Bag of Bones CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I caught the measles when I was eight, and I was very ill. ‘I thought you were going to die,' my father told me once, and he was not a man given to exaggeration. He told me about how he and my mother had dunked me in a tub of cold water one night, both of them at least half-convinced the shock of it would stop my heart, but both of them completely convinced that I'd burn up before their eyes if they didn't do something. I had begun to speak in a loud, monotonously discursive voice about the bright figures I saw in the room angels come to bear me away, my terrified mother was sure and the last time my father took my temperature before the cold plunge, he said that the mercury on the old Johnson & Johnson rectal thermometer had stood at a hundred and six degrees. After that, he said, he didn't dare take it anymore. I don't remember any bright figures, but I remember a strange period of time that was like being in a funhouse corridor where several different movies were showing at once. The world grew elastic, bulging in places where it had never bulged before, wavering in places where it had always been solid. People most of them seeming impossibly talldarted in and out of my room on scissoring, cartoonish legs. Their words all came out booming, with instant echoes. Someone shook a pair of baby-shoes in my face. I seem to remember my brother, Siddy, sticking his hand into his shirt and making repeated arm-fart noises. Continuity broke down. Everything came in segments, weird wieners on a poison string. In the years between then and the summer I returned to Sara Laughs, I had the usual sicknesses, infections, and insults to the body, but never anything like that feverish interlude when I was eight. I never expected to believing, I suppose, that such experiences are unique to children, people with malaria, or maybe those suffering catastrophic mental breakdowns. But on the night of July seventh and the morning of July eighth, I lived through a period of time remarkably like that childhood delirium. Dreaming, waking, moving they were all one. I'll tell you as best I can, but nothing I say can convey the strangeness of that experience. It was as if I had found a secret passage hidden just beyond the wall of the world and went crawling along it. First there was music. Not Dixieland, because there were no horns, but like Dixieland. A primitive, reeling kind of bebop. Three or four acoustic guitars, a harmonica, a stand-up bass (or maybe a pair). Behind all of this was a hard, happy drumming that didn't sound as if it was coming from a real drum; it sounded as if someone with a lot of percussive talent was whopping on a bunch of boxes. Then a woman's voice joined in a contralto voice, not quite mannish, roughing over the high notes. It was laughing and urgent and ominous all at the same time, and I knew at once that I was hearing Sara Tidwell, who had never cut a record in her life. I was hearing Sara Laughs, and man, she was rocking. ‘You know we're going back to MANderley, We're gonna dance on the SANderley, I'm gonna sing with the BANderley, We gonna ball all we CANderley Ball me, baby, yeah!' The basses yes, there were two broke out in a barnyard shuffle like the break in Elvis's version of ‘Baby Let's Play House,' and then there was a guitar solo: Son Tidwell playing that chickenscratch thing. Lights gleamed in the dark, and I thought of a song from the fifties Claudine Clark singing ‘Party Lights.' And here they were, Japanese lanterns hung from the trees above the path of railroad-tie steps leading from the house to the water. Party lights casting mystic circles of radiance in the dark: red blue and green. Behind me, Sara was singing the bridge to her Manderley song mama likes it nasty, mama likes it strong, mama likes to party all night long but it was fading. Sara and the Red-Top Boys had set up their bandstand in the driveway by the sound, about where George Footman had parked when he came to serve me with Max Devore's subpoena. I was descending toward the lake through circles of radiance, past party lights surrounded by soft-winged moths. One had found its way inside a lamp and it cast a monstrous, batlike shadow against the ribbed paper. The flower-boxes Jo had put beside the steps were full of night-blooming roses. In the light of the Japanese lanterns they looked blue. Now the band was only a faint murmur; I could hear Sara shouting out the lyric, laughing her way through it as though it were the funniest thing she'd ever heard, all that Manderley-sanderley-canderley stuff, but I could no longer make out the individual words. Much clearer was the lap of the lake against the rocks at the foot of the steps, the hollow clunk of the cannisters under the swimming float, and the cry of a loon drifting out of the darkness. Someone was standing on The Street to my right, at the edge of the lake. I couldn't see his face, but I could see the brown sportcoat and the tee-shirt he was wearing beneath it. The lapels cut off some of the letters of the message, so it looked like this: ORMA ER OUN I knew what it said anyway in dreams you almost always know, don't you? NORMAL SPERM COUNT, a Village Cafe yuck-it-up special if ever there was one. I was in the north bedroom dreaming all this, and here I woke up enough to know I was dreaming . . . except it was like waking into another dream, because Bunter's bell was ringing madly and there was someone standing in the hall. Mr. Normal Sperm Count? No, not him. The shadow-shape falling on the door wasn't quite human. It was slumped, the arms indistinct. I sat up into the silver shaking of the bell, clutching a loose puddle of sheet against my naked waist, sure it was the shroud-thing out there the shroud-thing had come out of its grave to get me. ‘Please don't,' I said in a dry and trembling voice. ‘Please don't, please.' The shadow on the door raised its arms. ‘It ain't nuthin but a barn-dance sugar!' Sara Tidwell's laughing, furious voice sang. ‘It ain't nuthin but a round-and-round!' I lay back down and pulled the sheet over my face in a childish act of denial . . . and there I stood on our little lick of beach, wearing just my undershorts. My feet were ankle-deep in the water. It was warm the way the lake gets by midsummer. My dim shadow was cast two ways, in one direction by the scantling moon which rode low above the water, in another by the Japanese lantern with the moth caught inside it. The man who'd been standing on the path was gone but he had left a plastic owl to mark his place. It stared at me with frozen, gold-ringed eyes. ‘Hey Irish!' I looked out at the swimming float. Jo stood there. She must have just climbed out of the water, because she was still dripping and her hair was plastered against her cheeks. She was wearing the two-piece swimsuit from the photo I'd found, gray with red piping. ‘It's been a long time, Irish what do you say?' ‘Say about what?' I called back, although I knew. ‘About this!' She put her hands over her breasts and squeezed. Water ran out between her fingers and trickled across her knuckles. ‘Come on, Irish,' she said from beside and above me, ‘come on, you bastard, let's go.' I felt her strip down the sheet, pulling it easily out of my sleep-numbed fingers. I shut my eyes, but she took my hand and placed it between her legs. As I found that velvety seam and began to stroke it open, she began to rub the back of my neck with her fingers. ‘You're not Jo,' I said. ‘Who are you?' But no one was there to answer. I was in the woods. It was dark, and on the lake the loons were crying. I was walking the path to Jo's studio. It wasn't a dream; I could feel the cool air against my skin and the occasional bite of a rock into my bare sole or heel. A mosquito buzzed around my ear and I waved it away. I was wearing Jockey shorts, and at every step they pulled against a huge and throbbing erection. ‘What the hell is this?' I asked as Jo's little barnboard studio loomed in the dark. I looked behind me and saw Sara on her hill, not the woman but the house, a long lodge jutting toward the nightbound lake. ‘What's happening to me?' ‘Everything's all right, Mike,' Jo said. She was standing on the float, watching as I swam toward her. She put her hands behind her neck like a calendar model, lifting her breasts more fully into the damp halter. As in the photo, I could see her nipples poking out the cloth. I was swimming in my underpants, and with the same huge erection. ‘Everything's all right, Mike,' Mattie said in the north bedroom, and I opened my eyes. She was sitting beside me on the bed, smooth and naked in the weak glow of the nightlight. Her hair was down, hanging to her shoulders. Her breasts were tiny, the size of teacups, but the nipples were large and distended. Between her legs, where my hand still lingered, was a powderpuff of blonde hair, smooth as down. Her body was wrapped in shadows like moth-wings, like rose-petals. There was something desperately attractive about her as she sat there she was like the prize you know you'll never win at the carny shooting gallery or the county fair ringtoss. The one they keep on the top shelf. She reached under the sheet and folded her fingers over the stretched material of my undershorts. Everything's all right, it ain't nuthin but a round-and-round, said the UFO voice as I climbed the steps to my wife's studio. I stooped, fished for the key from beneath the mat, and took it out. I climbed the ladder to the float, wet and dripping, preceded by my engorged sex is there anything, I wonder, so unintentionally comic as a sexually aroused man? Jo stood on the boards in her wet bathing suit. I pulled Mattie into bed with me. I opened the door to Jo's studio. All of these things happened at the same time, weaving in and out of each other like strands of some exotic rope or belt. The thing with Jo felt the most like a dream, the thing in the studio, me crossing the floor and looking down at my old green IBM, the least. Mattie in the north bedroom was somewhere in between. On the float Jo said, ‘Do what you want.' In the north bedroom Mattie said, ‘Do what you want.' In the studio, no one had to tell me anything. In there I knew exactly what I wanted. On the float I bent my head and put my mouth on one of Jo's breasts and sucked the cloth-covered nipple into my mouth. I tasted damp fabric and dank lake. She reached for me where I stuck out and I slapped her hand away. If she touched me I would come at once. I sucked, drinking back trickles of cotton-water, groping with my own hands, first caressing her ass and then yanking down the bottom half of her suit. I got it off her and she dropped to her knees. I did too, finally getting rid of my wet, clinging underpants and tossing them on top of her bikini panty. We faced each other that way, me naked, her almost. ‘Who was the guy at the game?' I panted. ‘Who was he, Jo?' ‘No one in particular, Irish. Just another bag of bones.' She laughed, then leaned back on her haunches and stared at me. Her navel was a tiny black cup. There was something queerly, attractively snakelike in her posture. ‘Everything down there is death,' she said, and pressed her cold palms and white, pruney fingers to my cheeks. She turned my head and then bent it so I was looking into the lake. Under the water I saw decomposing bodies slipping by, pulled by some deep current. Their wet eyes stared. Their fish-nibbled noses gaped. Their tongues lolled between white lips like tendrils of waterweed. Some of the dead trailed pallid balloons of jellyfish guts; some were little more than bone. Yet not even the sight of this floating charnel parade could divert me from what I wanted. I shrugged my head free of her hands, pushed her down on the boards, and finally cooled what was so hard and contentious, sinking it deep. Her moon-silvered eyes stared up at me, through me, and I saw that one pupil was larger than the other. That was how her eyes had looked on the TV monitor when I had identified her in the Derry County Morgue. She was dead. My wife was dead and I was fucking her corpse. Nor could even that realization stop me. ‘Who was he?' I cried at her, covering her cold flesh as it lay on the wet boards. ‘Who was he, Jo, for Christ's sake tell me who he was!' In the north bedroom I pulled Mattie on top of me, relishing the feel of those small breasts against my chest and the length of her entwining legs. Then I rolled her over on the far side of the bed. I felt her hand reaching for me, and slapped it away if she touched me where she meant to touch me, I would come in an instant. ‘Spread your legs, hurry,' I said, and she did. I closed my eyes, shutting out all other sensory input in favor of this. I pressed forward, then stopped. I made one little adjustment, pushing at my engorged penis with the side of my hand, then rolled my hips and slipped into her like a finger in a silk-lined glove. She looked up at me, wide-eyed, then put a hand on my cheek and turned my head. ‘Everything out there is death,' she said, as if only explaining the obvious. In the window I saw Fifth Avenue between Fiftieth and Sixtieth all those trendy shops, Bijan and Bally, Tiffany and Bergdorf's and Steuben Glass. And here came Harold Oblowski, north bound and swinging his pigskin briefcase (the one Jo and I had given him for Christmas the year before she died). Beside him, carrying a Barnes and Noble bag by the handles, was the bountiful, beauteous Nola, his secretary. Except her bounty was gone. This was a grinning, yellow-jawed skeleton in a Donna Karan suit and alligator pumps; scrawny, beringed bones instead of fingers gripped the bag-handles. Harold's teeth jutted in his usual agent's grin, now extended to the point of obscenity. His favorite suit, the doublebreasted charcoal-gray from Paul Stuart, flapped on him like a sail in a fresh breeze. All around them, on both sides of the street, walked the living dead mommy mummies leading baby corpses by the hands or wheeling them in expensive prams, zombie doormen, reanimated skateboarders. Here a tall black man with a last few strips of flesh hanging from his face like cured deer-hide walked his skeletal Alsatian. The cab-drivers were rotting to raga music. The faces looking down from the passing buses were skulls, each wearing its own version of Harold's grin Hey, how are ya, how's the wife, how's the kids, writing any good books lately? The peanut vendors were putrefying. Yet none of it could quench me. I was on fire. I slipped my hands under her buttocks, lifting her, biting at the sheet (the pattern, I saw with no surprise, was blue roses) until I pulled it free of the mattress to keep from biting her on the neck, the shoulder, the breasts, anywhere my teeth could reach. ‘Tell me who he was!' I shouted at her. ‘You know, I know you do!' My voice was so muffled by my mouthful of bed-linen that I doubted if anyone but me could have understood it. ‘Tell me, you bitch!' On the path