scholarly journals Legitimation Crises in Premodern Worlds

1996 ◽  
pp. 254-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter N. Peregrine
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
North American ◽  
World System ◽  
World Systems ◽  
World System Theory ◽  
Pacific World ◽  
Legitimation Crisis ◽  
System Collapse ◽  
Starting Point

Scholars employing world-system theory have tended to examine how world-systemsdevelop and expand, while few have addressed the fragmentation or collapse of world-systems. This paper explores the conditions of world-system collapse using Habermas's concept of legitimation crisis as a starting point. The paper posits that legitimation crises are a recurring problem in world-systems and have led to collapse in a number of cases. Prehistoric North American and Pacific world-systems are used as examples.

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.

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.

Graduate employment in higher education: applying bibliometrics to world-system theory

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Meihua Zhu ◽  
Chao-Yu Guo ◽  
Angela Yung-Chi Hou ◽  
Mei-Shiu Chiu
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
System Theory ◽  
World System ◽  
World System Theory ◽  
Graduate Employment

scholarly journals The agent-structure problem in international relations theory

1987 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander E. Wendt
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
International Relations ◽  
World System ◽  
Structuration Theory ◽  
System Structure ◽  
World System Theory ◽  
Structure Problem ◽  
State Agents ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Agent Structure

While neorealism and world-system theory both claim to be “structural” theories of international relations, they embody very different understandings of system structure and structural explanation. Neorealists conceptualize system structures in individualist terms as constraining the choices of preexisting state agents, whereas world-system theorists conceptualize system structures in structuralist terms as generating state agents themselves. These differences stem from what are, in some respects, fundamentally opposed solutions to the “agent-structure” or “micromacro” problem. This opposition, however, itself reflects a deeper failure of each theory to recognize the mutually constitutive nature of human agents and system structures—a failure which leads to deep-seated inadequacies in their respective explanations of state action. An alternative solution to the agent-structure problem, adapted from “structuration theory” in sociology, can overcome these inadequacies by avoiding both the reduction of system structures to state actors in neorealism and their reification in world-system theory. Structuration theory requires a philosophical basis in scientific realism, arguably the “new orthodoxy” in the philosophy of natural science, but as yet largely unrecognized by political scientists. The scientific realist/structuration approach generates an agenda for “structural-historical” research into the properties and dispositions of both state actors and the system structures in which they are embedded.

The World-System Theory of Oliver C. Cox

1985 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert M. Hunter
Keyword(s):  
System Theory ◽  
World System ◽  
World System Theory ◽  
The World
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