Role of a Leader in an Organization
Following are the main roles of a leader in an organization: Required at all levels- Leadership is a function which is important at all levels of management. In the top level, it is important for getting co-operation in formulation of plans and policies. In the middle and lower level, it is required for interpretation and […]
People and Agility: Creating an Agile Workforce
Change is invariable and undeniable. Product lifecycles have shortened. Geographical boundaries are diminishing. Technology advances in the blink of an eye. Time to market has reduced. Delivery time has compressed. Innovation is faster and more frequent. Conformity is dying. Future is already here. How to deal with this? This is the question that’s been on […]
What is Workplace Violence and How to Deal with it
Workplace violence is easily the most misunderstood concept in the contemporary organizational context. This is because the term is misleading and whenever one mentions workplace violence, we conjure images of rioting and destruction as happened recently in the Maruti plant in Manesar, India or the Foxconn facilities in China. However, without discounting these incidents as […]
Strategies to avoid Conflicts at the Workplace
It is rightly said that organizations are individual’s first home as one spends the maximum time here. Employees must treat their fellow workers as a part of one big family and must work together to achieve the goals of the organization. Conflicts must be avoided at the workplace to ensure that the employees give their […]
Appointing Home Grown Leaders to the Top Posts versus Bringing in Leaders from Outside
One of the thorny issues facing senior management in many organizations is the debate over grooming leaders from within and then appointing them to the top posts versus brining in leaders from outside and then making them the CEO. The debate is not confined to a particular country and occupies the energies of corporate leaders […]
Sovereignty is a term that is used to refer to the independence and autonomy of modern nation states. Unlike earlier eras where countries were ruled by Kings in historic times and by colonial powers in the 18th and 19th centuries, sovereignty refers to the fact of absolute independence and autonomy that nation states have with respect to the decisions taken by them in matters concerning their citizenry.
Sovereignty means that nation states are free to decide for themselves about the kind of democracy that they want, the kind of rulers that they want, and their policies internally and externally. Often, the concept of sovereignty is invoked to delineate the distinction between taking decisions on their own by nation states and resisting external pressures to sway the decision-making process. In this respect, sovereign nations are expected to be autonomous and independent when they pursue policies that are in their interest and their people’s interest and not according to the dictates of a foreign power.
In recent years, the concept of sovereignty has been debated because globalization means that nation states submit themselves to international treaties and international agreements that are not always in their best interests. This imposes some amount of coercion on the nation states especially in the developing world and hence, globalization has to come to mean imperialism in another form. Since countries like India have had the taste of imperialism by the British, they are understandably reluctant to submit to the dictates of the World Bank, the IMF or the International Monetary Fund, and other international bodies. However, it is also the case that the options are limited as resisting these bodies and the WTO or the World Trade Organization means that the countries miss lucrative trade and export opportunities.
However, the recent economic crisis that started in 2007 has proven that sovereignty of nations being subsumed by international bodies cuts both ways as the global economy is tightly interconnected and hence, cannot be regulated by nations in isolation. On the other hand, the assertiveness of the newly emerging economies like China and India means that there is still a place for nationalistic sovereignty instead of being completely dictated by the West.
Further, the fact that sovereignty means that colonial powers and foreign powers cannot intervene or interfere in the internal affairs of countries is also another indicator that the hard fought victories by the erstwhile colonial states are bearing fruit. This is also a sign of the emergence of postcolonial powers that have come into their own right thanks to a combination of factors some of which would be discussed in subsequent articles.
Finally, the point needs to be made that sovereignty for many countries has come at the expense of countless lives and sacrifices and hence, it is incumbent upon the successive generations to uphold the sovereign principles of freedom, equality, and choice and not to squander away the good work done by the freedom fighters.
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What is Compassionate Capitalism and Why We Need it in These Times of Planetary Crisis ?
February 12, 2025
