities been mandated by the operational necessities of sustaining a large terrorist movement over time.
Nevertheless, to the extent that such a tendency prevails, the presumption of a clear opposition of interests between terrorist groupings and established governments is untenable. Indeed, terrorist organisations, like organised crime syndicates, may develop a vested interest ‘to work within a given governmental system,’ subverting and exploiting existing institutions for financial gain, rather than seeking to dismantle or destroy these. This is more the case in India, where a persistent and manifest ambivalence characterises the politics of terrorism-affected States, constantly blurring the lines between the overground political elite and the underground leadership.

The cumulative thrust of the preceding arguments is that it may be fruitful to temporarily suspend judgement on the ideological and political motives or pretensions of terrorist organisations, on the validity and pertinence of the ‘root causes’ of their movements, and on the purely operational and tactical aspects of counter-terrorism, and to focus on the processes, structures and management of the illegal economy that terrorist organisations preside over. In this, it will be necessary to suspend our prejudices, and to regard these organisations and its members as rational - albeit criminal - economic agents or entrepreneurs who continuously respond and adapt to market and policy incentives and disincentives with a view to the maximisation of individual and group profits, and to analyse their activities as such.
The dimensions of this exercise can be estimated through a preliminary exploration of what is known of the underground economy of terrorism in India’s Northeast. Such an analysis would reveal that, as with organised crime, shifts in economic policies, market changes, and the transformation of production relationships can have critical, often unforeseen, consequences on the activities of terrorist organisations. With appropriate data and tools of analysis, moreover, these consequences can not only be predicted, but also used to formulate policies that help induce desired changes, adding a new dimension to the range of possible counter-terrorism initiatives. Needless to say, however, the power of such policies and tools would vary directly with the volume and accuracy of the data and information on which they are based. Significantly, moreover, the processes of documenting this underground economy and its linkages would itself create disincentives to participation in its activities - and this factor can, consequently, also be expected to elicit a great deal of resistance to any such exercise.

________________________

Warning! This is a free term paper example on Crime cannot be used as your own term paper research. This sample term paper can be easily detected as plagiarism by any plagiarism detection tool.

Our online term paper writing service MidTerm.us can provide college and university students with 100% non-plagiarized custom written term papers on any topic. All custom term papers are written from scratch by qualified writers. High quality, fast delivery and professional term paper help are guaranteed.

