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High-tech industry refers to the sectors characterized by innovative or complex technology and knowledge-intensive labor force. Research on the high-tech industries was driven by the powerful globalization dynamic since the 1970s in which labor-intensive industries shifted to less-developed regions while high-tech industries experienced rapid growth in the industrialized regions. Another force in geography is the disciplinary search for new location models or considerations beyond traditional transportation costs. Geographers have found that high-tech industry offers a fertile empirical ground to generate and test new theories of innovation, spatial agglomeration, and industrial organization under the globalized and post-Fordism contexts. Different theoretical approaches have developed to advance our understanding of the role of human resources, spatial clustering, interfirm networks, regional institutions, and the state in innovation and sustained regional competitiveness. High-tech industry also attracts attention from public policy makers in both developing and developed countries, each hoping these industries become engines for regional revitalization and growth. The studies of high-tech industry in geography, while productive, tend to be biased toward developed countries, even though some newly industrialized countries have shown considerable interest in or promise of technological catch-up. These studies also have the risk of overgeneralizing certain spatial dynamics over very different industrial sectors.

Major world agencies have identified a serious contemporary food insecurity problem, and sound even louder alarms that by the year 2050 around one billion people will be “food insecure.” The solution proposed by the World Bank in a 2012 Report is that the world grow significantly more food. Eyes certainly are on the us to remediate this problem by growing more livestock. Is “more food” the answer? This study uses World Bank data and path/structural equation modeling to determine the veracity of this position versus another. It is counter argued that food distribution and waste prevent food from reaching substantial segments of the world’s population. That is, the poor and dependent are unable to gain access to food that is privateered by governance systems that permit rulers and the wealthy to access food, and set food prices at unreachable levels for the poorest of the poor and, sometimes, even the middle class. Further, wages are set below the level needed to purchase basic food stuffs. The reaction has been food riots in countries ranging from Venezuela to the Middle East countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, Libya, and Egypt, among others.

© 2016 Elsevier Inc. This paper examines international relations as perceived by the public in their social media conversations. It examines over 1.8 billion Facebook postings in English and 51 million Chinese posts on Weibo, to reveal the relations among nations as expressed in social media conversations. It argues that social media represent a transnational electronic public sphere, in which public discussions reveal characteristics of international relations as perceived by a foreign public. The findings show that the international relations in social media postings match the core-peripheral structure proposed in the World Systems Theory. Additionally, the relations are associated with the amount of news coverage and public attention a country receives. Overall, the study demonstrates the value of webometric data in revealing how international relations are perceived by average citizens.

In Oceania, the very concept of Urban Education requires a broad, global framework to understand both its meaning and its historical impact within the region. ‘Urban’ experiences, as they are known in the North, are the exception in Oceania. Understanding the broader context helps frame the issue of Urban education more clearly. This section presents this re-framing through four different theoretical lenses: (1) from a historical postcolonial view, (2) from the perspective of understand mass education as part of a larger socio-economic world system, (3) from the perspective of social dynamics related to schooling within urban cities, and (4) from the perspective of those struggle to make schooling work for Indigenous peoples. Taking together, the essays document the need to understand the history, demography and geography which make Urban Education what it is today in Oceania.

This article explores the expansion of feminist ideas as both a conceptual and a political issue. It focuses on two major theories of social change, world culture theory (WCT) and world system analysis (WSA), comparing and contrasting how they frame gender as a factor shaping society, how they account for the diffusion of feminist ideas and how they assess the impact of gender norms on sociocultural outcomes. Through the examination of texts and research based on these theories, this article weighs the ability of the theories to meaningfully and justly recognise the place of gender politics within the dynamics of social change. Both WCT and WSA predict isomorphism in the way gender is framed in modern society, but their explanatory accounts traverse drastically different paths. One asserts a conflict-free diffusion of values, whereas the other, decidedly based on conflict, sees gender as emerging from resistance or anti-systemic movements. The article concludes with an assessment of the contribution and m...

Rosa Luxemburg's theory of capital accumulation can be regarded as having initiated the systematic study by Marxists of underdeveloped regions. From the standpoint of these regions, however, her analysis of the capitalist and non-capitalist realms has certain deficiencies. For example, it does not reflect the logical necessity of unequal exchange between capitalist and non-capitalist areas, and discussion of non-capitalist social initiatives remains absent. Luxemburg's views have some similarities with Dependency Theory and World–System Theory. But the latter differ from her analyses in terms of their background, perspective and theoretical dynamics.

Comparative studies developed late in the field of Ottoman and Turkish history and, when they did, that was due primarily to external influences: the impact of world system theory, the flowering of nationalism studies and the growth of empire studies that was triggered by the fall of the Soviet Union. The comparative methodologies employed have become progressively more sophisticated and because historians of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey are now increasingly asking “big” questions, they are able to use their empirical knowledge to contribute to broader debates and influence theoretical development.

