“The Fruits of Citizenship: African Americans, Military Service, and the Cause of Cuba Libre”

The London School of Economics

A relatively new International Standardization Organization committee is developing a consensus product that sets the broad contours of standardization in the field of governance relating to aspects of direction, control and accountability of organizations.    The foremost aim of international standardization is to facilitate the exchange of goods and services through the elimination of technical barriers to trade.  We find technical barriers to trade (TBT) a growing discussion in the education facility industry; especially in research universities that deal with highly specialized products in laboratories.  We see TBT issues show up purchasing regulations for federally-sponsored projects hosted on federally-sponsored facilities.

The strategic business plan of ISO/TC 309  is linked below:

Executive Summary ISO Technical Committee 309 (ISO/TC 309)

The US organization charged by the American National Standards Institute with administering the US Technical Advisory Group (US TAG) is the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS).  The INCITS committee will operate under the ANSI-accredited procedures for US TAGS.  Click here for more information about joining the US TAG or other INCITS committees.  Jennifer Garner is listed as the contact person (jgarner@itic.org).

We do not find any public commenting opportunities on this project at the moment — January of every year tends to be a slow time in the standards world — but continue to monitor it through INCITS.    We keep this committee’s work products on our International Standards monthly teleconference.   See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.

Issue: [18-157]

Category: Administration & Management, International, Finance, Academics, Public Policy

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Christine Fischer

Thomas Hobbes was a political philosopher who advocated for **absolute sovereignty** as the only way to ensure peace and security in a commonwealth¹². He believed that people in their natural state were in a constant state of war, and that they needed to surrender their rights and freedoms to a strong ruler who could protect them from violence and chaos³⁴. Therefore, Hobbes wanted **larger** government control, as he viewed government primarily as a device for ensuring collective security¹. He justified this by arguing that people consented to the authority of the sovereign in exchange for their safety⁵..

Thomas Hobbes’s philosophy of government is relevant today because it addresses some of the fundamental questions and challenges that modern societies face, such as:

• How to justify and limit the authority of the state over its citizens?
• How to balance the rights and duties of individuals in a social contract?
• How to deal with the threats of violence, anarchy, and civil war?
• How to promote peace, security, and cooperation among nations?

Hobbes’s answers to these questions may not be the same as ours, but they can stimulate our thinking and help us evaluate our own assumptions and arguments. Hobbes’s Leviathan is widely regarded as one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the history of Western thought, and it has inspired many thinkers and movements across different disciplines and ideologies.