scholarly journals Towards a Democratic Theory of the World-System: Democracy, Territoriality, and Transnationalization

2000 ◽  
pp. 706-725
Author(s):  
Teivo Teivainen
Keyword(s):  
Systems Analysis ◽  
Democratic Theory ◽  
World System ◽  
Modern World ◽  
World Systems ◽  
The World ◽  
Collective Process ◽  
World Systems Analysis ◽  
Recurrent Theme

A concern for the possible futures of the modern world-system has been a recurrent theme of world-systems analysis. There has, however, been relatively little effort to think about these futures in terms of democratic theory. In this article, I will explore some of the issues that need to be tackled to take radical and cosmopolitan questions of democracy better into account in world-systems analysis. In particular, I will point out some problems that need to be confronted in the collective process of locating and making visible the politics of “nonpolitical” spaces, such as the ones constituted by transnational business communities and their corporate bureaucracies.

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 Puzzling Politics: A Methodology for Turning World-Systems Analysis Inside-Out

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-82
Author(s):  
Leslie C. Gates ◽  
Mehmet Deniz
Keyword(s):  
Systems Analysis ◽  
Political Process ◽  
World System ◽  
Historical Sociology ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
Social Bases ◽  
The World ◽  
World Systems Analysis ◽  
Inside Out

Can world-systems analysis illuminate politics? Can it help explain why illiberal regimes, outsider parties, and anti-immigrant rhetoric seem to be on the rise? Can it help explain any such nationalchanges that seem destined to shift how nations relate to world markets? Leading surveys of historical sociology seem to say no. We disagree. While there are problems with Wallerstein’s early mode of analyzing politicsin the capitalist world-system from the outside-in, historical sociologists have been too quick to dismiss world-systems analysis. We propose an alternative inside-out approach anchored in a methodology for selecting what to study: those national political transformations which constitute puzzling instances within a given world-historical political process. We recommend promising theoretical lineages to guide empirical research on the selected puzzle: those that specify the elite social bases of politics. We thereby  turn  world-systems  analysis  inside-out.  Our  inside-out  approach  advances  the  project  of  world-systems analysis as a methodology, rather than a theoretical prescription in several ways. First, it addresses an important but largely overlooked question: how to select what to study. Second, it devises a methodology that can, but does not have to, pair with the methodology of incorporated comparisons. Third, it offers a methodology that stimulates, rather than forecloses, theoretical flexibility and fresh interpretations of politics and the world-economy. We illustrate the strengths of this new approach with three books, two of which won the best book award from ASA’s Political Economy of the World System (PEWS) Section.

Democracy as an Antisystemic Movement in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China: A World Systems Analysis

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 385-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvin Y. So ◽  
Shiping Hua
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Systems Analysis ◽  
Third World ◽  
World System ◽  
World Systems ◽  
The World ◽  
World Systems Analysis ◽  
Future Work

Drawing on Wallerstein's recent depiction of the character and trends in antisystemic movements in the world system, the present study examines the origins, goals, constituents and outcomes of recent democratic movements in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. The analysis is congruent with Wallerstein's depiction of a lengthy historical sweep of social movements attempting to achieve central antisystemic goals, and with his supposition that the world system helps shape antisystemic movements. The analysis is less congruent with Wallerstein's depiction of the character of antisystemic movements in the Second and Third World. Generalizations regarding the causes of these movements, and their success or failure, are developed. Future work should attempt to integrate these generalizations into existing theories of social movements and democratization within a world systems context.

Changing Geopolitics of the World-System, 1945-2025

2006 ◽  
pp. 67-83
Author(s):  
I. Wallerstein
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Future Development ◽  
Systems Analysis ◽  
World Economy ◽  
World System ◽  
World Systems ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
The World ◽  
World Systems Analysis

The article considers evolution of the global geopolitical structure in the second half of the 20th century using world-systems analysis elaborated by the author. On the basis of historical evidence the author makes a forecast of future development of the world economy and geopolitics for the following twenty years.

scholarly journals Challenging the Global Apartheid Model: A World-Systems Analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilma A. Dunaway ◽  
Donald A. Clelland
Keyword(s):  
Systems Analysis ◽  
World System ◽  
World Systems ◽  
The World ◽  
World Systems Analysis

Using world-system concepst, this essay challenges the popular racial bifurcation of the world between whites and peoples of color.

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.

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.

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.

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