International Trade Structure

International Trade Structure Examine the International Trade Structure. Do you accept Krasners Argument for an Open Trade Regime? Address his Desire for a Hegemon. Now that todays world is more of a global village, international trade has become institutionalized not only by economic factors, but also non-economic factors. Trade is not solely based on commercial objectives rather politics also plays a dominant role in it. ‘Much of the international trade system both drives and reacts to national, political, fiscal and monetary policies (Hanink 1989: 268). As a result, there are new emerging problems and concerns that have come up in the international trading structures (Boger 1958: 1753). ‘The international system is anarchical†¦sovereign states are rational self-seeking actors resolutely if not exclusively concerned with relative gains (Krasner 1992: 39). Trade usually takes place keeping in view the classical principles of opportunity cost, factor endowment theory and comparative advantage where, ‘each country specializes in those branches of production in which it has a comparative advantage, or in other words produce those goods whose costs are relatively lowest (Ellsworth 1940: 286-287). However, the international trade system can best be regarded as a situation of prisoners dilemma under which the best outcome for an individual player is for that player to cheat by for instance imposing an optimal tariff, while the other player cooperates. However, if both players cheat, they will be worse off than if both had cooperated (Goldstein, Krasner 1984: 284). Experimental findings suggest that the winning strategy for this sort of a situation is the Tit for Tat strategy ‘in which the player cooperates on the first move and then does whatever the other player did on the preceding move (Goldstein, Krasner: 1984: 284). In their views, such a strategy is not meant to start a trade war rather its aim is to promote cooperation and freer trade (1984: 284). The prisoners dilemma depiction also ‘claims that a stable system of international free trade involves the supply of a public good. Such goods are joint in supply and non-excludable (Gowa 1989: 1245). This public good may be one or numerous depending upon the case. These public goods include political stability, regional stability, liberal economies etc. After the second World War the emphasis of the trade regime was to regulate all trade distortions. ‘Liberal rules, norms and procedures were to be adopted by states and patrolled by international organizations (Goldstein, Krasner 1984: 282). But in todays world, ‘the bulk of international trade takes place between the industrialized or rich countries. This pattern of trade is in contradiction to the factor endowment theory because trade is taking place between countries with similar, rather than dissimilar, factor (capital) endowments (Hanink 1988: 323). The international trade structure is also characterized by the hegemonic stability theory which ‘asserts that an open international trading regime is most likely where there is a single dominant power (Krasner 1992: 40). This view is held by Krasner, Gilpin, Kindelberger and Hirschman. ‘A hegemonic power creates a stable international order and the hegemons decline leads to global instability (Stein 1984: 355). The assumptions of this theory are that the international system is anarchical with nation-states being the dominant actors, the international market is a non-homeostatic market and the nation-states seek to maximize their absolute and relative gains from trade (Lake 1984: 149). It asserts that the hegemon has an incentive to see if the collective good is provided even if the hegemon alone has to bear the full burden of providing it. ‘The hegemonic leader will place a greater, absolute value upon a liberal international economy than others and, as a result, w ill undertake to stabilize the international economy and construct a strong regime (Lake 1984: 146). Because of the provision of public goods, the element of free riders exist. ‘Kindleberger argues that the international political economy will be stable only if a single leader is willing to assume responsibility for maintaining a relatively open market for distress goods; providing counter-cyclical long-term lending; and discounting in a crisis†¦the leader must also undertake to manage in some degree the structure of foreign exchange rates and provide a degree of coordination of domestic monetary policies (Lake 1984: 145). This theory asserts that only large states have the power, capabilities and the responsibility to lead the international economy. ‘A hegemonic leader will place greater absolute value upon a liberal international economy than others and, as a result, will undertake to stabilize the international economy and construct a strong regime in order to ac hieve this goal (Lake 1984: 146). So the hegemon will provide the public good of stability and security because its own benefits far exceed the costs that it has to bear. For the large nation, the larger its size is, the more willing it will be to opt for international stability because of its large relative and absolute gains from trade. ‘The free functioning of the international market is therefore assumed to concentrate wealth in nations of high productivity. Under this assumption highly productive nations will give free play to the functioning of the international market and will favor free trade because they enjoy disproportionate benefits from such trade (Lake 1984: 149). In the case