between Jo's studio and the house I stood in the dark with the typewriter in my arms and that dream-spanning erection quivering below its metal bulk all that ready and nothing willing. Except maybe for the night breeze. Then I became aware I was no longer alone. The shroud-thing was behind me, called like the moths to the party lights. It laughed-a brazen, smoke-broken laugh that could belong to only one woman. I didn't see the hand that reached around my hip to grip me the typewriter was in the way but I didn't need to see it to know its color was brown. It squeezed, slowly tightening, the fingers wriggling. ‘What do you want to know, sugar?' she asked from behind me. Still laughing. Still teasing. ‘Do you really want to know at all? Do you want to know or do you want to feel?' ‘Oh, you're killing me!' I cried. The typewriter thirty or so pounds of IBM Selectric was shaking back and forth in my arms. I could feel my muscles twanging like guitar strings. ‘Do you want to know who he was, sugar? That nasty man?' ‘Just do me, you bitch!' I screamed. She laughed again that harsh laughter that was almost like a cough and squeezed me where the squeezing was best. ‘You hold still, now,' she said. ‘You hold still, pretty boy, ‘less you want me to take fright and yank this thing of yours right out by the . . . ‘ I lost the rest as the whole world exploded in an orgasm so deep and strong that I thought it would simply tear me apart. I snapped my head back like a man being hung and ejaculated looking up at the stars. I screamed I had to and on the lake, two loons screamed back. At the same time I was on the float. Jo was gone, but I could faintly hear the sound of the band -Sara and Sonny and the Red-Top Boys tearing through ‘Black Mountain Rag.' I sat up, dazed and spent, fucked hollow. I couldn't see the path leading up to the house, but I could discern its switchback course by the Japanese lanterns. My underpants lay beside me in a little wet heap. I picked them up and started to put them on, only because I didn't want to swim back to shore with them in my hand. I stopped with them stretched between my knees, looking at my fingers. They were slimed with decaying flesh. Puffing out from beneath several of the nails were clumps of torn-out hair. Corpsehair. ‘Oh Jesus,' I moaned. The strength went out of me. I flopped into wetness. I was in the north-wing bedroom. What I had landed in was hot, and at first I thought it was come. The dim glow of the nightlight showed darker stuff, however. Mattie was gone and the bed was full of blood. Lying in the middle of that soaking pool was something I at first glance took to be a clump of flesh or a piece of organ. I looked more closely and saw it was a stuffed animal, a black-furred object matted red with blood. I lay on my side looking at it, wanting to bolt out of the bed and flee from the room but unable to do it. My muscles were in a dead swoon. Who had I really been having sex with in this bed? And what had I done to her? In God's name, what? ‘I don't believe these lies,' I heard myself say, and as though it were an incantation, I was slapped back together. That isn't exactly what happened, bur it's the only way of saying that seems to come close to whatever did. There were three of me one on the float, one in the north bedroom, one on the path and each one felt that hard slap, as if the wind had grown a fist. There was rushing blackness, and in it the steady silver shaking of Bunter's bell. Then it faded, and I faded with it. For a little while I was nowhere at all. I came back to the casual chatter of birds on summer vacation and to that peculiar red darkness that means the sun is shining through your closed eyelids. My neck was stiff, my head was canted at a weird angle, my legs were folded awkwardly beneath me, and I was hot. I lifted my head with a wince, knowing even as I opened my eyes that I was no longer in bed, no longer on the swimming float, no longer on the path between the house and the studio. It was floorboards under me, hard and uncompromising. The light was dazzling. I squinched my eyes closed again and groaned like a man with a hangover. I eased them back open behind my cupped hands, gave them time to adjust, then cautiously uncovered them, sat all the way up, and looked around. I was in the upstairs hall, lying under the broken air conditioner. Mrs. Meserve's note still hung from it. Sitting outside my office door was the green IBM with a piece of paper rolled into it. I looked down at my feet and saw that they were dirty. Pine needles were stuck to my soles, and one toe was scratched. I got up, staggered a little (my right leg had gone to sleep), then braced a hand against the wall and stood steady. I looked down at myself. I was wearing the Jockeys I'd gone to bed in, and I didn't look as if I'd had an accident in them. I pulled out the waistband and peeked inside. My cock looked as it usually did; small and soft, curled up and asleep in its thatch of hair. If Noonan's Folly had been adventuring in the night, there was no sign of it now. ‘It sure felt like an adventure,' I croaked. I armed sweat off my forehead. It was stifling up here. ‘Not the kind I ever read about in The Hardy Boys, though.' Then I remembered the blood-soaked sheet in the north bedroom, and the stuffed animal lying on its side in the middle of it. There was no sense of relief attached to the memory, that thank-God-it-was-only-a-dream feeling you get after a particularly nasty nightmare. It felt as real as any of the things I'd experienced in my measles fever-delirium . . . and all those things had been real, just distorted by my overheated brain. I staggered to the stairs and limped down them, holding tight to the bannister in case my tingling leg should buckle. At the foot I looked dazedly around the living room, as if seeing it for the first time, and then limped down the north-wing corridor. The bedroom door was ajar and for a moment I couldn't bring myself to push it all the way open and go in. I was very badly scared, and my mind kept trying to replay an old episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, the one about the man who strangles his wife during an alcoholic blackout. He spends the whole half hour looking for her, and finally finds her in the pantry, bloated and open-eyed. Kyra Devore was the only kid of stuffed-animal age I'd met recently, but she had been sleeping peacefully under her cabbage-rose coverlet when I left her mother and headed home. It was stupid to think I had driven all the way back to Wasp Hill Road, probably wearing nothing but my Jockeys, that I had What? Raped the woman? Brought the child here? In my sleep? I got the typewriter, in my sleep, didn't I? It's sitting right upstairs in the goddam hallway. Big difference between going thirty yards through the woods and five miles down the road to I wasn't going to stand out here listening to those quarrelling voices in my head. If I wasn't crazy and I didn't think I was listening to those contentious assholes would probably send me there, and by the express. I reached out and pushed the bedroom door open. For a moment I actually saw a spreading octopus-pattern of blood soaking into the sheet, that's how real and focused my terror was. Then I closed my eyes tight, opened them, and looked again. The sheets were rumpled, the bottom one mostly pulled free. I could see the quilted satin hide of the mattress. One pillow lay on the far edge of the bed. The other was scrunched down at the foot. The throw rug a piece of Jo's work was askew, and my water-glass lay overturned on the nighttable. The bedroom looked as if it might have been the site of a brawl or an orgy, but not a murder. There was no blood and no little stuffed animal with black fur. I dropped to my knees and looked under the bed. Nothing there not even dust-kitties, thanks to Brenda Meserve. I looked at the ground-sheet again, first passing a hand over its rumpled topography, then pulling it back down and resecuring the elasticized corners. Great invention, those sheets; if women gave out the Medal of Freedom instead of a bunch of white politicians who never made a bed or washed a load of clothes in their lives, the guy who thought up fitted sheets would undoubtedly have gotten a piece of that tin by now. In a Rose Garden ceremony. With the sheet pulled taut, I looked again. No blood, not a single drop. There was no stiffening patch of semen, either. The former I hadn't really expected (or so I was already telling myself), but what about the latter? At the very least, I'd had the world's most creative wet-dream a triptych in which I had screwed two women and gotten a handjob from a third, all at the same time. I thought I had that morning-after feeling, too, the one you get when the previous night's sex has been of the headbusting variety. But if there had been fireworks, where was the burnt gunpowder? ‘In Jo's studio, most likely,' I told the empty, sunny room. ‘Or on the path between here and there. Just be glad you didn't leave it in Mattie Devore, bucko. An affair with a post-adolescent widow you don't need.' A part of me disagreed; a part of me thought Mattie Devore was exactly what I did need. But I hadn't had sex with her last night, any more than I had had sex with my dead wife out on the swimming float or gotten a handjob from Sara Tidwell. Now that I saw I hadn't killed a nice little kid either, my thoughts turned back to the typewriter. Why had I gotten it? Why bother? Oh man. What a silly question. My wife might have been keeping secrets from me, maybe even having an affair; there might be ghosts in the house; there might be a rich old man half a mile south who wanted to put a sharp stick into me and then break it off; there might be a few toys in my own humble attic, for that matter. But as I stood there in a bright shaft of sunlight, looking at my shadow on the far wall, only one thought seemed to matter: I had gone out to my wife's studio and gotten my old typewriter, and there was only one reason to do something like that. I went into the bathroom, wanting to get rid of the sweat on my body and the dirt on my feet before doing anything else. I reached for the shower-handle, then stopped. The tub was full of water. Either I had for some reason filled it during my sleepwalk . . . or something else had. I reached for the drain-lever, then stopped again, remembering that moment on the shoulder of Route 68 when my mouth had filled up with the taste of cold water. I realized I was waiting for it to happen again. When it didn't, I opened the bathtub drain to let out the standing water and started the shower. I could have brought the Selectric downstairs, perhaps even lugged it out onto the deck where there was a little breeze coming over the surface of the lake, but I didn't. I had brought it all the way to the door of my office, and my office was where I'd work . . . if I could work. I'd work in there even if the temperature beneath the roofpeak built to a hundred and twenty degrees . . . which, by three in the afternoon, it just might. The paper rolled into the machine was an old pink-carbon receipt from Click!, the photo shop in Castle Rock where Jo had bought her supplies when we were down here. I'd put it in so that the blank side faced the Courier type-ball. On it I had typed the names of my little harem, as if I had tried in some struggling way to report on my three-faceted dream even while it was going on: Jo Sara Mattie Jo Sara Mattie Mattie Mattie Sara Sara Jo Johanna Sara Jo MattieSaraJo. Below this, in lower case: normal sperm count sperm norm all's rosy I opened the office door, carried the typewriter in, and put it in its old place beneath the poster of Richard Nixon. I pulled the pink slip out of the roller, balled it up, and tossed it into the wastebasket. Then I picked up the Selectric's plug and stuck it in the baseboard socket. My heart was beating hard and fast, the way it had when I was thirteen and climbing the ladder to the high board at the Y-pool. I had climbed that ladder three times when I was twelve and then slunk back down it again; once I turned thirteen, there could be no chickening out I really had to do it. I thought I'd seen a fan hiding in the far corner of the closet, behind the box marked GADGETS. I started in that direction, then turned around again with a ragged little laugh. I'd had moments of confidence before, hadn't I? Yes. And then the iron bands had clamped around my chest. It would be stupid to get out the fan and then discover I had no business in this room after all. ‘Take it easy,' I said, ‘take it easy.' But I couldn't, no more than that narrow-chested boy in the ridiculous purple bathing suit had been able to take it easy when he walked to the end of the diving board, the pool so green below him, the upraised faces of the boys and girls in it so small, so small. I bent to one of the drawers on the right side of the desk and pulled so hard it came all the way out. I got my bare foot out of its landing zone just in time and barked a gust of loud, humorless laughter. There was half a ream of paper in the drawer. The edges had that faintly crispy look paper gets when it's been sitting for a long time. I no more than saw it before remembering I had brought my own supply stuff a good deal fresher than this. I left it where it was and put the drawer back in its hole. It took several tries to get it on its tracks; my hands were shaking. At last I sat down in my desk chair, hearing the same old creaks as it took my weight and the same old rumble of the casters as I rolled it forward, snugging my legs into the kneehole. Then I sat facing the keyboard, sweating hard, still remembering the high board at the Y, how springy it had been under my bare feet as I walked its length, remembering the echoing quality of the voices below me, remembering the smell of chlorine and the steady low throb of the air-exchangers: fwung-fwung-fwung-fwung, as if the water had its own secret heartbeat. I had stood at the end of the board wondering (and not for the first time!) if you could be paralyzed if you hit the water wrong. Probably not, but you could die of fear. There were documented cases of that in Ripley's Believe It or Not, which served me as science between the ages of eight and fourteen. Go on! Jo's voice cried. My version of her voice was usually calm and collected; this time it was shrill. Stop dithering and go on! I reached for the IBM's rocker-switch, now remembering the day I had dropped my Word Six program into the Powerbook's trash. Goodbye, old pal, I had thought. ‘Please let this work,' I said. ‘Please.' I lowered my hand and flicked the switch. The machine came on. The Courier ball did a preliminary twirl, like a ballet dancer standing in the wings, waiting to go on. I picked up a piece of paper, saw my sweaty fingers were leaving marks, and didn't care. I rolled it into the machine, centered it, then wrote Chapter One and waited for the storm to break.