Evolution of Ghana’s Environmental Policy
Since Ghana attained independence from Britain in 1957, its environmental policy like those of most sub-Saharan nations, have relied heavily on European models as the major development strategy. This strategy focused attention on urban industrialization and rejected indigenous life-styles in favor of alien or modern systems. Although this strategy has had some positive impact, in most cases, development projects in Ghana as els ewhere in Africa have had adverse environmental impact and endangered the very basis on which sustainability of development depends. For example the construction of the Volta dam has bred trypanosomiasis, which causes river blindness and almost half of the human population over 40 years of age living along the banks of the Volta lake has lost their eyesight (Appiah-poku and Mulamoottil 1997). Between 1960 and 1964, the incidence of bilharziasis rose from a mere 5% in riparian children to an outrageous 90% among children who live near the lake, and today virtually all the people inhabiting the entire shoreline are infected (Moxon 1984; Appiah -Opuku 1997). Ghana created the Environmental Protection Council in 1973, enacted the Provincial National Defense Council law 116 of 1985, and PNDC law 207 of 1988 which make the district assemblies responsible for human settlements and the environment in the districts. It also empowers the district assemblies to monitor the execution projects under approved development plans and evaluate their impact on the people. Further, despite the establishment of the Ghanaian Environmental Protection Council in 1973 and its adoption of foreign environmental strategies, there was no formal environmental assessment procedure in Ghan a until 1995. There was only a systematic environmental review procedure in which the EPC was the main governmental body that decided whether or not an environmental impact certificate or permit should be issued to potential contractors. In recent years, Ghanaians have come to a sudden realization that great harm is being done to humans, plants, and animals in the forest belt within the middle section of Brim River and around Takrowase, Saabe, and Wenchi (Ofori, 1991). While the EPC was busy trying to implement foreign environmental models, there were epidemics that gradually destroyed human flesh which were linked to the toxic smoke of carbons dioxide and sulfur oxides emitted from the Ashanti Goldfields Mining Company (AGC) limited. A recent experiment revealed a high proportion of arsenic concentration in human hair in Obuasi (Environmental Protection Council 1994). The residents of Dumasi village also recently took up arms to protect their environment. They threatened to take measures against what was alleged to be extensive environmental pollution caused by a nearby mining activity that had received an environmental impact approved from Ghanaбпs Environmental Protection Council. Journalists who visited the village claimed that rivers and streams had turne d muddy due to sludge poring from the mine of Billiton Bogoso Gold Limited. Houses were collapsing from the impact of dynamiting and crops were being damaged by toxic emissions from the mines. In 1988 Ghana established its Environmental Action Plan. The establishment of this plan coincided with the start of the second phase of the Ghanaбпs structural adjustment policy that placed emphasis on the explanation of agriculture, forestry, mining and manufacturing. Abdul-Nashiru Issahaku (2000) pointed out that the Ghanaian government has estimated the cost imposed on the nation by environmental degradation in sectors such as agriculture, forestry, mining, and manufacturing industries. Ghanaбпs estimated annual cost of environmental degradation was US$128.3 million or 4 percent of GDP in 1988. This cost was expected to grow at an annual rate of 2 percent, and by 1996 the estimated reached US$2 billion (Issahaku 2000). The government white paper speculated that agriculture imposed the greatest environmental degradation cost of about US$88.8 million or 69 percent of the total cost of environmental problems in the nation. Despite the establishment of Ghana Environmental plan there has been strong recovery in the exploitation of forestry resources especially timber. Issaha ku (2000) pointed that production of logs increased from 560,000 cubic meters in 1983 to 890,000 cubic meters in 1986, and this reduced somewhat to 200,000 cubic meters in 1989 partially in response to the Environmental Action Plan that was enacted in 1988 . By 1994 logging had increased to 450,000 cubic meters. Since 1994 logging has continued to increase steadily, and many scholars have argued that this increase coincided with the transition to democratic rule in Ghana, as well as the inability of the pres ent democratic government to enforce the nationбпs Environmental Action Plan. The mining sector is the largest foreign exchange earner after cocoa in Ghana. In 1991, Ghanaбпs gold production surged from 844,000 ounces to 2 million ounces иC a 200 percent increase from 1983. This has also increased slightly since 1996 (Issahaku 2000). The Ghanaian government still continues to encourage surface mining that is particularly destructive to the forests. Surface mining has much greater impact than just the forest destruction. These environmental predicaments existed in Ghana despite the presence of government environmental action plan and the EPC. Recently, the government of Ghana has finally recognized the non-correlation between economic development and environmen tal degradation and has adopted steps to remedy the situation by actively implementing the provisions of the Environment Action Plan (Environmental Protection Council 1994). Therefore, it can be argued that what Ghana needs is a new environmental management approach that will help it achieve sustainable development. This new management approach must recognize the importance of participation of local people in the environmental development process. This notion is now over due not only in Ghana but also in most sub -Sahara African nations. Local participation in development planning decision is considered by many as not only the basic human right, but also the most effective way to ensure success of development efforts (Erocal 1991; Egunjobi 1993; Appiah-Opoku 1997). Arnstein (1971) and Issahaku (2000) stressed the importance of citizen participation and describe different levels of local participation that are different from the manipulation of citizen power. Moving up the ladder requires that people be empowered to take an active and informed role in decision making. Against this background, a practical alternative to the importation of a Western approach to environmental assessment in sub-Sahara African nations could be initiated by exploring and improving indigenous approaches to conservation. These approaches have been proven to be emotional and human friendly. In the worlds of Brokensha (1986) it is essential first to examine what indigenous people know before telling them what to do. After all, development as Goulet (1975) notes, “is not a cluster of benefits given to people in need but rather a process by which a populace acquires greater mastery over its own destiny.” The Ghanaian government needs to redefine the critical socio-economic and political factors as well as domestic and international influences that undermine government efforts towards achieving sustainable development in the
nation.

