REGIONAL INTEGRATION OF GCC COUNTRIES THE CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND Essay

REGIONAL INTEGRATION OF GCC COUNTRIES THE CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION OF GCC PERFORMANCE AGAINST ITS OBJECTIVES IN THE REGI - Essay Example However, the GCC did set a number of different economic goals. In addition to the goals set forth below, the GCC decided to adopt a common oil policy; coordinate industrial policy; promote joint projects by coordinating production chains; adopt a common legal framework to aid in regional investment and trade; and link transportation networks.5 Previous to the GCC, the Arab world, similar to other developing countries, has had high tariffs, heavy state intervention in production and industries that were uncompetitive. The previous attempts to liberalize capital, trade and labour flows were implemented inconsistently and did not have implementation or follow-up.6 Part of the reason for this is because the countries in the Arab world wanted to protect their domestic industries from competition from other countries that had similar products and services to offer, and each country wanted a discretionary trade policy. Therefore, previous attempts to integrate the economics of the countries in the Arab world were modest and unsuccessful, as they focused mostly on tariff reduction, while ignoring regional trade in services and cross-border investments. 7 The regional integration that was the GCC’s objectives consisted of many different prongs. First, in 1983, the GCC pledged to establish a free trade area (FTA). Under the FTA, the GCC eliminated tariffs on goods of national origins, while the countries in the GCC were able to keep their own external tariffs. While this is a positive measure, in that it encourages trade within the countries of the GCC, there is also a drawback. The drawback is that other countries will export to the country in the GCC that has the lowest external tariffs in order to access all the markets within that region.8 The FTA was only the first step. The next step, which occurred 10 years after the establishment of the FTA, was the agreement to set a common external tariff (CET) which addresses the problem stated above concerning countrie s targeting GCC countries with the lowest tariffs. Ten years after that, in 2003, the GCC established the Customs Union (CU), which was the culmination of the CET agreement. The CU mandated that the tariffs from all goods exported from outside the region would be 5% for the GCC as a whole, while exempting certain commodities.9 However, this apparently was never implemented.10 The CU would represent a high level of economic integration, as it combines the internal elimination of tariffs with the external trade restrictions and tariff harmonization, which cements the union of the countries, in that it requires the creation of a common regulatory body along with common policies regarding external trade. 11 The single market was implemented at roughly the same time as the FTA. What the single market concept does is that it enables individuals to freely move from country to another within the GCC zone for employment and residential purposes. Therefore, an individual can move from one cou ntry in the GCC to another and enjoy the same right of ownership, inheritance and bequest in

Explore the benifits and chalenges o conducting multi-paradiam Essay

Explore the benifits and chalenges o conducting multi-paradiam research - Essay Example Thomas Kuhn, who is known for the discussing of meaning ‘paradigm’ in his famous book  The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, characterized paradigm as â€Å"an integrated cluster of substantive concepts, variables and problems attached with corresponding methodological approaches and tools†¦Ã¢â‚¬ Ã‚  (p.43).  Kuhn also specified the questions, which should be clarified within a paradigm to consider it as a valid base for a scientific research. A paradigm has to define what should be studied, what question and how should be asked, and also, which rules the researcher should follow to interpret obtained results. The notion of paradigm considers as the broadest unit of consensus, which serves to differentiate one scientific community from another. It appears to be a set of principles and axioms that relates to research process on the stage of assessment of a problem up to its solution.  Paradigms define and correlate theories, methods and instruments, accept ed within a scientific research. Analyzing the main paradigms, dominating in modern science, such as positivism, post positivism, critical theory, and constructivism, Guba and Lincoln (1994), represented their opinion about the role of paradigms, their assumptions, and the implications of those assumptions for research. â€Å"Paradigms define for the [researcher] what it is they are about, and what falls within and outside the limits of legitimate [research]† (Guba and Lincoln, 1994, p. 108). The authors states that the basic beliefs that define a particular research paradigm may be summarized by the responses given to three fundamental questions: the ontological question (what is the form and nature of reality), the epistemological question (what is the nature of the relationship between a researcher and the object of research), and the methodological question (how can the inquirer go about finding out whatever he/ she believes can be known)  (pp. 105-117). From this aspec t, we will analyze some of the well- known paradigms such as positivism and critical theory. Positivism. French philosopher August Comte (1798–1857) was the initiator of positivist paradigm, based on the philosophical ideas of observation and reasoning as the main ways of understanding reality and human behavior. According to August Comte, true knowledge is based on experience of senses and can be obtained by observation and experiment. Positivistic thinkers adopted his scientific method for knowledge generation. The main postulates of the positivist paradigm consist in understanding of nature as an objective, true reality, which is governed by unchangeable natural laws. Nature has its stable, pre-existing patterns and order that can be discovered. Positivism considers human nature to be described from the behaviorist approach, asserting the external factors play the main role in the formation of the similar specific behavior of everyone, who has been influenced the same obje ctive factors. Accurate and certain, knowledge should be described in a systematic way, and verify hypotheses that can be regarded as facts or laws. The role of research is uncovering the natural laws of reality, scientifically explaining, predicting and controlling phenomena. A researcher have to be objective, independent from influencing the subject of research, and eliminate any bias or subjective values within research. The main methods of research are empirical and experimental, structured observation, quantification or measurement. The results of research consider true, if