of middle and smaller nations, they too will be in favor of such a system because they too will gain from the trade, although relatively less. ‘The incentives to cheat and become a free rider are great enough that any international regime which depends on collective provision is inherently unstable. Stability can only be assured when a hegemon both bears the cost of providing the collective good and extracts the support of others (Stein 1984: 356). But this theory has some loopholes as well. First, Krasner is concerned with regime formation and trade but he does not take historical context into account while explaining how the free trade regime is established. He mentions ‘that a hegemon uses inducements and force to create or maintain open markets but does not provide a sense of how this occurs (Stein 1984: 357). A hegemon cannot bring about a free trading regime, it can unilaterally lower its own tariffs but this by no means assert that it can create an international trading system of lower tariffs. Tariff bargains only leads to trade liberalization among major trading states. This leads to similar sort of nations trading with each other, especially the powerful trading with one another and the poor nations are discriminated against. ‘It can impose an open trading regime on weak countries, but this too does not create an open regime (Stein 1984: 358). This is evident from the fact that both in the 19th and the 20t h centuries, the hegemonic power accepted compromises but itself deviated from the free trade ideal. ‘The liberal trade regimes that emerged in both the centuries were founded on asymmetric bargains that permitted discriminations, especially against the hegemon. The agreement that lowered tariff barriers led not to free trade, but freer trade. In the process, they legitimated a great deal of mercantilism and protectionism (Stein 1984: 359). Great Britain and the United States had important political motives behind their economic concessions. Also, such economic orders created by trade agreements have been sub systemic rather than global since only some states became parties to such agreements and many were actually excluded from them. They did not even provide collective goods because the non signatory states could be excluded. Thus ‘the systems allowed for discrimination and exclusion, and cannot be considered to have provided a collective good (Stein 1984: 360). ‘The periods dubbed ‘free trade eras certainly saw years of rapid trade expansion, but they were hardly periods of free trade. Rather, they were periods of freer trade (Stein 1984: 383). There was severe discrimination against those outside the system and these systems were based on asymmetric tariff bargains characterized by dumping. Also in the process of evolution, international trade has become institutionalized and non economic factors have become relatively important in evaluating the consequences of changes in the relevant variants (Boger 1958: 1753). ‘Krasner suggests nations may also be interested in additional goals of social stability, political power and economic growth (Lake 1984:145).It is this dramatic change in the structure of the international trading system that has led to the creation of new problems and at the same time, more and different concerns. Although the hegemon does provide collective goods, it only promotes and creates liberal internat ional economic orders because of their own vested interests in open markets and not because of altruism (Stein 1984: 357). ‘The hegemon effectively changes the policies of others to satisfy its own goals†¦the leverage exerted by the hegemon may take many different forms including negative sanctions (threats), positive sanctions (rewards), the reconstructing of market incentives, ideological leadership or simply success worthy of emulation (Lake 1993: 469). So it thus proves that the hegemon will go to any length just to satisfy its own self interests. Bibliography Boger, L.L 1958 Discussion:Trading Problems in International Markets Journal of Farm Economics, Vol. 40, No. 5, pp 1753-1755 http://links.jstor.org/ Ellsworth, P.T 1940 A Comparison of International Trading Theories The American Economic Review, Vol.30, No.2, pp 285-289 http://links.jstor.org/ Goldstein, Judith L. and Krasner, Stephen P 1984 Unfair Trade Practices:The Case for a Differential Response The American Economic Review, Vol. 74, No.2 pp 282-287 http://links.jstor.org/ Gowa, Joanne 1989 Bipolarity, Multipolarity and Free Trade The American Political Science Review, Vol. 83, No. 4, pp 1245-1256 http://links.jstor.org/ Hanink, Dean M. 1989 Introduction:Trade Theories Scale and Structure Economic Geography Vol. 65, No. 4, pp 267-270 http://links.jstor.org/ Hanink, Dean M. 1988 An Extended Linder Model of International Trade Economic Geography Vol. 64, No. 4, pp 322-334 http://links.jstor.org/ Krasner, Stephen P. 1992 Realism, Imperialism and Democracy: A Response to Gilbert Political Theory Vol. 20, No. 1, pp 38-52 http://links.jstor.org/ Lake, David A. 1993 Leadership, Hegemony and the International Economy: Naked Emperor or Tattered Monarch with Potential? International Studies Quarterly Vol. 37, No. 4, pp 459-489 http://links.jstor.org/ Lake, David A. 1984 Beneath the Commerce of Nations: A Theory of International Economic Structures International Studies Quarterly Vol. 28, No. 2, pp 143-170 http://links.jstor.org/ Stein, Arthur A. 1984 Great Britain, the United States, and the International Economic Order International Organization Vol. 38, No.2, pp 355-386 http://links.jstor.org/

