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IJHSS.NET
Vol. 8, No. 5
October 2016
International Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences
e-ISSN: p-ISSN:
1694-2639 1694-2620
AAJHSS.ORG Vol 8, No 5 – October 2016 Table of Contents Effects of personal characteristics on susceptibility to decision bias: a literature study Alexander Toet, Anne-Marie Brouwer, Karel van den Bosch and J.E. (Hans) Korteling
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Likert Scale Development: Construction and Evaluation of Home Environment Scale Mukhtar Ahmad Wani & Aejaz Masih
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Iqbal’s Response to Modern Western Thought: A Critical Analysis Dr. Mohammad Nayamat Ullah and Abdullah Al Masud
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Is more BENELUX cooperation the future for the low countries ? Prof. dr. Herman Matthijs
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International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences p-ISSN: 1694-2620 e-ISSN: 1694-2639 Vol. 8 No. 5, pp. 1-17, ŠIJHSS
Effects of personal characteristics on susceptibility to decision bias: a literature study Alexander Toet, Anne-Marie Brouwer, Karel van den Bosch, J.E. (Hans) Korteling TNO Kampweg 5, 3769 DE Soesterberg, The Netherlands Abstract Cognitive biases and heuristics are pervasive simplifications and distortions in judgement and reasoning that systematically affect human decision making. Knowledge in this area may enable us to foresee and reduce detrimental effects of biases or to influence others more effectively. We therefore performed a literature study to assess the influence of personal characteristics (cognitive abilities, expertise, personality, cultural background) on the occurrence of cognitive biases. We found that each of the aforementioned factors can affect cognitive biases, though not much is known about the effects of culture. Also, factors that appear to reduce a cognitive bias may in fact mitigate (suppress or override) its behavioral effect rather than preventing the bias from occurring at all. The general picture that arises is that bias susceptibility and the occurrence of biases depend on thinking style (heuristic versus deliberate), where thinking style is associated with an individualâ€&#x;s personal characteristics. In general, biases are reduced when a deliberate (analytical) thinking style is applied. However, whether a specific (heuristic or deliberate) thinking style actually reduces or enhances a given type of bias also depends on the context. Keywords: bias, heuristics, personal characteristics, decision making, judgement. Introduction People constantly make judgments and decisions, either conscious or unconscious. Most decisions are made without knowing for sure what the effects of the decision will be and whether the outcome will be positive or not. Making decisions in uncertainty is based upon at least two factors: the desirability and the likelihood of the outcome. Decision theory studies the development of algorithms that, for a given problem and likelihoods, produce the best outcome. Decision theory can thus, in principle, provide recommendations how to best make decisions. However, in real life people often make decisions that deviate from the best solution (Haselton, Nettle, & Andrews, 2005).These deviations are the outcome of systematic distortions in human judgment and reasoning. Subjective estimations play a significant part in our daily life. Our decisions, conclusions and explanations are based upon our beliefs about the likelihood of uncertain events but not on their objective likelihood. For example, the decision to stay away from a particular neighborhood is not driven by the actual likelihood of being robbed, but by our perception of the likelihood of being robbed. The important conclusion of an immense body of research on decision making is that 1
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people do not follow the laws of probability, but instead use relatively simple rules (heuristics). These heuristics often perform well, but under certain conditions may lead to systematic and serious errors. The distortion of human judgment and decision making is called „cognitive bias‟, or shortly „bias‟. The study reported here was performed to acquire further insight into biased (precognitive, automatic, heuristic) judgment and decision processes (that are influenced by intuitions, emotions, biases, or associations) and to investigate whether biased thinking depends on the personal characteristics of individuals. If there are indeed psychological characteristics that predict biased thinking, this knowledge could in principle effectively be used to either mitigate or deploy biased thinking. Knowledge of cognitive biases can for instance be used to: develop selection procedures (to develop tests that estimate an individual‟s susceptibility to biases), reduce susceptibility to biases and ameliorate their effects (by training personnel and institutions to recognize and cope with biases appropriately, and by developing fast and frugal decision protocols), effectively deploy knowledge of biases against relevant actors (both on a strategic level as part of a doctrine and operationally in the field). The literature study reported here contributes to this goal by identifying characteristics of individuals (e.g., cognitive abilities, expertise, personality, cultural background) that may predict a person‟s susceptibility to cognitive biases, and in particular those leading to decision and judgment biases. The following section discusses the literature search strategy. Next we briefly discuss the origins of human decision biases and factors that may affect the susceptibility to these biases. Then we present a literature review on some personal characteristics that may predict an individual‟s susceptibility to judgment and decision bias. Finally, we will present the conclusions of this study. Literature search strategy Electronic searches were carried out using the databases ScienceDirect, PubMed and PsycINFO. In addition, lliterature searches were also performed with Google Scholar. As search terms we used the names of several well-known biases (Anchoring, Anchoring bias, Attribution error, Base rate neglect, Belief bias, Confirmation bias, Conjunction fallacy, Framing, Halo effect, Hindsight bias, Imaginability bias, Omission bias, Negativity bias, Outcome bias, Over-confidence bias, Sunk cost effect) as well as some general terms (Bias, Cognitive bias, Decision bias, Decision making, Judgement, Heuristic bias, Heuristics: for definitions see Appendix A) and combined them with (conjunction: AND) terms related to personal characteristics (cognitive abilities OR expertise OR personality OR individual differences OR culture OR reasoning OR thinking OR trait) factors. The searches were restricted to articles reporting empirical studies in peer reviewed journals. The relevant papers that were found in this initial search served as a starting point for subsequent searches, that included all later papers referring to papers from the initial set (found by using the „Cited by‟ function in Google Scholar. We included studies found using this method in the review only if they involved influences of personal factors on human decision making. The literature searches were performed in the second half of 2016.
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Cognitive biases and their origins The human mind is limited in its capacity to render judgments in a way that is perfectly rational and fully informed. While rational thinking serves well to solve decision problems that allow comprehensive analysis, it may fail in complex real life situations, where it is often very difficult to have access to every relevant piece of information, and where a decision often has to be made quickly. Even if such access were possible, our brains do not operate like computer algorithms, capable of complex and multiple calculations in order to reach logically sound conclusions – not to mention that we hardly have time to perform such rigorous analysis for every judgment that we make. As a result, human decision making tends to rely on a variety of simple heuristic decision rules that can be executed quickly. Oftentimes, heuristics produce judgements and decisions that are „good enough‟ when measured against an acceptable cognitive load. However, heuristics can also lead to irrational thinking and problem-solving in ways that produce errors or illogical decisions, known as „cognitive biases‟. This is most likely to occur in complex situations (when relevant information is ignored and/or irrelevant information interferes) or in situations that are mistakenly perceived as familiar (while they are actually unknown). Cognitive biases are pervasive in human reasoning and have important practical implications. Dual-process heuristic-deliberate theories postulate a distinction between fast, intuitive, automatic, heuristic, emotionally charged and fallible (heuristic or „Type 1‟ ) processes versus slow, conscious, controlled, deliberate and analytic (deliberate or „Type 2‟) processes (e.g., Evans, 2006; Kahneman, 2003; Kahneman & Frederick, 2002; Sloman, 1996). When fast responses are required, performance is based on low-effort heuristic processes. Deliberate processes supervise and control the output of the heuristic system. In this view biases occur when deliberate processing either (1) fails to successfully engage (Kahneman, 2003) or (2) fails to override the biased heuristic response (De Neys, 2012). The serial deliberate processes are slower and require more working memory and are therefore constrained by the limited capacity of the brain. Conversely, heuristic processes function implicitly and in parallel and do not claim executive working memory resources (De Neys, 2006). It is generally assumed that heuristic processes result in biased outcomes, unless the analytical system takes over (Evans, 1984, 1989). In this study we adopt the dual-process heuristic-deliberate theory of human decision making as a framework to unify and understand our current findings. Intuitive (heuristic) decision-making produces quick solutions based on general heuristics (the Fast and Frugal view: Gigerenzer & Gaissmaier, 2010) or on experience-based (patternmatching) evaluations (Naturalistic Decision Making: G. A. Klein, 1993; see e.g. Kahneman & Klein, 2009; G. Klein, 2015 and Davis, Kulick, & Egner, 2005 for a discussion on the differences and similarities between both views). Intuition can provide access to information that would not be beliedfble through deliberate thinking (Hogarth, 2010). However, intuition cannot generate or acquire new knowledge. Also, since intuition is bias prone, it may lead to potentially dangerous inaccurate perceptions of reality (Dane & Pratt, 2007; Kahneman & Frederick, 2002; Amos Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). In contrast to intuitive decision-making, deliberation uses abstract thinking and generalizations, and allows the acquisition of additional information in the decision-making process (Söllner, Broeder, & Hilbig, 2013).This is a clear advantage over intuition when problem solving requires the application of complex rules (Kahneman & Frederick, 2002). In the real world, decision makers often have to deal with three critical constraints that limit their opportunities for deliberation: (1) limited access to information, (2) cognitive limitations inherent in the human mind, and (3) limited time. These constraints result in „bounded rationality‟ (H. A. Simon, 1972). Deliberation is time consuming and requires cognitive effort. Cognitive resources claimed by deliberation cannot be deployed for other tasks (Kurzban, Duckworth, Kable, & 3
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Myers, 2013). Decision-makers will therefore typically use their intuition when there is no obvious need to use deliberate reasoning to make a good decision. From a behavioral standpoint cognitive biases may be seen as systematic errors in rational reasoning (Amos Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). However, many cognitive biases that appear irrational from the viewpoint of rational choice theory may in fact be quite rational from the perspective of evolutionary biology (Santos & Rosati, 2015). They may optimize decision making in a given environment (context) by optimally using the available information (ecological rationality: Goldstein & Gigerenzer, 2002). However, decision rules that are completely adapted to a given (natural) environment may of course lead to maladaptive („biased‟) behavior in different settings (Fawcett et al., 2014). Factors affecting human cognitive bias From a practical viewpoint, it would be useful to understand the factors that predict the occurrence of cognitive biases. This literature review addresses the question whether characteristics of individuals affect susceptibility to cognitive biases. The dual-process heuristicdeliberate theory of human decision making (described above) is adopted as a framework to unify and understand our current findings. This theory states that individuals are less prone to biases if they apply the thinking style (deliberate or heuristic) that is most appropriate for the problem context. Furthermore, an individual‟s tendency to make biased judgments and decisions may be related to personal characteristics (e.g., cognitive ability, expertise, personality). Cognitive ability People differ in their cognitive abilities like intelligence, training (level of expertise), and thinking styles. Studies investigating the correlation between measures of intelligence and a wide range of different cognitive biases have shown that cognitive ability (both fluid and crystalized intelligence) does not predict bias-proneness in general (Stanovich & West, 2008; Teovanovic, Knezevic, & Stankov, 2015). Intelligent people are just as prone to cognitive bias as less intelligent ones. However, highly intelligent people are more able than less intelligent ones to avoid cognitive bias once they have been warned about the bias in advance and are instructed how to avoid it (Stanovich & West, 2008). Significant negative correlations have been observed between fluid intelligence and several biases. Fluid intelligence is an individual‟s capacity to think in a logical way and to find solutions for new problems, independent of acquired knowledge (Cattell, 1987). Fluid intelligence has been found to correlate negatively with belief bias, over-confidence bias and base rate neglect and also with the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT: Frederick, 2005). The CRT is a widely used tool to assess individual differences in intuitive–analytic cognitive styles. The CRT has been found to correlate negatively with the sunk cost effect, belief bias and base rate neglect; Teovanovic et al., 2015).Thus it seems that people with high reflective abilities and a high fluid intelligence are less prone to these cognitive biases. The literature shows mixed results on the relation between analytic intelligence and proneness to the anchoring bias (for a review see: Furnham & Boo, 2011). While some studies found that individuals with higher cognitive abilities are less susceptible to anchoring (Bergman, Ellingsen, Johannesson, & Svensson, 2010), others observed no - or even the opposite - effect (Oechssler, Roider, & Schmitz, 2009). There is evidence that an individual‟s susceptibility to bias relates to structures and emotional processes in the brain. Two key brain structures mediating emotional information 4
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processing are the amygdala and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) (e.g., Kim & Hamann, 2007; Zald, 2003). The amygdala can be seen as a primitive structure linking immediate threat with rapid survival responses (Sander, Grafman, & Zalla, 2003). The OFC is associated with deliberate thinking and has the function to gather and update information and use it to predict possible outcomes of-, and to steer, human behavior (Rolls, 2004; Rolls & Grabenhorst, 2008). De Martino et al. (De Martino, Kumaran, Seymour, & Dolan, 2006) examined the neural mechanisms mediating the framing effect and the ability to control it. While placed inside an fMRI scanner their participants performed a financial decision making task. In line with the dualprocess theory (i.e., the view that choices are typically affectively loaded and involve heuristic thinking; see Kahneman & Frederick, 2007) this study showed that framing bias during financial decision making correlated with a higher activity in the greater amygdala. In addition, they found that subjects who acted more rationally also exhibited stronger OFC activation. Interestingly, they also found a strong inter-individual variability in susceptibility to framing, which did not correlate with amygdala activity. Instead, they observed a positive correlation between the ability to control framing bias and OFC activation: increased orbital and medial prefrontal cortex activity correlated with a reduced susceptibility to the framing effect (De Martino et al., 2006). Although enhanced OFC activity does not necessarily imply the inhibition of emotional processes (Aron, 2007), this result agrees with the view that controlling decision bias depends on engagement of deliberate, rational thinking. People who score high on the Need for Cognition (NFC: an individual‟s propensity to enjoy and engage in thought: Cacioppo & Petty, 1982) are just as likely to be „framed‟ as anyone else. However, compared to people scoring low on NFC, they are more consistent across different frames of a problem. In accordance with the abovementioned results from brain research, the magnitude of the framing effect is significantly reduced when decision makers are encouraged to reflect on the options and to motivate their choice (Miller & Fagley, 1991; Sieck & Yates, 1997; Takemura, 1993). For people who score high on the Need for Cognition this manipulation even eliminates the framing effect altogether (A. F. Simon, Fagley, & Halleran, 2004). NFC has also been found to moderate hindsight bias: hindsight bias is found for persons with low and medium NFC scores, but not for people with high NFC scores (Verplanken & Pieters, 1988). An individual‟s thinking style has often been associated with proneness to bias. An individual‟s preference for an analytic-rational (deliberate processing) or an intuitive-experiential (heuristic processing) thinking style can be assessed through the Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI: Epstein, Pacini, Denes-Raj, & Heier, 1996). The relationship between thinking style and various biases has been investigated in several studies. Persons that dominantly use an analytic/rational thinking style tend to be less susceptible to the base rate neglect bias than people using an intuitive/experiental thinking style (Ohlert & Weißenberger, 2015). There seems to be no relation between thinking style and susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy (Lu, 2015). Thinking style and belief bias appear to be linked: in contrast to people with an intuitiveexperiential thinking style, people with an analytic-rational thinking style are less susceptible to belief bias (Svedholm-Häkkinen, 2015; Trippas, Pennycook, Verde, & Handley, 2015). A specific cognitive ability that appears to be linked with thinking style is numeracy, or the proficiency in basic probability and numerical concepts (Peters et al., 2006). An individual‟s numeracy-competency is determined by (1) the degree of information processing (heuristic or deep elaborative processing), (2) affective numerical intuition (e.g., framing); and (3) intuitive understanding (e.g., gist-based representation and reasoning; see Ghazal, Cokely, & GarciaRetamero, 2014). Low numeracy is typically linked with intuitive (heuristic) thinking, whereas high numeracy is typically linked with deliberate (analytical) processing (Brust-Renck, Reyna, Corbin, Royer, & Weldon, 2014). In this view people with high numeracy are less susceptible to 5
