(Redirected from World Systems Theory)'World-systems analysis' is not a
theory, but an approach to social analysis and
social change developed principally by
Andre Gunder Frank and
Immanuel Wallerstein, with major contributions by
Samir Amin,
Giovanni Arrighi, Christopher Chase-Dunn,
Peter Turchin,
Andrey Korotayev,
Janet Abu Lughod, Tom Hall, and others. World-systems analysis is derived from two key intellectual sources, the
neo-Marxist literature on
development and the
French Annales School (especially
Fernand Braudel).
Wallerstein's version of the world-system approach
The most well-known version of the world-system approach has been developed by Immanuel Wallerstein.
Wallerstein analyses the World System as follows: "A
system is defined as a unit with single division of labour and multiple cultural systems."
In Wallerstein’s 1987 publication, ''World-System Analysis'', he disavows the term "world-system theory." He proclaims that "World-systems analysis is not a theory about the social world, or about part of it. It is a protest against the way in which social scientific inquiry was structured for all of us at its inception in the middle of the
nineteenth century." He goes on to lay out seven common assumptions of modern
social science challenged by world-systems analysis. Paraphrasing, these include the following assumptions:
# ''The '
disciplines' of modern
social science are intellectually
coherent groupings of subject matter that refer to discrete '
logics.' World-systems analysis calls for a unidisciplinary historical social science, and contends that the modern disciplines, products of the 19th century, are deeply flawed because they are not separate logics, as is manifest for example in the de facto overlap of analysis among scholars of the 'disciplines.'
# ''History is the study of events (the
ideographic approach) and social science discovers
universal rules of human/social behavior (the
nomothetic approach).'' Wallerstein writes that "World-systems analysis offers the
heuristic value of the ''
via media'' between trans-historical generalizations and particularistic narrations...It argues that the optimal method is to pursue analysis within systemic frameworks, long enough in time and large enough in space to contain governing 'logics' which '
determine' the largest part of
sequential reality, while simultaneously recognizing and taking into account that these systemic frameworks have beginnings and ends and are therefore not to be conceived of as 'eternal' phenomena."
# ''Modern countries or '
states' are societies, or there is a
society underlying each state.'' World-systems analysis argues that modern states have never been societies, but are the political units of modern society's interstate system and
economy. In Wallerstein's view, there have been three kinds of societies across human history: mini-systems or what anthropologists call bands, tribes, and small chiefdoms, and two types of world-systems (single state world-
empires and multi-polity world-economies). World-systems are larger, and ethnically diverse. Modern society, called the "modern world-system" is of the latter type, but unique in being the first and only fully capitalist world-economy to have emerged, around
1450 -
1550 and to have
geographically expanded across the entire planet, by about 1900.
# ''
Capitalism is a system based on
competition between
free producers using
free labor with free commodities, 'free' meaning its available for sale and purchase on a
market. Situations in countries that deviate from this definition, such as the "communist" or "socialist" countries, and "Third countries", are not yet capitalist.'' World-systems analysis argues that capitalism, as a historical social system, has always integrated a variety of labor forms within a functioning division of labor (world-economy). Countries do not have economies, but are part of the world-economy. Far from being separate societies or worlds, the world-economy manifests a tripartite division of labor with core, semi-peripheral, and peripheral zones. In core zones
businesses, with the support of states they operate within, monopolize the most profitable activities of the
division of labor. In recognizing a tripartite pattern, world-systems analysis criticized
dependency theory with its
bimodal system of only cores and peripheries. There are many ways to attribute a specific country to the core, semi-periphery, or periphery. Using an empirically-based sharp formal definition of "
domination" in a two-country relationship, Piana in 2004 defined the "core" as made up of "free countries" dominating others without being dominated, the "semi-periphery" as the countries which are dominated (usually—but not necessarily—by core countries) while at the same time they dominate others (usually in the periphery)and "periphery" as the countries which are dominated. Based on 1998 data, the full list of countries in the three regions—together with a discussion of methodology—can be found
here.
# ''The late 18th and early 19th centuries marked a great turning point in the development of capitalism in that capitalists achieved state-societal power in the key states which furthered the industrial revolution marking the rise of capitalism.'' World-systems analysis contends that capitalism as a historical system formed earlier, that countries do not "develop" in stages, but rather the system does, and these events have a different meaning as a phase in the development of historical capitalism; namely the emergence of the three ideologies of the national developmental mythology (the idea that countries can develop through stages if they pursue the right set of policies): conservatism, liberalism, and radicalism.
# ''Human history is progressive and inevitably so.'' World-systems analysts, along with anthropologists, argue that the historical evidence suggests the contrary, that human societies have become increasingly unequal. The reason for the belief otherwise is precisely that modern social science emerged in the core zones, which contain about 20% of the modern world-system's population but controls about 80% of its wealth, which has expanded as inequality and power polarization has increased as a trend of the system.
# ''Science is the search for rules which summarize most succinctly why everything is the way it is and how things happen.'' Wallerstein writes: World-systems analysis is a call for the construction of a historical social science that feels comfortable with the uncertainties of transition, that contributes to the transformation of the world by illuminating the choices without appealing to the crutch belief in the inevitable triumph of good. World-systems analysis is a call to open the shutters that prevent us from exploring many areas of the real world. World-systems analysis is not a paradigm of historical social science. It is a call for a debate about the paradigm.
