Capitalism, Structural Crisis and Contemporary Social Movements: An Interview with Immanuel Wallerstein

2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-335 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaël Curty
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Systems Analysis ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Political Action ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Porto Alegre ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein ◽  
World Systems Analysis

Immanuel Wallerstein is internationally recognized as the founder of world-systems analysis and is highly regarded for his groundbreaking analysis of the capitalist world-economy. In this excerpted interview, Immanuel Wallerstein analyzes the contemporary struggles between social movements representing the ‘spirit of Davos’ and the ‘spirit of Porto Alegre’ and explores the possibilities for social and political action for more equality and democracy in the 21st century.

scholarly journals Population Dynamics in the Capitalist World-Economy

2014 ◽  
pp. 207-228
Author(s):  
Daniela Danna
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Systems Analysis ◽  
World Economy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Human Reproduction ◽  
Natural Fertility ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
World Systems Analysis

World-systems analysis has given scant attention to population dynamics. Overlooked are large-scale macrohistorical population trends and their microhistorical foundation on procreative decisions-decisions which are taken by a historically changing subject of procreation: local elders or other authorities, head(s) of the household, couples, and women. The discipline of demography is also not as helpful as it could be, given its basis in modernization theory, which fails to recognize intentionality in reproduction in pre-capitalist societies. It assumes a model of "demographic transition" from a state of "natural fertility" to a state of conscious family planning, while also treating mortality as independent of fertility Marxism recognized the importance of population as a source of labor for profit and capital accumulation. With its tools Sydney Coontz developed a demand for labor theory explaining in particular the decrease in the birth rate in England and the United States at the turn of the century This theory was f urther developed by anthropologists of the "mode of product ion and population pat terns " who, with other authors, offer useful theories and insights to advance world-historical research on population. This article explores connections between population dy namics and world-systems analysis. I explore six key questions at different levels of analysis, including: 1) Are there world-systems ' imperatives concerning human reproduction?; 2) Do human reproduction imperatives differ across world-systems.'?; 3) How do the (eventual) systems requirements get transmitted to households and individuals'?; 4) Why do people have children.'?; 5) Who is the subject of procreation decisions'?; and 6) How is the number of offspring chosen? Finally, I offer guidelines for applying the six questions to the capitalist world-economy.

World-Systems Theorizing

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
Systems Analysis ◽  
World Economy ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Mass Education ◽  
World Culture ◽  
Culture Theory ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The World ◽  
Capitalist World ◽  
World Systems Analysis

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Please check back later for the full article. World-systems theorizing has its roots in dependency theorizing and the critique of modernization theory, rejecting its claimed linear process of economic development for all nation-states. A founding premise of this work, established well before the advent of globalization studies, has been the need to take the world-system as the primary unit of analysis for understanding social reality and social change. As an approach for understanding systems of mass education, world-systems theorizing has taken on two broad trajectories. One of these, world-culture theory or neo-institutional analysis, has centered on identifying examples of global convergence at the level of education policy, explaining these in terms of a world culture of education that has spread across nation-states through their participation in international agencies and organizations. An alternative approach, world-systems analysis, takes the historical development and operation of the capitalist world-economy, across core, semi-peripheral, and peripheral zones of the world-economy, as the starting point for understanding the nature and function of mass education systems. This work includes the particular construction of knowledge structures and subject disciplines, and their function within the operation of the capitalist world-system. Where world-culture theory downplays the causal power of economic structures, world-systems analysis highlights the interaction between economics and an accompanying world cultural framework under historical capitalism, whose core features can account for the nature and purpose of education. Educational applications of contemporary world-systems analysis extend to work within the broader field of critical education to transform society. Specifically, these applications examine the potential for systems of mass education to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to understand existing social reality, to imagine more equal, just, democratic, and peaceful, alternative world-systems, and to take action toward their realization.

Coal's Persistence in the Capitalist World-Economy

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Gellert ◽  
Paul S. Ciccantell
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Ecological Modernization ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Coal Consumption ◽  
The World ◽  
Capitalist World Economy ◽  
Capitalist World

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.

scholarly journals Anthropocene Fiction and World-Systems Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 350-371
Author(s):  
Andrew Milner ◽  
James Burgann Milner
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Systems Analysis ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Distant Reading ◽  
Contemporary Science ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein ◽  
World Systems Analysis ◽  
Annales School

As developed by Immanuel Wallerstein and various co-thinkers, world-systems analysis is essentially an approach to economic history and historical sociology that has been largely indifferent to literary studies. This indifference is perhaps surprising given that the Annales school, which clearly influenced Wallerstein’s work, produced a foundational account of the emergence of modern western literature in Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin’s L’apparition du livre (1958). More recently, literary scholars have attempted to apply this kind of analysis directly to their own field. The best-known instances are probably Pascale Casanova’s La republique mondiale des lettres (1999), Franco Moretti’s Distant Reading (2013) and the Warwick Research Collective’s Combined and Uneven Development (2015). More recently still, Andrew Milner in Australia and Jerry Määttä in Sweden have sought to apply “distant reading” more specifically to the genre of science fiction. Milner’s model of the “global SF field” identifies an original Anglo-French core, supplemented by more recent American and Japanese cores, longstanding Russian, German, Polish and Czech semi-peripheries, an emergent Chinese semi-periphery, and a periphery comprising the rest of the world. This essay attempts to apply that model to what Adam Trexler has termed “Anthropocene fictions” and Daniel Bloom “cli-fi”, which we treat here as a significant sub-genre of contemporary science fiction.  

Trotsky or Wallerstein?

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mladen Medved
Keyword(s):  
State Formation ◽  
Systems Analysis ◽  
World Economy ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Habsburg Monarchy ◽  
Uneven And Combined Development ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
World Systems Analysis ◽  
Anomalous State

This article examines the potentials of world-systems analysis (WSA) and uneven and combined development (UCD) for the history of nineteenth-century Habsburg Monarchy by critically engaging with Andrea Komlosy’s account of the Monarchy, written from the perspective of WSA. It argues that Komlosy does not provide a consistent WSA interpretation of the Monarchy’s history by trying to analyze the Monarchy as a world-economy in its own right, thus excluding geopolitical dynamics and the world-economy. Furthermore, core-periphery relations within the Monarchy are dealt with in a contradictory fashion. Crucially, the quite anomalous state formation is not accounted for. The problematic account of state formation, it is argued, is due to the limitations of WSA. By taking a closer look at the genesis of the Austro–Hungarian Compromise, the article claims that UCD is better suited for explaining state formation in the Monarchy.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document