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biases because they show an analytical thinking style and information seeking behavior (Ghazal et al., 2014). Numeracy has indeed been found to determine decision making quality across a wide range of tasks (Sinayev & Peters, 2015). For instance, people with high numeracy are less susceptible to framing bias (Gamliel, Kreiner, & Garcia-Retamero, 2015; Peters et al., 2006) and conjunctions fallacies (Sinayev & Peters, 2015), are less over/under confident about their decisions (Sinayev & Peters, 2015), and take less risks (Jasper, Bhattacharya, Levin, Jones, & Bossard, 2013). People with higher numeracy are better able to extract the affective „gist‟ of a problem and use it to determine the quality of a particular choice (Jasper et al., 2013). These findings cannot be attributed to differences in general intelligence (Peters et al., 2006). Somewhat in contrast, people using a combination of thinking styles (high deliberate/high heuristic (also called „complementary thinking‟) and low deliberate/low heuristic (also called „poor thinking‟) are found to be more susceptible to framing than those using a dominant (either rational or intuitive) thinking style (Shiloh, Salton, & Sharabi, 2002). Thus, it seems that people with a clearly dominant heuristic or deliberate thinking style are more resistant to framing. This may be because both decision styles use strong internal guides (either logical or experiential) to process information. In contrast, people with a more uniform thinking style (either „complementary‟ or „poor‟) appear to depend more on coincidental external situational cues (e.g., the way the information is formulated) when processing information. Individuals with high emotional intelligence (the ability to recognize and distinguish between emotions and to identify their causes) are able to reduce (or even eliminate) the effects of decision bias by recognizing that the emotions they experience (for instance anxiety: Yip & Côté, 2013) are irrelevant for the decisions they have to make. For example, military officers with high emotional intelligence make better tactical decisions under stressful condition because they are able to maintain a higher state of attentiveness for social cues and perform a more exhaustive (deliberate) analysis of situational cues (Fallon et al., 2014). Summarizing, several types of cognitive ability, as well as the ability to engage in deliberate information processing at appropriate times, seem to protect an individual from several cognitive biases (in particular, the sunk cost bias, the base rate fallacy, the overconfidence bias, the belief bias, and framing). For anchoring and conjunction bias the evidence is mixed. Emotional intelligence has been found to reduce the likelihood of falling prey to decision bias. In general it can be concluded that cognitive ability does not safeguard an individual against bias, but it may in some cases help in deploying countering mechanisms that reduce, or prevent subsequent behavioral effects. Expertise Whether people deploy a heuristic or a more deliberate decision making mode depends for a large part on the decision-maker‟s expertise (Fuchs, Steigenberger, & Lübcke, 2015). An expert is an individual who has acquired special skills in a given domain (Chi, Glaser, & Farr, 1988). The main distinction between experts and novices is the extent of their domain-specific knowledge (Chi et al., 1988). Less experienced decision-makers increasingly use deliberative thinking to solve subjectively complex problems while mainly following their preferred (either heuristic or deliberate) decision style. In addition, the thoroughness of their information processing is affected by their mood: a happy mood leads to more superficial (heuristic) processing, while a sad mood leads to more thorough (deliberate) processing (Englich & Soder, 2009). In contrast, more experienced decision makers use deliberation independent of their decision preferences, subjective environmental complexity or mood (Englich & Soder, 2009; Fuchs et al., 2015). Moreover, experts rely more on intuition than on deliberation. They can probably do so because 6
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they have learned to match tools and strategies to problem structures (similar to chess players: Sauter, 1999). For example, expert handball players are more intuitive than non-experts and tend to rely on their first intuitively generated decision option (Raab & Laborde, 2011). Expertise generally does not significantly reduce the anchoring bias effect (for a review see: Furnham & Boo, 2011). However, expertise in a specific estimation context (task) may reduce susceptibility to anchoring: experience in a card game was inversely correlated with susceptibility to anchoring (Welsh, Delfabbro, Burns, & Begg, 2014). This implies that the exact nature of the expertise should be clearly defined before being able to assess whether „experts‟ are less affected by anchors than „non-experts‟. Individual differences in various traits may be more useful for predicting the rate of learning, where it is their level of expertise that indirectly reduces susceptibility to anchoring, rather than direct susceptibility to biases (Welsh et al., 2014). Summarizing, expertise affects sensitivity to biases since it determines thinking style and the way that information is processed in combination with its context. Expertise can stimulate both deliberate and heuristic thinking. When the context is not appropriate, the latter may lead to biases. Experts are less likely to misinterpret the context than novices. They are therefore more likely to select the thinking style appropriate for the context, and are subsequently less prone to bias than non-experts. Personality Personality is often defined in terms of five main personality traits (the „Big Five‟: John & Srivastava, 1999): openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. The literature shows that individuals with high conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness to experience or with low extraversion are more susceptible to the anchoring bias (Caputo, 2014; Eroglu & Croxton, 2010; McElroy & Dowd, 2007; Teovanovic et al., 2015). It has been suggested that because individuals with high conscientiousness engage in more deliberate thinking when making decisions, they are more likely to perform a confirmatory search for anchor consistent information. Individuals with high agreeableness tend to be more affected by anchors than less agreeable persons. This is probably because individuals with high openness to experience easily „adjust‟ their beliefs when considering situational information. There are some indications that introverts are more susceptible to anchoring bias than extraverts (Eroglu & Croxton, 2010; Furnham, Boo, & McClelland, 2012), but this relation is not robust (Furnham et al., 2012). It has been suggested that low extraversion may be associated with negative affect (Eroglu & Croxton, 2010), which may stimulate more deliberate thinking and thereby activate a confirmatory search for anchor consistent information (Bodenhausen, Gabriel, & Lineberger, 2000; Englich & Soder, 2009). People scoring high on trait optimism (people who tend to believe in a bright future) (Scheier, Carver, & Bridges, 1994) were more likely to update their judgments in response to desirable information than to undesirable information, particularly for judgments that apply to themselves (Kuzmanovic, Jefferson, & Vogeley, 2015). In other words, people with high trait optimism show a pronounced self-specific optimism bias. It has been argued that the evolution of the healthy mind to (optimistically) mis-predict future occurrences has led to an increased resilience, improved coping behavior and reduced anxiety, resulting in overall improvements of both physical and mental health (Dolcos, Hu, Iordan, Moore, & Dolcos, 2015; Sharot, 2011). Optimism bias may sometimes even lead to better outcomes than do unbiased beliefs (Sharot, 2011). Recent brain studies have identified the OFC with trait optimism: higher OFC gray matter volume (GMV) correlates with increased optimism (Dolcos et al., 2015). 7
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Despite the hypotheses suggested above, it is not easy to determine the mechanisms underlying the relationships between personality traits and susceptibility to cognitive bias. Summarizing, personality appears to relate to bias susceptibility because it determines how people weigh and process information. Culture Members of different social cultures may have different ways of thinking, because they have been socialized from birth into different world views. Some researchers hypothesize that these cultural differences affect an individualâ€&#x;s susceptibility for bias. For instance, East Asians are believed to have a holistic world view, attending more to contextual factors and assigning causality to them, while they are less inclined to categorize and use formal logic. Westerners, on the other hand, are typically more analytic and are more inclined to use pay attention to objects of interest, to categorize them, and to use rules and formal logic to understand their behavior (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001; Strutton & Carter, 2013). As a result, East Asians may for instance be less susceptible to attribution errors, since they see behavior primarily as a product of external factors and not merely of the actor's dispositions. For the same reason, they may be more susceptible to hindsight bias because they are readily able to find some explanation for a given event since everything is connected in their world view (Choi & Nisbett, 2000; Yama et al., 2010). Following this line of thinking, Westerners may be better able to withstand the hindsight bias because they have a more rule-based thinking style. Only a few studies address the influence of culture on bias susceptibility. Studies on the effects of culture on hindsight bias show mixed results: while some studies confirmed the abovementioned hypotheses (Choi & Nisbett, 2000; Yama et al., 2010) others found no cultural differences in the sensitivity to hindsight bias (Pohl, Bender, & Lachmann, 2002). One study (Scott, Christopher, & John, 1998) found evidence for the hypothesis that self-centered Westerners, with their personal desire to be correct and to fortify oneâ€&#x;s choices, are more susceptible to the sunk cost bias than collectivist East Asians who are more focused on optimizing outcomes for the group. However, other studies found opposite results (Yoder, Mancha, & Agrawal, 2014). They propose that East Asians may also be prone to sunk cost bias because they are more concerned about saving face, resulting in more commitment to prior decisions. A recent study on choice framing (Haerem, Kuvaas, Bakken, & Karlsen, 2011) compared military decision makers with business students (difference in organizational cultures). It was found that business students showed the classic framing bias (risk avoidance behavior in the gain frame an risk seeking behavior in the loss frame: A. Tversky & Kahneman, 1981), while military decision makers consistently showed a risk-seeking behavior for both (gain and loss) choice frames. In addition, military officers showed significantly higher levels of self-efficacy than business school students. Self-efficacy correlated with risk seeking in the military group but not in the civil group. This result agrees with the finding that people with little confidence in their own competence do not like to gamble (Heath & Tversky, 1991). Military decision makers, on the other hand, are probably so self-confident (or even over-confident) that they believe that they can beat the odds. Summarizing, while it is possible that culture affects sensitivity to bias (e.g., as a result of different preferred thinking styles or levels of self-efficacy), only a few studies on this topic have been conducted and their results are mixed.
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Discussion and conclusions The objective of this literature review was to investigate to what extent individual characteristics (cognitive abilities, expertise, personality, cultural background) affect a personâ€&#x;s susceptibility to judgment and decision biases. This knowledge may for instance be used to develop strategies to mitigate biased thinking of own personnel, or to deploy strategies to evoke biased thinking in opponent parties. Our findings indicate that each of the reviewed aspects can affect cognitive biases under certain conditions (though with respect to culture the evidence is scarce). Note that the factors found to reduce cognitive bias may in fact merely mitigate the behavioral effects rather than preventing the bias from occurring at all. Several types of cognitive ability, as well as employing deliberate information processing may mitigate various cognitive biases (in particular: sunk cost, base rate, over confidence, belief, framing). For anchoring and conjunction bias, the evidence is mixed. Emotional intelligence has been found to reduce some biases. In general, cognitive ability does, by itself, not prevent biases from occurring, but it may help to learn how to prevent or reduce its effects on behavior. Expertise affects sensitivity to biases, because expertise largely determines thinking style and contextual information processing. Depending on the problem context, expertise may stimulate both deliberate thinking as well as heuristic thinking. Experts are more likely to select the thinking style appropriate for the context, and are subsequently less prone to bias than nonexperts. Personality affects the way people weigh and processes information, which in turn affects the susceptibility to certain (but not all) biases. However, the relationship between personality and susceptibility to cognitive bias is not fully clear. Predicting the occurrence and direction of cognitive bias based on personality traits is therefore very hard.
Limitations of the present study The results reviewed in this study have mostly been obtained in laboratory conditions involving simplified tests that have specially been designed to induce cognitive biases. It is therefore not clear how these results translate into real-life practice. We used the dual-process heuristic-deliberate framework to summarize, unify and understand our findings. However, not all reported effects fit into this framework. For instance, effects reported on emotional priming are different from studies that demonstrate effects of emotion, indicating a different underlying mechanism. Also, some of the effects upon judgment and decision making seem to be working against each other. For example, people who need to perform under pressure and time constraints are expected to apply heuristics which makes them vulnerable for bias. However, at the same time, it is known that pressure induces a negative mood which often elicits deliberate thinking strategies. And although deliberate thinking tends to guard people against the risk of bias, this is not always the case. Exactly when it does, and when not, is still difficult to quantify. This underlines the need to more fully understand the mechanisms underlying cognitive bias.
Future research The fact that the effects of cognitive biases on decision making are not completely fixed within and between individuals suggests opportunities to apply this knowledge for selecting (bias free) and training (de-biasing) personnel. Implicit association tests may be effective selection tools (De 9
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Houwer, 2006). How these selection tests should be worked out for a given context (e.g., medical, financial, military, police) requires analysis of the characteristics and requirements of the candidates, the nature of the task, and the contextual demands. The information and insights resulting from the present study may also stimulate the development of new de-biasing techniques to protect own personnel against (self- or externally- induced) cognitive bias in concrete situations. Strategies that promote deeper information processing and thereby stimulate the recruitment of the medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex (regions associated with the integration of affective and contextual information in decision making) may constrain decision bias (Hughes & Zaki, 2015). Computer games that immerse the user into bias-invoking situations that provide the experience to identify cognitive bias and to practice mitigation strategies, may serve as effective debiasing tools. It has been shown that these types of “serious games� can provide an effective method to train adults how to recognize and mitigate several cognitive biases (confirmation, attribution and blind spot; Clegg et al., 2015; Dunbar et al., 2014; Symborski et al., 2014). Models and decision support systems that provide tools and explicit rules to guide decisions, may also help to counteract the adverse effects of judgement bias. This can for instance be achieved by allowing the user to employ heuristics while warning for the likely biases, and by anticipating the likely use of heuristics and providing information that offsets the effects of such use (Larrick, 2004). In addition, the current findings may initiate innovative methods to exploit biases to manipulate the behavior of opponents and other groups.