Renaissance Art

World History 2 Renaissance Art â€Å"The Renaissance is studded by the names of the artists and architects, with their creations recorded as great historical events† (Arthur, 2008). The Renaissance was an epoch of great art and literature, and was a period of time when people shifted away from the ideas and traditions of the Middle Ages. Many of the most prominent educators, artists and architects were from this period. Artworks dating from the 1 5th century to the 16th century, during the Renaissance era, express ideas of individualism, imitations of classical antiquity and the understanding of proportions and realism.Michelangelo David, the self-portrait of Raphael, and Leonardo dad Vine's Mona Lisa depicts the idea of individualism. Unlike the paintings during the Middle Ages that mostly contained religious themes that glorified God, the works of these artists focused on the potential of man, and each of them had their own unique style that showed their different talents a nd capabilities. â€Å"Art in the Renaissance brought out the individual† (Scotsman, 2008). Michelangelo sculpture, David (1501-1504) shows he idea of an ideal Renaissance male.The sculpture is shaped into a physically perfect man who stands in a confident manner. This symbolizes that man's capacity for personal development is unlimited; knowledge and a broad range of abilities are within every man's reach (How To Be, 2008). A self-portrait of Raphael (1504-1506) also shows how individualism was valued during the Renaissance. Repeal's self- portrait of himself portrays the idea of â€Å"self-glorification† (Scotsman, 2008). Leonardo used many of his own novel techniques and ideas to paint Mona Lisa.The way the object's eyes were painted, the way the subject's mouth curved into a subtle smile, and the landscape behind the subject that appears to be a fictional place gave the painting it's uniqueness (The Mona Lisa, 2009). Many of the artists during the Renaissance focus ed on individuality and on painting in their own unique styles to portray the potential of human beings. Imitation of classical antiquity can be seen in renowned artworks such as Leonardo dad Vine's Vitamins Man (1490), and Repeal's The School of Athens (1509-1510). Both of artists studied the findings and observations of the Romans andGreeks, and used them as a reference to create their own works of art. The Vitamins Man was sketched by Leonardo dad Vinci in honor of the Roman architect Vitreous. Dad Vinci used Vitreous's ideas of perception and proportion to create the sketch (Vitamins Man, 2012). He read the ancient Roman texts and combined it with his actual observations of the human body. Repeal's The School of Athens is a painting that exhibited many well-educated Greek scholars and educators. Plato and Aristotle are painted right in the center of the painting with Socrates on top of the staircases The School of Athens, 2012).Many artists during the Renaissance looked back int o the works of their ancestors, combined the ideas of the past and present to create their own paintings and artwork. The proportions and realistic features that can be seen in Michelangelo The Creation of Adam (1 51 1), and Leonardo dad Vine's Vitamins Man (1490), is one of the factors that define Renaissance artwork. Both Michelangelo and Dad Vinci studied the human anatomy to produce more realistic artworks. In The Creation of Adam, God is resting on the outline of the human brain (Hall, 2013). All the figures in the painting had depth and perspective.Leonardo sketch of the Vitamins Man was carefully proportioned. The length of the outspread arms were equal to the figure's height and the length of hand is one-tenth of the height. The sketch also shows the symmetry of the human body. The artists during the Renaissance focused greatly on realism, painting all their artworks with great detail of every part of the human body. The Renaissance was a period of time when artworks shifted away from only focusing on religion to representing individualism, classical antiquity, and respective and realism.

Negotiating Indian and Chinese Culture

India is seventh largest country geographically and the second most populous country in the world. It is a democratic country. It is the origin for Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. It has unity in diversity and diversity in unity. The name is derived from Indus, which is derived from the Old Persian word Hindu from sanskrit Sindhu, the historic local appellation for the Indus river (wikipedia, 2008) The most followed culture is Hinduism. The national language is Hindi, where as there are 29 officially recognized spoken languages including Hindi and English. Infrastructure of India is very beautiful one, all the people encourage and breed spiritualism. Ancient philosophies like ayurveda yoga vastu are practiced in India. We can see the thirst for holistic and spiritual inquiry. These are the things which attract foreigners to visit India, and learn Indian culture. It is multilingual and multiethnic society. India is also called as home to diversity of wildlife which has variety of habitats. India is the world’s twelfth largest economy at market exchange rates and the third largest in purchasing power. Economic reforms have transformed it into the second fastest growing economy in the world. (Kumar, 2008). It is not possible to find out exact origin of Indian people India's ethnic history is extremely complex, and distinct racial divisions between peoples generally cannot be drawn clearly. However, Negroid, Australoid, Mongoloid, and Caucasoid stocks are discernible. The first three are represented mainly by tribal peoples in the southern hills, the plateau, Assam, the Himalayas, and the Andaman Islands. The main Caucasoid elements are the Mediterranean, including groups dominant in much of the north, and the Nordic or Indo-Aryan, a taller, fairer-skinned strain dominant in the northwest. The dark-complexioned Dravidians of the south have a mixture of Mediterranean and Australoid features. In 1999, 72% of the population was Indo-Aryan, 25% Dravidian, 3% Mongoloid and other. (nationsencyclopedia, 1999). India has so many festivals. People love to celebrate all the festivals. They follow many rituals like pujas, fasting, feasting and all. Indian music includes classical, Hindustani, carnatic and also folk. Indian dance include bhangra, bharathanatyam, kathak, kuchipudi, and odissi. Though different regions have their own cultural dances, they like to participate in all kinds. India has rich customs and traditions. These help people to keep up binding together. Customs include house warming ceremony, naming ceremony, pheras, touching feet etc. Different religions include different prayers. Heritage places in India include like Taj Mahal, Konark, Ajanta-Ellora, Mahabaleswar, and Khajuraho. Tourist places include Delhi, Rajasthan, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Goa and more. Chinese Culture The culture of china is one of the world’s oldest and complex civilizations. It has a history of more than 5000 years. It has varied customs and traditions varying among cities, towns and provinces. Traditional Chinese culture includes large geographical area. Each region has been divided into many sub-cultures. They include Sichuan, Yunnan Guizhou, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Hunan, and Hubei, According to Wikipedia, there were three sovereigns and five emperors. Different periods of history have different names for the various positions within society. Trades and crafts were usually taught by a sifu. (2008). There has been a blurred line among religion, myth and phenomenon. There are many deities included in the tradition. Most recognized holy figures are Jade Emperor, Guan Yin, and Budai. Door God and Imperial guardian lions are spiritual symbols extended from mythology. People there in China still believe in fortune telling rituals. China has the largest population of any country in the world. According to 2002 statistics, the total population of China is 1.28453 billion (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan) or about one fifth of the world population. China also has a very dense population, with approximately 135 people per square kilometer. ( CRI Online, 2002). The main festivals of China includes Chinese new year, Double Ninth Festival, The seventh day of seventh lunar month, Duanwu festival, The laba festival and The lantern festival. Official spoken language of China is Mandarin. Other spoken languages include Cantonese, Xiang, Min, Hakka and more. Negotiation When both the cultures of India and China are considered, it is hard to conclude which one is the best. When considering business strategy electronic field is going better in China, where as most of else businesses including IT industry is growing well in India. When it comes to living style of an Individual, India is better. It is mainly because India has follow up most of all world cultures. Especially western people will not have any complaints working for the clients in India. It may be because of the high literacy, and huge practice of western culture. Both Indian and Chinese food has beautiful taste. When compared Chinese food is healthier but Indian food is tastier. People in India are more sophisticated than in China. References CRI Online (2002). Current situation of Chinese Population. Retrieved March 10, 2008, from ; http://english.cri.cn/1702/2006-9-28/[email  protected]; Encyclopedia of the Nations (1999). India Ethnic Groups. Retrieved March 10, 2008. ;http://www.nationsencyclopedia.com/Asia-and-Oceania/India-ETHNIC-GROUPS.html; The Epoch Times. (2008, January 22). Australia Blind to India’s Boom. Retrieved March 10, 2008, from ;http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-1-22/64516.html; Wikipedia. (2008, March 10). Culture of China. Retrieved March 10, 2008, from ;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_culture; Wikipedia. (2008, March 10). India. Retrieved March 10, 2008, from ;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/India#_note-8; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;

Compare sex difference and women talk too much Essay

Compare sex difference and women talk too much - Essay Example Conversely, â€Å"Women Talk Too Much† is a piece of art that was authored by Holms. From the article, the author has proved that it is a mythical believe and myth that women tends to talk a lot. From the two articles, there are various similarities and differences between the two essays. The main comparison between â€Å"Sex Differences† and â€Å"Women Talk Too Much† is that in both articles, the authors have tried proving that the manner in which people believe on the sex difference and more so on women is not correct (McGeown, 2012). On the other hand, the main difference between â€Å"Sex Differences† and â€Å"Women Talk Too Much† is based on ways in which the views of the authors are directed to the society. The ideas outlined by the authors are significant for people to develop the society. The authors of both â€Å"Sex Differences† and â€Å"Women Talk Too Much† argue in defending their ideas. Macaulay has used research work in supporting his idea. He started with the research chronology on books that were written by Jespersen way back in 1920. Jespersen book, he mentioned on ways in women were heavily stereotyped based on their use of language and the ways in which they understood their language. Based on the book, he showed the audience that, previously there was this belied that women are used to using easy words. Additionally, they focus especially on the main and central arena of their language. Similarly, men tend to hold the new words with a lot of ease. It was also mentio ned that female counterparts have a less reserve of their vocabularies compared to men. Additionally, he included that women are quick in linguistic and better compared to men. However, according to Macaulay, he believes that this is absolutely stereotype. Conversely, Holmes has used illustrations and examples in proving their ideas to prove who talks a lot

Week 2 Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Week 2 - Research Paper Example these lines, all projects will have risks, theres continually something that can happen and distinguishing each risk is counter beneficial, it’s just the high risk considers that need to be brought to the consideration regarding management to get activity or make mindfulness. Attempting to blanket off every risk is unrealistic or profitable. That is the reason this section is titled "Risk Management" on the grounds that at the end of the day that is everything youre doing, dealing with the risk. The little or remote risks are going to be there notwithstanding, what you have to do is verify the real risks are managed. Project Risk management is a proactive process for the distinguishing proof, evaluation and management of risks. In the project management setting, the essential thought continues as before. Project risk management is a process of looking forward, distinguishing potential risks, dissecting and surveying them and after that placing plans set up to measure or coddle them. Viable risk management obliges an aroused methodology, early risk recognizable proof, a fitting level of documentation of risks through a risk register and the inclusion of all significant stakeholders in all phases of the risk management process. The risk management of the project always depends on its complexity, number of employees and context. The process of distinguishing proof, dissection and either acknowledgement or alleviation of instability in speculation choice making. Basically, risk management happens at whatever time a speculator or trust administrator dissects and endeavors to evaluate the potential for misfortunes in a venture and afterward makes the proper move (or inaction) given their speculation destinations and risk tolerance. Lacking risk management can bring about extreme results for organizations and additionally people. Basically, risk management is a two-stage process - figuring out what risks exist in a speculation and afterward taking care of those

How to investigate a critical evaluation of consumer's mobile phone Dissertation

How to investigate a critical evaluation of consumer's mobile phone buying behaviour regarding to brands in the UK - Dissertation Example ......03 2.2 Relevant Researches†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.05 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND ANALYSIS†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦...08 3.1 Research Design†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..08 3.2 Sample†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦...09 3.3 Research Tool†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦11 3.4 Data Collection†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦...12 3.5 Data Analysis†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â ‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦...12 3.6 Ethical Issues†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..13 3.7 Reliability and validity concerns†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.†¦14 3.8 Time scale and Resources†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.14 4. DATA PRESENTATION AND CONCLUSION†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦..15 1. INTRODUCTION This paper proposes a dissertation, exploratory in nature in order to identify the factors which influence consumer behaviour in purchase of a mobile phone among university students in London. The main goal is to come up with an explanation of consumer’s choice behaviour in light of the factors which influence their preference of one mobile phone over the other. 1.1 Research Aims The purpose of this st udy is to explore consumer preferences in case of mobile phone purchase among the university students living in London. The aims of this research are therefore: i. To determine which mobile phone brand is most popular among university students in London. ii. To find out what factors influence the preference choice among university students in London while purchasing a mobile phone. 1.2 Research Objectives Following are the objectives for this research, designed to cater the fulfilment of research aims as previously mentioned: i. To conduct a survey based on a specially designed questionnaire meant to gauge the factors which play role in customer’s mobile phone buying behaviour, like: Brand name, price, quality and features offered etc. ii. To find out which mobile phone brand is more popular among university students in London and why is it so. iii. To conduct focus group sessions with a small group of participants to explore the factors involved in consumer behaviour with re spect to purchasing of a mobile. 1.3 Research Question The questions being addressed in this study are to identify the most popular mobile phone among university students in London and to explore the main factors which govern the customer’s choice preference in the purchase of a mobile phone; brand name, price, features offered, quality, past experience of using a mobile etc. 1.4 Rationale for research This topic was chosen for research because it is of interest for the researcher personally and is related to the field of the researcher as well. As the literature review section will reveal, there is ample literature on consumer’s choice behaviour, but there are very few mobile phone brand specific studies and even fewer studies which have specifically explored the area. Although different socio economic, self concept, attribution and learning theories have attempted to explain choice behaviour in consumers, there is no single theory explaining the choice behaviour