Nigeria’s Environmental Policy
It has long been recognized that development can have major effects on the environment. The concept of sustainable development goes well beyond this acknowledgement by also considering the effects of the environment on development. Nigeria is faced with the task of coping not only with localized environmental problems that are generated primarily by local poverty, but also with global environment problems, which have their origin chiefly in the wealthy industrialized nations. At the same time, some of the domestic environmental problems of Nigeria have major international implications of a significant scale. Consider the implication of tropical deforestation, for example, a problem occurring almost every day in the nation. During the past three decades, millions of Nigerians made it known that environmental protection should be an important item on the public interest agenda. This outcry was due to the sahelian droughts, floods, forest fires, technological accidents involving oil spills, industrial chemical effluent, and the increased visibility of toxic waste dumping and contamination of rivers, lakes, soil and air (Egunjobi 1993; James 1993; Adeola 1996). The Nigerian military government sounded the alarm in newspapers, books and films. There were also public demonstrations for ecological sanity and pressure was put on the federal and state governments to produce appropriate policies or decrees. The policies that resulted includes the Endangered Species Decree of 1985, National Conservation Strategy for Nigeria 1986, the Natural Resources Conservation Council Degree 1989 and the Federal Environmental Protection (FEPA) Decree 1989. Perhaps more remarkable than the rise of environmentalism, is the discovery in an Italian ship in May 1988 of some imported toxic chemical wastes, made up principally of polychlorobiphenyls (PCBS). This discovery led to a hostile media reaction that accompanied the discovery hastened the creation of FEPA in 1989, since Nigeria lacked both the institutional and legal framework to tackle the issue. Olugbenga Ayeni (1991,750) and Valentine James (1993) contend that prompt government action is overdue in dealing with environmental hazards of soil erosion due largely to over-grazing, bush-burning and indiscriminate tree felling for domestic cooking, industrial hazards, due to pollution of the environm ent and oil spills are very common and as old as the history of oil exploitation in Nigeria. These incidences of environmental pollution have devastated socio and economic lives of people In the Niger delta belt of the nation, which is the main oil producing area. Farmers often suffer irreparable damages after every oil pipe blowout, while fishermen live in perpetual dread of the oil slick. Some foreign oil companies operating in this area confiscated farmlands and paid compensation for the crops and not for the land. Julius Ihonvbere (1995) and Bayowa Chokor (1993) contend that no efforts have been made to make oil companies accept direct responsibility or liability for damage to ecosystems or the natural environment. Rather, oil spills are seen as accidents arising from equipment failures or sabotage. In Nigeria, what is referred to as “public” interest is only partially related to the expressed needs and desires of the citizens. The crucial defining role is played by the corporate elites from the multinational oil companies of the industrialized nations who have the wealth, power and will to exert extraordinary influence over public policy. When the public’s needs are blatantly abused (like the Ogoni people and other ethnic groups living in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria), people often look to the federal government to correct the abuse. In short, corporate elites are powerful enough to ensure that government efforts do little damage to corporate profit margins. For example, U.S. based Chevron oil company in 1997 admitted involvement in an incident in Nigeria where they ordered the Nigeria security forces to kill two local community activists in the Niger River Delta region. The two protesters were demanding that Chevron increase its contribution to the development of the local impoverish area. The expansion of oil revenue has an unprecedented level of industrial and infrastructure development in Nigeria. This has generated deepening contradictions in terms of regional inequalities, impoverishment and disintegration of the Nigerian peasantry, urban unemployment and degradation of the Nigerian environment. These contradictions are particularly sharply focused in the oil-producing states of the nation. The entire production of Nigerian crude oil comes from the minority areas of farmers, Akwa Ibom, Delta, and Cross River State. On the whole, few of the intended or anticipated transformational effects generated by oil have occurred in these areas. These four states remain politically marginal and economically they represent some of the most underdeveloped states in the nation. Francis Adeola (1996), Claude Ake (1995), Valentine James (1993), and Eboe Hutchful (1985) contend that it is the peasantry in the oil producing states who, while deprived of access to the benefits generated by oil surplus, has borne the negative impact of the industry. Oil industry operations have led to conditions of deepening under-development for this peasantry and have directly or indirectly transformed the peasantry in the oil-producing states from the export of commodities - i.e., palm oil - to the export of labor. In addition to inevitable degradation effects of the oil industry on the natural environment, the dependence of the Nigerian military juntas on oil revenues and their close alliance with the foreign oil corporations, as well as the inability of the state to control the technological processes involved in production, have freed the industry from a sense of social responsibility towards peasant communities in the Niger Delta area. The crushing debt load carried by Nigeria also constitutes one of the international economic factors that play a major role in forest and species declines due to a significant portion of the nationбпs financial resources being siphoned off to repay foreign debt. Forestry and other low -priority sectors are often hardest hit by cutbacks in staff and expenditures imposed by economic austerity programs, and these programs, combined with economic stagnation, also intensify pressures on forests through their impact on the poor. A second interna tional factor is the high demand in industrialized nations for Nigerian timber and other commodities grown at the expense of forests. Growth built on such resource depletion is almost certain to be unsustainable. Many environmental policy interventions in Nigeria are regulatory, and seek to control the activities of both the public and private sectors in areas such as pollution, disposal of hazardous and toxic wastes, and health standards. Such policies, in order to be effective, require adequate funding, and trained staff, who are usually in very short supply and unlikely to remain untouched by the graft and corruption which frequently surround them and often form a part of their activities. Over the past three decades, environmental policy in Nigeria has ignored the input of the indigenous people. The implication of such practice is that the indigenous people of Nigeria have been restricted to foreign resource bases that are limited in terms of both their extent and diversity. Therefore, as producers and farmers begin to experience decreased access to resources due to Nigeria’s debt crisis, they are forced to take up agricultural practices for which they possess neither the knowledge nor organizational structures necessary to operate efficiently or respond to their environment’s biophysical reaction. Thus, political elites and military juntas have often presented farmers with environmental models that are poorly suited to local conditions. As a result state development policies and agency structures are not conducive to the development of a satisfactory co-evolutionary relationship between nature and society. They are geared to the all too familiar “top-down” approach to rural development. The en vironmental alarm is still being sounded but is increasingly being drowned out by warnings of other crises, for example, political instability, low economic productivity, education and high crime rate. Mass mobilizations continue to take place but are largely ignored by officials of the present administration who are dismantling all opposition to their regime policies. The search for safe, renewable energy has become a very low priority in the midst of today’s economic reces sion.Does this mean that Nigerians have suddenly decided that environmental protection is not immediately important? Francis Adeola (1996), Valentine James (1993), and Chokor (1993) assert that the most reliable indicators of the policies of governments toward environmental problems are how they are organized to deal with environmental issues and the amount of money allocated to address the problems. Based on this observation there is need for a closer look at what the Nigerian government and private citizens have done to improve the environment or to address environmental problems inNigeria. The kind of environmental policy interventions currently favored by the United States and Western Europe, especially by economists such as Pearce et al. (1990a), present problems in thecontext of Ghana, and Nigeria. This is because goods and services such as water, gasoline and transportation are frequently subsidized in these nations, and several other African nations, in an attempt to counter the effects of inflation, and to provide a stimulus to industrial growth. Whatever the true costs and environmental benefits of removing the subsidies on these goods, their removal penalizes the poor and can have a marked effect on their standard of living, especially in urban areas. Citizens of Ghana, and Nigeria are, often forced to adopt sustain able strategies out of necessity, they can only guarantee that acting sustainable will not make them lose control of their own immediate resources. This is not an inevitable outcome, and the dice are often h eavily loaded against more sustainable practices. Uneven development has frequently made the poor face the internal costs of externalities in their daily lives. A long history of corporate neglect of the environment and a more recent corporate opposition to environ mental protection (Shell Corporation and the Ogoni people) provide a major explanation for today’s environmental crisis. In fact, the only noticeable change is that corporate elites have begun to recognize that environmental problems do exist, and to develop an ideology that (1) absolves them of responsibility and (2) portrays them as the best hope for solving the problems. This change is a function of politics rather than a matter of newborn corporate morality.

