scholarly journals World-System and Evolution: An Appraisal

1996 ◽  
pp. 201-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas D. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
World System ◽  
Modern World ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Exchange Networks ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Intersocietal Interaction

This paper makes six arguments. First, socio-cultural evolution must be studied from a "world-system" or intersocietal interaction perspective. A focus on change in individual "societies" or "groups" fails to attend adequately to the effects of intersocietal interaction on social and cultural change. Second, in order to be useful, theories of the modern world-system must be modified extensively to deal with non-capitalist settings. In particular, changes in system boundaries marked by exchange networks (for information, luxury or prestige goods, political/military interactions, and bulk goods) seldom coincide,and follow different patterns of change. Third, all such systems tend to pulsate, that is, expand and contract, or at least expand rapidly and less rapidly. Fourth, once hierarchical forms of social organization develop such systems typically have cycles of rise and fall in the relative positions of constituent politics. Fifth, expansion of world-systems forms and transforms social relations in newly incorporated areas. While complex in the modern world-system, these changes are even more complex in precapitalist settings. Sixth, thesetwo cycles combine with demographic and epidemiological processes to shape long -term socio-cultural evolution.

Notes from the Editors, November 2019

2019 ◽  
pp. c2-64
Author(s):  
The Editors
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
World Economy ◽  
World System ◽  
Modern World ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Monthly Review ◽  
The World ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein

buy this issue Immanuel Wallerstein, the celebrated world-systems theorist and longtime contributor to Monthly Review and Monthly Review Press, died on August 31, 2019. Wallerstein first achieved international fame with the publication in 1974 of his The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (the first in a four-volume masterwork on the Modern World-System. We pay tribute to Wallerstein in this new issue of Monthly Review.

scholarly journals Piracy in a Contested Periphery: Incorporation and the Emergence of the Modern World-System in the Colonial Atlantic Frontier

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 542-564
Author(s):  
P. Nick Kardulias ◽  
Emily Butcher
Keyword(s):  
Systems Analysis ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
World System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
World Systems ◽  
World Systems Analysis ◽  
Distinct Line ◽  
Freedom Of Action

This article uses world-systems analysis to examine the role that pirates and privateers played in the competition between European core states in the Atlantic and Caribbean frontier during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Piracy was an integral part of core-periphery interaction, as a force that nations could use against one another in the form of privateers, and as a reaction against increasing constraints on freedom of action by those same states, thus forming a semiperiphery. Although modern portrayals of pirates and privateers paint a distinct line between the two groups, historical records indicate that their actual status was rather fluid, with particular people moving back and forth between the two. As a result, the individuals were on a margin between legality and treason, often crossing from one to the other. In this study we discuss how pirates and privateers fit into the margins of society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, also known as the Golden Age of Piracy, specifically using the example of Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard. The present analysis can contribute to our understanding not only of piracy, but also of the structure of peripheries and semiperipheries that in some ways reflect resistance to incorporation.

scholarly journals Nuclear War in the Rivalry Phase of the Modern World-System

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 348-371
Author(s):  
Robert A. Denemark
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
World System ◽  
Modern World ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
The Way

Large-scale war is a world-system phenomenon of the rivalry phase. Such conflicts have once again become a concern, and nuclear weapons make these prospects especially dangerous. This is particularly problematic since several world-systems perspectives suggest the chances for war will be greatest in the period from 2030 to 2050. I review the logic of rivalry, the reasons for the endurance of nuclear weapons, old and new nuclear strategies, and the processes that may pose the greatest existential dangers. Chase-Dunn and Podobnik (1995) identified processes that militate both in favor of and in opposition to nuclear war, and I pay particular attention to the way in which world-systems developments that increase the likelihood of major war have persisted, while those that retard the chances for major war have diminished. These dangers suggest that it may be time to turn some of our attention to the dynamics of systemic war and nuclear weapons.

scholarly journals Nomadism, Evolution and World-Systems: Pastoral Societies in Theories of Historical Development

2002 ◽  
pp. 368-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolay N. Kradin
Keyword(s):  
Central Asia ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
General Scheme ◽  
World System ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Pastoral Nomads

This article discusses the problem of categorizing the polities and social formations of steppe pastoral nomads in Central Asia in comparative and civilizational perspective and placing complex pastoral society within a general scheme of cultural evolution. It also discusses the role that these societies played in the emergence of a larger Eurasian world-system.

Framing Policing in the Secular Trend of Accumulation: from the State-Centric View of Globalization towards the Household in the Modern World-System

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 303-328
Author(s):  
Florence Molk
Keyword(s):  
Social Control ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Secular Trend ◽  
World System ◽  
The State ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Information Communication ◽  
Global Commodity Chains ◽  
Capitalist World Economy

Abstract Mainstream interpretation segments globalization as: (a) a self-regulating-market neoliberal reincarnation; (b) an innovative regime of information communication technology; or (c) a reorganization of production on a world scale. This segmented view, however, is predicated on the state and the police in the background. In contrast to the mainstream view, which fits globalization in a state-centric prism of the police, we argue that what is referred to as globalization is policing. Policing is founded on household structures that are in turn instituted in the global commodity chains. Accordingly, it is the most crucial element integrating social-identity, social control, and social relations in the modern world-system. Hence, the unfolding prominence of globalization is actually the increasing saliency of policing. It reflects the terminal crisis of the capitalist world-economy, putting pressure on the household structures and the secular trend of accumulation. It is in view of this that policing, under the guise of globalization, is the re-intensification of social control, isolation of social-identities, and reification of social-relations.