Developments of Wallerstein's approach
An article by Sobocinski (pages 8-9)
points to the relevance of even the simplest indicators - per capita GDP - to identify core, semi-peripheral, and peripheral countries, and notes that, as the areas "external" to the world system have disappeared over time, so also has there been a decrease in the percentage of the world's population that exists in peripheral countries, as defined in traditional developmental terms. Sobocinski's approach favors degree of proletarianization (described in Wallerstein's "Historical Capitalism") as an indicator of a country's status rather than degree of domination (as described above). Sobocinski indicates that economic trends seem to point to semi-peripheral status for the vast majority of the world's population, and the importance of internal inequalities (and internal colonialism) within such countries as a predominant concern over the near future, to likely be followed by the emergence of international class-based conflict on a global scale (rather than merely within selected nations and regions) as (per-capita) wealth inequalities between nations continue to decrease. Note that this sort of analysis is one of convenience, due to the ease of using data at the state level, although Wallerstein has pointed out that peripheral areas are not to be confused with peripheral states. Thus, one of the modern trends would seem to be the decline in peripheral states, in favor of a reemergence of peripheral areas within states - a kind of neo-"internal colonialism."
Originally Wallerstein distinguished two types of world-systems: "world-economies", systems of polities integrated within a single economy, and "
World-Empires" where a single polity dominated and integrated an economy.
New Developments of the World System Analysis
Abu Lughod's version
Janet Abu Lughod argues that a pre-modern World System extensive across Eurasia existed in the 13th Century prior to the formation of the modern world-system identified by Wallerstein.
Janet Abu Lughod contends that the
Mongol Empire played an important role in stitching together the Chinese, Indian, Muslim and European regions in the 13th century, before the rise of the modern world system.
[1] In debates, Wallerstein contends that her system was not a "world-system" because it did not entail integrated production networks, but was instead a vast trading network.
Contributions of Andre Gunder Frank, Christopher Chase-Dunn, Tom Hall, Andrey Korotayev, and others
Andre Gunder Frank goes even further and claims that a global-scale world system that includes Asia, Europe and
Africa has existed since the
4th millennium BCE.
[2] The center of this system was in
Asia, specifically
China.
Europe only prospered when Asian economy was in its contracting phase of
long-term economic cycle and Europe had access to virtually free
silver and
gold from the Americas. There was no
European miracle, Europe simply had geographical advantage in the
discovery of Americas. This contracting phase is now coming to an end and the center is moving back to Asia. In a joint critique, Wallerstein, Arrighi, and Samin attacked the empirical data of this argument.
Archaeologically too the idea of a World System was extended to the Late
Chalcolithic-
Early Bronze Age, looking at the period of dominance of ancient
Uruk, within the system that stretched from
Egypt to the
Indus.
These debates have seen a split in the identification of world-systems analysis and "world systems theory."
An important contribution to the study of the history of the World System was produced by
Christopher Chase-Dunn and Tom Hall who discovered a significant synchrony in the urban dynamics of the western and eastern parts of Afroeurasia starting from the 1st millennium BCE (Chase-Dunn, C., and T. Hall. Rise and Demise: Comparing World-Systems. Boulder, CO.: Westview Press, 1997). The possible mechanisms of this synchrony were analyzed by
Peter Turchin and Tom Hall (Turchin, Peter and Thomas D. Hall. 2003. Spatial Synchrony among and within World-Systems: Insights from Theoretical Ecology. Journal of World-Systems Research 9:37-66).
Modern applications of the theory have sought to incorporate the changing relations between the
First World and the
Second World with the collapse of the Soviet Union, describing attempts by the United States and Europe to "colonize" or "absorb" the Newly Indepenent States of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe into the New World Order.
David Lempert's description of
"Pepsi-stroika" builds on the
"Coca-colonization" theme.
Michael Burawoy has also focused on these transformations.
Looking at World Systems Theory (as distinct from world-systems analysis) from this perspective demonstrates similarity to the concept of the
Oecumene, used by cultural historians like
William McNeill. Historically World Systems Theory have been very useful as an antidote to the
exceptionalism of
Globalisation Theorists who argue that the current system is wholly without precedent in
world history.
References
See also
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Sociocybernetics
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General systems theory
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Social cycle theory
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Systems philosophy
★
Systems thinking
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War cycles
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List of cycles
External links
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Institute for Research on World-Systems
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Journal of World-Systems Research
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World-Systems Archive
★
Preface to ReOrient by Andre Gunder Frank
★
Andre Gunder Frank resources
★
The Modern World-System by Immanuel Wallerstein
★
Immanuel Wallerstein resources
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The African Crisis - World Systemic and Regional Aspects by Giovanni Arrighi
★
The Rise of East Asia in World Historical Perspective by Giovanni Arrighi
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Neo-marxist Political Economy
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Resilience, Panarchy, and World-Systems Analysis
★
A Dynamic Map of the World Cities' Growth
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