This issue presents some of the most innovative and inspiring contributions to ‘Comparing Centres, Comparing Peripheries’, a 2012 British Comparative Literature Association postgraduate conference. 1 Since the title of the preceding postgraduate BCLA event, ‘Comparison Beyond the West’, may have appeared geographically prescriptive and polarizing, we sought keywords that would be inclusive, dynamic and with a critical edge. The terms ‘centres’ and ‘peripheries’, and the invitation to compare, did the trick: the event attracted forty speakers from various disciplinary backgrounds, who discussed a plethora of languages,regionsandphenomena.Somespeakersconjuredcomparisons claiming ‘the centre’ as the all-important yardstick; others privileged peripheral traffic, circumventing the centre; others scrutinized the scope and usage of the very terms ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’. Magnetic and multifaceted, ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ served us well as title keywords and it is around them that this issue is loosely based. Literary scholars have long used the words in their general meaning and we are acutely aware that the general usage escapes a succinct summary. In this brief introduction we survey only some examples of the relatively systematic and specialized usage of ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ in recent world literature and comparative literature debates that draw on world systems theory from political and economic sociology. Developed by Immanuel Wallerstein, the theory envisages the whole world, since at least the sixteenth century, as one capitalist economy ‘built on a worldwidedivisionoflabor,inwhichvariouszonesofthiseconomy([...] termed the core, the semiperiphery, and the periphery) [...] profited unequally from the working of the system’. 2 Before sketching how the theory, and the terms, have been harnessed in literary discussions, we note that the semi-specialized sense in

The interface between economic globalization and territorial formation has been a fundamental concern to scholars from a wide range of disciplines as both supra- and subnational configurations increasingly supplant the role of the nation-state so as to achieve purported political or economic objectives. Though extensive literatures document this process, considerable lacunae exist with regard to the understanding thereof within a socio-historical framework. This article invokes the concept of 'palimpsest' as a metaphor through which one reads the re-inscription of multiple layers of the built environment or territory vis-a-vis the widespread changes within Panama's 'transit corridor' - a densely settled territorial strip extending from the northern city of Colon to Panama City in the south. Though much of this transformation has been attributed to the newfound economic stability of the Panamanian state, I argue that these structural changes are best understood in the context of prior developments on the Isthmus of Panama dating back centuries. To this end, both structural and poststructural arguments are invoked so as to transgress a narrow focus on Panama as a fixed territorial entity.

In this article I discuss the nature of the current global systemic crisis in order to evaluate the likelihood of several possible futures in the next few decades. Employing a comparative world historical and evolutionary world-systems perspective, I consider how the constellation of antisystemic movements and challenging regimes are similar to, or different from, the challengers in earlier crisis periods. I use a structural analysis of social change to assess the probabilities of different outcomes, while acknowledging that the future, like the past, is somewhat open-ended and the somewhat unpredictable actions of individuals and groups can shift the probabilities that we are trying to estimate.

This paper deals with research findings regarding traditional and modern biomedical healthcare systems prevailing in the Village Zandra, District Ziarat in the province of Balochistan. An effort has been made to find out the medical system working in the village which included both beliefs and perceptions related to health and illness and also the activities which natives have adopted or developed to maintain and restore their health. Initially the natives were using traditional and spiritual healing systems, but now, as their economic condition and literacy rate are improving, they are more inclined towards the modern methods of treatment. During the last 3 decades, few changes have been witnessed. Shift from subsistence to market economy has increased the use of allopathic medicines due to the fact that the natives have started opting for secondary sources of income. Besides, researcher endeavored to explore the shift from traditional to modern healthcare and the disparity between natives’ health related beliefs and practices. The impact of these changes has been analyzed in light of world system theory at micro level. The data presented in this paper have been collected by using qualitative anthropological research techniques.

The present research was conducted in Zandra village of Ziarat district in the province of Balochistan. Anthropological research techniques were used to collect empirical data. In this article, an effort has been made to understand the natives’ cultural beliefs and practices in health care sector. The main focus of this research was to understand the nature of development, internal and external factors responsible for the changes and the actual beneficiaries of the development. An effort has also been made to find out the health care systems working in the village which included both faith healing and allopathic medicines. Initially the natives were using traditional and spiritual healing systems, but now as their economic condition and literacy rate are increasing, they are more inclined towards the modern methods of treatment. During the last 3 decades, many changes have been witnessed. Awareness through media and shift from subsistence to market economy have increased the use of allopathic medicines due to the fact that the natives have started opting for secondary sources of income. Besides, researcher’s endeavor to explore the shift from traditional to modern healthcare and the disparity between natives’ health related beliefs and practices, the impact of which has been analyzed in light of world system theory at micro level.

