COMPARATIVE POLITICS Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

COMPARATIVE POLITICS - Essay Example Thus, for example participation and activities in sports or female organizations should be also considered as political participation. This idea can be supported by the fact that all kinds of political and social organizations function in a political context of the country (Clark and Vincent Hoffmann-Martinot, 1998); they have administrative regulation and active social activities performed by their participants. Therefore political culture is a wide concept. In order to consider it with regard to political participation, we’ll focus our attention on political processes in three case study countries: USA, Russia and France. The main claim which will be developed in this research paper is that political events, socio-economic changes in these countries determine a context of political culture. A diverse political culture of the chosen countries, historical background and peculiarities of countries’ development is considered as influential factors of both political cultur e and political participation in America, Russia and France. America America is generally considered to be the most democratic country. Two hundred years were devoted to the development of democratic process in this country. America is well-known for overall obliged democratic principles and in spite of numerous arguments, this country will hardly loose heights of its democratic principles. ... Consequently, the most important values for Americans are: Declaration of Independence which propagates liberty and overall happiness, equality, self-government (i.e. â€Å"of the people, by the people, and for the people†) (Dye, 1994); propagation of individualistic success and respect to diversity. American nation is being developed in compliance with democratic principles, constitutionalism and capitalism. Consequently, there is direct delimitation between political, economic and social issues in America. This country propagates equal participation on different levels of country’s life. It can be supported by the fact that Americans actively participate in the voting process, they are active participants of social organizations and there is a high spirit of voluntarism in America. All these facts prove that political participation of American citizens coincides with propagated principles of liberty, independence, democracy, and respect to diversity. All this happens because of rich historical background of America: an intermixture of different cultures made Americans comply with different traditions, customs and respect different nations. Democratic principles are another ideal which America has been developing from the day of its foundation. Therefore, American nation respects and follows national politics, being an active participant in all spheres of country’s life. Therefore political culture of this country creates a favorable atmosphere for individual’s perfection and development (Kaid, Gerstlae and Sanders, 1991). A voluntary striving of the nation to the welfare of America proves the fact that citizens of the country respect America and work for the favor of their native country (Kernen, Beat, 2004). Russia Russia has been developed under

Final Reflection Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

Final Reflection - Essay Example It surprised me a little bit to learn some of the things we covered in the leadership classes. For example, I would not have previously considered ethics to be a big part of the leadership process. But the readings and coursework made it clear that one of the biggest jobs of a leader is to consider the impact his choices will have. And that means not just on his own company or his own subordinates, but on the wider world. Something might get the project at hand done very well, but end up causing a lot of damage to people around the world. That is not being a good leader. Often when I had to do group work in other classes, I would find that nobody in the group was really interested in taking charge. I used to take this as permission to just get the group to do whatever I wanted, and thought that this showed good initiative on my part, and an effective use of the other team members. But I often found group work very frustrating for the same reason. I could not understand how the rest of the group would not do their work on time when I had made it very clear what they should do and how they should do it. Because of the problems with them dropping out from the project, I found that I always ended up having to do the work myself. I always blamed this on other people for not being good team members, however, and thought I was still not a strong enough leader. The experience of working on the team project this semester really opened my eyes. It was very easy to build good communication skills with the group, and we worked very well together. I learned that instead of being a strong and demanding person who tells everyone else what to do, it was more important as a leader to build relationships between team members. Instead of assigning jobs to people without thinking, it was better to ask for their special skills and then give them work that matched with those skills. When this is done, people work their hardest because they enjoy doing what they are