Editorial Introduction to the Symposium on Giovanni Arrighi’s Adam Smith in Beijing

2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-38
Author(s):  
Liam Campling
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
World System ◽  
Editorial Introduction ◽  
Modern World ◽  
World Systems ◽  
World Systems Theory

AbstractGiovanni Arrighi (1937‐2009) was a leading figure in the development of world-systems theory and also contributed to a range of debates in Marxist thought. This symposium engages with Arrighi’s last book, Adam Smith in Beijing, which was the final instalment in his ‘trilogy’, following The Long Twentieth Century (1994) and Chaos and Governance in the Modern World System (with Beverly Silver, 1999). This Editorial Introduction traces the broad trajectory of Arrighi’s ‘trilogy’ and its concern with systemic cycles of accumulation, highlights additional major contributions by Arrighi, and sketches some of the central arguments of the five symposium articles.<xref ref-type="fn" rid="FN0">*</xref>

Geographic Perspectives on World-Systems Theory

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Flint
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Political Geography ◽  
World System ◽  
The Body ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
World Systems ◽  
World Systems Theory ◽  
Politics Of Place ◽  
Macro Scale ◽  
The World

World-systems theory is a multidisciplinary, macro-scale approach to world history and social change which emphasizes the world-system as the primary (but not exclusive) unit of social analysis. “World-system” refers to the inter-regional and transnational division of labor, which divides the world into core countries, semi-periphery countries, and the periphery countries. Though intrinsically geographical, world-systems perspectives did not receive geographers’ attention until the 1980s, mostly in economic and political geography. Nevertheless, geographers have made important contributions in shaping world-systems perspectives through theoretical development and critique, particularly in the understanding of urban processes, states, and geopolitics. The world-systems theory can be considered as a sub-discipline of the study of political geography. Although sharing many of the theories, methods, and interests as human geography, political geography has a particular interest in territory, the state, power, and boundaries (including borders), across a range of scales from the body to the planet. Political geography has extended the scope of traditional political science approaches by acknowledging that the exercise of power is not restricted to states and bureaucracies, but is part of everyday life. This has resulted in the concerns of political geography increasingly overlapping with those of other sub-disciplines such as economic geography, and, particularly, with those of social and cultural geography in relation to the study of the politics of place.

scholarly journals Contemporary Intra-Core Relations and World Systems Theory

2004 ◽  
pp. 471-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Gowan
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Small Region ◽  
The United States ◽  
Modern World ◽  
World Systems ◽  
World Systems Theory ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Us ◽  
Core Dynamics ◽  
Capitalist World

This paper focuses upon one small region of World-Systems Theory (wst) but one that is important for analysis of the contemporary world: the dynamics of intra-core relations.I will try to address three questions: 1. Does the wst theory of the historically cyclical patterns of intra-core relations provide us with a persuasive framework for understanding contemporary core dynamics? 2. More specifically can the reach and depth of the power of the United States within the contemporary core be captured by wst’s theory of capitalist hegemons and their rise and decline? 3. Is wst’s insistence that its concept of core-wide world empires cannot be established in the modern world system valid? In addressing these issues, I will begin by outlining the general approach of wst to the analysis of intra-core relations, focusing in particular upon wst’s concept of core hegemons and their rise and fall. I will then look at the arguments of wst as to why a capitalist world empire is impossible. I will then go on to examine how we might conceive of the victory of a World-Empire. And I will then turn to examine the contending situation and the character of the power of the US today.

scholarly journals Commentary on "Leadership, Production, and Exchange: An Evaluation of World-Systems Theory in a Global Context"

1996 ◽  
pp. 444-455
Author(s):  
Darrell Lalone
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
World System ◽  
World Systems ◽  
World Systems Theory ◽  
Global Context ◽  
World System Theory ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
The World ◽  
Intersocietal Interaction

As we expand and extend our applications of world-system theory, as we explore the shifting interplay between cores and peripheries, as we see boundaries emerge and dissolve, we also fix world-systems theory itself on the map table. What is its core? What are its peripheries, or would it claim that all human interactions fall within its sway?Thomas Hall, for example, does not take quite the entire map, but takes "intersocietal interaction" as the world-systems domain.

scholarly journals The New Hegemon? Contingency and Agency in the Asian Age

2009 ◽  
pp. 220-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Bair
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
World System ◽  
Financial Sector ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Longue Duree