Purpose – Each day, many different people in different societies are striving within their daily work to advance society. Every society needs to create ideas for further development and in order to become recognised as developed. The purpose of this paper is to show how different cultures at different times created similar ideas and theories to develop their society. Design/methodology/approach – A comparison between the development theories of Ibn-i-Khaldun and Wallerstein's famous “world system theory” is undertaken to show that similar ideas of development were in existence even centuries before. Technically, seminar papers were posted and reviewed on an e-learning platform in order to reach such peer-reviewed assessment in a “Global Studies” curriculum. Findings – The paper shows that the similarity between all developed countries is a strong state and extensive economic activity in different areas among cooperative people. All of these three characteristics are measurable and visible in today's western societies, and also centuries before in other countries (the Golden Age of the Muslim World). Research limitations/implications – Limits to comparing the two development theories of Ibn-i-Khaldun with Wallerstein's world system theory arise because of the large gap in time and the big cultural differences between the authors of the two theories. There is, on one side, Ibn-i-Khaldun in the thirteenth century whose religion (Islam) played an important role in his development theory and on the other side there is a western author, Immanuel Wallerstein in the twentieth century. In Wallerstein's development theory, religion has almost no role. Another point is that Wallerstein's theory provides a guideline to almost all countries for reaching development but Ibn-i-Khaldun's target countries are the Muslim countries which were experiencing decline at his time. Originality/value – Unlike traditional approaches, the present analysis includes early scientific theories from non-European authors. Thus, one of the main objectives of “Global Studies” is fulfilled; namely a trans-disciplinary, globalised perspective.

In 1906/7 Moritz Bonn (1873–1965) set out to test Hobson's theory of Imperialism in southern Africa. His extensive analyses, published in the leading social science journal of the era and in pamphlet form, constitute the first systematic analyses of southern African societies. Bonn's experiences in the region also led him to become the first scholar to argue for the necessity and inevitability of decolonization; he also anticipated the rise of fascism. While Bonn was well known and well connected during the inter-war period, he is today virtually forgotten even among specialists. This paper offers an intellectual biography in order to understand how Bonn's first-hand experience of colonialism, in Ireland, South Africa and German Southwest Africa led to important insights. A fresh consideration of this important liberal political economist of colonialism and empire challenges the established genealogy of ideas and approaches to world system theory and to empire, and especially the recent tendency t...

This article uses a global-level dataset with information across nearly two centuries to explore the factors associated with the expansion of international trade. The results of the autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity regressions show that trade since the early 1800s is strongly coupled with advancements in industrial technology and its ability to cut the cost of commodities transport. In addition, the spread of democracy and the geopolitical stability promoted by the hegemonic nation-state are additional factors that augment trade during the past two centuries. The findings also reveal that trade since the early 1900s is further enhanced by the growing membership base of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, given their propensity to generate compatible national institutions and a uniform set of rules for cross-national commodities exchange. However, there is no support for the claim that advancements in communications technology or the expansion of international governmental organizations increases trade globalization.

Conventional economic wisdom maintains that the reduction of domestic import restrictions assists in the development of less developed countries. But far from being a settled debate, the empirical research on tariffs and economic growth is much more controversial than is commonly recognized. In fact, so contentious and unsettled is this mode of inquiry that the research of some scholars directly contradicts the findings of others. In light of this difficulty encountered by researchers, the current study argues that the tariff~growth link is best analyzed by exploring the conditional effect of import restrictions on the development of low-income countries. Utilizing a panel dataset with information for 69 less developed countries, the results of this investigation show that tariff interactions with domestic investment and labor participation, respectively, augments the growth-generating impact of these variables. In addition, the constituent terms reveal that domestic investment and labor-force participation produces robust negative associations with economic growth when removing their tariff contingent effects. Taken as a whole, the evidence illustrates the value of exploring the indirect relationship between tariffs and economic growth as well as the potential usefulness of restrictive import policies for development in the periphery.

General support is given for the call by Alexander Murphy for a study of regions to enable geographers to engage in public debates. However, Murphy’s emphasis upon narrative is challenged and an argument is made for a theoretical framework within which to situate analysis of regions. Moreover, the “meso” scale of the region demands consideration of a larger, or “macro,” scale. World-systems theory is advanced as a framework that defines the global scale as the capitalist world-economy in a way that situates regions and gives meaning to their form and interaction. The empirical approach offered by world-systems theory enhances Murphy’s call for regional narratives and enables geographers to engage in public debates.