Environmental Policy and Waste Management
Like any other public policy, environmental policy needs to be effectively managed. Several reasons can be advanced to justify the need for effective management of environment policy in Ghana and Nigeria. On the one hand, African countries have mono-product economies. On the other, these countries have extractive economies superimposed on weak industrial bases. Consequently, most African countries depend almost exclusively on one commodity for the largest portion of their export incomes. For example, Sierra Leone depends on diamond export for over 60 percent of foreign exchange earnings; Zambia obtains 85 percent of its income from exporting copper; while Nigeria depends on export of crude oil for about 90 percent of its income. These extractive industries have been the major sources of environmental degradation in Africa. This problem will continue far into the future until African countries diversify their economic bases. For example, the impact of oil on the socioeconomic conditions of Nigerians has been extensively documented (Olayiwola, 1987; Onoh, 1983). Oil has provided access for Nigeria to enter the world market. It has also been a conduit for technology relocation in the country (Edoho, 1991). However, although oil production has contributed enormously to the phenomenal improvement on the socioeconomic existence of Nigeria, it has also accentuated environmental pollution and degradation (Akinmalodun, 1976; Ikein, 1990). In this section, we document both the environmental hazards and their impact of oil exploration and exploitation on Nigeria.

Management Framework for Environmental Policy
As stated at the onset, the focus of this study has been to provide a managem ent framework for implementing environmental policy. Environmental policy generally has to do with a set of principles by which a country regulates its utilization and conservation of environment for the purpose of achieving its national development objectives. A countryбпs environmental policy is concerned with the methodology of planning, classifying, prioritizing, and organizing resources as well as establishing institutional mechanisms designed to achieve national goals. Policy in itself has several connotations, but all carry the implication of choice (Norman, 1996). Management of environmental policy as a focus of inquiry presents policymakers with multiple sets of problems that may complicate the choice among competing alternatives. The management dimension in this context is concerned with the specific arrangements that a country must make and activities it must undertake to implement the environmental policy. Such arrangements and activities are all inherent in the basic functions of management. Management scholars believe that the basic functions of management include planning, organizing, advocacy, implementation, and controlling. Each of these functions of management will be discussed in order to determine how they fit in the broader context of the national environmental policy scheme.