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Santos, L. R., & Rosati, A. G. (2015). The evolutionary roots of human decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 66(1), 321-347. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-010814-015310 Sauter, V. L. (1999). Intuitive decision-making. Communications of the ACM, 42(6), 109-115. doi:10.1145/303849.303869 Scheier, M. F., Carver, C. S., & Bridges, M. W. (1994). Distinguishing optimism from neuroticism (and trait anxiety, self-mastery, and self-esteem): A reevaluation of the life orientation test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(6), 1063-1078. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.67.6.1063 Scott, W. G., Christopher, J. R., & John, G., I. (1998). The impact of cultural values on escalation of commitment. The International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 6(2), 165-176. doi:10.1108/eb028883 Sharot, T. (2011). The optimism bias. Current Biology, 21(23), R941-R945. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2011.10.030 Shiloh, S., Salton, E., & Sharabi, D. (2002). Individual differences in rational and intuitive thinking styles as predictors of heuristic responses and framing effects. Personality and Individual Differences, 32(3), 415-429. doi:10.1016/S0191-8869(01)00034-4 Sieck, W., & Yates, J. F. (1997). Exposition effects on decision making: Choice and confidence in choice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 70(3), 207-219. doi:10.1006/obhd.1997.2706 Simon, A. F., Fagley, N. S., & Halleran, J. G. (2004). Decision framing: Moderating effects of individual differences and cognitive processing. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 17(2), 77-93. doi:10.1002/bdm.463 Simon, H. A. (1972). Theories of bounded rationality. In C. B. McGuire & R. Radner (Eds.), Decision and organization (pp. 161-176). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: North-Holland Publishing Company. Sinayev, A., & Peters, E. (2015). Cognitive reflection vs. Calculation in decision making. Front Psychol, 6(Article 532), 1-16. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00532 Sloman, S. A. (1996). The empirical case for two systems of reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 119(1), 3-22. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.119.1.3 SÜllner, A., Broeder, A., & Hilbig, B. E. (2013). Deliberation versus automaticity in decision making: Which presentation format features facilitate automatic decision making? Judgment and Decision Making, 8(3), 278-298. Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (2008). On the relative independence of thinking biases and cognitive ability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(4), 672-695. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.94.4.672 Strutton, D., & Carter, W. (2013). Reducing biases in cross-cultural top management team decisionmaking processes. International Journal of Business Administration, 4(3), 1-13. doi:10.5430/ijba.v4n3p1 Svedholm-Häkkinen, A. M. (2015). Highly reflective reasoners show no signs of belief inhibition. Acta Psychologica, 154(0), 69-76. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2014.11.008 Takemura, K. (1993). The effect of decision frame and decision justification on risky choice. Japanese Psychological Research, 35(1), 36-40. doi:10.4992/psycholres1954.35.36 Teovanovic, P., Knezevic, G., & Stankov, L. (2015). Individual differences in cognitive biases: Evidence against one-factor theory of rationality. Intelligence, 50, 75-86. doi:10.1016/j.intell.2015.02.008 Trippas, D., Pennycook, G., Verde, M. F., & Handley, S. J. (2015). Better but still biased: Analytic cognitive style and belief bias. Thinking & Reasoning, online, 1-15. doi:10.1080/13546783.2015.1016450 Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185(4157), 1124-1131. doi:10.1126/science.185.4157.1124 Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1981). The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice. Science, 211(4481), 453-458. doi:10.1126/science.7455683 Verplanken, B., & Pieters, R. G. M. (1988). Individual differences in reverse hindsight bias: I never thought something like chernobyl would happen. Did I? Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 1(3), 131-147. doi:10.1002/bdm.3960010302 Welsh, M. B., Delfabbro, P. H., Burns, N. R., & Begg, S. H. (2014). Individual differences in anchoring: Traits and experience. Learning and Individual Differences, 29, 131-140. doi:10.1016/j.lindif.2013.01.002 Yama, H., Manktelow, K. I., Mercier, H., Henst, J.-B. V. d., Soo Do, K., Kawasaki, Y., & Adachi, K. (2010). A cross-cultural study of hindsight bias and conditional probabilistic reasoning. Thinking & Reasoning, 16(4), 346-371. doi:10.1080/13546783.2010.526786
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Yip, J. A., & CĂ´tĂŠ, S. (2013). The emotionally intelligent decision maker: Emotion-understanding ability reduces the effect of incidental anxiety on risk taking. Psychological Science, 24(1), 48-55. doi:10.1177/0956797612450031 Yoder, C. Y., Mancha, R., & Agrawal, N. (2014). Culture-related factors affect sunk cost bias. Behavioral Development Bulletin, 19(4), 105-118. doi:10.1037/h0101086 Zald, D. H. (2003). The human amygdala and the emotional evaluation of sensory stimuli. Brain Research Reviews, 41(1), 88-123. doi:10.1016/S0165-0173(02)00248-5 Appendix A : Terminology Anchoring: a tendency to make decisions biased toward previously presented information (the "anchor"). Attribution error: the tendency to see behavior as a product of the actor's dispositions and to ignore important situational determinants of the behavior. Base rate neglect: a tendency to ignore statistical information (prior probabilities) and focus on information only pertaining to a certain case. Belief bias: a tendency to draw conclusions that agree with oneâ€&#x;s own beliefs - i.e., to evaluate the logical strength of an argument on the basis of the believability of the conclusion. Bias: errors in decisions that arise due to limitations of cognitive processing. Biases are often explained using dual-process theory, which states that we have two cognitive systems, one that is fast and intuitive, and another that is slow and deliberate. Biases occur when our fast system operates without the oversight of the slow system. Cognitive bias: a consistent deviation from an accurate perception or judgmentjudgment of the world. Inferences about other people and situations may be drawn in an illogical fashion. Individuals create their own "subjective social reality" from their perception of the input. Cognitive reflection test: test to assess the ability or disposition to resist reporting the response that first comes to mind. Confirmation bias: a tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions. Conjunction fallacy: a combination of conditions is considered more likely than a general condition. Crystallized intelligence: the ability to use skills, knowledge, and experience. Fluid intelligence: the capacity to think logically and solve problems in novel situations, independent of acquired knowledge. It is the ability to analyze novel problems, identify patterns and relationships that underpin these problems and the extrapolation of these using logic. Framing: a bias in decision making depending on the way in the information is presented (e.g., whether options are presented in terms of gains or loss). Halo effect: a tendency to let the perceived valence of a single aspect dominate the overall judgment of a person or situation. Heuristics: simple decision rules (rules of thumb) that ignore part of the available information but work well in a given environment. Hindsight bias: the tendency to erroneously perceive events as inevitable or more likely once they have occurred.
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Imaginability bias: the tendency to use our imagination to make a subjective premonition of a future event for which no memories of actual instances come to mind. Need for cognition: an individualâ€&#x;s propensity to enjoy and engage in thought. Negativity bias: a tendency to weigh negative information more heavily than positive information. Numeracy: the ability to process basic probability and numerical concepts. Omission bias: the tendency to prefer harm caused by omissions over equal or lesser harm caused by acts. Optimism bias: the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of positive events (and to underestimate the likelihood of negative events) happening to oneself, compared to others. Outcome bias: a tendency to evaluate the quality of a decision based on its outcome rather than on what factors led to the decision. Over-confidence bias: an inclination of individuals to overestimate their own abilities to successfully perform a particular task. Sunk cost effect: a tendency to persist in an endeavor once an investment of money, effort, or time has already been made.
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International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences p-ISSN: 1694-2620 e-ISSN: 1694-2639 Vol. 8 No. 5, pp. 18-26, ŠIJHSS
Likert Scale Development: Construction and Evaluation of Home Environment Scale Mukhtar Ahmad Wani & Aejaz Masih Department of Educational Studies Jamia Millia Islamia (A Central University) New Delhi, India- 110025
Abstract The purpose of present paper is the construction and evaluation of home environment scale. An attempt was made in this study to evaluate validity, reliability and to determine the appropriate standards to interpret the results of home environment scale. The final form of the scale includes ten sub-scales (dimensions) with seventy one (71) items/statements. The scale was validated for its content by more than 20 experts from the related and allied fields. The construct validity was calculated through factor analysis for items, and by correlating the score of each sub-scale with the total score of the sale. t test for two independent samples was used (high group 27% and low group27%) to find the discrimination validity for each sub-scale. The reliability for the whole scale as well as for each sub-scale was calculated through Alpha coefficients. From the reliability coefficients, it can be concluded that the scale is reliable as all the values are above .70. Finally, the appropriate standards for interpretation of scores based on stanine procedures are highlighted. However, interpreting the scores through stanine the investigator has to calculate z values of raw scores after the data have been collected from all the sample participants. The stanine procedure is the standardized technique for the categorization of the scores for meaningful interpretation of Likert scale responses. Keywords: Construction, Evaluation, Home Environment, Likert Scale, Reliability, Validity, Stanine Introduction Various instruments have been developed for assessing the home environment in foreign as well as in India. Some foreign scales are developed by Watson 1957, Williamson 1961, Moos 1974, Bradley 1981 and some Indian scales by Prerna Mohete, Beena Shah, Reena Sharma, K. S. Mishra etc. As we know the foreign tools are not culture fair and this makes them unsuitable for use in the particular context. Another issue with these foreign scales (Moos) is that they lack reliability with respect to adolescent sample (Boyd, C. P. et al, 1997). Other issue is their language of the items in which they have been originally developed and their lack of measuring all the major dimensions, that are universally acceptable on which home as a social institution is based. Similarly, Indian scales measuring home environment are not without the pitfalls like that of assessment of home environment for the age group of 20 to 50 years (Reena Sharma) and with only five areas of home environment and others only devised for measuring home environment for I-VIII class students (Prerna Mohete). While others for high school students (Beena Shah) and others assessing only the psychological nature of the home (Mishra). Hence a complete tool to assess the major parameters on which any institutions is based seems to be lacking in these 18
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scales and this demands a new scale to be developed, which measures broad three parameters of home environment which are interrelationship parameter, individual development parameter and system organization parameter.
Objectives 1. To construct a Likert scale measuring the attitude of senior secondary school students towards their home environment. 2. To evaluate the validity of home environment scale. 3. To evaluate the reliability of home environment scale. 4. To formulate appropriate standards to interpret the results of home environment scale. Methodology Descriptive statistical method was employed in the present study. The process of description as employed in this research study goes beyond mere gathering and tabulation of data. It involves an element of interpretation of the meaning or significance of what is described. Thus, description is combined with comparison or contrast involving measurement, classification, interpretation and evaluation. Sample The samples of the study is comprised of 106 senior secondary school students currently enrolled in class 11th of different (Govt./Private) schools of South Kashmir of Jammu and Kashmir during the year 2015. This study was delimited to students of class 11th. Secondly the age range of the members of the population is 16-17 years. Stages of tool construction As with the tool construction, there is no total agreement of experts about the precise steps for tool construction. Nevertheless, when constructing a tool, it is necessary to go through a number of stages in order to ensure its good quality (Alderson, 1995). Although their needs a proper procedure for tool construction. The graphical representation for the stages of tool construction as depicts in figure 1.
Fig. 1: Stages of tool construction
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Preparation of the preliminary draft Having gone through the literature and previous tools as mentioned above in introduction, ten dimensions based on three mentioned broad parameters were selected which are related to the overall environment of home. Interrelation parameter includes dimension as Family integration, Conflict, Self-expression and Social climate of the family. Individual development parameter includes dimension as Guidance provided at home, Emotional support, Success orientation and Independence and System organization parameter includes dimensions like Organization and management of family and Control. Then the items associated with ten dimensions were selected and each item was selected according to the nature of the dimension. For the selection of the items, previous tools and studies related with home environment were consulted along with the available literature. While selecting items, the nature of item measured the desired dimension of home environment were taken into consideration. In this way the initial draft was prepared and 110 items (11 in each dimension) were included in the scale. Then, draft items were given to experts from different universities who were well versed in the field and scale construction with a request to review the statements and evaluate their content accuracy coverage, editorial quality and suggestions for additions, deletion and modification of items. On the basis of 80% of unanimously 30 items were deleted and 80 items were retained, which are reported below with the number of items: Table 1: Dimensions with number items in HES Dimension No. of Items A. Family integration 8 B. Social climate of the family C. Guidance (Assistance) provided at home
