Under what circumstances are protest movements against authoritarian Essay

Under what circumstances are protest movements against authoritarian rule most likely to succeed in changing the regime - Essay Example While a protest movement is a collective endeavour and is generally expressive of the political views of large numbers of people, the failed uprisings mentioned above indicate that they may not necessarily be successful in every case. This study examines why these movements were unsuccessful in achieving their objectives. According to Thompson, democratic revolutions can be understood as â€Å"spontaneous popular uprisings – peaceful, urban-based and cross class in composition – which topple unyielding dictators and begin a transition process that leads to the consolidation of democracy.†1 Including fraternity organizations, guerrilla organizations or other sects under the umbrella of social movements would possibly be stretching the definition of social movements too far2, but such organizations have also managed to attract a sizeable number of followers. According to Zirakzadeh, a social movement comprises a group of people who (a) consciously attempt to build a radically new social order (b) includes people from a broad range of social backgrounds and (c) makes use of socially disruptive, politically confrontational tactics.3 In general, where the question of overthrow of a regime is concerned, dictatorial, authoritarian regimes are vulnerable to violent, radical revolutions, including coups, that may successfully achieve this objective4. According to Tilly, earlier trends in the growth of social movements are linked to economic and political changes, such as the emergence of Parliaments, proletariats and market capitalization5. Tilly also points out that social movements can also be a prime factor functioning as a propellant towards democracy, such as the ones which occurred in the USSR in 1990-91, Serbia in 1996/7 and 2000 as well as Ukraine in 2004. But more often, social protest movements have flourished after the country in question has become a democracy, because political rights as well as individual rights such

Cross Cultural Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Cross Cultural Management - Essay Example The airbus company gets its profits from a distinctive workforce that comprises more than eighty nationalities, and the employees speak over twenty languages. The factors that keep the airbus company a leading industry in the market are the hard work done by the employees, the company’s vision and the human talent. The workforce at the airbus manufacturing company is geographically distributed in proportion to national ownership. In case of economic nationalism, the government changes private transactions amid economic actors by segregating foreigners. This led to productive efficiency decrease. This is because of the differences in ways of communication and management styles (Silverthorne, 2005). For instance, comparing the French and the Germans, the latter were better at decision making. On the other hand, the French people preferred a centralized decision. Even though the Spanish were flexible, they had an inferiority complex leading to a tendency to be unreliable and vagu e. The main problem arose when the airbus company was created. It was mainly headed by French and Germans. Looking from the cultural dimensions from Hofstedes, the French people liked air buses with high power distances while the Germans liked air buses with low power distances. In decision making, the Germans were interfering in serious conversations while it was disliked by the French people. This hurt the French people and created conflict between them. Due to the administration involvement in respective countries, there were delays in the cost cutting measures. This is because the state aid came to rescue their corresponding partners first. The power identification of the Germans and the French was distributed unevenly. The government was self-centered and was considering only its own motives. One of the main reasons that led to delays in launching airbus A380 for two consecutive years was the fact that complex writing design system was meant for it. There were one thousand two hundred functions used in controlling the airbus that took forty thousand connectors and ninety eight thousand wires. Fifty thousand models are encompassed in the system which needs to be synchronized in various countries. This was time consuming and complicated because the engineers were at different locations. Another problem was that the parts of the airbus were manufactured in different locations. An example is that the nose sections of the airbus were manufactured in France, the wings in Britain, and fuselages in Germany (Silverthorne, 2005). The final assemblies were done in France. It increased communication problems, first and foremost, time consumption and transportation cost. There were problems with the software used in the development as well. The engineers in Spain and Germany were using older versions of V4 of the CAD program. They used it in designing the wiring system. On the other hand, engineers from England and France used V5, which was the latest version (Voich a nd Stepina, 2003). This led to a lot of troubles and delays in data transferring because the data was lost when transferring files and information from one system to the other. The French engineers were familiar with the software used while the Germans, on the other hand, were not experienced. Jackson (2004) reveals that the French were considered to be individualistic because they were not concerned about the training of the related partner companies. Because there was no integration in engineering