Summary and Personal Opinion on Peter Lynch and John Rothchild Learn Essay

Summary and Personal Opinion on Peter Lynch and John Rothchild Learn to Earn - Essay Example economics, mathematics and literature, but are not taught the roles that innovations and companies have played. "Every school child learns (only about) how the pilgrims risked their lives to find religious freedomin a tiny ship The Mayflower" (page 25) Following the 'Preface' and the 'Introduction' are the main chapters. Chapter One traces the history of capitalism. "For much of human history capitalism was an alien concept, for the bulk of the world's population never got their hands on money" (pg 21). We find how stocks got started in Europe centuries ago. We also learn how, more than a hundred years ago, Europeans invested in the then emerging market: The United States. "While optimists paid higher and higher prices for the shares of the Dutch East India Companypessimists bet against the stock through a clever maneuver called shorting". The optimists proved right and made unimaginable profits. Alexander Hamilton, father of the financial system, realized that the country couldn't get along without money, and to have money, it needed banks. Adam Smith understood the basics of how a free market works. Whenever there's a demand for a new product, competitiveness enters the scene. This competition is very good for all consumers, bec ause it forces the product makers to improve their product and cut prices. Without competition, complacency would set in. History of capitalism also speaks about the American economy which alternately moves from ecstasy to panic and back again. "In the euphoric periods, when prices were rising and jobs were plentiful, speculators would spend their last paycheck, hock their jewelry, go into debt, do anything to buy stocks, or bonds, or land, and get in on the action. Then, in the panics, collapses, and depressions, the speculators got their come uppance and people sobered up". We have seen many such stock market crashes in the great depression of 1853 and again in 1857, 1929, 1973, 1981 and 1987. One interesting description here is about what Lynch terms the robber barons. The robber barons were not robbers or lawbreakers in the traditional sense. They were high-end speculators, who struggled, connived, and strong-armed their way to the top of American industry. When you are an owner of a company, you only make money if the company succeeds. This is the risk of buying stocks: The Company you own may turn out to be worthless. It is for tacking this risk that people are rewarded so handsomely if they pick the right companies to invest in. This is also the most humorous chapter in the bookAfter an elaborate first chapter, Chapter Two covers the basics of investing. The discussion here is mostly intended for people who can invest money for a long time. The basic points here are that you should start invest early, and that stocks are the best performers among various investment options. Lynch proves how investors and corporations are true heroes of our great American Republic. Chapter Three outlines the lives of a company. It helps the investor to begin to think like the owner of a company. Chapter Four tells the stories of many companies which he calls the invisible hands. The Invisible Hand keeps the supply and demand of everything from bubblegum to bowling

The gains and losses that come with women's liberation Essay

The gains and losses that come with women's liberation - Essay Example However, it is no secret that Freud has been much criticized on many points, and his theory of femininity has been among targets of such criticism. This fact does not really demote the value of Freudian insight, and I think that study of his views on femininity and the opposing ideas of other scholars can give us a better comprehension of the subject of study itself. In this regard, let us undertake a closer examination of Freud's theory of femininity, and try to see what objections to it were offered by Karen Horney, an outstanding theorist of psychology, and Simone de Beauvoir, a famous French existentialist philosopher. One of the tasks that Freud set before psychoanalysis was to explain how a woman develops from a child with initial bisexuality. The very method of psychoanalysis developed by Freud was in essence a psychological therapy that was dealing with interpretation of dreams, free association, and with investigation of displacement of feelings in relation to other people in order to uncover unconscious and repressed motives, conflicts, and anxieties of people and liberate their psychic energy. Besides, Freud viewed the period of childhood as an extremely important developmental stage that to a large degree defines and determines our personality. ... For one, according to Freud, women develop a greater attraction to narcissism which becomes a decisive factor in the psychological development of girls and begins to influence them in such a way that for women it becomes more important to be loved than to love. As one of the hidden reasons of this developmental tendency Freud offers the concept of penis-envy, which describes an unconscious feeling of sexual inferiority that women have in relation to men. Due to this complex that challenges the physical vanity, women tend to highly estimate their charms, in this way compensating for their sexual inferiority dictated by penis-envy. Freud also thinks that another unconscious manifestation of perceived genital deficiency of women is represented by the sensation of shame that is traditionally considered to be a feminine quality. In an intricate twist of reasoning, he suggests that female feeling of shame in its later period of development in women can even be linked with the invention of weaving and plaiting, which are arguably among few inventions introduced by women. Now, Freud theorizes that the unconscious motive behind the mentioned techniques is the attempt to mimic through artificial adherence of threads the natural phenomenon of the growth of the pubic hair that hides the genitals. Another essential characteristic of women in accordance with Freuds theory of femininity is seen in a marriage after the birth of the first child. At this point, when a woman who had previously been a daughter becomes a mother herself, she may reinforce the previously opposed identification with her mother. This event may in its turn attract libido to itself that may work to repeat the

Critique Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 3

Critique - Essay Example nimous concern that there will be a knowledge-based generational gap if higher education is not transformed to keep with the accelerating changes of digital information. Levine and Dean do identify and make the valid claim that the majority of students believe they will achieve success based on previous generation’s ability to do so, and how students do not take into account the reality of a poor economic infrastructure. However, students do recognize that a stagnant economy will curtail the possibilities of monetary success. It is important to acknowledge what students today think about the future of the economy; twenty years ago, tuition was never thought to reach the price and investment that it has today. Although the authors reveal and extol their concepts on how society as a whole is changing inevitably through the digital revolution, it is conveyed in an editorial point of view. The author’s concerns have a sense of legitimacy, but many assumptions are made witho ut taking into account that life and society is always changing. Change, by definition, is an ever-evolving transformation that at times can seem to occur instantaneously. The credibility such as the statistics given becomes skewed and misleading to the audience because of the way Levine and Dean interpret them. Although Levine and Dean make broad assumptions, they do, however, make agreeable depictions on the concept of how grades are more inflated, but not how they perceive it to have been done. â€Å"Forty-one percent of undergrads have grades of an A- or higher† (Levine & Dean), this statistic may be true, but the point of view from the authors mislead the audience by claiming that a student who has an A got that grade because grades are inflated, which leads to their assumption that today’s undergrads are â€Å"weak academically†. The authors do not take into account that every teacher is different in his or her own way, an assumption cannot be concluding with the evidence given. This is in

The Role of Health Information Technology in (which evert area you Research Paper - 1

The Role of Health Information Technology in (which evert area you choose from below) - Research Paper Example or electronic health information implementation to prompt innovation in Healthcare Delivery by health service providers (Buntin, Burke, Hoaglin, & Blumenthal, 2011). The Health Information Technology has been used in a number of health areas, where its role is worth highlighting, such as ACO’s, PCMHs (Patient Centered Medical Homes), and HIEs or RHIOs etc. This paper is aimed at evaluating the role of the Health Information Technology in its one of important areas of Health Information Exchange. The health information exchange is quite a recent technology that is developed and implemented as a result of Federal efforts in order to employ the innovative technology for more advantages regarding health and providers. Within the United States, the utilization of health information exchange systems was profoundly established by the management through the channel of the American Recovery as well as Investment Act of 2009. Especially, the American and Recovery Investment Act integrated the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH) that encouraged associations to implement EHRs and health information exchanges by means of optimistic and pessimistic rationales. Additional countries have as well approved rules and regulations encompassing the extensive implementation of EHRs, together with Canada, England and Australia (Blumenthal, 2009). On the whole, electronic health information exchange is analyzed like a healthy and needed aspect for health areas across the globe. In this scenario, latest innovative technology facilitates bulks of medical data and information to be processed as well as exchanged very quickly and resourcefully as compared to the obsolete paper-based manual structures (Brady, 2011; Buntin, Jain, & Blumenthal, 2010) Health information exchange or HIE can be defined as, â€Å"the exchange of clinical data such as problem lists, clinicians’ notes, or other critical medical information from one provider organization

Organizational behavior Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Organizational behavior - Assignment Example In addition, goals provide a path which an organization can follow; this way, the managers can know whether they are on the right track and realize the changes they need to make (Montgomery Schools par. 3). Despite the fact that goals determine where one wants to be, there are various objections that are against this point of view. One of the arguments against this statement is that some goals are not easily achievable. Failure to achieve goals may demoralize a person and lead to stress, especially if one had put a lot of expectations in the goals they had set. In addition, goals may be unpredictable since there are some changes that one may encounter along the way, which minimize the chances of achieving goals. Time constraint is another argument against the role of goals in determining where one wants to be. Some goals are achievable only in the long-run and assuming that they will be achieved within a certain period is not realistic (Bratton et al

the president of Bright-Lite’s president Essay Example for Free

the president of Bright-Lite’s president Essay The issue concerning stock should be tackled carefully by the president of Bright-Lite’s president. Presently he should argue in favor of Beverly Patton, because it is true that a high volume of stock is kept that will probably turn to obsolete. However, attention should be placed by the president in how favoring Beverly because we cannot go to the other extreme, since such side is hazardous too to the financial health of Bright-Line Shirt Company. The reason for such a suggest stems from the trade off that exists in inventory that all business organizations that keep stock face. When holding stock there are two main risks that face the opposite direction. On one side there is the risk that the company purchases a lot of stock that will not be used and will eventually turn obsolete, as the case at hand. Keeping high volume of stock holds other disadvantages apart obsolescence. For example, the greater the stock volume the higher the resources entrusted for such asset. Indeed organizations that keep high volume of stock incur greater holding costs, such as wages of employees working in stores, insurance and other related overheads. In addition, by keeping a high volume of stock a substantial part of the firm’s working capital will be tied up in stock. We ought to keep in mind that cash is the lifeblood of the organization and an appropriate cash buffer balance should be kept to cater for other working capital commitments like payments to suppliers apart from inventory. The other extreme side, which encompasses keeping low volume of stock, is also dangerous. If the company ends up without inventory, there is the risk that the firm will not be capable to meet the demands of the customers. As a result, orders will be lost and the organization might lose a part of its present market share. In this respect an appropriate balance between these two side should be kept and this is the reason why the president should be careful in how favoring Beverly. Reference: Drury C. (1996). Management and Cost Accounting. Fourth Edition. New York: International Thomson Business Press.