8 8
D. E. F. G. H. I. J.
8 8 8 8 8 8 8
Organization and management of the family Conflict Emotional Support Success Orientation Control Self-expression Independence
Try-out of the tool The initial format with 80 items was administered on the sample of 106 higher secondary school students from Kashmir (J&K). This is an attitude scale measuring the children‟s attitude towards their family environment. The scale requires pupils to tell the favorableness or unfavorableness with which a particular behavior has been observed by them in their homes, i.e., he/she is requested to tell whether they are Strongly Agree, Agree, Undecided, Disagree and Strongly Disagree respectively with the items in the scale. Scoring of the Responses to HES Items There are five options namely, “Strongly Agree”, “Agree, “Undecided, “Disagree” and “Strongly Disagree”, for each statement of the scale. 5 marks were assigned to 'Strongly Agree', 4 marks to 'Agree', 3 marks to 'Undecided', 2 mark to „Disagree', and 1 marks to „Strongly Disagree' responses and for negative items scoring is done in reverse order like 1,2,3,4,and 5 for Strongly Agree, Agree, Undecided, Disagree and Strongly Agree respectively. Then the marks were counted which were assigned to A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I and J dimension statements and then they were added to get the total composite score on the particular dimension. Ten composite 20
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scores for ten dimensions of the scale consists the children‟s attitude towards their home environment. Item Analysis For assessing the item analysis bi-serial correlation was used to sharpen the scale. The responses were collected and scored. Individual item score was correlated with the total score of the tool. Item analysis was done for the 106 response sheets by using Item Vs Whole correlation method. The sum of the scores on each dimension of value was calculated. Then „r‟ was calculated by correlating the individual item and the corresponding component score. The correlation coefficient at the 5% level of significance is 0.196 when the degree of freedom is 100 (Best, J. W. 2006). So the items having „r‟ values 0.196 and above were selected. It was found that out of the total 80 items, there are 71 items which are having significant correlations with the total score of the scale except 9 items which are having no significant correlation with the total score of the tool. The correlation table is given below: Table 2: r Values for HES Item No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10
.096
11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
.372** .559** .465** .629** .327** .299** .412** .238* .349**
20
.028
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
.487** .407** .329** .384** .214* .212* .245*
28 **
r value .323** .510** .200* .590** .527** .574** .493** .355** .476**
.181
Item 29 30 31 32 33 34
r value .298** .258** .219* .214* .349** .218* .268** .191* .289**
item 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66
r value .410** .302** .380** .543** .262** .431** .287** .409** .341** .281**
35
.106
36 37 38
39
.119
67
.036
68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77
.436** .260** .315** .423** .309** .301** .262** .378** .249** .343**
78
.153
79 80
.357** .342**
*
40 41 42 43 44 45
.235 .331** .365** .230* .389** .334**
46
.130
47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54
.332** .226* .377** .435** .301** .209* .380** .322**
55
.141
56
.205
Bold Italic items not selected
*
Correlation is Significant at 0.01 Correlation is Significant at 0.05
*
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From the perusal of table 2 above, it is clearly reflected that some of the item (bold and italics) were not having a significant correlation with the total scores of the scale and hence were deleted. After the rejection of 9 unsuitable items from the scale, a total of 71 items in ten dimensions of home environment scale were selected which are shown below in table 3 along with the possible range of scores: Dimension
No. of Items
Possible range of scores
A B C D E F G
Family integration Social climate of the family Guidance (Assistance) provided at home Organization and management of the family Conflict Emotional Support Success Orientation
8 7 7 7 6 7 7
8-40 7-35 7-35 7-35 6-30 7-35 7-35
H I
Control Self-expression
7 8
7-35 8-40
J
Independence
7
7-35
71
1-355
Total
Table 3: No. of items and range of scores in each dimension of HES Evaluation of tool validity When a test measures what it has been suposed to measure, is said to be valid. To determine the validity of the test, the researchers tested face validity, construct validity and discrimination validity. Face validity or content validity The content validity of the „Home Environment Scale‟ was tested by more than 20 experts. It is evident from the assessment of experts that items of the test are directly related to the different dimensions of Home Environment. Construct validity In order to find out the construct validity, the researcher calculated correlation between each sub-scale‟s score and total score of the scale. Table 4: Correlation between Each Dimension and Total Score Dimension ‘r’ values A 0.712** B C D E
0.684** 0.609** 0.379** 0.431**
Dimension ‘r’ values F 0.519** G H I J
0.513** 0.616** 0.550** 0.515**
From the perusal of the table 4 above, it can be concluded that the correlation coefficient of all dimensions (.712, .684, .609, .379, .431, .519, .513, .616, .550, and .515 respectively) are significant at .01. This indicates that all dimensions are related to home environment and the tool has good construct validity.
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Factor Analysis However the scale was also subjected to exploratory factor analysis as the minimum number of cases required for factor analysis is 100 (Kline, 1986). All the ten components were retained as the eigenvalues are above 1. From the exploratory factor analysis items loading .4 were selected and items below .4 were dropped from the scale. From the factor analysis it can be concluded that all the items are measuring the same construct. Discrimination validity To find out the discrimination validity of the items the researchers used item analysis (difficulty level value and discrimination value). For knowing the level of discrimination validity for each dimension of the scale, ‘t’ test for two independent samples was used (high group 27% and low group 27%). Finally the discrimination validity of whole test was also determined by using ‘t’ test. Discrimination validity for each domain and whole test is given in the table below. It indicates that all ‘t’ values are significant at level 0.01 and the means of high group are also higher than low group which support the high validity of home environment scale. Table 5: t values for each dimension of the HES Dimensions A
Group High Low B High Low C High Low D High Low E High Low F High Low G High Low H High Low I High Low J High Low TOTAL High Low ** Significant at 0.01 level
N 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28 28
Mean 28.32 14.71 24.17 11.57 24.17 12.50 24.46 12.46 19.85 9.32 24.39 12.57 24.32 13.21 27.03 14.39 24.85 13.53 23.78 12.67 245.39 126.64
Std. D 1.44 1.38 1.94 0.92 1.18 1.47 2.31 1.34 2.64 1.46 1.49 1.28 1.46 1.47 1.66 1.19 1.64 1.83 1.37 1.18 16.60 12.93
Df 54
t value 36.03**
54
31.00**
54
32.58**
54
23.69**
54
18.41**
54
31.64**
54
28.25**
54
32.60**
54
24.27**
54
32.40**
54
29.70**
Reliability of the Home Environment Scale The degree of consistency among test scores is called reliability. The values of reliability coefficients (Cronbach alpha) for each sub-scale and for the whole scale are shown below:
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Table 6: Reliability coefficients of HES Dimensions Alpha Dimensions Alpha A B C D
.753 .774 .708 .729
G H I J
.747 .736 .706 .725
E F
.781 .719
Total Reliability of the Scale
.895
Final form The final form of the scale along with serial no. of items for affirmative and negative statements is presented in the below table 7. Table 7: Item Presentation in the final form of HES: Dimension Affirmative items A Family integration 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Negative items 6, 7, 8
B
Social climate of the family
10, 11, 12, 14, 15
9, 13
C
Guidance (Assistance) provided at home
16, 18, 20, 21, 22
17, 18
D
Organization and management of the family
23, 24, 26, 26, 29
27, 28
E
Conflict
30, 31, 32
33, 34, 35
F
Emotional Support
36, 37, 38, 39, 40
41, 42
G
Success Orientation
43, 44, 46, 46, 47
48, 49
H
Control
50, 51, 52, 54, 55
53, 56,
I
Self-expression
J
Independence
57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64 62 65, 66, 67, 69, 71 68, 70
Table 8: Scoring table for all dimensions of HES Dimensions A B C D E
F
G
H
I
J
Score Mean Stanine The table 8 above represents the scoring for each dimension of the scale. The table is blank, because the raw scores, mean and stanines will differ from sample to sample. The table is to be filled after the data have been collected. The interpretation of the scores is done separately for each dimension based on the Z value. Then the nine levels based on Z values ranging from -1.75
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to +1.75 are to be divided. The stanine procedure is the standardized technique for the categorization of the scores for meaningful interpretation. Results After following these steps to construct the scale and after analyzing the data from the first and the last application by using adequate statistical methods, it has been concluded that: The study has produced a scale measuring the attitude of senior secondary school students towards their home environment. This scale includes 71 items which measures ten dimensions of home environment viz, Family integration, Social climate of the family, Guidance (Assistance) provided at home, Organization and management of the family, Conflict, Emotional Support, Success Orientation, Control, Self-expression and Independence. The scale has been validated through content, construct and discrimination validity. The content validity has been evaluated by experts, construct validity has been calculated by Pearson‟s correlation. The correlation coefficients of all dimensions are (.712, .684, .609, .379, .431, .519, .513, .616, .550, and .515 respectively) which are significant at .01 level. This indicates that all dimensions are related to home environment and the scale has good construct validity. The discrimination validity has been evaluated through „t‟ test between high group 27% and low group 27%. All „t‟ values are significant at level 0.01 and the means of high group are also higher than low group which support the high validity of HES. The reliability of the scale was evaluated by calculating Alpha Cronbach Coefficient. All reliability coefficient values are above .70. Thus home environment scale is a reliable scale whose reliability is 0.89 and the reliability for each dimension of HES is .75, .77, .70, .72, .78, .71, .74, .73, .70, & .72 respectively. To categorize the students into different categories with respect to their attitude towards home environment, the researchers used the stanine procedures. References
Anastasi, A. (1987). Psychological Testing. New York: Macmillan Co. Bandhana, & Sharma, D. (2012). A Study of Home Environment and Reasoning Ability among Secondary School Students. Developing Country Studies, 2 (1), 73-80. Retrieved from www.iiste.org. Best, J. W., & Kahn, J. V. (2010). Research in Education. New Delhi: PHI Learning Ltd. Biel, A. (1986). Childrens Spatial Knowledge about Their Home Environment. Children's Environments Quarterly, 3(4), 2-9. Boyd, C. P. et al, (1997). The Family Environment Scale: Reliability and Normative Data for an Adolescent Sample. Family Process36:369-373, retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51334514 Cohen, L., Manion, L., & Morrison, K. (2007). Research Methods in Education (6th ed.). New York: Routledge. Cunningham, J. B., & Aldrich, J. O. (2012). Using SPSS: An Interactive Hands-On Approach. New Delhi: Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd. Ebel, R. L., & Frisbie. (2004). Essentials of Educational Measurement. New Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt Ltd. Ferguson, G. A., & Yashio, T. (1989). Statistical Analysis in Psychology and Education. New York: McGraw Hill Book Co. Field, A. (2014). Discoevring Statistics using IBM SPSS Statiatics (4th ed.). New Delhi:Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd. Garret, H. E. (1973). Statistics in Psychology and Education. Bombay Vakils: Feffer & Simons Pvt Ltd. Guilford, J. P. (1987). Psychometric Methods. New York: McGraw Hill. Guilford, J. P., & Beryamin, F. (1946). Fundamental Statistics in Psychology and Education. Singapore: McGraw Hill Book Co.
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Gupta, N., Joshi, R. & Pasbola, H. (2008). Effect of Home Environment upon Emotional Maturity among female adolescents of Joint and Nuclear Family Structure. Behavioural Scientist, 9(2): 8792. Kundu, G. (1975). A New Technique of Attitude Measurement. Calcutta: Annupurna Publishing House McLeod, S. A. (2008). Likert Scale. Retrieved from www.simplypsychology.org/likertscale.htm Mishra, K. S. (1989). Manual of Home Environment Inventory. Allahabad: Ankur Psychological Agency, India. Mishra, S., & Bamba, V. (2012). Impact of family environment on academic achievement of secondary school students in science subject. International Journal of Research in Economics & Social Sciences, 2(5), 42-49. Mohanraj, R and Latha (2005). Perceived family environment in relation of adjustment and academic achievement. Journal of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology: 31(1-2): 18-23. Thondike, R. M., & Tracy, C. T. (2011). Measurement and Evaluation in Psychology. New Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt Ltd. Wani, M. A., & Masih, A. (2015). Facilitating Learning by linking the two Environments: Interface between Home and School through Technology. International Education Conference on Learning Technologies in Education (pp. 334-342). New Delhi: Excel India Publishers.
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International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences p-ISSN: 1694-2620 e-ISSN: 1694-2639 Vol. 8 No. 5, pp. 27-36, ©IJHSS
Iqbal’s Response to Modern Western Thought: A Critical Analysis Dr. Mohammad Nayamat Ullah Associate Professor Department of Arabic University of Chittagong, Bangladesh
Abdullah Al Masud
PhD Researcher Dept. of Usuluddin and Comparative Religion International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM)
ABSTRACT Muhammad Iqbal (1873-1938) is a prominent philosopher and great thinker in Indian Subcontinent as well as a dominant figure in the literary history of the East. His thought and literature are not simply for his countrymen or for the Muslim Ummah alone but for the whole of humanity. He explores his distinctive thoughts on several issues related to Western concepts and ideologies. Iqbal had made precious contribution to the reconstruction of political thoughts. The main purpose of the study is to present Iqbal‟s distinctive thoughts and to evaluate the merits and demerits of modern political thoughts. The analytical, descriptive and criticism methods have been applied in conducting the research through comprehensive study of his writings both in the form of prose and poetry in various books, articles, and conferences. It is expected that the study would identify distinctive political thought by Iqbal. It also demonstrates differences between modern thoughts and Iqbalic thoughts of politics. Keywords: Iqbal, western thoughts, democracy, nationalism, secularism 1. INTRODUCTION Iqbal was not only a great poet-philosopher of the East but was also among the profound, renowned scholars and a brilliant political thinker in the twentieth century of the world. The contemporary scholars acknowledge his influence in modern movement. His literature was a source of inspiration for the hopeless Muslims who had subtle ability, potential and intellectual capability. He endeavoured substantially for the sake of mankind. He can be best described as the embodiment of “being a beacon of light in the dark night of the wilderness” (Khalil, 2000:182), a characteristic most needed for the Muslim Ummah. Iqbal was a „warner‟ who made a clarion call to the oppressed of the world to rediscover the infinite sources of their creative power and develops their faith. His message was not simply for his countrymen, nor for the Muslim Ummah alone but for the whole of humanity (Munawwar: 1982). This is study investigates modern western thoughts of Iqbal from Islamic perspective. It also attempts to clarify Iqbal‟s position on the modern Western political philosophy. In particular, his views on democracy, nationalism, secularism, capitalism, socialism and Liberalism are analyzed.
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2. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF IQBAL AND HIS WORKS Iqbal was born at Sialkot in the Punjab province of present Pakistan on 9 November, 1877. He hailed from a family descended from Kashmiri Brahmins of Supra-caste1, who had embraced Islam in 17th Century (Mustansir: 2006). Iqbal refers to his Brahmin ancestry in several writings. His father Shaikh Noor Mohammad was a skilled and enterprising businessman but a pious Sufi saint and a God loving man (Munawwar: 1982). His mother Imam Bibi was a generous and kind but also a deeply religious woman. Iqbal completed his early education in Sialkot and migrated to Lahore, Pakistan in 1895. He studied under a teacher named Maulvi Mir Hasan (1844-1929), who was a renowned scholar of Islamic Studies, Persian and Arabic. His teacher was impressed by the inborn poetic talent of Iqbal and encouraged him to continue his writing (Munawwar: 1982). On May 5, 1893, Iqbal was admitted to the Scotch Mission College2 in Sialkot and successfully passed his intermediate examination in1895. At the same year he got enrolled at B.A. in the Lahore Government College. In 1897 he graduated and got admit in the same collage for Master‟s Program in the Department of Philosophy. Iqbal‟s academic performance was excellent and continued brilliant record result at all level and won many gold medals (Mir, 2006). At Lahore Iqbal came under the influence of Sir Thomas Arnold, who was a profound professor in Philosophy and had a echoing insight in Arabic and Islamic Studies. Thomas‟s role influenced him to study the Western thoughts and instigated him into the modern methods of criticism. In 1899, he obtained the Master‟s degree and was appointed as a Macleod Reader in the Oriental College, Lahore, whereas in March 1904, he joined as an assistance Professor in the Department of Philosophy and English at the Government College, Lahore (Hafeez: 1971). As Iqbal was advised by Thomas Arnold, he intended to go Europe for higher education in 1905. Iqbal studied both in England and Germany. He studied in England at the Lincoln‟s Inn qualifying for Bar (Hilal: 1995) as a barrister and at the Trinity College of Cambridge, where he studied with R. A. Nicolson, a renowned orientalist and John M. E. McTaggart, idealist Metaphysician. At the same time he went to Germany and got admitted in the University of Munich, where he was awarded his PhD degree on his dissertation entitled “The Development of Metaphysics in Persia” on November 4, 1907 (Hilal: 1995). Iqbal returned from Europe to Lahore in August 1908 (Vahid: 1948) and began his professional career as Professor, lawyer and poet. During his study in Europe, he developed his ideas and thoughts, where “he was vivacious, gregarious, eager to engage himself in scholarly discussion with his juniors and superiors and politely self-assertive” (Hilal: 1995:36). His stay in Europe provided him with the opportunity to observe carefully the realities of Western societies. At his time, the modern methods of criticism in true sense had not been developed in India. As Iqbal employed the method of comparison between Islamic thoughts and Western ones, critical analysis of then several philosophical aspects and so on, he was regarded as one of the pioneers of the modern methods of criticism. He realized the shortcomings and dark aspects of modern Western civilization, where chaos and crisis are visible in human life more than ever. That is why, 1
According to Vanina, in mediaeval Indian regions there existed big supra-caste bound by status, corporate interests and common socio-ethical and moral values (2012: 139) which oversaws the political, economic and juridical spheres of everyday existence (Gadgil & Guha, 1993: 113). This supra-caste presupposed a certain hierarchy, and contradictions and conflicts within each of them (Vanina, 2012: 134). There are various castes; however, in Indian societies who are peculiar in terms of beliefs, culture and social phenomenon which explanation is not relevant to this article. As long time ago, Iqbal’s ancestors embraced Islam, generation after generation the influence and traditions of castes gradually disappeared 2 This college was later renamed Murray Collage, which exists under that name.
