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Merits’ of Merit

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Author Affiliations

  • 1Political Science, City University, Mogadishu, Somalia
  • 2Department of Politics and International Relations, Pondicherry University, Puducherry, India

Int. Res. J. Social Sci., Volume 5, Issue (3), Pages 52-58, March,14 (2016)

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to understand the concept of merit, and it tries to address its surrounding attributes like what constitutes merit, how merit is calculated, how merit is acquired in a particular socio-economic and political environment, how merit merits the prospects of an individual or group, and how demerit diminishes the same prospects etc. Various merit related arguments like meritocracy, hard work pays out, equal opportunities, merit based justice or allocation of resources, merit as means, and merit as a measurement to measure things etc. are critically looked at. The paper attempts to present different socio-economic and political reasons for merit in a critical manner. The paper tries to look at merit from the perspective of natural resources that groups or societies inherit, and how these resources shape the merit of these groups or societies. Similarly, the paper also attempts to understand the role of inheritance of individuals and the role of inherited assets or liabilities in shaping the merit of the individuals. The paper tries to uncover whether merit leads to means or is it the vice versa i.e. whether means lead to merit.

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