Conclusion
The Ghanaian and the Nigerian governments should provide all the necessary support and encouragement to people who wish to help promote afforestation in the remote areas where the environmental problems are becoming more acute. There should be efforts to educate the rural population about the consequences of environmental degradation. Much of the problem would be solved if nationwide awareness were instilled in the minds of both rural and urban people of both nations. The Ghanaian and Nigerian governments must be quite frank in facing the facts that political and corruption problems remain because of foreign aid. Such dependency trap undermines the resources available to them, which include the indigenous human capital. The local or rural political units should be involved for the initiation and management of environmental resources. Any revision to the environmental policy to promote development of natural environmental management must involve full participation arrangement with rural or local people if the policy is to succeed. Promotion of this concept should permeate the rhetoric of the national conservation The problems in environmental degradation are very huge, especially in the area of management and implementation of policies. Special efforts should be made by the governments of Ghana and Nigeria to enforce environmental laws. On one hand they should impose strict control over the illegal behavior of public officials who are vulnerable to high level corruption. On the other hand they should educate the local people, who cannot pay high bribes, to report their activities. The solutions to environmental problems today will be more difficult, costly, and controversial than that of the past three decades in Ghana and Nigeria. This is simply because the indigenous people are more aware than before. The awareness is making them to demand more compensation from their government than in the past. The trade-off between paying off national debt or payingdamages to indigenous people will also make environmental solutions more costly.

________________________

Warning! This is a free term paper example on Nigeria cannot be used as your own term paper research. This sample term paper can be easily detected as plagiarism by any plagiarism detection tool.

Our online term paper writing service MidTerm.us can provide college and university students with 100% non-plagiarized custom written term papers on any topic. All custom term papers are written from scratch by qualified writers. High quality, fast delivery and professional term paper help are guaranteed.

Hatshepsut was born around 1502 BC to Thutmose I and Ahmose. Both of her parents were from a royal background, and Thutmose I was Pharaoh when she was born. Her two brothers died in accidents, which meant that she was in a position to take over the throne after her father died. This was an unusual situation because very few women had ever become pharaohs. However, Hatshepsut was favored by her parents over her brothers, and she was beautiful and had a charismatic personality. Thus, despite her being a female, she had the makings to become a queen.

Thutmose II was Hatshepsut’s half-brother and husband, a common situation in ancient Egypt, where brother-sister and father-daughter marriages were accepted. When Thutmose I died, Hatshepsut was about 15 years old, and Thutmose II took over as pharaoh. Thutmose II died after only three or four years of rule, most likely of a skin disease. Hatshepsut had a daughter, named Neferure, but Thutmose II also had a son with a commoner named Aset. It is thought that even during the reign of Thutmose II, Hatshepsut may actually have been in power. When Thutmose II died, Thutmose III was about three years old, still too young to rule, and Hatshepsut began to reign as Queen Regent, using the title “God’s Wife.” The popularity of her father and her own charismatic presence enabled her to gain a following that led her to become a full pharaoh about seven years into the reign of Thutmose III. Hatshepsut assumed the pharaoh costume, which was intended for males and included a false beard, the shendyt kilt, and the nemes headdress with its uraeus and khat headcloth. At her coronation, she adopted the five great names: Horus Powerful of Kas, Two Ladies Flourishing of Years, Female Horus of Fine Gold, Divine of Diadems, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Maatkare, Daughter of Ra, Khenmet-Amen Hatshepsut.

Hatshepsut’s reign was basically a peaceful one. The lack of frantic military activity during her years in power is one of the outstanding and defining characteristics of her rule. She focused more on activities like trade and construction. She expanded trade with Nubia, Libya, and countries in Asia. She also ordered expeditions to present-day Somalia, which was then called Punt, to acquire special goods like ivory, spices, and gold. Stories from these expeditions are featured on the walls of her temple. One scene shows the Queen of the Puntites, who has a crooked back, a curved nose, and rolls of fat hanging over her knees and elbows, in stark contrast to Egyptians who were generally short and thin.