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he highly criticized Western political thoughts and civilization as well. Although, Iqbal spent his time in law practice, cultural activities and literary works, he later took part in politics and became an elected Legislative Council of the Punjab in 1926. In 1930, he was appointed president of the annual session of the Muslim League and delivered a remarkable address which led to a new idea of a separate Muslim state in Indian subcontinent. (Mujahid: 1986). He also represented India at the Round Table Conference in London in 1931 and 1932 (Vahid: 1948). Iqbal was a creative author in both poetry and prose a he left prolific intellectual works for the next generation. He wrote 17 books in Persian, Urdu and English. Among his 12,000 verses of poetry, about 7,000 verses are in Persian3. Asrar-e-Khudi (Secrets of the Self) was the first work of Iqbal in Persian composed in 1919, which deals with human personality or individual self. Bang-i Dara (The Call of the Caravan Bell) was the first work in Urdu which was written in 1924 (Hilal: 1995). Iqbal also composed two books in English on the topic of “The Department of Metaphysics in Persia”, which is a valuable contribution in the history of Muslim Philosophy, and “The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam”, where he attempted to restructure the history of Islamic thought. Besides these, he wrote hundreds of articles, short essays, and letters as well as issued several statements. All these publications would help researchers to understand the real perception of Iqbal in various subjects. It is stated by Ali (1978:17) that, “… a leading exponent of recent interpretations of Islam, Iqbal was in correspondence with people from all walks of life. Religious leaders, journalists, politicians and scholars were his life-long correspondents with whom he exchanged views on various subjects”. William O. Douglas, justice of the Supreme Court of USA says: “that (Iqbal's) simple tomb is a place of pilgrimage for me. For Iqbal was a man who belonged to all races; his concepts had universal appeal. He spoke to the conscience of men of goodwill whatever their tongue, whatever their creed” (Hafeez, 1971). Among the Muslim scholars of South Asia, Iqbal was the first who defined the concept of state in Islam. In 1930, Iqbal delivered a famous presidential speech at Allahabad where he pointed out a way for the political deadlock in the Indian subcontinent. He also stated: “I would like to see the Punjab, North West Frontier Province, Sindh and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state of self- government within the British Empire or without the British Empire...I therefore, demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim state in the best interests of India and Islam” (Sing & Roy, 2011: 174). This statement proves that Iqbal wanted a Muslim state for the Muslims in North- West of India where Muslim could develop and nurture their culture, religion, language, literature besides other religious communities of India. For long time of the past, two religions (Muslims and Hindus) were dominating. To the great extent peace, social security and justice in India were dependent on their mutual understanding. Islamic ideologies of unity, equity, humanity and justice played an important role through ages all over the globe in alleviating any differences among human beings. Indeed, Iqbal emphasized this fact. Thus, he also believed that the peace and prosperity of India would depend upon Muslims and Hindus when the spirit of mutual understanding, love and unity in diversity will be maintained. However, he sought a separate state for Muslim; to maintain the spiritual life of Muslim community; to protect the Muslim culture from harmful influences4 and rapid invasion of un-Islamic elements. In the beginning of 1938, Iqbal‟s health sharply declined and it took a serious turn for the worse on March 25, 1938. Finally, he passed away at 5:15 in the morning on April 21, 1938. Rabindronath Tagore sent a condolence message as soon as he heard the demise news of Allama Iqbal that, “The death of Sir Mohammad Iqbal has created a void in literature which like a deep wound, will
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2 http://www.poemhunter.com/allama-muhammad-iqbal/biography/ Retrieved on 20-07-2016, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_Iqbal Retrieved on 07-10-2016 4 Harmful influences or behaviours that are not allowed in Islam like polytheism, injustice and any unethical behaviour such as free mixing, drug addiction, illegal sexual relation and so on.
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take a long time to heal. India which occupies but a limited place in the world can ill afford to lose a poet whose poetry has such appeal” (Maire, 1981: 4). 3. IQBAL ON MODERN WESTERN THOUGHTS Muhammad Iqbal was not only a prominent scholar, writer, poet and philosopher but also he was a political and social reformer of the Indian subcontinent. He was the first personality who generated a unique idea of an independent Muslim state in Indian subcontinent. Through His scholarly writings he more detailed his philosophical thoughts and ideas, especially his political ideas. His political thoughts are deeply rooted in Islamic values which are derived from the Holy Quran and the Sunnah. According to Iqbal, “Islam believes in a universal polity- a politicoreligious system or social polity- based on fundamentals that were revealed to the Prophet” (Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1952:238) His attention was to protect the Muslim Ummah from the attack of Western thought and to encourage and preserve their own cultural heritage and thoughts. 3.1 DEMOCRACY Democracy is a political system of a state and government where sovereignty and power belong 5to the majority people and the government is elected by people‟s opinion through election. That is why democracy as a political ideal was defined by Abraham Lincoln as “Democracy is a government of the people, for the people, by the people”, while Alex Woolf (2007:4) described it as “a system in which people decide matters together, or collectively”. Haneef Nadvi (1973:205) explains that, “Democracy is composed of two Greek components; one means the people and the other means government and law”. Technically, democracy is applied to a system of government for the majority. Iqbal was a democrat, who was actively involved with the politics of Indian subcontinent. In 1926, Iqbal participated in the election, where he was elected to the Punjab Legislative council. L.S. May (1974:179) states that Iqbal was “an active member of this Council, speaking often on land revenue and taxation, demanding greater justice in land assessment and even land revenue deductions in hardship cases”. Although Iqbal preferred democracy, he has pointed out some demerits in this regard. Iqbal 1opposed the Western democracy as it is a methodology rather than an ideology or philosophy (Qureshi, 1983). He had his own observations and he suggested a new term known as „spiritual democracy‟5 (Iqbal, 2011a:180), which is based on the Quranic teaching. This spiritual democracy means, “A democracy where laws of God Almighty are observed and enforced” (Munawwar, 2001:142). In Western democracy, sovereignty belongs to the people. As opposed to this, sovereignty in Iqbal‟s “spiritual democracy” belongs to God alone, which is an inseparable part in the Islamic world-view. Iqbal was a lover of innovations. That‟s why when democracy evolved as a system of government; he welcomed it as thought that the new system might be helpful in alleviating the sufferings of the exploited and oppressed people (Abbas, 1997: xxiii). But he soon realized its serious drawbacks and became a strong critic of the Western democratic form of government where persons are counted, not weighted; it is a material fact but not of personality, which is a spiritual fact. He says that, Democracy is a form of government in which People are counted but their worth is not assessed (Iqbal, 1941:150). According to him, humanity needs three things today “a spiritual interpretation of the universe, spiritual emancipation of mankind and basic 5
The Spiritual democracy is based on the principle of Tawhid, which speaks bout unity of thoughts, action and value across humanity (Begum, 2001: 21). In case of spiritual democracy the Quran, Prophet’s Tradition, Ijma and Qiyas are the Sources of the Islamic law, which would be interpreted according to the demand of ages. This kind of democracy distinguishes man with significance that is sacred kind. ‘This democracy also recognizes value of individual and rejects blood relationship as a basis of human unity’ (Iqbal, 2011a:116).
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principles of a universal import directing the evolution of human society on a spiritual basis” (Iqbal, 1983: 179). Iqbal opposes the concept of Western democracy and promotes that of spiritual democracy. In fact, spiritual democracy is a form of government which is related to the ideological State of Iqbal. He therefore, explains “Let the Muslim of today appreciate his position, reconstruct his social life in the light of ultimate principles, and evolve out of the hitherto partially revealed purpose of Islam, that spiritual democracy is the ultimate aim of Islam” (Iqbal, 1983: 180). He carried out democracy on the position that “it gives the individual a maximum of freedom and a fair play to his potentialities and capabilities” (Qureshi, 1983: 216). According to Iqbal‟s thought, modern democracy in the West is covered by old instrument and it is a destructive, unjust and a dangerous weapon in the hands of imperialism and capitalism (Matthews, 1993). Iqbal indicated the reasons of moral and cultural decay of the people of the East and the West who cannot see realities unveiled (Matthews, 1993). He says that the origin of our diseases is slavery and imitation, the root of disease in the West is its democratic organization. He criticized the democratic organizations of the West and points out those western democratic institutions are old wines in new bottles. (Khan, 1992:54). He discarded the concept of European democracy is divorced from religion or belief, which is not only irreligious and faithless but also formed by the capitalists for their own sinister designs (Maruf, 1977: 77). Iqbal‟s criticism, however, was not against democracy but towards its demerits only. He accepted some of the principles of democracy which was guided by the Muslim concept of democracy; it was somewhat alternative from modern western democracy. Iqbal opposed the secular and material orientation of the philosophy of democracy. It can be said that, he accepted only those principles of democracy which are compatible with Islamic philosophy but rejected those principles which he thought incompatible with Islamic Philosophy of life and Islamic polity. 3.2 NATIONALISM Nationalism is a modern thought of politics in contemporary world. It is stated by Louis L. Snyder that, “it is a condition of mind or sentiments of a group of people living in a geographic area; speaking a common language, possessing a literature in which their aspirations are expressed, attached to common traditions and customs, venerating their own heroes, and in some cases having the same religion (Subba, 1999: 5). In the past, man‟s trustworthiness was related in different forms of political organization, social authority, and ideology based on tribe or clan, dynastic or city state, the Church or religious community instead of present forms of nation-state. During the last decades of the 18th Century, we first find the concept of nationalism in England, which influenced public and private life (Hilal, 1995). Western nationalism is based on geography, language, race, customs, traditions, common ideals etc. It is materialistic and earth-bound which demands loyalty to racial, linguistic and territorial gods, not to divine spirits. Iqbal states that, “Western nations are based on territory and race, whereas the strength of your community rests on the might of your religion” (Munawwar, 1982:130). Iqbal was a keen nationalist during his student life but he became a Universalist at the end of his career (Dar, 1981). According to Iqbal, Nationalism has many demerits and disadvantages that cause the hostility, conflict and aggression in the world which results in war. It leads to a narrow and racial discrimination and political conflict which usually opposes the relationship of humanity at large. However, he criticized nationalism as it is against the spirit of Islam. Islam and nationalism cannot go together. Iqbal (1979:159) states: “Islam is neither Nationalism nor Imperialism but a League of Nations which recognizes artificial boundaries and racial distinctions for facility of reference only, and not for restricting the social horizon of its members”. Nationalism is the main obstacle towards establishing Muslim Ummah or Universalism based on Islam. Iqbal wrote a letter to professor R. A. Nichlson in which he said:
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Nationalism is a belief based on race and colour, which is hostile to the world and humanity. The people, who love the humanity, should start a war against the innovation of „Satan‟ (Afzal, 1978:54). On the other hand, the migration of the Prophet from Makkah to Madinah is a symbol of Muslims‟ freedom from local attachments. Iqbal says that, “China and Arabia are ours; India is also ours. We are Muslims; whole world is homeland of ours” (Iqbal, 1997:243). It signifies that Islam is not territory-bound. It does not depend upon a particular land but it belongs to all lands. Iqbal also opposed the concept of territorial nationalism, which is the root of social and political discord. He says: “the basic scheme of Western Imperialism was to dismember the unity of Muslim World by popularizing territorial nationalism among its various components” (Mu‟ini, 1963: 222). In his views, imperialism arises through territorial nationalism, which results in too much suffering for humanity. “People lose their lives and billions of dollars in money is spent in the wars; which could be utilized for the welfare of humanity”. (Khan, 1982:65). He also says that, “I am opposed to it because I see in it the germs of atheistic materialism which I look upon as the greatest danger to modern humanity” (Hilal: 1995:247). However, Iqbal clearly differentiates modern nationalism in a political sense with patriotism as a virtue. He never does not confuse between nationalism and patriotism and draws a clear line between the two concepts. He rejects nationalism while respects patriotism. Patriotism is one‟s love to one‟s country, is a part of Muslim faith (Iqbal, 1948). Actually, Iqbal's rejection of nationalism is not a rejection of love for the homeland. It is a condemnation of the modern concept of a nation. His concept of nationalism not only contains both universalism and patriotism, as we have seen, but also Islamic humanitarianism. His concept gives us a message of Islamic brotherhood. It may be conclude with his speech that, "Only one unity is dependable, and that unity is the brotherhood of man, which is above race, nationality, colour or language” (Iqbal, 1948: 203). 3.3 SECULARISM In the west, along with nationalism, a new political thought arose which was known as secularism, “came about at the cost of a bitter struggle against a dominant religion; the Catholic Church” (Maclure and Taylor, 2011: 14). Secularism “is opposed to religion” and “is to hostile to religion” (Heng, Siam-Heng and Liew, 2010: 7) while at the same time, it guarantees “religious freedom” and “equality of all citizens” (Javid, 2003: 297) by the state. Sometimes secularism means the separation of religious spiritual life from politics, the separation of life- hereafter from the worldly life where morals, state and worldly matter should remain independent of religion. However, in the comments of Rizvi, the basic of secularism is based on two principles (Ali, 2015:119-120): 1. Separation of religion from politics 2. Acceptance of religion as purely and strictly private affairs of individuals having nothing to do with the state. In Iqbal‟s views, “secularism does not mean aloofness from the spiritual values, it means acceptance of universal spiritual values coupled with a respect for the right of each religious group to indoctrinate its followers and to care for their spiritual needs” (Hilal, 1995: 255). He took secularism from the spiritual sense rather than material sense as pictured in the west. Iqbal was influenced by environment in India, where secularism is considered different from the western concept, where there is no anti-religious bias and equal respect to all religions is shown (Hilal, 1995). On the other hand, Iqbal criticized politics, where religion is considered as independent and private entity, “is a defective one and it is shame for humanity” (Khan, 1982:55). In this point
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Iqbal comments that “Satan” as saying: “There is no need for my presence in the world as there are enough devils in the shape of politicians in western democracy” (Malik, 1998: 336). According to Iqbal, Western politics is irreligious and faithless (Iqbal: 1979) which is a cause of many ills and has evolved as a free monster and separated from church (Iqbal, 1983). Iqbal advised the Muslim Ummah to reject this irreligious and faithless political thought of the West. On the other hand, he perceives that religion offers the feelings of love with each other, sacrifice for others and welfare for humanity. He tried to attach great importance to religion in the private as well as social life of man. He also advises to follow religion, instead of western secular thought. Therefore, Iqbal invited Muslim Ummah to follow this straight way leaving the negative Western politics. According to Iqbal, the idea of State is more familiar than other ideas existing in Islam. He rejected the differences between spiritual and temporal domains: “In Islam the spiritual and the temporal are not two distinct domains, and the nature of an act, however secular in its import, is determined by the attitude of mind with which the agent does it” (Iqbal, 2011a: 154). He also rejects the dualism of Church and State which he says is not supported by Islam. He said: “In Islam, it is the same reality which appears as Church looked at from one point of view and State from another. It is not true to say that the Church and the State are two sides or facets of the same thing” (Iqbal, 2011a: 154). He further says that “The Islamic idea of the State must not be confounded with the European idea of separation of church and State. The former is only a division of functions as is clear from the gradual creation in the Muslim state of the office of Shaikh-ul-Islam and Ministers; the latter is based on the metaphysical dualism of spirit and matter” (Saeed, 1972:373). He did not like the dualistic views of Turkish Nationalists, who assimilated that, “the idea of separation of the Church and the State from the history of European political ideas...when the State became Christian, State and Church confronted each other as distinct powers with interminable boundary disputes between them, such a thing could never happen in Islam” (Iqbal, 2011a: 155). Iqbal believes in theocratic state which is ruled by God. He advocates three fundamental, which are: (1) human solidarity; (2) equality; and, (3) freedom. These three principles represent the essence of TawhÊd (Unity of God). As he said: “The essence of TauhÊd as a working idea is equality, solidarity, and freedom. The state, from the Islamic standpoint, is an endeavour to transform these ideal principles into space-time forces, an aspiration to realize them in a definite human organization. In this sense the state in Islam is a theocracy, not in the sense that it is headed by a representative of God on earth who can always screen his despotic will behind his supposed infallibility…The state according to Islam, is only an effort to realize the spiritual in human organization [and] in this sense all state, not based on mere domination and aiming at the realization of ideal principles, is theocratic” (Iqbal, 2011a: 154-155). The ideological state of Iqbal affords equal opportunities to the people where every citizen of the state is encouraged to perform the best in the service of God and humanity (Saeed, 1972). He also states that, “In an ideological State of Islam the supreme power of the sovereignty enjoyed by the head of the State is limited by the sovereignty of God” (Saeed, 1972: 376). Iqbal declared his stance against all forms of state-worship and aligns with those who regard the state as an agency whose main purpose is to create the conditions necessary for the development of human individuality (Siddiqi, 1983). Islam aims to establish a state based on the principles of Unity of God which is not opposed to national preservation, and this is the ultimate goal of Islamic ideology. According to Iqbal, “the Muslim national state is essentially an ideological State and not one based merely on racial of geographical factors”(Saeed, 1972: 378).