Reflection on The Use of Force Essay

The short story †The Use of Force† is a story which is narrated by a character, the doctor. The main character is a normal doctor which appreciates his job and is ready to fulfill his duty; to find out what his patient’s problems are. In the story, he seems to care allot about the child’s health. At one point, he gets mad because all his cooperation with the youngster is getting them nowhere. Anger starts to be felt in the doctor’s cabinet; this is when the patient will have to be forced to get examined by the doctor. The doctor in the story knows how to apprehend patients, he starts out smoothly with the girl, knowing that children usually respond with a good attitude if you are friendly with them. The doctor’s duty is to know exactly what you are sick of, which the girl, for unknown reasons didn’t want to be examined closely. She refused to admit she had a sore throat. The fact that her ignorance could kill her made the doctor insane, he then became more insistent about using physical force to help her out. Even though the doctor’s effort didn’t work, he knew that if he had the full support of her parents, they finally would come to an end with the problem. The doctor enjoyed the feeling of insane anger towards the child; it made him go through the hard struggle of opening the child’s mouth. The anger expressed by him was not directly linked to the girl, but to the situation, he did want to help out the ignorant, suffering girl from the sickness she was hiding. The two characters which bring an essence to the main goal of the story are the doctor and the child. The Doctor then finds pleasure in using force in diagnosing the unpleasant child, which happens to cause her pain. The child therefore, still is fighting back and will not abandon her cause. The child creates the turmoil without being conscious, she is being a painful patient and she is not able to tell whether what she does is good or wrong. It shows us that she is probably a spoiled and rebellious girl, who easily stands out when things aren’t what she wants. The doctor is also part of the undesired situation, he is a key element in the turmoil. He enjoys using force upon  the child to help her out, he wants to prove her she is wrong to act as such. The doctor feels no remorse’s of the actions he took for the child, all he seeks for is satisfaction by proving himself he is helping the young child. The use of force was needed to resolve the situation. It was necessary to have a proper diagnosis of her health to save her. What really came down to the use of force was that the doctor was determined to find out what troubled the parents of the child. It was also that she made him so angry about being stubborn and so hard to handle that he became more and more persistent. To conclude, both of the characters want to win a fight, with misconduct. The doctor is faced with a problem of self discipline and the young girl has a lack of obedience.