Hatshepsut also restored and renovated several old buildings that had been damaged or destroyed by invading armies. One of these was the temple at Ipet-Issut, now known as Karnak. In addition to the renovations, she built the Red Chapel for the holy barge of Amun (discussed below). Hatshepsut put up two huge obelisks that were covered in gold foil, reflecting the sun’s rays all around. The inscription on the obelisks makes clear her determination to achieve posterity:
Those who shall see my monument in
future years, and shall speak of what I
have done, beware of saying, “I know
not, I know not how this has been
done, fashioning a mountain of gold
throughout, like something of nature”
… Nor shall he who hears this say it
was a boast, but rather, “How like her
this is, how worthy of her father”. (Ray)

However, no construction work ordered by Hatshepsut is more significant or more impressive than her mortuary temple. The temple was discovered several centuries after its completion, buried beneath hundreds of tons of sand. It was designed around 1473 BC by Senenmut, who was Hatshepsut’s consort, and took about fifteen years to complete. As mentioned earlier, the temple is next to that of Mentuhotep II, which is from the eleventh dynasty. Hatshepsut’s temple was built for herself and her father, and was dedicated to the gods Anubis and Hathor, with chapels for other gods and goddesses.

The temple is set at Deir el Bahari, across the Nile River from Thebes, in a valley known as the Valley of the Kings. It is made of rock and consists of three layered terraces against the natural backdrop of the huge cliffs at Deir el Bahari. The rows of colonnades that Senenmut designed play off the vertical patterns on the cliffs. Thus, the temple’s setting is not only stunning in itself, but harmonizes well with the architecture.

An avenue lined by trees and sphinxes leads to the forecourt, which was a garden with vines and fragrant trees from Punt. There was also a huge gate, which was later destroyed. The three terraces are divided by columns and linked to each other by ramps. The walls of the temple bore painted reliefs that told of Hatshepsut’s accomplishments. Since construction started at the beginning of Hatshepsut’s reign, these scenes were filled in as the accomplishments took place.

On either side of the first level ramp are papyrus pools and a galleries, with a double row of columns supporting the roofs. The porticoes on this terrace were restored in 1906 to protect the reliefs that show the giant obelisks being transported by barge to Karnak. Thus, these porticoes are a different color and are out of proportion compared with the rest of the building. Another gallery runs along the west side of the second level court, and holds the chapels for Anubis and Hathor. A shrine for Amun, the sun god, is cut out of rock. The south side of this terrace had the reliefs depicting the expeditions into Punt, across the Red Sea. The third level is a hall of columns with chapels on either side, including one for Hatshepsut’s parents. Along its front is a series of large statues of Queen Hatshepsut that look out over the valley. Behind the top terrace, built into the cliff, is a sanctuary.

Statues and sphinxes of the queen were numerous throughout the temple. In some places, Hatshepsut was represented as a lion, clawing at her enemies and capturing evil birds. Many of the statues have been carefully restored from broken fragments. These and other important artworks from the temple reside mainly at the Cairo Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

As Pharaoh, Hatshepsut continued to honor her nephew maintaining his status as her co-ruler, another situation acceptable under ancient Egyptian law. Some scholars even believe that their power was divided, Hatshepsut looking after commercial and administrative affairs while Thutmose III dealt with military affairs. However, as Thutmose III grew up, he became more envious of Hatshepsut’s position and wanted the throne for himself. Hatshepsut used several tactics to reconfirm and strengthen her status as ruler.
One of the tactics she used was to emphasize her relationship to the popular Pharaoh Thutmose I. She claimed that he had favored her over her two brothers and her half-brother.

The words of the divine potter Khnum are written in her temple:
I will make you to be the first of all living creatures, you will rise as king of Upper and Lower Egypt, as your father Amon, who loves you, did ordain. (Bediz)

In addition to her first claim, Hatshepsut also proclaimed her true father to be Amun-Ra, the sun god, who had impregnated her mother through divine conception. In her temple is depicted the story of the night when Amun-Ra came to Ahmose in the form of Tuthmose I. The walls also recount the story of Amun-Ra speaking through an oracle and requesting Hatshepsut to rule Egypt. This assertion cannot be validated like the first can, but it did have important effects on Egyptian society. Her reign saw an increase in the number of priests of Amun, and gave new life to the Opet festival of Amun. Although all pharaohs were considered sons of Amun-Ra, Hatshepsut contributed to the expansion of his worship and strengthened her rule with the myth of her birth.

As Thutmose III grew older, he also grew more powerful, and eventually staged a revolt against Hatshepsut in 1458 BC, at which time she disappeared. Whether Thutmose III murdered her or not is unknown. Hatshepsut’s tomb was destroyed, and her mummy stolen. Only her liver, preserved in a canopic jar, was found. Thutmose III had also resented the presence of Senenmut, and Senenmut’s sarcophagus, housed in his own tomb near Hatshepsut’s, was also destroyed, and his mummy has never been found.