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Iqbal praised the system of Caliphate, because it was republican system formed by election. Through the election the collective will of the Ummah operated through the elected individuals. According to Islamic political thought, the Muslim Ummah is based on the equality among Muslims where there are no issue of caste, no priesthood and class. A person is free to nurture himself and can enrich his talents for society prescribed by state. The leader and worker, ruler and ruled, king and citizen are equally treated in the eye of law. “From a legal standpoint, the Caliph does not occupy any privileged position. In theory, he is like other members of the common-wealth. He can be directly sued in an ordinary law court”(Grover, 1993: 532). Iqbal also mentions two propositions (Hilal, 1995) for the Muslim political constitution. Firstly, The Law of God is absolutely supreme. Secondly, there is absolute equality of all the members of the community. 3.4 SOCIALISM AND CAPITALISM Socialism and Capitalism are both the modern political economic thoughts of the West. Socialism is a system where the means of production, such as money and other forms of capital are owned by the state or public (https://www.thebalance.com/the-characteristics-ofcapitalism-and-socialism-393509) while Capitalism is a means of production which are owned by individuals or “the explicit recognition of private property” (Hoppe, 2007: 10). Under a socialist system, each and every one efforts for wealth that is managed through government where there is no market. Government is responsible to look after health care as well as all system of a state; the equal distributions of wealth among the people are emphasized. On the other hand, under capitalism, one works for his own wealth. An individual can operate his own private companies. All wealth is owned by individual where he is independent earning money and property. Iqbal has briefly expressed his opinions on capitalism and socialism, mainly on its merits and demerits. He opposed to the materialistic view of the world which is why he didn‟t accept the irreligiousness and materialistic interpretation of modern socialism and capitalism. As Iqbal (2011b:57) said: “Both (System) have an impatient and intolerant soul, neither knows God and both deceive man…Socialism brings the rout of science, religion and art, capitalism detaches the soul from the body and from the arm takes bread. Both systems bring me at last to water and clay, both has a bright body and a dark heart”. Iqbal was sympathetic to the spiritual socialism related with Islam. According to Iqbal socialism was identical with Quranic teaching. Islam and socialism have same purpose to do work for safeguard the economic condition of all people. Iqbal emphasized on social justice which is directed by Islam. On the other hand, capitalism is associated with imperialism in Iqbal‟s experience. He didn‟t support capitalism where wealth is owned by capitalists, because Islam protests social and economic evils which stem from capitalism. (Iqbal, 1998). He also presents the real picture of capitalist society in his poems, where he manifests the real scenario of wretched condition of workers and labours labourers and arises a question that, “O! God, you are just and all powerful; then why? The life of workers is extremely miserable” (Iqbal review, 1992: 87). He wished to see the end of the greed of the capitalists and industrialists and was interested for the betterment of the workers. 3.5 LIBERALISM Liberalism is a political doctrine that enhances the freedom of individual thoughts and equality. This Western ideology is based on two principles: Individualism and liberty. According to Iqbal, liberalism guides a man to destruction, unethical and inhuman acts. An individual, who has boundless freedom of thoughts and liberty, could be risky for the nation. God has given liberty
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of thought which is limited while unlimited liberty of thought is a devil‟s innovation (Iqbal, 1983). Iqbal clearly pictured out the Western World (Iqbal, 2011b), which cannot be safeguard for Muslim Ummah. It neither can save them from their own created problems nor can show them solution for prosperous life. However, Iqbal warns Muslim Ummah about the adverse effects of the Western thought of liberalism. It can destroy the unity and stability of Muslim brotherhood and would spread the seeds of conflicts, discord and hate among Muslims. And it destroys the Muslim unity, which is the most essential principle of Islamic ideology. Iqbal disclosed his opinions in one of his lecture that, “We heartily welcome the liberal movement in Modern Islam; but it must also be admitted that the appearance of liberal ideas in Islam constitutes also the most critical moment in the history of Islam. Liberalism has a tendency to act as a free of disintegration…Further our religious and political reforms in their zeal for liberalism may over step the proper limit of reform in the absence of a check on their youthful fervour” (Iqbal, 2011a:162-163). 4. CONCLUSION Iqbal‟s thoughts are deeply embedded in the Holy Quran and the Sunnah as well as rooted from traditional Islamic point of view. According to him, it is ridiculous to recognize any of the Western concept or ideology without any critical analysis as it is also irrational to refuse any Western concept and ideology only because it originated in the Western societies. He promoted and concentrated on the distinct Islamic terms and terminologies on the proper directions of the Quran and Sunnah as well as on the history of the Muslim civilization. However, it is clear that Iqbal accepted some principles of Western thoughts that are compatible with Islamic Shari`ah which does not mean that Iqbal has totally accepted Western thoughts. The secular principles of Western thought are far away from the Islamic Shari`ah and inconsistent Islam, and is therefore rejected by Iqbal. References Abbas, S. G. (1997). Dr. Muhammad Iqbal: The Humanist. Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan. Afzal, Mian Mohammad. (1978). Iqbal and Global Politics. Lahore: Iqbal Academy. Ali, Md Musa. (2015). Secularism in India: Concepts, Historical Perspective and challenge. Asia Pacific Journal of Research. Vol: 1 (XXIV). p. 119-124 Ali, Parveen Shaukat. (1978). The Political Philosophy of Iqbal. Lahore: Publishers UnitedLtd. Begum, Shagufta. (2001). Iqbal’s concept of Spiritual Democracy. Al-Hikmat. Punjab:University of Punjab Vol. 21, p. 21-31 Dar, B.A. (1981). Letters and Writings of Iqbal. Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan. Gadgil, Madhav & Guha, Ramachandra. (1993). This Fissured Land: An Ecological History of India. California: University of California Press. Grover,Verinder. (1993). Political Thinkers of Modern India: Mohammad Iqbal. Delhi: Deep & Deep Publications. Hafeez, Malik. (1971). Iqbal-the poet philosopher of Pakistan. New York: Columbia University Press. Heng, Michael, Siam-Heng, Liew, Ten Chin. (2010). State and Secularism: Perspectives from Asia. Singapore: World Scientific. Hilal, Abdul Aleem. (1995). Social Philosophy of Sir Muhammad Iqbal. Delhi: Adam publishers & distributors. Hoppe, Hans-Hermann . (2007). A theory of Socialism and Capitalism. Alabama: Ludwing Von Mises Institute. Iqbal, Mohammad. (1979). Bal-i-Gibril (Gabriel’s Wing). Trans. by Syed Akbar Ali Shah. Islamabad: Modern Book Depot. Iqbal, Mohammad. (1983). Zarb-i-Kalim (The Rod of Moses). Trans. by Syed Akbar Ali Shah. Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan. Iqbal, Mohammad. (1997). Bang-i-Dara (Call of the Marching Bell). Trans, by Dr. M. A. K. Khalil. Lahore: Tayyab Iqbal Printers.
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Iqbal, Mohammad. (2011b). Javid Nama. Trans. by Arthur J. Arberry. London: Routledge. Iqbal, Sir Mohammad, (2011a). The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. (11th Edn). New Delhi: kitab Bhaban. Iqbal, Sir Mohammad. (1948). Speeches and Statements of Iqbal. Lahore: Al-Manār Academy. Javid, Iqbal. (2003). Islam and Pakistan’s Identity. Lahore: Iqbal Academy. Khalil, M.A.K. (2000). Allamah Iqbal: A Beacon of Light for Muslims in the Present Day World. In Muhammad Suheyl Umar. (Ed.), Iqbal Review, Journal of the Iqbal Academy, Pakistan. Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan. Pp. 182-191 Khan, Sultan. (1992). Iqbal on Democracy. In Mirza Muhammad Munawwar. (Ed.), Iqbal Review, Journal of the Iqbal Academy Pakistan. Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan. Vol: 33 (1). pp.44-77. Retrieved from: http://iqbalcyberlibrary.net//en/IRE-APR1992.html. 15-06-2016. Maclure, Jocelyn and Taylor, Charles. (2011). Secularism and Freedom of Conscience. Trans.By Jane Marie Todd. London: Harvard University Press. Maire, Luce-Claude. (1981). Introduction to the Thought of Iqbal. Trns. by Mulla Abdul Majeed Dar, (2nd Ed.). Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan. Malik, Nadeem Shafiq. (1998). The Political Sagacity of Iqbal. Islamabad: National Book Foundation. Maruf, Mohammed. (1977). Iqbal on Democracy, In Dr. M. Moizuddin. (Ed.), Iqbal Review, Journal of the Iqbal Academy Pakistan. Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan. Vol: 18 (1). pp.73-83. Retrieved from: http://iqbalcyberlibrary.net/pdf/IRE-APR1977.pdf/ 07-10-2016 Matthews, D. J. (1993). Iqbal a Selection of the Urdu Verse Text and Translation. Delhi: Heritage Publishers. May, Lini S. (1974). Iqbal: His Life & Times 1877-1938. Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf. Mir. Mustansir. (2006). Iqbal: Makers of Islamic Civilization. London: I.B.Tauris. Mu'ini, Syed Abdul Vahid. (1963). Maqalat-i- Iqbal (Trans from Urdu), Lahore. Retrieved from http://www.allamaiqbal.com/publications/journals/review/jan78/3.htm#_edn Mujahid, Sharif al. (1986). Allama Iqbal: Poet-philosopher of the East. Karachi: Quaid-I Azam Academy. Munawwar, Mohammad. (1982). Iqbal Centenary Papers. Lahore: University of Punjab. Munawwar, Muhammad. (2001). Iqbal on Human Perfection. Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan. Nadvi, Muhammad Haneef. (1973). Asasiyat-i-Islam. Lahore: Idara-i-Saqafat-i-Islamia. Qureshi, Wahid. (1983). Selections from the Iqbal Review. Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan. Saeed, Sheikh, M. (1972). Studies in Iqbal's Thought and Art. Select Articles from the Quarterly “Iqbal”. Lahore: Bazm-i Iqbal. Sh. Muhammad Ashraf. (1952). Iqbal as a Thinker (Eassys by eminent scholars). Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf. Sharif, Al-Muhajid. (1961). The poet of the East-the story of Muhammad Iqbal. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Singh, Mahendra Prasad and Roy, Himanshu (Ed.), (2011). Indian Political Thought: Themes and Thinkers. New Delhi: Pushp Printers services. Subba, Tanka Bahadur. (1999). Politics of Culture: A Study of Three Kirata Communities in the Eastern Himalayas. Hyderabad: Orient Longman Limited. Vahid, Syed Abdul. (1948). Iqbal His Art and Thought (2nd Ed.). Hyderabad: Government Press. Vanina, Eugenia. (2012). Medieval Indian Mindscapes: Space, Time, Society, Man. Delhi: Primus Books. Visit: http://www.poemhunter.com/allama-muhammad-iqbal/biography/ on 20-07-2016
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International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences p-ISSN: 1694-2620 e-ISSN: 1694-2639 Vol. 8 No. 5, pp. 37-48, ©IJHSS
Is more BENELUX cooperation the future for the low countries ? Prof. dr. Herman Matthijs Senior Lecturer Public Finances at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel & Universiteit Gent :Belgium ABSTRACT The article examines the possibility of greater cooperation within the Benelux structure. What might the opportunities and consequences of maximizing the synergies of cooperation between Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands be ? In particular the article examines closer Benelux cooperation between the numerous European and international institutions. In addition the possibility of a single Benelux diplomatic service and a joint army is discussed. Finally the future position of the Benelux institutions are the topic of this study. Seeing the present problems with the working of the European Union, more integration of the three Benelux countries can be a solution in a divided Europe. Can more Benelux integration gives an upgrade of political power for the low countries ? Keywords: Benelux, European integration. Introduction In the case of this three countries there is already an institution concerning the integration. The intention of this study is to calculate the possibilities for more Benelux integration. Indeed , if the EU integration has no possibilities anymore and knows a present standstill and knowing the fact that this three countries are surrounded by greater European states ( Germany, France and the UK on the other side of the North sea ); a new attempt for more Benelux cooperation and integration is the only possibility for the lower countries. Also this three countries have already a history of integration and are comparable on the level of welfare. Therefore the most important European- and international institutions are taken. This study is mostly based on budget figures from the treated institutions. There is no other study known, which already calculated the political value of a Benelux integration concerning this institutions. In most of the cases in this study the Benelux figures are comparing with the greater EU member states. 1. History On 5 September 1944 Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands reached agreement in London about a customs union between the three countries. In reality this was an agreement between the Netherlands and the “Belgian-Luxembourg Economic Union” (BLEU). The agreement between Belgium and Luxembourg dates from July 1921 and established a customs and currency union between the two countries. This BLEU convention was agreed for a period of 50 years and was renewed for periods of ten years in 1972, 1982 and 1992. In 2002 the two countries joined the „Euro‟ monetary zone.