Software Process

LARGE SCALE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT 1. What are the fundamental activities that are common to all software processes? a. Specification – defining what the system should do; b. Design and implementation – defining the organization of the system and implementing the system; c. Validation – checking that it does what the customer wants; d. Evolution – changing the system in response to changing customer needs. 2. List the 3 generic process models that are used in software engineering? ? Plan-driven model. Separate and distinct phases of specification and development. Specification, development and validation are interleaved. May be plan-driven or agile. ? The system is assembled from existing components. May be plan-driven or agile. 3. Why are iterations usually limited when the waterfall model is used? accommodating change after the process is underway. In principle, a phase has to be complete before moving onto the next phase. 4. What are the three benefits of incremental development, compared to the waterfall model? ? The amount of analysis and documentation that has to be redone is much less than is required with the waterfall model. Customers can comment on demonstrations of the software and see how much has been implemented. ? Customers are able to use and gain value from the software earlier than is possible with a waterfall process. 5. What are the development stages in reuse-based development? ? Component analysis; ? Requirements modification; ? System design with reuse; ? Development and integration. 6. What are the principal requirements engineering activities? ? Feasibility study †¢ Is it technically and financially feasible to build the system? Requirements elicitation and analysis †¢ What do the system stakeholders require or expect from the system? ? Requirements specification †¢ Defining the requirements in detail ? Requirements validation †¢ Checking the validity of the requirements 7. Why is it increas ingly irrelevant to distinguish between software development and evolution? – Although there has been a demarcation between development and evolution (maintenance) this is increasingly irrelevant as fewer and fewer systems are completely new. . What are the advantages of using incremental development and delivery? 9. What are the 4 sectors in each loop in Boehm’s spiral model? Objective setting ? Specific objectives for the phase are identified. ? Risks are assessed and activities put in place to reduce the key risks. ? A development model for the system is chosen which can be any of the generic models. ? The project is reviewed and the next phase of the spiral is planned. 10. What are the six fundamental best practices in the RUP? Plan increments based on customer priorities and deliver highest priority increments first. ? Explicitly document customer requirements and keep track of changes to these requirements. ? Organize the system architecture as a set of reusable components. ? Use graphical UML models to present static and dynamic views of the software. ? Ensure that the software meet’s organizational quality standards. Manage software changes using a change management system and configuration management tools.

Film Analysis Of Fight Club - 2081 Words

Fight Club is the opposite of Watchmen, the style of David Fincher and his faded green aesthetic fit perfectly in the world of Fight Club and help to give the Film a sense of identity that wouldn t exist if the film was created by a lesser director. The way this Film is shot, the editing, the score, it all combines to help tell the story in a new way that feels entirely separate from the book. Additionally, Fincher works to bring the concepts of the book to life through adaptation not translation, he knows that many of the themes and ideas of the book will not work if simply ripped out of the page and thrown on screen. He decided early on that the Novel would have to change to fit the screen, he knows that communicating messages across†¦show more content†¦Things like The lady sitting next to Jack in the airplane wearing glasses and a red coat and then Tyler pops up in the exact same spot, wearing similar clothing. Mirrors not showing the reflection of Tyler or Marla, Bob s shirt being burned to the car wreck that Jack is investigating. Hell, there s an entire section about how dildos in the Film relate to how the Film is actually a metaphor for Jack s sexual identity and the battle between Masculinity (Represented by Tyler) and Femininity (Represented by Marla) happening in Jack’s head. Now hearing these ideas from me with no proof may make them seem far fetched, but I really recommend you go to the site and read up on it. I won t cover it here because I can t say anymore without simply stealing the author s intellectual property, but I think you get the point; Fight Club is a testament not only to adaptations but also to masterful filmmaking. The edit at the beginning of this section showing Jared Leto falling to the ground was no accident. Watch it again, you can tell that Sound is taken full advantage of. Whereas a book would never have that sound, in the fight club you aren’t reading Fight Club you’re feeling it in your gut. Fight Club is a success in terms of an adaptation and of well done filmmaking. Why Watchmen fails is a complete lack of Identity 4. Identity When you watch a Film such as Fight Club, Se7en, Zodiac, Enemy or Prisoners.Show MoreRelatedFight Club Film Analysis1168 Words   |  5 PagesPostmodernism In Film â€Å"Life has no meaning a priori†¦ It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose†(Jean-Paul Satre). As is began in the mid to late 20th century, Postmodernism has become a literary movement that has greatly influenced writers, poets, music, film, culture, art, etc. While modernist theory is rational and scientific in reasoning, Postmodernism departs away from that focusing primarily on an innovative way of thought that is avant-gardeRead MoreFight Club Film Analysis1551 Words   |  7 Pagesthe 1960s. 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The males featured within the film all partake in fighting each other in order to assert their masculinity and in turn find that sense of self. The narrator begins the film as an insomniac, but as the film runs on we actually come to see his personality has been fractured by the alienation that he experiences. It becomes evident that the narrator and the majority of male s