Communication at Workplace
Communication plays an important role in the success and failure of an organization. The art of expressing one’s ideas and thoughts clearly is called as effective communication. Individuals need to communicate effectively at the workplace for better transparency and clarity. Not only effective communication helps in correct transfer of information but also in decision making. […]
Homogenous Vs. Heterogenous Bundling in Reinsurance
The insurance industry is a large and diversified industry. It has several different types of products and operates in multiple geographies. This means that the risks on the balance sheet of the insurance company can be quite diversified. This means that a reinsurance company is also exposed to a lot of variety when it comes […]
Organizational Diversity: Ideal vs Practice
The previous articles introduced the concept of organizational diversity and how the various supporting laws and regulations square up against organizational commitment. This article looks at how the ideals of organizational diversity measure up to the practice of diversity across the world. As with any idealistic notion, organizational diversity is usually done more in theory […]
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 […]
Great Man Theory of Leadership
Are some people born to lead? If we look at the great leaders of the past such as Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Queen Elizabeth I, and Abraham Lincoln, we will find that they do seem to differ from ordinary human beings in several aspects. The same applies to the contemporary leaders like George […]
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