It is likely that Thutmose III arranged for the removal of Hatshepsut’s name from all her constructions. As most of the images of her pictured her as male (in the traditional pharaoh costume), these could remain, and only the name underneath was changed to Thutmose I, II, or III. Senenmut’s name was also removed. Historians can only speculate as to the reasons Thutmose III would have had for removing his aunt’s name. One sensible explanation is that he wanted to ensure a smooth transition of power to his own son, and therefore attempted to erase the history of Hatshepsut’s rule, along with any changes to the system of lineage it might have brought about.

As one of the few female pharaohs, Hatshepsut’s 15-year reign is a significant one in the history of ancient Egypt. Her period of rule was marked by an absence of military campaigns and a focus on commerce, renovation, and construction. This legacy is both exemplified by and depicted in the building of her mortuary temple at Dier el Bahari, a monument of grandeur both in its scale and its representation.

________________________

Warning! This is a free term paper example on Hatshepsut cannot be used as your own term paper research. This sample term paper can be easily detected as plagiarism by any plagiarism detection tool.

Our online term paper writing service MidTerm.us can provide college and university students with 100% non-plagiarized custom written term papers on any topic. All custom term papers are written from scratch by qualified writers. High quality, fast delivery and professional term paper help are guaranteed.

In this day and age, there should be no excuses for misspelled words. With the exception of basic text editors, all word processors (MS Word, AmiPro, Pages, WordPerfect) have spell checkers. You will still have to be careful that you selected the correct version of the word you are using, for example, there - is a location and their - is a possessive pronoun. Most word processors also have grammar checkers. After you have run both your spell checker and grammar checker, the next step is to read the entire essay aloud. You will be surprised at the mistakes you will catch by using this method. Next, check your paper for style, if you were assigned a persuasive term paper – did you persuade the reader? Or did you merely inform the reader? Are your quotes followed by the proper citation styles? Did you talk in the past in one sentence and then speak in the present in the next?

Take the time to check the presentation, use the page setup to ensure your margins are correctly set. Use the Format features to indent your paragraphs and space your lines apart correctly. Another tip to check your paper, change the view (or Zoom) to multiple pages (choose to display all the pages – unless you have more than eight pages). This helps you identify missing indentations or have too many (or not enough) spaces between lines. Some of these tips may sound a little picky, while most people don’t consciously look for mistakes, they do see them and a little distraction can lose a lot of comprehension.

When the product is right, the company can launch it through traditional channels with much greater assurance of its success. One of the biggest attractions of electronic commerce is its ability to help companies lower the costs of doing business.

Article “Managerial Issues for expanding into International Web-Based Electronic Commerce”talks about how Expansion into foreign markets raises issues of language, cultural, technological, domain name and business practise variances. Author talks about how when developing the web page we should internationalizing the web site. I agree with him because multilingual sites are key to a globally conscious organization. The article is writing that to be fully able to use the advantages of e-commerce there must be defined steps, which would ensure that whole system would work permanently. Provide confidentality of payment information and enable confidentality of order information transmitted along with the payment information. Another step is to ensure the integrity of all transmitted data. Businesses are restructing around the idea of connectivity.

Connectivity means 24-hour call centers, 24-hour live help via interactive chat sessions on its Website, and online supply-chain management among buying and selling customers. Another good point in the article was that e-commerce over Internet also increases the danger of misusing the information used during the e-business.

Author is writing that in order of e-commerce to become e-business enabled the manager should develop a dynamic, database-driven online catalog. Second, he should provide for online ordering.. And the last, accept electronic payment methods (credit card, EFT, etc.) for full-transaction shopping or bill payment. These are all good points because by using e-business based e-commerce companies can improve margins by using a lower-cost online channel. They can also reduced costs associated with paper based processed: postage, printing and handling. And finally, give customers faster, more responsive service.

Second article “Tapping the power of commerce”deals about how movement of our global economy to E-commerce is one of the most important trends. Author stated:
Associations must learn to use information technology and e-commerce not only to better manage their affairs but also to compete and survive in the emerging digital economy. (Tapping the power of commerce, 1999)

According to article we have to be ready for the changes that are taking place in our business world and to stay focused on e-commerce. To find out about our future customers and competitors and what will be our competitive advantage we should try to foresight. Forecasting begins by identifying what could happen tomorrow and then determinates what must happen in the interim to accomplish the desired result. (Tapping the power of e-commerce, 1999)

