Poland as a periphery in Immanuel Wallerstein’s theory

The article presents the issue of peripheries and its reference to Poland’s position in the world-system concept of Immanuel Wallerstein. The article discusses problems related to international security of Poland. It also presents the perception of Poland as a peripheral country and, on the basis of theoretical considerations, argues for the possibility of viewing Poland as a semi-peripheral country. Publication financed under the project implemented in the Research Grant Program of the Ministry of National Defence of the Republic of Poland.

Civilisation approach in Russia and its historical evolution

The article examines the features of the evolution of the civilisational approach in Russia. The historical stages of the formation of the civilisational approach in Russian political thought, starting from the pre-revolutionary times and ending with the post-Soviet period, are considered. The works of N. Danilevsky, L. Gumilyov, A. Dugin, V. Tsymbursky are analysed. It is concluded that the civilisational approach in Russia was especially in demand due to the specific nature of Russia’s relations with the Western world and within the discussion about Russia’s belonging to European civilisation. In the perspective of the world-system analysis, the development of the civilisational paradigm in Russia was due to its being on the semi-periphery of the capitalist world-system. It has always complicated relations with the Western countries belonging the world-systemic core. The findings can be used within the study of the processes of formation of national and sociocultural identity in the post-Soviet space, as well as in teaching disciplines of the socio-humanitarian block (political science, history of political doctrines).

Terrorism in the Modern World-System: Towards the Problem of Prospects for Interdisciplinary Research

Introduction. The variety of approaches and topics in the study of terrorism, as well as the obvious difference in axiological grounds for assessing terrorist activity, allows the authors to raise the question of an interdisciplinary study of this problem. The authors understand terrorism as an illegal political confrontation in the struggle for power with the use of violence in order to intimidate or physically eliminate the enemy.Methodology and sources. The methodological basis of the work is the world-system concept of I. Wallerstein. The authors reveal the advantages of the world-system approach by comparing it with the paradigm of political realism in the theory of international relations. They indicate the boundaries of the paradigm of political realism, which operates at the level of the concepts of “States” and “International Coalitions”, while the phenomenon of terrorism includes structures at the level of groups and organizations. The world-systems approach allows researchers to see terrorism as an anti-system movement generated by the contradictions in the development of the system itself, to distinguish between pro-system and anti-system terrorism, to analyze this phenomenon at all societal levels. One of the essential advantages of the world-systems approach is its ability to accumulate different approaches and related disciplines in order to describe the dynamics of modern societies. In their theoretical constructions, the authors rely on the typology of terrorist organizations by O. Lizardo and A. Bergesen, as well as on the concept of waves of terrorism by D. Rapport. The authors conduct a critical analysis of the typology of terrorism by O. Lizardo, A. Bergesen and note that this typology helps to see the structural source (core, semi-periphery, periphery) and the main structural goal of terrorist organizations, but leaves behind such a phenomenon as state terrorism.Results and discussion. The authors describe terrorism in its interrelation with processes in the world system at different societal levels. At the super-macro level, the world-systems conditions for the emergence of waves of terrorist activity are described, and the links between terrorism and the struggle to establish a global order are indicated. At the macro level (the level of political confrontation for the establishment of some form of order within the state), the authors investigate the differences between terrorism in “closed” and “open” societies. They note the connection between bursts of terrorist activity and the transition from a “closed” to an “open” state and vice versa. The authors consider the connection of terrorism with the processes of the peripheralization of societies as a meso-level phenomenon. Such terrorism, as a rule, is local and is inspired by the national liberation slogans of the societies of the internal periphery, the authors note that the struggle with the state here can go for both sovereignty and disputed territories. The authors refer to the meso-level the activities of terrorist organizations aimed at migrants who come from the outer periphery. The authors note that the subject of terrorism research at the micro level is, as a rule, the personality of the terrorist.Conclusion. The use of a world-systems approach to consider terrorism seems promising, and allows researchers to consider structural relations that are not available to other approaches. The authors express the hope that the interdisciplinary capabilities of the world-systems approach, its methodological potential woul be able to form a reliable basis for subsequent studies of terrorism as one of the means of illegitimate political violence in the modern world.

Impact of Imperial Discourses on Changing Subjectivities in Core and Periphery: A Study of British India and British Nigeria

Eurocentric imperialism incorporated the non-European geographical region in the economic and political milieu of Europe and made the world a global whole. To Mitchel Foucault, the process started with endo-colonization of European people and advent of rational governance exercises experimented first in European states and later exported to non-western regions. The study aims to analyze the different outcomes of European governmentality in European core and non-European periphery and changing subjectivities and cognitions in non-European world with ruptures accompanied by European modernity. The theoretical frame and conceptual toolkit of Archaeology/Genealogy, Governmentality, Power/knowledge etc. are borrowed from Michel Foucault the postmodern historian of ideas. For analytical purpose, the concept of Archeological historicity is linked with World System approach as employed by Lenin and Immanuel Wallerstein. The analytical scheme is to describe events in longue durée from sixteenth century; record shifts in the core Europe, and parallel shifts in peripheral colonial/postcolonial world, to understand the material and discursive conditions of existence. The finding of research is that events and processes lead to different outcomes in core and periphery. A two-level comparison is made: the comparison of European Core with two peripheral regions, i.e., British India and British Nigeria and comparison of two peripheral regions incorporated in the world system as reservoirs of raw material and market

Toward a Realism of the World-System: John Lanchester’s Capital and the Global City

This essay explores how John Lanchester’s Capital adapts classical realism to represent the contemporary global city; it pays particular attention to how London’s position in the world-system disrupts Lukácsian totality. Because the novel attends to the complexity and extensiveness of the world-system, it depicts the city not as a representative totality but as embedded in the global circuits of capital, shaped by the influences of inward migration and global finance. In this the novel has affinities with many fictions of the global periphery, for instance portraying the city as at once socially fragmented and structurally connected. Furthermore, the novel departs from classical realism in its closure; though the 2008 financial crisis is omitted from the novel, it overshadows the entire plot, and its absence emphasizes the lack of finality in the story of this phase of capitalism itself. In demonstrating the temporal and spatial unknowability of contemporary capital, Lanchester’s novel both affirms the capacity of realism to trace deep systemic connections and reveals the fragility of its construction of a social totality, positing a realism attendant to its own perspectival limits within the world-system.