Building on Porters Value Chain Model for Design Management

Building on Porters Value Chain Model for Design Management Building on porters value chain model (1985), design management creates value at three different levels: management of design activities, integration of design function into all business processes and decisions to the design vision within the company vision and strategy (Sinha, 2002). What is Design? Design is a process of seeking to optimise consumer satisfaction and company profitability through the creative use of major design elements (performance, quality, durability, appearance and cost) in connection with products, environments, information and corporate identity (P Kotler, GA Rath, 1984). It involves a wide range of professions in which products, graphics, services, interiors and architecture all take part. Design is a problem solving, systematic, creative and a coordinating activity (Borja de Mozota, 1998). It is a creative and management process. Design is a process that has four essential characteristics (Walsh et al, 1992). The 4Cs Creativity: the creation of something new Complexity: decisions on large number of parameters and variables Compromise: Balancing multiples and conflicting requirements Choice: making choices between many possible solutions to a problem at all levels Why is Design Important? Design enhances products, communication, environment and corporate identity. Design objective is to create high satisfaction for target customers and profits for the enterprise. It is an important strategic tool in firms unending search for a sustainable competitive advantage. Design seeks to discover and assess structural, organisational, functional, expressive and economic relationships with the task of enhancing global sustainability, environmental protection, giving benefits and freedom to entire human community, supporting cultural diversity despite the globalisation of world. (Borja de Mozota, 2003). Designers play an important role in how companies use information, how product information is documented and communicated (Lawson 1990, vossoughi 1998, French 1994). Design involves finding and identifying problems as much as solving them (Lawson, p.136, 1994). What is Design Management? Peter Gorb, 1990 defines design management as the effective deployment of the design resources available to a company by line managers in order to help the company achieve its objectives. Design management involves managing the creative process within the corporation and managing the company according to design principles. it is about managing the processes of innovation and design. Design management analyzes the diverse elements necessary for the successful integration of design as an essential component of design strategy (Gianfranco Zaccai). Importance of design management pg 68 Creativity is a process which results in a novel work that is accepted as tenable or useful or satisfying by a group at some point in time (Stein 1956). Creativity has been considered as a type of problem solving (Matlin, 2002). Puccio, 1997 illustrated that creativity contributes to effective leadership and discovering new and better ways of solving problems, the effective use of human resources and the rapid growth of competition in the business. Design is regarded as a creative process. The process has five phases, each having a different objective and corresponds to the production of visual outputs. (Borja de Mozota, 2003) These design phases are identical no matter what the design project is. PHASES OBJECTIVE VISUAL OUTPUTS 0. Investigating Idea Brief 1. Research Concept Visual concept 2. Exploration Choice of style Rough of ideas, Sketches, Rough of presentations 3. Development Prototype detail Technical drawings, Functional  model, 3-D mock up for visual  correctness 4. Realization Test Documents of execution,   Prototype 5. Evaluation Production Illustration of the product The design process (Borja de Mozota, 2003) In preliminary phase, the idea is generated and the problem is identified which can be solved by the design. In phase 1, the designer analyzes the positioning of product and discovers the technical and functional parameters of the project. In phase 2, the designer makes rough sketches of different possibilities using all his creative resources for the clients. Selection is made between different solutions which are to be developed in phase 3. In phase 3, the selected solution is formally represented in three dimensions. The model is used for various tests and the final model is then adopted ending the creative process. In phase 4, the designer works on realization of a prototype for the project. This requires the collaboration of different departments. In phase 5, tests are launched in three different directions: technical control, calculation test, and marketing evaluation. FCUK French connection, also known as fcuk, founded in 1972 by Stephen Marks was designed to create fashionable clothing aimed at a broad target market. French Connection offers a fashion-forward clothing range with a quirky spin on design, priding itself on quality and affordable prices. Fcuk represents French Connection United Kingdom, and is the casual French Connection clothing range; it has developed into a brand name which is highly renowned and an acronym that relates to the French Connection logo. The French Connection brand operates in the fashion-orientated high street retail market offering a fashion-forward range of quality products at affordable prices. Customers, typically aged 18-35, appreciate that the brand is at the leading edge of high street fashion and offers quality and style in its products. The design teams are based in London and products are manufactured in specialist facilities in Europe and Asia (Fcuk.com, 2009). French Connections operations cover several dist ribution channels, from their own retail outlets, wholesalers in North America, franchises, mail order, to concession stores in a variety of department stores such as Selfridges. French Connection is now one of the most recognisable fashion brands on the high street with a global reach, operating in over 30 countries, with over 1,000 stockists worldwide (fcuk.com, 2009). In February 2001, French Connection paid  £23 million pounds sterling to its US joint venture partner Best of All Clothing who had been operating the 24 French Connection stores before the buyout. Now French Connection holds complete independent ownership. Product/service offering The company design ranges of products for both men and women from underwear to outerwear, casual wear to suits, denim, accessories and childrens wear. French Connection has expanded into new markets at a phenomenal rate and the product range is now hugely diversified. The company began by selling clothing to the mens and womens market, originating as a fashionable clothing range, and has now extended its brand in recent years to include fashion accessories, make-up, toiletries, even condoms and not forgetting more recently alcoholic drinks. Brand licensing plays an important part of the companys strategic plans for expansion with licensing deals revenue. The company has developed into a brand licensing company rather than solely a fashion retailer. The brand had even expanded into radio, with the launch of FCUK FM. The core plan behind the idea is to target 18- to 35 year old to the brand in the future. Fcuk follows a specific pattern to achieve its organisation goals. FCUK advertise d Scent to bed in publications, print ads in magazines that included cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Maxim and FHM whose readerships were primarily consisted of girls in their early and middle teenage years. Fcuk remained convinced that the campaign was right for its target market. Focus remains to produce fashion-forward products to build on the success of the ladies wear ranges (Fcuk.com, FY09 presentation). USPs French connections controversial ad campaigns with the fcuk fashion developed the brands bold, and witty attitude that has made customers think; with a desire to be innovative, distinctive and yet be affordable and accessible. Their adverts are not like the usual fashion advertising, they leave it open to interpretation of the customer. Fcuk witnessed a sudden fall in late 1980s, but it became one of the hottest brands in England in late 1990s and early 2000s, thanks to its controversial marketing campaign and subsequent rebranding. FCUK has always adopted out of the way advertising and selling techniques, for example their logo FCUK, or the eye catching visuals on the high streets. Accessories such as hats, sunglasses, backpacks, fragrances and the companys new cosmetics line complement the brands fashion (Plunkett 2009). The fcuk logo works as a unique selling point for the brand and separates it from its competitors. Also the exclusive designs, customer satisfaction and service pr ovided by the employees are the unique selling points of the brand. French connection has become synonymous with style and fashion. It strives to maintain the brand credibility and its uniqueness in the market. Innovation and creativity are the characteristic of the designs and the company blends high quality with exciting ideas as well as affordability. Multi -Channel Strategy Apart from the store network such as mail order and the internet the company uses a number of other lucrative channels. With e-tailing, French Connection realised how important their online business is, where they were adamant to win the rights to fcuk.com. In addition to these varied channels deployed, French Connection also grants licenses to retailers worldwide in order to expand their business into new markets. French Connection is aware of the volatility of expanding into new markets. Therefore they are more cautious and get involved with their licensees to follow progress. FCUK and the Market French Connection operates as a multiple specialist fashion retailer, competing against the likes of Zara, HM, Top Shop, Miss Selfridge, Next, River Island and Warehouse. This industry is highly competitive with numerous international brands fighting in the segment. As like all other fashion retailers FCUK has monitored the progress of the Spanish clothing brand Zara. Due to Zaras lean production and efficient logistics, it has taken over a huge share of the market. To compete with them, the design and production teams at FCUK now only commit to less than sixty percent before the launch of the season .The company acknowledges that speed-to-market is crucial in order to give customers what they want, when they want, at the price they want. It sells its products at higher price points than the likes of Zara and HM. However daring its marketing may have been, French Connections clothes were in reality considerably less interesting than those stocked at faster-growing rivals Zara and HM, and the truth finally caught up with the company in 2004. That year, sales began to slow significantly, encouraging the company finally to drop the FCUK slogan from its advertising. That tactic failed to arrest the decline in performance. In May 2009, French Connection announced that like-for-like sales in the UK and Europe rose by 2% during the 3 months ending 16th May, thanks to a strong performance in the women wear sector. Total retail sales in the UK and Europe were up by 8% over the period. French Connection said that women wear had continued to show growth, but that menswear remained difficult (mintel.com). Read Supply chain report. http://tutor2u.net/business/strategy/what_is_strategy.htm Conclusion French Connection has set a personality to its brand, which is exciting and original; this is considered to be exceptional with the number of different brands in the high street. The key to their success is a combination of their stylish clothing range, affordable pricing, merchandising, and controversial advertising. As the brand is continuously innovating itself, they aim to create more fashionable clothing ranges by taking the opinion from important people in the fashion industry. The advertising will remain innovative and creative but will focus more on the clothes itself; creating a unique look that is distinctively, French connection. The brand celebrates individual fashion whilst constantly developing products, market and future goals to expand

