Missing the China Exit: A World-systems Perspective on the Ukrainian State

Author(s):  
Georgi Derluguian

Georgi Derluguian helps explain why Ukraine wound up with this oligarch problem in the first place, identifying the cause as a Ukraine’s peripheral position in the world economy and the failure of its elites to cooperate for a larger good during the critical moment of the USSR’s collapse. Here a comparison with China proves useful. Derluguian argues that China succeeded because its relatively simple state allowed its leaders to work together to orient the country toward the needs of the global economy, while the complexity of Soviet institutions (including its division into multiple federal units) made such cooperation much more challenging. After the USSR collapsed, various “violent entrepreneurs” were able to take advantage of the resulting chaos to their own advantage, becoming oligarchs or state-based predators that have vested individual interests in subverting reforms.

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-419
Author(s):  
Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz ◽  
Corey R Payne

Recent literature in the world-systems perspective has refocused attention on questions of ‘core’ and ‘periphery’ in historical capitalism, yet rarely critically examines the underlying assumptions regarding these zones. Drawing on a developing dataset on the world’s wealthiest individuals (the World-Magnates Database), we trace the development and expansion of sugar circuits across the Atlantic world from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries to explain how the sugar commodity chain leads us to rethink some prevailing notions of core and periphery. Namely, we challenge the notion that these zones consist of geographical spaces that, since very early in the development of the world-economy, became permanently specialized in the production of raw materials (periphery) or more sophisticated manufactures (core); and that labor forces have been trans-historically relatively free/better-paid in core activities and coerced/poorly-paid in peripheral ones. We argue that, prior to the nineteenth century, the world-economy is not only characterized by the uneven and combined emergence of various forms of labor exploitation, as usually argued within a world-systems perspective, but also one in which core-like and peripheral activities (that is, those providing access to relatively greater or lesser wealth) were not yet as clearly bounded geographically as they would become in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We find that a longue-durée analysis of sugar production by enslaved labor illustrates not merely processes of peripheralization, but of what we call coreification.


2013 ◽  
pp. 97-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Apokin

The author compares several quantitative and qualitative approaches to forecasting to find appropriate methods to incorporate technological change in long-range forecasts of the world economy. A?number of long-run forecasts (with horizons over 10 years) for the world economy and national economies is reviewed to outline advantages and drawbacks for different ways to account for technological change. Various approaches based on their sensitivity to data quality and robustness to model misspecifications are compared and recommendations are offered on the choice of appropriate technique in long-run forecasts of the world economy in the presence of technological change.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Gellert ◽  
Paul S. Ciccantell

Predominant analyses of energy offer insufficient theoretical and political-economic insight into the persistence of coal and other fossil fuels. The dominant narrative of coal powering the Industrial Revolution, and Great Britain's world dominance in the nineteenth century giving way to a U.S.- and oil-dominated twentieth century, is marred by teleological assumptions. The key assumption that a complete energy “transition” will occur leads some to conceive of a renewable-energy-dominated twenty-first century led by China. After critiquing the teleological assumptions of modernization, ecological modernization, energetics, and even world-systems analysis of energy “transition,” this paper offers a world-systems perspective on the “raw” materialism of coal. Examining the material characteristics of coal and the unequal structure of the world-economy, the paper uses long-term data from governmental and private sources to reveal the lack of transition as new sources of energy are added. The increases in coal consumption in China and India as they have ascended in the capitalist world-economy have more than offset the leveling-off and decline in some core nations. A true global peak and decline (let alone full substitution) in energy generally and coal specifically has never happened. The future need not repeat the past, but technical, policy, and movement approaches will not get far without addressing the structural imperatives of capitalist growth and the uneven power structures and processes of long-term change of the world-system.


Author(s):  
Руслан Гринберг ◽  
Ruslan Grinberg ◽  
Леонид Гринин ◽  
Leonid Grinin ◽  
Андрей Коротаев ◽  
...  

The modern deflationary phenomena in the western and global economy are attributed to the fact that currently it is at the downward phase of the fifth long K-wave. Deflation has always been typical for the depressive periods in economy; presently it also manifests itself as the world economy has turned global, yet it lacks any control mechanisms. The authors suppose that a new economic crisis will break out in the western economy in the second half of 2018–2019 and that the depressive and deflationary trends will continue for another number of years.