Adam Smith in Beijing is an ambitious sequel to the work that is widely regarded as Giovanni Arrighi’s most important, The Long Twentieth Century. Much like this earlier book, Adam Smith in Beijing is a long, sweeping and provocative exploration of capitalism’s past, present, and future. In The Long Twentieth Century, Arrighi analyzed the 700 year history of the modern world system as a series of cycles of accumulation, each of which occurred under the auspices of a hegemonic power, and each of which included a period of material expansion followed, late in the cycle, by a shift in the locus of capital accumulation to the financial sector. Arrighi’s analysis of four successive regimes—the Genoese, Dutch, British, and U.S.—drew on Braudel’s concept of the “autumn of a hegemonic system,” which refers to the period of financial expansion marking the maturation of a particular regime of accumulation and its eventual displacement by a new one. This perspective enabled Arrighi to understand the financialization of the world economy, proceeding apace at the time under then-President Clinton, in the context of the longue durée in which one (declining) hegemon’s autumn is another (rising) hegemon’s spring.

Dependency and World-Systems Perspectives on Development

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ray Kiely
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Development Strategy ◽  
Import Substitution ◽  
World System ◽  
World Systems ◽  
World Systems Theory ◽  
The Development Strategy ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein ◽  
World Systems Analysis

This essay focuses on two related “radical theories” of development, dependency and world-systems theory, and shows how they emerged as a critique partly of modernization theory and of the development strategy of import substitution industrialization. The dependency and world-systems perspectives on development were very influential among radical development theorists from the late 1960s onwards, all of whom agreed that capitalism had to be theorized as a world-system. These include Andre Gunder Frank, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Theotonio Dos Santos, Walter Rodney, Samir Amin, Arghiri Emmanuel, and Immanuel Wallerstein. Some “stronger” versions of dependency, associated with underdevelopment and world-systems theory, have been introduced in recent years. In particular, A. G. Frank proposed the idea that development and underdevelopment are two sides of the same coin. A more nuanced approach to understanding dependency suggested that development and dependence were in some respects compatible. Wallerstein’s world-systems theory has spawned another approach called world-systems analysis. As theories, the ideas associated with both dependency and the world-systems are problematic, failing, for example, to adequately explain the origins of the capitalist world economy. However, both theories remain useful for understanding the current global order. In addition to recognizing that capitalism can in some respects be regarded as a world-system, the two approaches correctly assume that neoliberalism reinforces hierarchies by undermining the capacities of states to shift out of low value production into higher value sectors, as shown by historical patterns of manufacturing.

Understanding the Global–Local Nexus in the Context of the Olympic Games: Implications for Managing Community Development Through Sport Megaevents

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
NaRi Shin ◽  
Jon Welty Peachey
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Olympic Games ◽  
Host Community ◽  
World Systems ◽  
World Systems Theory ◽  
Winter Olympics ◽  
Global Standards ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Diverse Data ◽  
The Olympic Games

In this study, the authors sought to understand the influence of the Olympic Games on a host community’s globalization and development using world-systems theory and theories of globalization (i.e., glocalization and grobalization). The host community for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics (Daegwallyeong-myeon in South Korea) was the focus of this investigation. Using a global ethnographic approach, the authors collected diverse data through interviews, observations, archival and media documents, and field notes. Findings identified five key themes: (a) perception of underdevelopment, (b) the Organizing Committee’s institutional management of the global standard, (c) the Organizing Committee’s role as a negotiator between the global standard and the locality, (d) resident perspectives on global standards and regulations, and (e) aspirations to globalize Daegwallyeong-myeon. Through this study, the authors advance the use of world-systems theory and expand the concept of grobalization in the context of sport megaevent management by discussing global–local configurations and local agents’ desires to transform the community through Olympic-driven development and globalization.

The Marxist Critique of International Political Theory

2018 ◽  
pp. 651-663
Author(s):  
Andrew Davenport
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Systems Theory ◽  
International Politics ◽  
World Systems ◽  
World Systems Theory ◽  
Modern Politics ◽  
International Political Theory ◽  
The Status ◽  
Leading Schools ◽  
Normative Issues

Marxism’s critique of International Political Theory (IPT) is not of specific themes but of how the latter understands international politics generally. Where IPT typically focuses on ethical and normative issues and problems of justice, Marxism has always given priority to capitalism and class, which it regards as fundamental to modern politics and as inadequately recognized within IPT. Marxism therefore rejects the view of the international as a shared “societal” space open to negotiation and compromise, and instead emphasizes irreconcilable conflict and exploitation. Through its leading schools of Imperialism, World Systems Theory, and Neo-Gramscian theory, Marxism has provided accounts of international politics that strongly contrast with the concerns of IPT. However, a potentially more far-reaching line of critique, drawing upon Marx’s analysis of liberal forms, remains undeveloped because Marxism has not yet clarified the status of the international within its theoretical space.

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