Trilateral Cooperation in Africa, Germany and China

Trilateral Cooperation in Africa, Germany and China A Model towards Poverty Reduction in Africa 1 Genesis of Trilateral Development Cooperations 1.1 Introduction: The roots of current Trilateral Cooperations The shift towards multilateral cooperations and, more specifically, Trilateral Cooperations (TC) is more visible today than ever before. Many traditional aid recipient countries have recently become donors of development aid as well (Altenburg Weikert 2007: 1). In particular are todays emerging powers such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa. These countries are increasingly providing aid programs for needier developing countries. This thesis deals with this entry level into the donor role. In the case of the country China, which has already provided development aid in the past and holds an important position among the New Donors. In addition the study attempts to find an answer to the question: Is there a common ground, together on which the Peoples Republic of China and the Federal Republic of Germany might engage in a Poverty Reduction Project in Africa? Finally a tentative model shall be introduced, which suggests how Trilateral Cooperation between China, Germany and Africa might look like. Taking a closer look further back in history one will find that development co-operations in general became more significant in the late 1940s, in the aftermath of World War II, following the initiation of the famous Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of the European countries (Hjertholm White 2000: 59). This successful implementation led to the belief that development aid projects have the ability to be effective. As a result of this realization, the notion of development aid received an enormous boost. From the late 1940s until the early 1960s Development Cooperations have been exceptionally in the form of bilateral agreements (Mehta Nanda 2005: 1). Among the existing development aid given to reconstruct Europe, the United States of America was the outstanding donor establishing Development Cooperations in many developing countries (Mehta Nanda 2005: 1). The period from the early 1960s to the mid 1970s saw a considerable progress in multilateral development assistance (source). While in 1960, the original membership of the Development Assistance Group, the predecessor of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), did cover most of the significant aid donors of the day the list of member states comprised Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Commission of the European Economic Community, joined almost immediately by first Japan and then the Netherlands. But even by then, the Russians had famously replaced the US and the World Bank as sponsors of the Aswan Dam, and indeed India and other Asian Commonwealth countries had been providing technical assistance under the Colombo Plan (source) since 1950. In 1961, Kuwait established the first of the Middle East funds: Hence their has been a great dislike of most of the well-established and professional Middle Eastern donor agencies o f being referred to as â€Å"emerging donors† aka â€Å"non-DAC donors†. (source) In addition, China undertook some significant and high-profile interventions, most notably the Tan-Zam railway, which was probably the biggest construction project undertaken anywhere in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, and where at a time when DAC donors almost never covered any local costs China took a much more generous attitude even if they raised the local currency largely by sales of Chinese consumer goods (source). Mehta and Nanda (2005:2) name four major multilateral institutions as being responsible for providing development assistance during this period: International Development Association (IDA) attached to the World Bank; the Fund for Special Operations of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); the cooperation fund of the European Economic Community; and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), organized in 1965 through the merger of several United Nations (UN) financial facilities. Meanwhile, the idea of South-South Cooperations was born at the Bandung Conference[1] in 1955 when the leaders of 29 so-called developing countries came together to recognize the promotion of collective self-reliance as a political imperative. This event was followed by the establishment of a Working Group on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC) by the UN General Assembly in 1972. In 1978, many more such leaders gathered at Buenos Aires to formulate a Plan of Action (BAPA), a conceptual framework and programmatic goals, all endorsed by the UN General Assembly a few months later. The Bandung conference was celebrating its golden jubilee in 2005, at which point practical ways to put forth the South-South cooperation agenda was examined. In 1999, the High-level Committee called the Special Unit on the Review of TCDC[2] and resolved that the South-South cooperation should be viewed as a complement and not as a substitute for the North-South cooperation. This effectively meant that the committee was of the view that a North-South-South cooperation was needed. Thus, the recognition for the importance of Triangular Development Cooperation came about.[3] However, on a practical level, Trilateral Cooperation already received a major boost in 1993 at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). It has since become known as the TICAD process in which Japanese resources are used to promote exchanges between Asian and African countries (Mehta Nanda 2004). In May 2004, an international conference on poverty reduction in Shanghai, China adopted the Shanghai Agenda for Poverty Reduction. Commonly known as the ‘Shanghai Consensus, it opposed the central theme of the Washington Consensus by proclaiming that state intervention is necessary for development and that everything cannot be left to the markets (Metha Nanda 2005:2). The agenda shows that stronger cooperation between all development partners including South-South cooperation can facilitate an increase of poverty reduction efforts through exchange of ideas, the transfer of resources and the strengthening of capacity. In this effort, it also reinforced the issue of partnership between all stakeholders to leverage and scale up a countrys development efforts. Today, more than five decades after the beginning of development aid, many principles are still being implemented for Development Cooperation Projects. To mention in particular is the need to correct the discrepancy between providing assistance on one hand and montary discipline and trade liberalisation on the other hand. The, so called ‚New Donors (Altenburg Weikert 2007) present willingness to accept responsibility for international development. The evolving relationship between China and Africa could be one of the most important developments in the international relations in the post-Cold-War era (Ampiah Naidu 2009). Germany is known as a traditional donor and has a long history of development assistance within both geographic entities, China and Africa[4]. The thesis at hand discusses opportunities and limits of Trilateral Development Cooperation between the traditional donor Germany and the emerging country China in a third African developing country. Emerging countries are aspiring economical and political powers, which cannot be ignored in order to solve present and future world order issues (Stamm 2004: 20). Starting with this Introduction, part 1 leads from an historical perspective to the more nuanced assessment of the current plateau of relations of Trilateral Cooperations. The Development of TCs will be discussed in part 2, including Egon Bahrs approach implementing Germanys first Trilateral Cooperation and its failures. Furthermore it will show the specific Establishment of Trilateral Cooperations within the German Development Cooperation for Sustainable Development (GTZ). Part 2 provides a contextual understanding of Trilateral Cooperations by (1) giving definitions, (2) considering preconditions as well as (3) alluding to benefits of Trilateral Cooperations. Two case studies concluding the chapter evaluating German Trilateral Cooperations by contrasting the two geopolitic areas discussed in this work: Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. By tackling the crucial question of the role of governance within Trilateral Cooperations concerning ideological differences between the western and the southern world, part 3 starts with an identification of the ‘term of negotiation, followed by a summary of approaches given by diverse institutions and international organisations engaging within the governance debate. It further contrasts governance as a common term of negotiating with the emerging conflicts arising from clashing perceptions of governance particularly between China and Western Countries. This part also examines perspectives on Chinas alternative governance model. Covering all the geo-strategic positions, part 4 examines the cross-currents of Germanys and Chinas relation to Africa. In opposition to the common myths that often describe Chinas role as that of a ‚yellow peril and Western powers as ‚knights in shining amour part 4 rather focuses on common engagement within the field of poverty reduction. Furthermore does part 4 present a model, showing what a Trilateral Cooperation between China and Germany in Africa will look like. Delineating the triangular relationship, a case study is used as a model suggesting the Congo Basin Forest Partnership as a possible development project with promissing success for all participating actors. The final substantive part provides a collection of lessons learned from engaging in Trilateral Cooperations in general and warns for possible dangers and finally concludes with an analysis of the possiblitities of the developing partnership between Germany, China and the continent of Africa. 1.2 Research to date There are numerous publications on Trilateral Cooperations in general. A more globalized world tends to be open for more cooperation. For this reason many of the former bilateral cooperations are now extended to Trilateral Cooperations. Multilateral Cooperations in general are a common way of working together to solve common conflicts. Trilateral Development Cooperations between traditional donors, non-DAC countries and developing countries however are rather rarely researched (Harmer Cotterrell 2005: 4). More specifically, Trilateral Cooperations with China in Africa have only been researched in recent years by institutions such as the European Union (Commission of the European Communities 2008), Deutsche Institut fà ¼r Entwicklungspolitik (Altenburg Weikert 2006) and Department for International Development (Mehta Nanda 2005). Most of the research compiled for this thesis is therefore based on documents of these institutions. 1.3 Methodology The research for the thesis at hand was compiled during the course of an internship at the German Cooperation for Sustainable Development (GTZ)[5] in Beijing, China. The research was considered as part of the Sino-German Poverty Monitoring Evaluation Project, which was established to introduce a participative Poverty Monitoring and Evaluation System (from local to national level) to the Province Jiangxi. The project has recently been expanded to include the topic of â€Å"Trilateral Cooperations: Germany China in Africa†. The mandate of the intern entailed an analysis of the possibilities for Engagement in a Trilateral Cooperation between Germany and China to the benefit of a third African nation in the field of poverty reduction. For this purpose GTZ experts, project partners such as International Poverty Reduction Center in China (IPRCC) and the State Council Development-Oriented Poverty Alleviation Leading Group (LGOP) as well as consultants of the organisations broad network supported and advised the research. As a result, the thesis is mainly based on qualitative analysis, case studies and comparative analysis. In addition, the qualitative methods comprises literature review, policy and legal analysis. Historical as well as recent case studies are analysed for the purpose of presening lessons learned as an aid to future performance. Furthermore, the presented study reposes on one-on-one conversations with the GTZ (China, Indonesia, Germany), IPRCC experts, the German Embassy in South Africa and the China Agricultural University. There has been correspondance with the Bundesministerium fà ¼r wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung[6] (BMZ) as well as with the Deutsche Institut fà ¼r Entwicklungspo litik[7] (DIE). In addition various documents and relevant sources of information, as from the European Union, for example, have been evaluated. During the process of identifying relevant cooperation corridors for strategy-building and the development of new instruments for cooperation, the usage of sources has been a challenge. Some interview partners, exclusivly Chinese contributers, wish not to be cited and some studies, relevant for this thesis, are either not published or they are being kept confidental. The salient information which is free to be used can partly be found in the final chapter as well as in the use of ideas and data, the sources, of which must remain anonymously cited. 2 Trilateral Cooperations in Context 2.1 Defining Trilateral Cooperations Generally speaking, a Trilateral Cooperation is a three-sided joint operation for mutual benefit. In the context of this thesis, the term, ‘Trilateral Cooperations refers to a certain set-up of participants: one traditional donor, one new donor and one developing country. Among the different types of trilateral cooperations this analysis focuses on ‘Trilateral Development Cooperations.[8] According to DIE (Altenburg Weikert 2007), Trilateral Development Cooperations are considered as â€Å"cooperation projects which are jointly planned, financed and carried out by an established donor country which is already a member of the OECD[9]-DAC together with a cooperation country which, although itself a recipient of development cooperation and not (yet) a member of the DAC, is emerging as a new donor, and a third country as the recipient.† The DIE definition is of great importance for the Trilateral Cooperation Model, I will present in part 4 of this study as it points out the special composition of the trilateral cooperation. In this case Germany is the traditional donor, while China acts as the new doner and non-OECD and DAC-member and an African country as recipient. Another imporant aspect of a trilateral cooperation is given by the German Development Cooperation. It states that a Trilateral Cooperation is an innovative form of cooperation: â€Å"A mutual passin g on of lessons learned to technically and institutionally less advantaged third countries.[10]† There are, however, two essential features of Trilateral Cooperations: (1) the importance of South-South relations and (2) the type of capital transfer. (1) In contrast to traditional aid assistance governments of emerging countries are now asked to change their way of thinking. Trilateral Cooperations challenge them to change positions from having been an aid receiver in the past towards becoming a new donor. In other words, money from industrialized countries is transferred on an institutional level to the developing country, where it will be implemented through technical assistance. Therefore South-South relations are of great importance in this matter. (2) Trilateral development cooperation offers new means of funding, as the established donor and the cooperation country organize the know-how-transfer to the third country jointly. 2.2 Preconditions for Trilateral Cooperations To maximize the opportunities for the success of Trilateral Cooperations, it is necessary to set up specific preconditions and ensure that they are met in order to prove that an effective or cooperative work is feasible. Altenburg Weikert (2007) note that common interests are not yet a sufficient condition for Trilateral Development Cooperation and give four elementary requirements, which, from their point of view, need to be fulfilled before entering the triangular cooperation: Increasing alignment with good donor practices, co-financing by the cooperation country, efficiency, and donor coordination. Although the aforementioned requirements can be seen as some sort of core preconditions, there are still other crucial factors that need to be considered. (Altenburg Weikert 2007: 3) Firstly, the right timing, for a successful undertaking is imperative.[11] For all participating actors of the TC, the necessity to enter the cooperation needs to be apparent. The right timing needs to be considered in this context also because there might be countries willing to enter the tripartite operation but are, time wise, either not ready or simply not able to be part of a certain project. Political strategy plays a major role in finding the right timing to engage in a Trilateral Development Cooperation. Secondly, readiness of actors is indispensable for a trilateral dialogue and a cooperation implementation. There are two major considerations concerning this precondition, which might even seem too obvious. (1) The actors need to be ready to engage in both trilateral dialogue and cooperation. Within the past years there has been much discussion between potential cooperation countries but not one single trilateral dialogue has let to the commencement of a sound trilateral cooperation. Thus, the readiness for dialogue but not for the actual cooperation, has been given. This observation has only been made in reference to TC with the anchor country China. (2) The motive one participant holds behind the decision to enter the trilateral dialogue[12] and cooperation is of no greater importance as long as the motives will not interfere with the implementation of the Cooperation. The motives need to be dynamic and resilient. However, the motives of all three parties may but do not have to be identical (Grimm 2008). Thirdly, there is a necessity of one common denominator even if it might be the smallest one. The interface of interest among the three participant countries is a central condition for a successful TC. Furthermore, it would be beneficial to identify potentials of the tripartite dialogue and determine possible limitations. It will be of great advantage to harmonize diverse efforts of implementation into forming a Trilateral Development Cooperation.[13] Fourthly, the importance of political support needs to be verified . Trilateral Development Projects are dependent on the support on the respective governments. Yet, not only policy-makers need to be involved in the cooperation process, but necessary committees and panels have to be considered in the process as well. Agreements, such as the Paris Declaration[14] should also be discussed and applied. Fifthly, transparency should be practised, so that communication is made easy, corruption can be avoided and fair play is guaranteed. 2.3 Potentials and Limits of Trilateral Cooperations â€Å"Trilateral cooperation can be an effective way of bringing appropriate intermediate technology and ‘appropriate policy to developing countries.†[15] The link between proper know-how and adquate policy constitutes the cooperative advantage that Trilateral Cooperations offer as opposed to previous bilateral assistance programs. In the past, consulting services put forth by established donors have, as seen in many cases, not used the suitable type of technical assistance or the services offered may have not been appropriate to the recipient countrys needs. Moreover, donor countries coming to a ‘developing country with their own type of technical expertise can create problems for the recipient country as there can be confusion and duplicity. As a result, the efficiency of the aid put in place remains questionable. These problems can be avoided by implementing a Trilateral Cooperation, by which an emerging country has been in the position of the recipient country itself and will be most likely be able to assist in a proper way. (Altenburg Weikert 2006: 3) Another advantage is that aid is tied to the donor countrys provision of goods and services. On an average, a developing country expert costs one-third of the cost of developed country experts at prevalent international rates.[16] However, if the expertise is carried out by anchor countries as well as by developed countries, the costs will be shared and generally less money will be invested. In this case Trilateral Development Cooperation can be a cost-effective way of promoting development cooperation. Another issue related to tied aid, as argued in Mehta Nanda (2005), is that when the donors tie up with local (donors home country) technical assistance providers, there is a possibility that monitoring by the donors may get relaxed as they are likely to develop alliances. A third country provider of technical assistance is far less likely to develop such a relationship with a donor and hence monitoring is likely to be more rigorous. Hence, triangular cooperations may bring more accountability in the implementation of development programs. With the involvement of a third country technical assistance provider, it is likely that more information will be made public and will thereby increase overall transparency in aid administration thereby creating a positive impact on global Governance. With a transparent aid administration system, the impact of politics on aid would be far less †¦.