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The war and the delay in liberating the Netherlands meant that the customs union only came into effect on 1 January 1948. As a result the levying of import duties on commerce between the three countries came to an end and that a joint external tariff was imposed on trade with third party countries.( Benelux, 1994 ). On 3 February 1958 the three countries signed a new treaty entailing the establishment of an economic Union. This treaty came into effect on 1 November 1960. With the treaty the three countries agreed to allow the free trade of services, goods, capital and persons among themselves. This Benelux treaty came into effect in 1960 for a period of 50 years and came to an end in 2010. For this reason Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands signed a new treaty in The Hague on 17 June 2008 establishing the “Benelux Union”. The new treaty runs indefinitely and is no longer limited to economic affairs. An inter parliamentary Council was established by a treaty signed on 5 November 1955, which came into effect on 7 September 1959. This treaty was replaced by a new treaty on 20 January 2015, which gives this Parliament new powers. For example the Parliament now has a right of interpellation, although it remains an advisory body. The Parliament is composed of 49 elected members from the three Parliaments of the member states. Account is taken of the federal structure of the Belgian state. Indeed these 49 Benelux MP members are divided over the Netherlands with 21 delegates ( 9 from the „Eerste Kamer„ : the Dutch Senate and 12 from the „Tweede Kamer‟: the Dutch Lower House ) ; Belgium with 21 delegates ( 10 from the „ Kamer van Volksvertegenwoordigers„ : the Belgian House of representatives, 5 from the „ Vlaams Parlement‟ : Flemish Parliament, 2 from the „ Parlement Wallon: Walloon Parliament, 2 from the „Parlement federation Wallonie-Bruxelles‟: Parliament Wallonia-Brussels federation, 1 member from the „ Brussel Parlement – Parlement Bruxellois‟: Parliament of the Brussels region, 1 member from the „ Parlement Deutsche Gemeinschaft‟: German speaking community ) and seven members of the Luxembourg „ Chambre des deputes ).Knowing that six of the ten Belgian members are dutch speaking and the five Flemish members with the 21 MP‟s coming from the Netherlands gives a total of 32 dutch speaking members in this Benelux Parliament. The Benelux Parliament meets diversified in the Belgian and Dutch Senate. 2. The Traditional Parameters We shall start by giving a brief description of the Benelux in terms of the traditional parameters such as total area, population, and a few common economic indicators. These figures will then be compared with the relevant figures for the European Union (EU). The land area of the EU comes to 4,482,000 km². Of the Benelux countries the Netherlands are the largest with an area of 41,500 km², followed by Belgium (30,500 km² ) and the much smaller Luxembourg (2,600 km² ). All together this gives 74,600 km² for the Benelux or 1.7 % of the entire area of the European Union. The combined Benelux states still remain a small area, particularly when compared with the member states with the largest areas, namely France (14.6 %), Spain (11.3 %), Sweden (10 %), Germany (8 %) and Finland (7.5 %). The 1.7% of the total surface area of the EU occupied by the Benelux (The Netherlands 0.9 %, Belgium 0.7 % and Luxembourg 0.1 %) makes it the 16th largest in geographical terms, lying between the Czech Republic (1.8 %) and Ireland (1.6 %).
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On their own though the Benelux countries come even further down the rankings. Indeed after the Netherlands (0.9 %) comes only Belgium (0.7 %) Slovenia (0.5 %), Cyprus, Luxembourg and Malta. The geographical reality thus shows us that the purely territorial benefits of the Benelux are fairly limited. On the other hand the area occupies, in economic terms, a prime site on the North Sea coast. This is illustrated by the importance of the ports in the area (Amsterdam, Antwerp, Rotterdam and Zeebrugge). The location of these ports are a major source of employment and make them a vital link in the route to the German “hinterland”. Secondly, what‟s the position population of the Benelux compared to the total population of the EU? The population of the EU is roughly 510 million (Eurostat estimate, 1 January 2016). Belgium has a population of 11.3 million (2.21 % of the EU total), the Netherlands have 16.9 million (3.31 %) and Luxembourg has 576 thousand inhabitants (0.11 %). Counted together this means that the total Benelux population is 28.8 million or 5.64 % of the EU total. Here we may note that the Benelux with the exception of Malta (with 1305 residents per km²) is the most densely populated part of the EU (with 375 inhabitants per km²), ahead of the United Kingdom (251/km²), whereas the EU average is significantly lower (116/km²). Several EU countries have larger populations than the Benelux, namely Germany (82.1 million), France (66.6), the United Kingdom (64.3), Italy (60.7), Spain (46.4) and Poland (38.5). Counted in this way the Benelux occupies 7th place in the population rankings, but if the Benelux states are counted individually, Romania comes in higher (19.7 million) than the Netherlands. All the other member states come after Belgium, which comes in ninth after the Netherlands which is eighth. Aggregating the populations moves the Benelux up one place, although we should not forget that this is a population of 28.8 million prosperous citizens. In political terms, however, speaking on behalf of 28 instead of 17 or 11 million people does make a difference. Thirdly, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is a useful indicator of national prosperity and more particularly the economic output of a country. In 2015 the combined GDP of the Union could be estimated at 14.635 billion euros (Eurostat estimate figures ) with member countries contributing as follows. TABLE: I
GDP Benelux states in European perspective Germany (3.032 billion ), United Kingdom (2.575 billion ), France (2.181 billion), Italy (1.636 billion), Spain (1.081 billion), the Netherlands (676 billion ), Sweden (444 billion), Poland ( 427 billion ), Belgium (409 trillion).
The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg comes much further down the rankings with a GDP of only 52 billion euro. Although per capital this tiny Benelux country comes out top (see below)! Belgium and the Netherland currently occupy ninth and sixth place respectively in the GDP list. The large GDP of Sweden is striking, as is the fact that of the countries that joined the EU in the most recent round of expansion (after 1995) only one – Poland - has risen in the rankings.
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Another element is that the UK economy is bigger than that of France, although the German economy, which contributes 20 % of the GDP of the EU continues to be far and away the biggest. When we count the GDPs of the three Benelux countries together, we arrive at a total of € 1.137 billion or a share of 7,44% in the EU‟s GDP. This puts the Benelux ahead of Spain and makes it the fifth largest economy in terms of GDP. Indeed, individually neither Belgium nor the Netherlands are likely to break the 1.000 billion euro barrier in the coming decades. Nor can it be ruled out that in view of the greater economic efficiency of the Benelux, its GDP could exceed that of a faltering Italy. When prosperity is linked to per capita GDP (PPS/KKE figures of Eurostat), all three Benelux countries come out above the EU average (100 ): TABLE: II PROSPERITY - Luxembourg: - the Netherlands: - Belgium:
271 129 117
Source: Eurostat This table clearly illustrates the prosperous position of the Benelux within the EU and in particular the remarkable prosperity of the Grand Duchy. The EU member states with a greater GDP per capita then Belgium , in 2015, are: Austria ( 127 ),Denmark ( 124 ),Germany ( 125) , Ireland (145) ,Sweden ( 123 ) and of course Luxembourg and Holland. Furthermore the Benelux can also show that it is major economic player, as can be seen from the third table. TABLE: III GOODS TRANSPORT IN 2014 AS A SHARE OF THE EU TOTAL - Roads: 6.7 % - Rail: 3.1 % - Inland navigation: 38.5 % - Shipping: 25.7 % - Aviation 23.6 % Source: Benelux ( key figures and trends, secretary general Benelux 2014 ) This table shows that the Benelux accounts for a very large share of the EU‟s maritime and airborne goods transport operations, and statistical proof of the importance of the sea ports and airports of Belgium and the Netherlands. The above analysis of the traditional parameters makes it clear that the Benelux is economically a very important area within the EU, relatively restricted in size but occupying a strategic position. In population terms the Benelux is no match for the larger EU countries, but the region as a whole can be regarded as extremely prosperous.
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3. The EU budget When we examine the contribution that the Benelux countries make to the financing of the budget of the European Union, we may make the following observations. Like other states Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands must pay contributions to the budget in accordance with the Own Resources Decision. Council decisions 2007/346 and 2014/335 ) Since the new 2014 decision the EU member states must pay 80 % of the TOR (Traditional Own Resources) they collect, a part of their VAT receipts and levy on their own GNI. The T.O.R. relate to the levy on the sugar industry and more importantly to customs duties. The latter account for 99% of the total T.O.R. revenues of the EU budget. The Benelux countries are paying in the 2016 budget a total of 4 billion € of TOR. ( Belgium : € 1,7 billion euros, Luxembourg: € 15 million and the Netherlands € 2,2 billion). This means that the Benelux accounts for 21.5 % of all taxation on imports from third countries outside the Union. Once again this demonstrates the importance of the ports mentioned above and the cargo-handling airports (Schiphol, Zaventem and others) to the EU economy. In consequence the Benelux is the largest contributor of customs duties to the EU budget, contributing even more than the Federal Republic. ( 2016: 3,6 billion euro ) Concerning the global contributions ( EU budget 2016 ): TOR, the VAT and the GNI, the three countries pay 13,8 billion euro or 9,7% of the total invoice.( Belgium: 5,5 billion euro, Luxembourg: 311 million, Holland: 7,9 billion euros ). TABLE: IV Benelux and EU budget contributions 2016 ( in billions of euro ) Germany: 30,1 France: 21,8 UK: 19,8 Italy: 15,9 Benelux: 13,8 Spain: 11,2 The global Benelux contribution to the EU budget is more than Spain ( 11,2 billion ) and comes around the Italian figures. The importance of the Benelux in the EU context is well illustrated by the meetings of government leaders at EU summits. The Benelux is well represented at the top of the current crop of senior EU appointments, with the President of the Commission being from Luxembourg and the President of the Eurogroup from the Netherlands. One Vice-President of the Commission is a Dutchman, and another EU Commissioner is a Belgian. A concerted Benelux policy could most certainly deliver considerable political power in the EU. Nor should we forget that in the future there is a possibility that not every country will have a member in the Commission. Such a development would be an added incentive for the three countries to work more closely together in order to defend their interests. Their prosperity means that the three countries are far from the largest recipients of financial support from the EU‟s Structural Funds. However joint political action could help to win EU resources for border-crossing projects within the Benelux, and similar.