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>

scholarly journals The ‘Otter-Man’ Empires: The Pacific Fur Trade, Incorporation and the Zone of Ignorance

2002 ◽  
pp. 390-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon D. Carlson
Keyword(s):  
World System ◽  
Fur Trade ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Sea Otter ◽  
World Systems ◽  
European Contact ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Region I ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

This article examines the concept of the ‘external arena’, the relationship it holds to the expansion of the modern world-system, and the process of systemic incorporation. In order to address the notion of systemic expansion, I examine how boundaries of the system are de?ned by networks of exchange and interaction and I echo criticisms that information and luxury goods networks exert important systemic impacts. Signi?cant change occurs well prior to the point at which traditional world-systems literature considers an arena ‘incorporated’. The case of the sea-otter fur trade and the relationship with the natives of the Northwest coast of America is used as an example of these processes of change in action. This case isselected because there is no question that the area is ‘pristine’; initially it is outside the realm of European contact. This region characterizes a ‘zone of ignorance’ beyond the traditional world-system that must undergo a signi?cant ‘grooming process’ before incorporation is more fully expanded, and this process is partially operationalized by the use of historically contemporary maps. Finally, the case o?ers a good example of the impact that external regions can exert on internal systemic behavior, as European powers were pushed to the brink of war in their e?orts to exploit the resources and peoples of the Nootka Sound region. I conclude by o?ering a more developed conceptualization of the process of incorporation and related concepts.

scholarly journals INVIGORATING WORLD SYSTEM THEORY as CRITICAL THEORY: Exploring Philosophical Foundations and Postpositivist Contributions

1995 ◽  
pp. 243-294
Author(s):  
Kurt Burch
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
Social Studies ◽  
World System ◽  
Modern World ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Philosophical Foundations ◽  
World System Theory ◽  
Conceptual Distinction ◽  
Ideological Critique ◽  
Constitutive Principles

World system theory comprises two distinct lines of inquiry: macro-social studies of historical world-systems and ideological critique. World system theorists often shun ideological critique, but for two reasons I argue it must be foremost. First, without explicit attention to its philosophical foundations, world system theory rests upon several unexamined, uncomplementary, liberal premises. These premises pose conceptual puzzles. World system theorists frequently cast such puzzles as methodological, empirical, or theoretical problems, rather than as symptoms of ideological confusions requiring critique. Second, through explicit critique, theorists may transform implicit philosophical foundations into explicit ontological and epistemological groundings. Such groundings will enable world system theorists to better realize their critical, emancipatory goals and to resolve theoretical puzzles. One such puzzle -- the conceptual distinction between politics and economics -- recurs often, arising in the debates on the relation(s) between the state system and capitalism and thwarting efforts to demonstrate the unity of the world system. I suggest that world system theorists engage in explicit ideological critique to lay equally explicit ideologicalfoundations for their histories. I suggest a critical, conceptually historicist, "constructivist" approach that builds upon postpositivist critiques and introduces constitutive principles. I illustrate the virtue of this approach by demonstrating the unity of the modern world system.

The Modern World-System IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789–1914, Immanuel Wallerstein, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 273-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Khachaturian
Keyword(s):  
World System ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Modern World ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Alternative Mode ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific ◽  
Immanuel Wallerstein ◽  
World Systems Analysis ◽  
Systems Framework

AbstractThe book continues Immanuel Wallerstein’s historical narrative of the modern world-system. It focuses primarily on the social and political developments in the European core during the nineteenth century, tracing the rise of liberal hegemony, the growth of the administrative state, and the emergence of modern social science. It also examines the rise of anti-systemic socialist, feminist, and nationalist movements that challenged the liberal project. The book successfully illustrates how the world-systems framework can be used to analyse the intersection between the national and the international spheres. Through its historical critique of the human sciences, it also makes an effective case for the viability of world-systems analysis as an alternative mode of critical social-scientific inquiry.

Female and male song exhibit both parallel and divergent patterns of cultural evolution: A long-term study of song structure and diversity in tropical wrens

The Auk ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 138 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan A Graham ◽  
Daniel D Heath ◽  
Daniel J Mennill
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Term Study ◽  
Change Over Time ◽  
Long Term Study ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
Song Types ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Animal culture changes over time through processes that include drift, immigration, selection, and innovation. Cultural change has been particularly well-studied for animal vocalizations, especially for the vocalizations of male animals in the temperate zone. Here we examine the cultural change in the vocalizations of tropical Rufous-and-white Wrens (Thryophilus rufalbus), quantifying temporal variation in song structure, song type diversity, and population-level distribution of song types in both males and females. We use data from 10 microsatellite loci to quantify patterns of immigration and neutral genetic differentiation over time, to investigate whether cultural diversity changes with rates of immigration. Based on 11 yr of data, we show that the spectro-temporal features of several widely-used persistent song types maintain a relatively high level of consistency for both males and females, whereas the distribution and frequency of particular song types change over time for both sexes. Males and females exhibit comparable levels of cultural diversity (i.e. the diversity of song types across the population), although females exhibit greater rates of cultural change over time. We found that female changes in cultural diversity increased when immigration is high, whereas male cultural diversity did not change with immigration. Our study is the first long-term study to explore cultural evolution for both male and female birds and suggests that cultural patterns exhibit notable differences between the sexes.

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