(source!) Limits of Trilateral Cooperations Trilateralisation of development cooperations may dilute previous political support base and thus lessen the interest of the domestic constituency in overseas aid. They might also question the accountability in the aid administration when the stakeholders from the donor country are not involved. This would lead to a decrease of commitment in donor countries for development cooperation. However, this can be countered by a type of Trilateral Development Cooperation, in which Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) from developing countries with high credibility can be involved in developed countries in appraising the stakeholders there about the utility of the aid that they are providing to the developing countries (Metha Nanda 2005: 2) It may also not always be easy for one developing country to accept technical assistance for capacity building from another developing country. There are political problems even among several developing countries that might thwart the process. Another risk factor Mehta and Nanda state in 2005 is that there may be an unwillingness in sections of policy makers and other important stakeholders to accept ‘intermediate technology or ‘intermediate policy who may be in favour of leap-frogging The lure of trips to rich countries among sections of bureaucracy and the political establishment may also sabotage the process of trilateral development cooperation. LDCs very often do not find the idea of visiting another developing country for training or experience-sharing exciting enough. Even the fringe benefits of visiting a rich country are much higher for them. 2.4 The Beginning of Trilateral Cooperations within German Development Aid Germanys Development Aid Institutions are not singularly structured as they are in other European countries. Several Institutions such as KfW, DED, InWEnt and GTZ all function as German representatives in the field of development politics and provide assistance in developing countries. This might lead to different perceptions on what constitutes German Development assistance and which one represents the leading Development Aid institution.[17] According to Tomecko (2008), GTZ[18] stated a prospective turnover of a little over â‚ ¬1.1 billion per annum and operate through 92 offices that serve 120 countries with about 12,000 employees working in 2,700 projects in the year 2008. About 25% of the mentioned turnover is currently in Asia. A wide geographic presence, access to development cooperation officials and the diversity GTZ projects, the organization is able to provide an infrastructure for Trilateral Cooperations. On a global scale 14 operational trilateral projects are in place, so Temecko (2008); partners are namely (1) South Africa with Ethiopia, D.R. Congo, Lesotho, India on governance and technology, (2) Brazil with 10 countries in Latin America and Africa mainly in the area of AIDS, (3) Mexico with Guatemala, Ecuador and Dom. Republic on issues related to the environment, (4) Chile with several Latin American countries where we have a special fund for trilateral, (5) Indonesia with Timor Leste on national parks development, (6) China, with Chile, Vietnam and India mainly in the area of economic policy dialogue. There are four major issues Trilateral Cooperations established through GTZ projects revolving around: Joint missions, the combined use and exchanges of experts, job training as well as education and fellowships and study visits development, micro-finance, SME promotion and health. Financed are all projects by the parent ministry, the German Federal Ministry for Development and Economic Cooperation (BMZ) by providing additional budgets for activities like enhancing trilateral cooperation projects. 2.5 Lessons learned: Germanys previous Trilateral Cooperations The topic of Trilateral Cooperations is not new, the idea of Joint Development Initiatives in Germany dates back to 1974. (Souce) The demonstrated form of Cooperation has been implemented within Germanys Development Cooperation with different levels of success. Within this study the first Trilateral Development Cooperation, under Egon Bahr, will be discussed intensively as it is the first Trilateral Cooperations in Germany and provides a range of lessons learned for further triangular engagement. In addition, two further Trilateral cooperation attempts are discussed to give a broader insight on what Cooperations have been put into practice and what can we learn from previous experiences. 2.5.1 The Failure of Germanys First Trilateral Cooperation under Egon Bahr „Im à ¶ffentlichen Bewußtsein lag Entwicklungshilfe, sobald davon à ¼berhaupt Notiz genommen wurde, ziemlich nah bei der christlichen Pflicht des Wohlhabenden, mitleidige Menschen in Not zu unterstà ¼tzen. [] Unser Interesse mußte stà ¤rker betont werden, das Interesse an kà ¼nftigen Mà ¤rkten, an Prà ¤vention sozialer Spannungen. Es nà ¼tzt uns, wenn andere etwas kaufen kà ¶nnen, sichert sogar Arbeitsplà ¤tze.â€Å"[19] (Bahr, 1996: 467) The political course of the German Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschanlands (SPD)-politician Egon Bahr was considered as pragmatic in nature.[20] His famous speech in front of the Evangelical Academy Tutzingen in 1963 holds the title „Wandel durch Annà ¤herungâ€Å" Change through convergence[21]. It soon became not only his motto but also the program for West German foreign policy[22]. His concept of „change through convergenceâ€Å" was closely connected to the concept of „peaceful coexistanceâ€Å" and soon led him to, in his eyes, beneficial ideas of establishing trilateral cooperations. Bahrs idea was to bring together the oil money surplusses of the Arab States and the know-how of the industialized countries to engage together in development investments in developing countries.[23] In that, he saw two main advantages: (1) On a global scale the cooperation was supposed to put forth a release of the currency situation and (2) on a national scale the model was alleged to help ease the national finances of the Federal Republic of Germany.[24] The following calculation serves as an explanation for establishing a Trilateral Cooperation. According to UN criteria for the second period of development aid (1971-1980) 0,7% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) should be used for Official Development Assistance (ODA). In 1974 the Federal Republic of Germany had already established 0,36%. Due to the oil price taxation the oil-producing developing countries received additional money in form of yields which were financed by the Federal Republic of Germany through their oil purchases. Therefore the West German GDP increased by 1,7 %.[25] In recognizing an interplay between economic and development politics, Bahr tried with his model of Trilateral Cooperation to use the surplus of the oil countries to finance development aid in third nations which are non-oil-development countries. As an outcome for Germany he expected to add new jobs, which would lead to an increase in income as well as in demand. For the developing country he expected that the infusion of know-how and technical assistance would result in a catch-up industrialization with an escalating number of employees. This would have a positive influence on the economic status and would also result in an increase in demand. Brisk trade relationships and the surmounting of the economic crisis were supposed to be the outcomes of his model of trilateral cooperations. However, Nuscheler (2005) argues that some of Bahrs assumptions are weak and would thererfore hinder the Trilateral Cooperation model to succeed. First of all, Nuscheler states the assumption that all developing countries would undergo similar development as would industrialized countries, also known as the catch-up industrialization.[26] Due to geomorphological and climatic preconditions, which are completely different than in western countries, a catch-up industrialization would be rather unlikely. Bahr saw the agricultural sector as the most important one for a country, because it has been of great importance for Germany. Conversely, for most developing countries, the agricultural sector was not the key, since the population rate by far outweighs the provision of food, even if all available fields would be in use. Secondly, Nuscheler questions the assumption that better integration of the developing countries into the world market would stimulate a demand in developing countries as seen in industrialized countries. With the exception of the raw material sector, such demand would not come about in the development countries, Nuscheler (2005) points out. His explanation is that the developing countries have different structures of supply and demand, which is set according to their respective needs. The third and last assumption of Bahrs Trilateral Cooperation Model, Nuscheler critisizes, is that economic growth will have a positive effect on all parts of the population of a developing country. All three arguments, Nuscheler states, can be seen as reason for failure of Bahrs model of the Trilateral Cooperation and can be summarized as errors of the concept „development through growthâ€Å" (Nuscheler 2005: 78). In his Trilateral Cooperation model, Bahr also used elements of the „basic need strategyâ€Å", which maintains that life is a fundamental need and therefore that development politics should take into consideration that education as well as health-care etc. should be provided for all parts of the population. (Bahr 96: 479). That might be one of the reasons why Bahr drew attention of German development politics to the poorest countries of Africa. Egon Bahr tested his Trilateral Cooperation model for the first time in 1975 in South Sudan. German companies were supposed to build with money from Saudi Arabian streets and habours in the largest Afrian country, but Bahrs ambitions were undermined by the Arabs. The Arabs demanded as a countermove from Germany that they will be part of the boycott against Israel and that Germany will exclude those firms from the Sudan-trade, who are in any trade relationship with Tel Aviv.[27] This and German Development Politics under Egon Bahr with the tendency to „more selfishness, less charityâ€Å" has been one of several diffuculties leading to the breakdown of Bah Trilateral Cooperation in Africa, Germany and China Trilateral Cooperation in Africa, Germany and China A Model towards Poverty Reduction in Africa 1 Genesis of Trilateral Development Cooperations 1.1 Introduction: The roots of current Trilateral Cooperations The shift towards multilateral cooperations and, more specifically, Trilateral Cooperations (TC) is more visible today than ever before. Many traditional aid recipient countries have recently become donors of development aid as well (Altenburg Weikert 2007: 1). In particular are todays emerging powers such as China, India, Brazil and South Africa. These countries are increasingly providing aid programs for needier developing countries. This thesis deals with this entry level into the donor role. In the case of the country China, which has already provided development aid in the past and holds an important position among the New Donors. In addition the study attempts to find an answer to the question: Is there a common ground, together on which the Peoples Republic of China and the Federal Republic of Germany might engage in a Poverty Reduction Project in Africa? Finally a tentative model shall be introduced, which suggests how Trilateral Cooperation between China, Germany and Africa might look like. Taking a closer look further back in history one will find that development co-operations in general became more significant in the late 1940s, in the aftermath of World War II, following the initiation of the famous Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of the European countries (Hjertholm White 2000: 59). This successful implementation led to the belief that development aid projects have the ability to be effective. As a result of this realization, the notion of development aid received an enormous boost. From the late 1940s until the early 1960s Development Cooperations have been exceptionally in the form of bilateral agreements (Mehta Nanda 2005: 1). Among the existing development aid given to reconstruct Europe, the United States of America was the outstanding donor establishing Development Cooperations in many developing countries (Mehta Nanda 2005: 1). The period from the early 1960s to the mid 1970s saw a considerable progress in multilateral development assistance (source). While in 1960, the original membership of the Development Assistance Group, the predecessor of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), did cover most of the significant aid donors of the day the list of member states comprised Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States and the Commission of the European Economic Community, joined almost immediately by first Japan and then the Netherlands. But even by then, the Russians had famously replaced the US and the World Bank as sponsors of the Aswan Dam, and indeed India and other Asian Commonwealth countries had been providing technical assistance under the Colombo Plan (source) since 1950. In 1961, Kuwait established the first of the Middle East funds: Hence their has been a great dislike of most of the well-established and professional Middle Eastern donor agencies o f being referred to as â€Å"emerging donors† aka â€Å"non-DAC donors†. (source) In addition, China undertook some significant and high-profile interventions, most notably the Tan-Zam railway, which was probably the biggest construction project undertaken anywhere in Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, and where at a time when DAC donors almost never covered any local costs China took a much more generous attitude even if they raised the local currency largely by sales of Chinese consumer goods (source). Mehta and Nanda (2005:2) name four major multilateral institutions as being responsible for providing development assistance during this period: International Development Association (IDA) attached to the World Bank; the Fund for Special Operations of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); the cooperation fund of the European Economic Community; and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), organized in 1965 through the merger of several United Nations (UN) financial facilities. Meanwhile, the idea of South-South Cooperations was born at the Bandung Conference[1] in 1955 when the leaders of 29 so-called developing countries came together to recognize the promotion of collective self-reliance as a political imperative. This event was followed by the establishment of a Working Group on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (TCDC) by the UN General Assembly in 1972. In 1978, many more such leaders gathered at Buenos Aires to formulate a Plan of Action (BAPA), a conceptual framework and programmatic goals, all endorsed by the UN General Assembly a few months later. The Bandung conference was celebrating its golden jubilee in 2005, at which point practical ways to put forth the South-South cooperation agenda was examined. In 1999, the High-level Committee called the Special Unit on the Review of TCDC[2] and resolved that the South-South cooperation should be viewed as a complement and not as a substitute for the North-South cooperation. This effectively meant that the committee was of the view that a North-South-South cooperation was needed. Thus, the recognition for the importance of Triangular Development Cooperation came about.[3] However, on a practical level, Trilateral Cooperation already received a major boost in 1993 at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). It has since become known as the TICAD process in which Japanese resources are used to promote exchanges between Asian and African countries (Mehta Nanda 2004). In May 2004, an international conference on poverty reduction in Shanghai, China adopted the Shanghai Agenda for Poverty Reduction. Commonly known as the ‘Shanghai Consensus, it opposed the central theme of the Washington Consensus by proclaiming that state intervention is necessary for development and that everything cannot be left to the markets (Metha Nanda 2005:2). The agenda shows that stronger cooperation between all development partners including South-South cooperation can facilitate an increase of poverty reduction efforts through exchange of ideas, the transfer of resources and the strengthening of capacity. In this effort, it also reinforced the issue of partnership between all stakeholders to leverage and scale up a countrys development efforts. Today, more than five decades after the beginning of development aid, many principles are still being implemented for Development Cooperation Projects. To mention in particular is the need to correct the discrepancy between providing assistance on one hand and montary discipline and trade liberalisation on the other hand. The, so called ‚New Donors (Altenburg Weikert 2007) present willingness to accept responsibility for international development. The evolving relationship between China and Africa could be one of the most important developments in the international relations in the post-Cold-War era (Ampiah Naidu 2009). Germany is known as a traditional donor and has a long history of development assistance within both geographic entities, China and Africa[4]. The thesis at hand discusses opportunities and limits of Trilateral Development Cooperation between the traditional donor Germany and the emerging country China in a third African developing country. Emerging countries are aspiring economical and political powers, which cannot be ignored in order to solve present and future world order issues (Stamm 2004: 20). Starting with this Introduction, part 1 leads from an historical perspective to the more nuanced assessment of the current plateau of relations of Trilateral Cooperations. The Development of TCs will be discussed in part 2, including Egon Bahrs approach implementing Germanys first Trilateral Cooperation and its failures. Furthermore it will show the specific Establishment of Trilateral Cooperations within the German Development Cooperation for Sustainable Development (GTZ). Part 2 provides a contextual understanding of Trilateral Cooperations by (1) giving definitions, (2) considering preconditions as well as (3) alluding to benefits of Trilateral Cooperations. Two case studies concluding the chapter evaluating German Trilateral Cooperations by contrasting the two geopolitic areas discussed in this work: Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. By tackling the crucial question of the role of governance within Trilateral Cooperations concerning ideological differences between the western and the southern world, part 3 starts with an identification of the ‘term of negotiation, followed by a summary of approaches given by diverse institutions and international organisations engaging within the governance debate. It further contrasts governance as a common term of negotiating with the emerging conflicts arising from clashing perceptions of governance particularly between China and Western Countries. This part also examines perspectives on Chinas alternative governance model. Covering all the geo-strategic positions, part 4 examines the cross-currents of Germanys and Chinas relation to Africa. In opposition to the common myths that often describe Chinas role as that of a ‚yellow peril and Western powers as ‚knights in shining amour part 4 rather focuses on common engagement within the field of poverty reduction. Furthermore does part 4 present a model, showing what a Trilateral Cooperation between China and Germany in Africa will look like. Delineating the triangular relationship, a case study is used as a model suggesting the Congo Basin Forest Partnership as a possible development project with promissing success for all participating actors. The final substantive part provides a collection of lessons learned from engaging in Trilateral Cooperations in general and warns for possible dangers and finally concludes with an analysis of the possiblitities of the developing partnership between Germany, China and the continent of Africa. 1.2 Research to date There are numerous publications on Trilateral Cooperations in general. A more globalized world tends to be open for more cooperation. For this reason many of the former bilateral cooperations are now extended to Trilateral Cooperations. Multilateral Cooperations in general are a common way of working together to solve common conflicts. Trilateral Development Cooperations between traditional donors, non-DAC countries and developing countries however are rather rarely researched (Harmer Cotterrell 2005: 4). More specifically, Trilateral Cooperations with China in Africa have only been researched in recent years by institutions such as the European Union (Commission of the European Communities 2008), Deutsche Institut fà ¼r Entwicklungspolitik (Altenburg Weikert 2006) and Department for International Development (Mehta Nanda 2005). Most of the research compiled for this thesis is therefore based on documents of these institutions. 