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4. Europe Apart from the EU budget there are a number of other European institutions that manage significant resources. What possibilities are there for developing a joint Benelux policy for ESA, the BIB, EIB and the ERBD? 4.1. ESA Since 1975 the ESA (European Space Agency) has worked to direct policy on civil space flight. With an annual budget of € 5,2 billion . ( ESA budget 2016 ) During several years Belgium is ( 189 million euro ) is the largest Benelux player, followed by the Netherlands (103 million ) and Luxembourg ( 22 million ). Jointly this represents a Benelux share of 314 million or 6.1 % in ESA budget of 5.2 billion . This is important for the development of a domestic space flight industry because the industrial “return” comes to about 90 % of the national contribution. Only Italy, Germany, the UK , France and the EU ( 1.5 billion ) play a bigger financial role within the space agency. In view of the likely continued technological importance of space flight in the years to come and the high financial cost of such investments, a joint Benelux approach would appear to be desirable. 4.2. BIS The BIS (Bank for International Settlements) in Basle is effectively the banker of the central banks. In recent years this bank has been primarily concerned with harmonizing the supervision the central banks exercise over national private financial institutions. The historical development of the BIS means that Belgium is a permanent member of its “Board of Directors”, with the USA, the UK, France , Italy an d the Federal Republic of Germany. Belgium could therefore assume the task of representing the policy of all of the Benelux. The BIS also provides back office functions for the “G 10”, of which both Belgium and the Netherlands are members. In 1962 they agreed to give each other loans and possibly provide loans to other countries should the resources of the IMF fall short. There is in consequence a most definite indirect link between the BIS and the two main Benelux countries. As for Luxembourg it should be pointed out that this smallest of the Benelux countries is an important player in the banking sector in Europe. 4.3. EIB In third place there is the EIB (European Investment Bank) in Luxembourg City. This bank finances projects in the EU‟s less developed regions as well as trans-European infrastructure. Both Belgium and the Netherlands have contributed € 10,800 million to the bank‟s capital of € 243,000 million. With Luxembourg‟s contribution the Benelux‟s contribution comes to € 22,000 million. In total then this makes the Benelux the sixth largest contributor to the EIB, well after Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom, who contribute € 39,200 million each, and just behind Spain, which contributes € 23,500 million. The Benelux‟s activities within this bank must be seen in the political context of the greater cooperation within the EU institutions of these three countries. 4.4. EBRD Finally we may mention the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) in London. Established in 1991 to help the former Iron Curtain countries in their transition from a collectivist economy to a free market one. Belgium has contributed € 684 million to the bank‟s total capital of roughly € 30,000 million, while the Netherlands have paid in € 744 million and Luxembourg € 60 million, making a total of close to € 1,500 million. This is markedly less than the largest shareholders, which are the United States with € 3,000 million, and the U.K., France, Italy, Germany and Japan with € 2,500 million each. United, however, the Benelux comes immediately after these leaders and makes a greater contribution than the EIB, the EU, Canada
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and Spain. At present Belgium ( with Luxembourg and Slovenia ) and the Netherlands ( with Armenia, Macedonia and Mongolia ) both individually head a different group in this bank. A joint approach to the administration of the bank could only bring benefits to the three countries. 5. The European Central Bank Since 2002 various EU member states have surrendered their monetary sovereignty to the European Central Bank (ECB). The countries that use the euro own 70.39% of the ECB‟s working capital. The latter has been set at € 10,825 million and has been at this level since 1 January 2014. The most remarkable aspect of the ECB‟s capital is that non-euro countries within the EU have contributed to it, and hold a 29.61% share in it. The ECB‟s capital comes from the national central banks. TABLE: V Germany: France: UK: Italy: Spain: Benelux:
ECB capital 17,9% 14,17% 13,67% 12,31% 8,84% 6,68%
Source: ECB Of course Germany, represented by the “Bundesbank” is the largest single shareholder with 17.9%. Germany is followed by France (14.17 %), Italy (12.31 %) and Spain (8.84 %). After these countries come the Netherlands (4 %) and Belgium (2.48 %). Together with Luxembourg (0.20 %) the three Benelux countries contribute a 6.68 % share to the ECB‟s total capital, putting it nearly on a par with Spain. Of the contributing non-euro countries we may mention the large shares contributed by the Bank of England (13.67 %) followed by Poland (5.12 %). The Benelux share in the ECB‟s working capital puts the region ahead of Poland and would also increases its power to influence ECB policy and claim administrative positions in the bank. The ECB bank is of course politically more sensitive because of the link to national sovereignty. On the other hand the three countries surrendered their monetary sovereignty to the ECB in 2002, this should make a joint Benelux approach much less of a political hot potato, particularly as it would guarantee the Benelux a permanent seat in the six-man administrative committee of the ECB. For practical purposes a permanent consultative body could be established within the Benelux framework which could be chaired by each of the three national banks in turn. 6. International Moving now to the international arena, we may note that the Benelux countries are all members of the United Nations and the associated specialized agencies. At the UN the Benelux countries are ordinary members, who become members of the Security Council every now and then. Nonetheless the Benelux plays an important role in the specialized agencies with a more or less economic mission such as the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO. 6.1. IMF The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a specialized agency of the United Nations whose mission is the preservation of monetary stability. The organization is also the lender of last resort for countries who are unable to borrow funds elsewhere.
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All member states must pay subscription quotas when they become members of the agency. The quota is largely based on the size of the countryâ€&#x;s GDP and its current account transactions. The higher the quota payment, the greater the number of voting rights allocated to the member country. Since 1 November 2012 the three Benelux countries have formed a single group in the daily administration of the IMF. Every four years Belgium and the Netherlands supply a leader and a deputy leader for this group. Apart from the three Benelux countries, Armenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Israel, Macedonia, Moldavia, Montenegro, Romania and Ukraine are members of this same group of 15 members. All together this Benelux countries holds 3,47% ( Belgium: 1,35% , Holland: 1,84%, Luxembourg: 0,28% ) of the quotas and 3,36% ( Belgium: 1,3%, Netherlands: 1,77%, Luxembourg: 0,29% ) of the total votes. This IMF group, which is headed by Belgium and the Netherlands, has 5,43% of the votes. Because of that this group Benelux group of 15 IMF members is the fourth largest vote after the United States (16.54 %), Japan and China. But before the federal republic of Germany ( 5,33%). This cooperation of the Benelux within the IMF and its expansion to include other countries has meant that the Low Countries have become an important shareholder in this important international economic institution. It is this that justifies the claiming of administrative mandates in the IMF and influencing policy. The IMF is tangible proof that a common Benelux approach can bear fruit. 6.2. WORLDBANK The World Bank too is a specialized agency of the United Nations, and has the task of helping the social and economic development of poorer countries. Here too member states pay subscription quotas that are related to their prosperity. In contrast with the IMF Belgium/Luxembourg and the Netherlands have not established Benelux cooperation in the shape of the leadership of a group. At present Belgium heads a group that controls 5.03 % of the shares of the World Bank. The members of the Belgian group are Austria, Belarus, Czech republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey and Luxembourg ).The Netherlands does the same with a group that controls 3.98 % of the shares. This group which is headed by the Netherlands contains Armenia, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Israel, Macedonia, Moldavia, Montenegro, Romania and Ukraine. In the current situation the Belgian group is the 7th largest after the United States (16.19 %), Japan (7.5 %), China (4.84 %), Germany (4.39 %), France and the United Kingdom (3.94 % each). The Netherlands and its group comes in eleventh in the rankings. Should the three Benelux countries pool their votes in the World Bank in the same way as they do in the IMF, they would control 81,525 votes (The Netherlands: 42,352, Belgium: 36,467 and Luxembourg: 2,306). That total is slightly less than France or the United Kingdom, who control 87,425 votes each. If the Benelux were to form a group in the World Bank analogous to that in the IMF (which in this case would be the Dutch group plus Belgium and Luxembourg) the control of no fewer than
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117,213 votes would be possible. This would make the group the third largest player in the World Bank, following after the United States (358,502) and Japan (166,098). Here again we see that Benelux cooperation could yield significant advantages. The same situation arises with the two sub-organizations of the World Bank, namely the “International Finance Corporation” (IFC), which provides help to the private sector and the “International Development Association” (IDA), which provides support to the world‟s poorest countries. 6.3. WTO The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the UN agency that works to promote free trade. For the purposes of this study we need to know on what basis WTO members are required to finance the WTO budget. The parameter used is the share in world trade. The Netherlands and Belgium with their respective share of 3.2 % and 2.2 % are mid-ranking players. Together with Luxembourg we see that they come out at a financing share of 5.55 %, which might not seem much, but in fact is the fourth largest share after the United States (12.2 %), China (9.9 % including Hong Kong) and Germany (8.8 %) and before Japan (4.8 %), the UK (4.6 %) and France (4.4 %). If the three Benelux countries were to join forces in the same way as they do in the IMF, they could significantly strengthen their political clout within the organizations considered above. 7. Diplomacy and Armed Forces For some years now the Benelux countries have been occupying the same buildings for their embassies and consulates in a number of countries. In particular this means that these countries use the same location for their diplomatic services. This allows considerable savings in logistics and security, as well as offering other benefit. An added advantage to this is the enhanced reputation in respect of third countries. As the three countries are sovereign in their international relations, the foregoing is the only possible course. On the other hand there is nothing to stop the Benelux countries agreeing among themselves to represent each other in different countries. In fact the project mimics similar initiatives by the “Nordic Council”, the association of the five Scandinavian countries. In recent years the Benelux countries have also participated in joint military operations both in an EU and NATO context. Belgium and the Netherlands have organized successful naval cooperation in the past few years. In view of the current budgetary strictures and the growing international threat, a joint Benelux army would certainly be worth giving political consideration. In 2015 though the Netherlands had a budget for defence of € 8,000 million while Belgium only allowed € 2,400 million for defence during the same period. The contribution of the Grand Duchy is of course only small and comes to about € 250 million. Nonetheless when we compare national defence spending per capita we observe the following:
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TABLE: VI MILITARY SPENDING (IN EUROS) - The Netherlands: - Luxembourg: - Belgium:
493 454 218
Source: own calculations This table shows that Belgium in particular has a structural problem in connection with its excessively low defence spending. Belgium would have to be prepared to put up more money if it was to start a joint army with the other two Benelux countries. A Benelux army has to be a realistic option, particularly as the vision of a European defence apparatus appears to be illusory, which is the result of the highly divided views of the member states on defence and the very significant political fact that both France and the United Kingdom wish to stay in control of their own defence. These two countries have the highest defence budgets in Europe with the UK spending about € 50,000 million a year and France spending roughly €40,000 million a year. Joint Benelux policies on defence would give the partner countries much more weight when it comes to making decisions about defence and synergies might be expected if the Benelux armed forces were to attend to protecting the airspace, ports and substantial commercial shipping of the Benelux. Finally a Benelux-wide defence organization would make budgetary sense as purchasing power could be concentrated and commensurate savings made. Financial benefits might also be expected for joint training and maintenance too. Nowadays the Luxembourg army is trained in Belgium and the two navies share their training. The joint administration of the military colleges is a possibility that could be realistically explored as well. 8. Towards a Benelux Union? The new Benelux treaty of 2010 speaks from now on of a “Union” and that has to do with the fact that the powers of the Benelux now cover more than the traditional economic matters of the past. Further to the political analysis of potentially greater Benelux cooperation this article concentrates on the role of the Council, the Parliament and new powers and the relationship with existing institutions. 8.1. Council of Ministers At present the Benelux is administered by a Council of Ministers. This is its supreme decisionmaking body and when constituted in its completest form it includes the three heads of government. Ways of enhancing cooperation could include a permanent presidency, which could for example be rotated among the member countries every two years. The Council will of course continue to be assisted by the Benelux Secretariat. The latter could then be given much greater significance by allowing it to carry out the routine coordination of cooperation between the institutions concerned. Closer cooperation of this kind should also be given a political face via the Presidency. Language use in the Benelux is limited to the three official national languages (German, French and Dutch) and this has proved to be practicable. Here we might recall that far fewer languages are involved than within the EU or NATO. 8.2. The Benelux Parliament
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Apart from the Council there is also the Benelux Parliament, which admittedly is indirectly constituted by the various representative organs of the three member states. In this respect there is undoubtedly a certain democratic deficit. The new treaty of 20 January 2015 does in fact extend the powers of this Parliament but they remain limited compared to a “real” Parliament. This of course has to do with indirect composition, and that there is no policy expenditure in the context of the Benelux and that this Parliament thus cannot approve a budget. To take an example the European Parliament had to fight for years to with the right to have a say on the EU budget. At present the Benelux budget stands at about € 8 million, which comes from grants from the three national budgets to cover the operating costs of the Secretariat and also those of the Parliament. It is not necessarily a disadvantage that the Parliament is indirectly elected. The advantage is that there continues to be a link to the sensibilities of the national Parliaments. The composition of Belgium‟s delegation is also linked to the federal structure of the kingdom. The political factions sitting in the Parliament are relatively similar in each of the three countries. As a result the ideological differences in the electoral landscape are still present, but the existing parties are usually the same. This would definitely facilitate the political administration of the Benelux. 8.3. New Powers At present there are a number of typical Benelux powers relating to the Benelux Court, the Office of Intellectual Property Rights and police cooperation, etc. As already mentioned above defence seems to be one of the most obvious candidates for Benelux level administration. The Benelux Parliament would then be able to express its opinion on a budget of over € 10,000 million, subject of course to Belgium making a much greater financial effort in this respect. Naturally the defence interests and diplomatic policies of the three countries are not the same. Placing these under the Benelux flag could have an integrating effect in this respect. In practice there would be a single general staff for the armed forces. The needs and objectives of the latter would then be translated into policy objectives by a Benelux Minister of defence. The latter post could also be complemented by a Benelux Minister for Diplomacy, the political institutions referred to above and for finance. The latter person would then represent the Benelux and administer the votes in the aforementioned financial institutions. Furthermore this Benelux Minister of Finance would have to manage the relevant budget and be the figure representing the Benelux in the Eurogroup. As a result there would also be several appointments as Benelux minister to be shared among the three countries. Are there other powers that it would be better to implement at Benelux level? The first that springs to mind is the customs service, an important service in a region with so many external borders. Others too are definitely worth considering, such as the railways, and finally there is the old dream of a single large Benelux aviation company, which would certainly yield economic advantages in view of the complementarity between the airports at Schiphol and Zaventem. 8.4. Existing Institutions Pushing Benelux cooperation forwards would create a new element on the political and diplomatic landscape and the question arises of whether this would cause problems in connection with existing institutions. The three Benelux countries all belong to the Schengen Area, the eurozone, as well as to the EU, the EER and NATO. As a result no significant problems should be forthcoming. The only difference will be that within the political space of the EU, three countries will start a programme of intense cooperation. With respect to NATO, three of the countries who already cooperate in military matters would go about establishing a joint army.
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9. Conclusion This article has tried to determine the value of joint Benelux action both within Europe and internationally. Joint Benelux initiatives have already had some success with respect to shared diplomatic missions, naval cooperation and within the IMF. In the above we have shown that such cooperation could also have a positive effect in many other European and international bodies. Cooperation would give the Benelux countries greater weight in the formation of policy and would allow the region to claim more senior positions within European and international institutions. The economic strength of the Benelux is confirmed by its significant share in the financing of the EU budget from customs duties and its position in the WTO. The GDP and particularly the GDP per capita underlines the prosperity and economic significance of the Benelux countries. In view of the tense strategic situation in and around Europe, the Benelux structure offers both a politically and budgetary attractive alternative in the form of a joint military apparatus. The United Kingdom of the Netherlands came into being two hundred years ago (1815) as a result of the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo. On 21 September 1815, Willem I was able to declare himself the first king of this decentralized state with the monarch retaining very significant powers. Today, the Benelux offers a viable alternative for bettering the situation of the three countries in a landscape marked by a globalized economy, political strains on Europeâ€&#x;s borders and a European Union that is unable to progress, offering only harmonization project after harmonization project, all of which lead only to a lamentable levelling down. An advantage of the Benelux is also the fact that this institution can produce faster results then the present standstill of the European Union. References Benelux , 50 jaar samenwerking / RĂŠgards sur le Benelux, Tielt:Lannoo, 1994. Benelux , Werkprograam 2013-2016. Budgets of all the treated institutions EU budget 2016, official Journal L edition nr. 48, 24 febr. 2016. MATTHIJS, H. ( 2015). De toekomst van de Belgische defensie: een Benelux leger ? Verslag experten toekomst Belgische defensie. Brussel. P. 145-160. MATTHIJS, H. ( 2016). Internationale Economische Instellingen: Benelux ( hoofdstuk / chapter 13 ). Gent university : acco editions, p. 107-111. ROOD, J. ( 2011). Benelux samenwerking: hopen tegen beter weten in ? Internationale spectator, 65 (5), 260-263.
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