This volume documents the intellectual influence of the United Nations through its flagship publication, the World Economic and Social Survey (WESS) on its seventieth anniversary. Prepared at the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) and first published in 1948 as the World Economic Report (subsequently renamed the WESS), it is the oldest continuous post-World War II publication of this kind, recording and analysing the performance of the global economy and social development trends, and offering relevant policy recommendations. This volume highlights how well WESS has tracked global economic and social conditions, and how its analyses have influenced and have been influenced by the prevailing discourse over the past seven decades. The volume critically reflects on its policy recommendations and their influence on actual policymaking and the shaping of the world economy. Although world economic and social conditions have changed significantly over the past seven decades and so have the policy recommendations of the Survey, some of its earlier recommendations remain relevant today; recommendations in WESS provided seven decades ago seem remarkably pertinent as the world currently struggles to regain high levels of employment and economic activity. Thus, in many ways, WESS was ahead of the curve on many substantive issues. Publication of this volume will enhance the interest of the wider community of policymakers, academics, development practitioners, and members of civil society in the analytical work of the UN in general and UN-DESA in particular.


2000 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 727-754 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Chase-Dunn ◽  
E. Susan Manning ◽  
Thomas D. Hall

The world-systems perspective was invented for modeling and interpreting the expansion and deepening of the capitalist regional system as it emerged in Europe and incorporated the whole globe over the past 500 years (Wallerstein 1974; Chase-Dunn 1998; Arrighi 1994). The idea of a core/periphery hierarchy composed of “advanced” economically developed and powerful states dominating and exploiting “less developed” peripheral regions has been a central concept in the world-systems perspective. In the last decade the world-systems approach has been extended to the analysis of earlier and smaller intersocietal systems. Andre Gunder Frank and Barry Gills (1994) have argued that the contemporary global political economy is simply a continuation of a 5,000-year-old world system that emerged with the first states in Mesopotamia. Christopher Chase-Dunn and Thomas Hall (1997) have modified the basic world-systems concepts to make them useful for a comparative study of very different kinds of systems. They include very small intergroup networks composed of sedentary foragers, as well as larger systems containing chiefdoms, early states, agrarian empires, and the contemporary global system in their scope of comparison.


1998 ◽  
Vol 165 ◽  
pp. 35-42
Author(s):  
Nigel Pain

Developments in the Asian economies have clearly begun to be felt in the wider global economy in recent months. It has always been expected that the OECD economies would be affected by the aftermath of the capital market turmoil last year, although the timing and magnitude of the impact was difficult to predict. Domestic demand in the affected Asian economies has proved much weaker than expected, with the effects magnified by a continued downturn in Japan. GDP fell by 5¾ per cent in Korea in the first quarter of this year and by 1¼ per cent in Japan. The aggregate volume of merchandise imports in Asia is expected to decline by around 5½ per cent this year, with falls of up to 25 per cent in countries such as Korea, Thailand and Indonesia. This largely accounts for our projected decline in world trade growth to under 6 per cent this year from an estimated 9¾ per cent in 1997.


Author(s):  
Oksana Melnichuk

The relevance of the study is due to the growing role of services in the world economy. Trade in services has become the dominant driver of economic growth and development in both developed and developing economies. Since the 1980s, data suggest that there is a stronger relationship between trade in services and gross domestic product (GDP) than in the case of commodity growth and GDP. It is noted that the quality of policies, regulations and institutional frameworks is a key factor in determining the effectiveness of services. As services are increasingly subject to liberalization through multilateral and regional trade agreements, it is important that countries develop harmonized approaches to internal regulation and trade liberalization in the services sector. The article identifies the features and characteristics of the service sector as a factor of multifaceted development and growth. The dynamics of international trade in services by geographical structure and types of development of countries is studied on the basis of statistical data of international organizations, taking into account the impact of the pandemic. It is noted that international trade in services is becoming an increasingly important part of global commerce. The problematic aspects of the activity of small business entities to enter foreign markets of services are considered. The issue of urgency of digital economy development for the sphere of services and contribution to world markets is outlined. Opening up the services sector has the potential to bring great benefits and deserves more attention. Further prospects for the realization of entrepreneurial potential in a comprehensive global economy are outlined. It is noted that services are an important part of the world economy, generating more than two-thirds of world gross domestic product (GDP), attracting more than three-quarters of foreign direct investment in developed economies, and creating most of new jobs worldwide. Establishing effective coordination mechanisms between trade negotiators, policymakers and regulators will be an important tool for the development of the global economy.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (199) ◽  
pp. 9-17
Author(s):  
V.A. Noskov ◽  

The purpose of the publication is to assess the world experience of post-industrial development and deindustrialization in the economies of both developed and developing countries. The importance of the crisis of the post-industrial paradigm for the development of the world economy, the application of this experience in the process of import substitution and the unfolding reindustrialization in Russia is noted. The analysis of the world experience of post-industrial development and deindustrialization of the economy, its macro-regional features is carried out in the context of maintaining and developing Russia's economic security. The author's understanding of the problems and prospects of the development of import substitution and reindustrialization processes in the world is proposed. Import substitution is considered as part of the strategy of economic development and ensuring the national security of the country. It is proposed to build recommendations for improving the policy of import substitution and reindustrialization carried out by Russia, taking into account the author's developments.


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