1.3 Methodology The research for the thesis at hand was compiled during the course of an internship at the German Cooperation for Sustainable Development (GTZ)[5] in Beijing, China. The research was considered as part of the Sino-German Poverty Monitoring Evaluation Project, which was established to introduce a participative Poverty Monitoring and Evaluation System (from local to national level) to the Province Jiangxi. The project has recently been expanded to include the topic of â€Å"Trilateral Cooperations: Germany China in Africa†. The mandate of the intern entailed an analysis of the possibilities for Engagement in a Trilateral Cooperation between Germany and China to the benefit of a third African nation in the field of poverty reduction. For this purpose GTZ experts, project partners such as International Poverty Reduction Center in China (IPRCC) and the State Council Development-Oriented Poverty Alleviation Leading Group (LGOP) as well as consultants of the organisations broad network supported and advised the research. As a result, the thesis is mainly based on qualitative analysis, case studies and comparative analysis. In addition, the qualitative methods comprises literature review, policy and legal analysis. Historical as well as recent case studies are analysed for the purpose of presening lessons learned as an aid to future performance. Furthermore, the presented study reposes on one-on-one conversations with the GTZ (China, Indonesia, Germany), IPRCC experts, the German Embassy in South Africa and the China Agricultural University. There has been correspondance with the Bundesministerium fà ¼r wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung[6] (BMZ) as well as with the Deutsche Institut fà ¼r Entwicklungspo litik[7] (DIE). In addition various documents and relevant sources of information, as from the European Union, for example, have been evaluated. During the process of identifying relevant cooperation corridors for strategy-building and the development of new instruments for cooperation, the usage of sources has been a challenge. Some interview partners, exclusivly Chinese contributers, wish not to be cited and some studies, relevant for this thesis, are either not published or they are being kept confidental. The salient information which is free to be used can partly be found in the final chapter as well as in the use of ideas and data, the sources, of which must remain anonymously cited. 2 Trilateral Cooperations in Context 2.1 Defining Trilateral Cooperations Generally speaking, a Trilateral Cooperation is a three-sided joint operation for mutual benefit. In the context of this thesis, the term, ‘Trilateral Cooperations refers to a certain set-up of participants: one traditional donor, one new donor and one developing country. Among the different types of trilateral cooperations this analysis focuses on ‘Trilateral Development Cooperations.[8] According to DIE (Altenburg Weikert 2007), Trilateral Development Cooperations are considered as â€Å"cooperation projects which are jointly planned, financed and carried out by an established donor country which is already a member of the OECD[9]-DAC together with a cooperation country which, although itself a recipient of development cooperation and not (yet) a member of the DAC, is emerging as a new donor, and a third country as the recipient.† The DIE definition is of great importance for the Trilateral Cooperation Model, I will present in part 4 of this study as it points out the special composition of the trilateral cooperation. In this case Germany is the traditional donor, while China acts as the new doner and non-OECD and DAC-member and an African country as recipient. Another imporant aspect of a trilateral cooperation is given by the German Development Cooperation. It states that a Trilateral Cooperation is an innovative form of cooperation: â€Å"A mutual passin g on of lessons learned to technically and institutionally less advantaged third countries.[10]† There are, however, two essential features of Trilateral Cooperations: (1) the importance of South-South relations and (2) the type of capital transfer. (1) In contrast to traditional aid assistance governments of emerging countries are now asked to change their way of thinking. Trilateral Cooperations challenge them to change positions from having been an aid receiver in the past towards becoming a new donor. In other words, money from industrialized countries is transferred on an institutional level to the developing country, where it will be implemented through technical assistance. Therefore South-South relations are of great importance in this matter. (2) Trilateral development cooperation offers new means of funding, as the established donor and the cooperation country organize the know-how-transfer to the third country jointly. 2.2 Preconditions for Trilateral Cooperations To maximize the opportunities for the success of Trilateral Cooperations, it is necessary to set up specific preconditions and ensure that they are met in order to prove that an effective or cooperative work is feasible. Altenburg Weikert (2007) note that common interests are not yet a sufficient condition for Trilateral Development Cooperation and give four elementary requirements, which, from their point of view, need to be fulfilled before entering the triangular cooperation: Increasing alignment with good donor practices, co-financing by the cooperation country, efficiency, and donor coordination. Although the aforementioned requirements can be seen as some sort of core preconditions, there are still other crucial factors that need to be considered. (Altenburg Weikert 2007: 3) Firstly, the right timing, for a successful undertaking is imperative.[11] For all participating actors of the TC, the necessity to enter the cooperation needs to be apparent. The right timing needs to be considered in this context also because there might be countries willing to enter the tripartite operation but are, time wise, either not ready or simply not able to be part of a certain project. Political strategy plays a major role in finding the right timing to engage in a Trilateral Development Cooperation. Secondly, readiness of actors is indispensable for a trilateral dialogue and a cooperation implementation. There are two major considerations concerning this precondition, which might even seem too obvious. (1) The actors need to be ready to engage in both trilateral dialogue and cooperation. Within the past years there has been much discussion between potential cooperation countries but not one single trilateral dialogue has let to the commencement of a sound trilateral cooperation. Thus, the readiness for dialogue but not for the actual cooperation, has been given. This observation has only been made in reference to TC with the anchor country China. (2) The motive one participant holds behind the decision to enter the trilateral dialogue[12] and cooperation is of no greater importance as long as the motives will not interfere with the implementation of the Cooperation. The motives need to be dynamic and resilient. However, the motives of all three parties may but do not have to be identical (Grimm 2008). Thirdly, there is a necessity of one common denominator even if it might be the smallest one. The interface of interest among the three participant countries is a central condition for a successful TC. Furthermore, it would be beneficial to identify potentials of the tripartite dialogue and determine possible limitations. It will be of great advantage to harmonize diverse efforts of implementation into forming a Trilateral Development Cooperation.[13] Fourthly, the importance of political support needs to be verified . Trilateral Development Projects are dependent on the support on the respective governments. Yet, not only policy-makers need to be involved in the cooperation process, but necessary committees and panels have to be considered in the process as well. Agreements, such as the Paris Declaration[14] should also be discussed and applied. Fifthly, transparency should be practised, so that communication is made easy, corruption can be avoided and fair play is guaranteed. 2.3 Potentials and Limits of Trilateral Cooperations â€Å"Trilateral cooperation can be an effective way of bringing appropriate intermediate technology and ‘appropriate policy to developing countries.†[15] The link between proper know-how and adquate policy constitutes the cooperative advantage that Trilateral Cooperations offer as opposed to previous bilateral assistance programs. In the past, consulting services put forth by established donors have, as seen in many cases, not used the suitable type of technical assistance or the services offered may have not been appropriate to the recipient countrys needs. Moreover, donor countries coming to a ‘developing country with their own type of technical expertise can create problems for the recipient country as there can be confusion and duplicity. As a result, the efficiency of the aid put in place remains questionable. These problems can be avoided by implementing a Trilateral Cooperation, by which an emerging country has been in the position of the recipient country itself and will be most likely be able to assist in a proper way. (Altenburg Weikert 2006: 3) Another advantage is that aid is tied to the donor countrys provision of goods and services. On an average, a developing country expert costs one-third of the cost of developed country experts at prevalent international rates.[16] However, if the expertise is carried out by anchor countries as well as by developed countries, the costs will be shared and generally less money will be invested. In this case Trilateral Development Cooperation can be a cost-effective way of promoting development cooperation. Another issue related to tied aid, as argued in Mehta Nanda (2005), is that when the donors tie up with local (donors home country) technical assistance providers, there is a possibility that monitoring by the donors may get relaxed as they are likely to develop alliances. A third country provider of technical assistance is far less likely to develop such a relationship with a donor and hence monitoring is likely to be more rigorous. Hence, triangular cooperations may bring more accountability in the implementation of development programs. With the involvement of a third country technical assistance provider, it is likely that more information will be made public and will thereby increase overall transparency in aid administration thereby creating a positive impact on global Governance. With a transparent aid administration system, the impact of politics on aid would be far less †¦.(source!) Limits of Trilateral Cooperations Trilateralisation of development cooperations may dilute previous political support base and thus lessen the interest of the domestic constituency in overseas aid. They might also question the accountability in the aid administration when the stakeholders from the donor country are not involved. This would lead to a decrease of commitment in donor countries for development cooperation. However, this can be countered by a type of Trilateral Development Cooperation, in which Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) from developing countries with high credibility can be involved in developed countries in appraising the stakeholders there about the utility of the aid that they are providing to the developing countries (Metha Nanda 2005: 2) It may also not always be easy for one developing country to accept technical assistance for capacity building from another developing country. There are political problems even among several developing countries that might thwart the process. Another risk factor Mehta and Nanda state in 2005 is that there may be an unwillingness in sections of policy makers and other important stakeholders to accept ‘intermediate technology or ‘intermediate policy who may be in favour of leap-frogging The lure of trips to rich countries among sections of bureaucracy and the political establishment may also sabotage the process of trilateral development cooperation. LDCs very often do not find the idea of visiting another developing country for training or experience-sharing exciting enough. Even the fringe benefits of visiting a rich country are much higher for them. 2.4 The Beginning of Trilateral Cooperations within German Development Aid Germanys Development Aid Institutions are not singularly structured as they are in other European countries. Several Institutions such as KfW, DED, InWEnt and GTZ all function as German representatives in the field of development politics and provide assistance in developing countries. This might lead to different perceptions on what constitutes German Development assistance and which one represents the leading Development Aid institution.[17] According to Tomecko (2008), GTZ[18] stated a prospective turnover of a little over â‚ ¬1.1 billion per annum and operate through 92 offices that serve 120 countries with about 12,000 employees working in 2,700 projects in the year 2008. About 25% of the mentioned turnover is currently in Asia. A wide geographic presence, access to development cooperation officials and the diversity GTZ projects, the organization is able to provide an infrastructure for Trilateral Cooperations. On a global scale 14 operational trilateral projects are in place, so Temecko (2008); partners are namely (1) South Africa with Ethiopia, D.R. Congo, Lesotho, India on governance and technology, (2) Brazil with 10 countries in Latin America and Africa mainly in the area of AIDS, (3) Mexico with Guatemala, Ecuador and Dom. Republic on issues related to the environment, (4) Chile with several Latin American countries where we have a special fund for trilateral, (5) Indonesia with Timor Leste on national parks development, (6) China, with Chile, Vietnam and India mainly in the area of economic policy dialogue. There are four major issues Trilateral Cooperations established through GTZ projects revolving around: Joint missions, the combined use and exchanges of experts, job training as well as education and fellowships and study visits development, micro-finance, SME promotion and health. Financed are all projects by the parent ministry, the German Federal Ministry for Development and Economic Cooperation (BMZ) by providing additional budgets for activities like enhancing trilateral cooperation projects. 2.5 Lessons learned: Germanys previous Trilateral Cooperations The topic of Trilateral Cooperations is not new, the idea of Joint Development Initiatives in Germany dates back to 1974. (Souce) The demonstrated form of Cooperation has been implemented within Germanys Development Cooperation with different levels of success. Within this study the first Trilateral Development Cooperation, under Egon Bahr, will be discussed intensively as it is the first Trilateral Cooperations in Germany and provides a range of lessons learned for further triangular engagement. In addition, two further Trilateral cooperation attempts are discussed to give a broader insight on what Cooperations have been put into practice and what can we learn from previous experiences. 2.5.1 The Failure of Germanys First Trilateral Cooperation under Egon Bahr „Im à ¶ffentlichen Bewußtsein lag Entwicklungshilfe, sobald davon à ¼berhaupt Notiz genommen wurde, ziemlich nah bei der christlichen Pflicht des Wohlhabenden, mitleidige Menschen in Not zu unterstà ¼tzen. [] Unser Interesse mußte stà ¤rker betont werden, das Interesse an kà ¼nftigen Mà ¤rkten, an Prà ¤vention sozialer Spannungen. Es nà ¼tzt uns, wenn andere etwas kaufen kà ¶nnen, sichert sogar Arbeitsplà ¤tze.â€Å"[19] (Bahr, 1996: 467) The political course of the German Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschanlands (SPD)-politician Egon Bahr was considered as pragmatic in nature.[20] His famous speech in front of the Evangelical Academy Tutzingen in 1963 holds the title „Wandel durch Annà ¤herungâ€Å" Change through convergence[21]. It soon became not only his motto but also the program for West German foreign policy[22]. His concept of „change through convergenceâ€Å" was closely connected to the concept of „peaceful coexistanceâ€Å" and soon led him to, in his eyes, beneficial ideas of establishing trilateral cooperations. Bahrs idea was to bring together the oil money surplusses of the Arab States and the know-how of the industialized countries to engage together in development investments in developing countries.[23] In that, he saw two main advantages: (1) On a global scale the cooperation was supposed to put forth a release of the currency situation and (2) on a national scale the model was alleged to help ease the national finances of the Federal Republic of Germany.[24] The following calculation serves as an explanation for establishing a Trilateral Cooperation. According to UN criteria for the second period of development aid (1971-1980) 0,7% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) should be used for Official Development Assistance (ODA). In 1974 the Federal Republic of Germany had already established 0,36%. Due to the oil price taxation the oil-producing developing countries received additional money in form of yields which were financed by the Federal Republic of Germany through their oil purchases. Therefore the West German GDP increased by 1,7 %.[25] In recognizing an interplay between economic and development politics, Bahr tried with his model of Trilateral Cooperation to use the surplus of the oil countries to finance development aid in third nations which are non-oil-development countries. As an outcome for Germany he expected to add new jobs, which would lead to an increase in income as well as in demand. For the developing country he expected that the infusion of know-how and technical assistance would result in a catch-up industrialization with an escalating number of employees. This would have a positive influence on the economic status and would also result in an increase in demand. Brisk trade relationships and the surmounting of the economic crisis were supposed to be the outcomes of his model of trilateral cooperations. However, Nuscheler (2005) argues that some of Bahrs assumptions are weak and would thererfore hinder the Trilateral Cooperation model to succeed. First of all, Nuscheler states the assumption that all developing countries would undergo similar development as would industrialized countries, also known as the catch-up industrialization.[26] Due to geomorphological and climatic preconditions, which are completely different than in western countries, a catch-up industrialization would be rather unlikely. Bahr saw the agricultural sector as the most important one for a country, because it has been of great importance for Germany. Conversely, for most developing countries, the agricultural sector was not the key, since the population rate by far outweighs the provision of food, even if all available fields would be in use. Secondly, Nuscheler questions the assumption that better integration of the developing countries into the world market would stimulate a demand in developing countries as seen in industrialized countries. With the exception of the raw material sector, such demand would not come about in the development countries, Nuscheler (2005) points out. His explanation is that the developing countries have different structures of supply and demand, which is set according to their respective needs. The third and last assumption of Bahrs Trilateral Cooperation Model, Nuscheler critisizes, is that economic growth will have a positive effect on all parts of the population of a developing country. All three arguments, Nuscheler states, can be seen as reason for failure of Bahrs model of the Trilateral Cooperation and can be summarized as errors of the concept „development through growthâ€Å" (Nuscheler 2005: 78). In his Trilateral Cooperation model, Bahr also used elements of the „basic need strategyâ€Å", which maintains that life is a fundamental need and therefore that development politics should take into consideration that education as well as health-care etc. should be provided for all parts of the population. (Bahr 96: 479). That might be one of the reasons why Bahr drew attention of German development politics to the poorest countries of Africa. Egon Bahr tested his Trilateral Cooperation model for the first time in 1975 in South Sudan. German companies were supposed to build with money from Saudi Arabian streets and habours in the largest Afrian country, but Bahrs ambitions were undermined by the Arabs. The Arabs demanded as a countermove from Germany that they will be part of the boycott against Israel and that Germany will exclude those firms from the Sudan-trade, who are in any trade relationship with Tel Aviv.[27] This and German Development Politics under Egon Bahr with the tendency to „more selfishness, less charityâ€Å" has been one of several diffuculties leading to the breakdown of Bah