One good point about e-commerce is that actually company is open for business whenever a customer needs it. Electronic commerce presents a new sales and marketing channel which can increase product or service awareness, offer low-cost access to new geographical markets. I agree with the autor that the more and more businesess are realizing the following value elements from electronic commerce solutions: reduced costs, improved customer service, entrance into new markes, newly sales channels and increased global reach. Both on the other hand, businesses and other organizations must be prepared to meet the challenges of the digital age. Companies need to understand how electronic commerce will affect their relationship with their competitors, their distribution channels, and their customers. As new companies in an industry build electronic channels, established rivals will need to reexamine their value chains. New companies can actually take advantage of the Internet. For example, although a book publisher might be tempted to use the Internet to sell directly to bookstores or even to readers, it runs the risk of damaging long-standing relationship with distributors. However, companies may find they have a little choice but to risk damaging relationship in their physical chains to compete in the electronic channel. Not only could the book publisher bypass the distributor and sell directly to the readers, but for example, Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com could decide to publish their own books – they have a very good information, gathered and collated electronically, pertaining to reader’s interests. The implication is that Internet allows companies to bypass others in the value chain. A company could conceivably use the Internet to become the dominant player in the electronic channel of a specific industry or segment, controlling access to customers and setting new business rules. (Making business sense of Internet – powerpoint presentation by Shikhar Ghosh)
The Internet might have opportunities for creating new value by taking away bits of someone else’s business. First a company can use its direct access to customers, each time a customer visits a company’s Website is an opportunity to deliver additonal value. The economy is moving in the direction of near universal connectivity of people to people and people to information.

In my opinion business online is more of an evolution than a revolution. In most cases it will not radically change the existing order of things but rather intergrate and reshape the way work is done and commerce is conducted. The Internet will supplement existing chanels, while providing significant benefits and opportunities to those companies that are quickest to determine how best to use this new channel.
Internet sales in 2002 reached around $14 billion and 80% of the global Fortune 2000 companies each have a Website. (Dot-com Companies: Are they all hype, 2002)

In this article, author talks how e-commerce is actually destroying jobs and burning billions in investment capital. Globalization demands adaptations for unimpeded access in new markets and heightens legal and regulatory concerns. Economic issues, financial market risk, language, political and social differences can arise as companies expand beyond their home base. The failure rate of dot-coms is close to 75% in their first two years (Dot-Com Companies: Are they all hype, 2002) I think that the failure of dot-com company can actually have an impact of their merchandise suppliers. This suppliers will face a hard time with debts after supplying these failed dot-coms. This is because over 90% of businesses failed to check the credit card of dot-coms before supplying them. (Dot-Com Companies: Are they all hype, 2002)

According to the author, the major differences between e-tailers and traditional retailers is the time it takes to return an item. Many e-tailers fail to assist their customers satisfactorily in their return processes. (Dot-Com Companies: are they all hype?)

Another problem of the e-commerce is internet/data privacywhich is at risk in a high security environment, which is the current case worldwide. Laws and regulations concerning privacy, Internet taxation, reuse of information , access for children and other aspects continue to affect information sharing practices. Most companies that are using e-commerce are feared that transactions executed electronically may not be captured. Companies that leverage the Internet for collaborative product design and distribution also face increased threats from piracy if products and delivery methods are not secure.

My next opinion is that countries with a less mature e-commerce market presents opportunities for dominant players from mature markets. A lack of dominant players and lower costs to invest in and acquire high-quality players are key benefits.

Electronic business means different things to different companies. Businesses use information to establish new customer realtionship, and deliver value to customers in new ways. Gathering, organizing, selecting and distributing information can improve operations, create new markets and new relationship.Creating a successful e-business means more than simply choosing the right technology, Web enablling the right process, or forging the right Internet links to legacy systems. It also requires fundamental changes in organizations, corporate behavior, and business thinking. How Companies Plan to Use Internet Commerce

As I was to become a manager of the company and wanted to enter an e-commerce market, I would first set some goals or strategies. I would try to become a leader in doing business on the Internet, gain size and scale to allow timely introduction of new services incorporating new technology as well as drive down opertaing costs and improve margins. I will also focus on growing segments. Second goal would be, when needed, to acquire or merge with other companies to expand market presence, technological and service capabilities.

Form strategic alliances to leverage each partner’s strengths, share costs, and spread/reduce business risk, with the end goal of increasing market share. Countries with a less mature e-commerce market presents opportunities for dominant players from mature markets. A lack of dominant players and lower costs to invest in and acquire high-quality players are key benefits.I will also analyze trends to effectively focus company resources on technology and service innovation. Try to create strong brand image and employing state-of-the-art technologies. Another thing would be to try to gain view of marketplace. Provide easy-to-use, secure online solutions and superior service to attract repeat business. But I could do that only with the help of my highly qualified and skilled employees.

In my opinion, electronic commerce cannot be accomplished by any single enterprise working alone, regardless of the quality of its technologies, its business strategies or its industry expertise.