This research argues that the capitalistic world-economy, advantageous to the core nations of World Systems Theory, is simultaneously rebalancing inequalities for semi-peripheral nations through a diasporic mechanism that builds reciprocal embeddedness. This is a challenge to world systems theorists' predominant view that the state class structure is fixed. This research adds to international networks research, extending World Systems Theory by building on and integrating the concept of reciprocal embeddedness at the interorganizational and international levels. A diaspora, explicated as one that is organized toward political action, becomes embedded in a core host, uses the host's influence to reduce state class differences, builds a status-equalizing intercultural channel, and induces an agenda for its homeland.

This paper deals with research findings regarding horticulture, a major sources of income in the Village Zandra, District Ziarat in the province of Balochistan. Initially the natives were earning their livelihood through horticulture only. The main contribution was coming through apple production. The process of tree plantation and the people involved in horticulture economy have been discussed in this article. During the last 3 decades few changes have been witnessed. Shift from subsistence to market economy has increased the lust for money due to which the natives have started opting for secondary sources of income. In horticulture they have started using technology, pesticides and chemical fertilizers to maximize their production and profit. They are also switching over to the cultivation of profitable types of apple. The impact of these changes has been analyzed in light of world system theory at micro level. The data presented in this paper have been collected by using qualitative anthropological research techniques.

The paper reviews the rise and utility of World Systems Theory in archaeology, with particular reference to Europe and the Bronze Age. After a consideration of its origins in the 1970s and 1980s, the main aspects of the theory are discussed. The evidence that shows that the Bronze Age world was highly interconnected is presented, and the implications of a World Systems view of the period considered. In an attempt to work towards a new narrative of the European Bronze Age, a brief discussion of network methods is introduced, since these offer an alternative, ‘bottom-up’, approach to the period which, it is argued, is more appropriate to the data than the World Systems approach.

This article calls for a re-conceptualization of the social sciences by asking for a cosmopolitan turn. The intellectual undertaking of redefining cosmopolitanism is a trans-disciplinary one, which includes geography, anthropology, ethnology, international relations, international law, political philosophy and political theory, and now sociology and social theory. Methodological nationalism, which subsumes society under the nation-state, has until now made this task almost impossible. The alternative, a 'cosmopolitan outlook', is a contested term and project. Cosmopolitanism must not be equalized with the global (or globalization), with 'world system theory' (Wallerstein), with 'world polity' (Meyer and others), or with 'world-society' (Luhmann). All of those concepts presuppose basic dualisms, such as domestic/foreign or national/international, which in reality have become ambiguous. Methodological cosmopolitanism opens up new horizons by demonstrating how we can make the empirical investigation of border crossings and other transnational phenomena possible.

Social inequality is generally conceptualized in terms of economic disadvantage related to income, however this approach ignores another equally important dimension of social inequality: wealth inequality. Drawing on world systems theory and a Marxist perspective on social class, in this article I examine the interrelationship between stratification in the world economy and stratification within national economies with a view to developing a global class schema. This examination of trends in the net worth and the location of the wealthiest individuals in the world indicate that the rapid expansion of the world economy in the past three decades has affected the global distribution of wealth with an increasing proportion of the transnational capitalist class residing in semi-peripheral nations.

Social network analysis made world system theory be scrutinized quantitatively. Positional analysis of a network makes its social structure clear, comprehensible and explicit. Besides structure, possible causal dependency discovery among relations of a network is the one of the important issues in the network analysis. During this research, we accomplished a world system positional analysis, and intriguing results of this analysis were reported. In addition, we investigated possible direction of dependency between world trade and diplomacy.

Lu Xun was claimed and canonized as a Marxist by the Chinese Communist Party, while Japanese and Western critics frequently read his work as a critique of modernity. Whereas the latter approach tends to trace the continuity in his writings, the Marxist approach largely brackets his earlier work. This chapter attempts to bring Marxist theory in dialogue with Lu Xun’s work in a different way, by focusing on his early writings and reading them in relation to various theorists. Through a close reading of two of Lu Xun’s early essays, “On the Destruction of Malevolent Voices” and “Imbalanced Cultural Development,” this chapter examines debates within the Marxist tradition, especially about issues related to global capitalism and the possibilities of a socialist future in countries on the periphery of the world-system. In this way, Lu Xun and Marxist theory can illuminate one another.

Romania is among Eastern European societies facing a massive depopulation in the last two and a half decades. Large-scale emigration has occurred under the circumstances of massive fertility decline and population ageing following 1989. Immigration has been insignificant until now, in spite of the negative natural growth and the presence of large Romanian-speaking populations next to the Eastern borders of the country. Our paper investigates long-term migratory trends and their relation to general macro-economic and macro-social processes. We place the Romanian historical experience concerning developmental aspects of changes in migratory flows and stocks. Existing macro-historical narratives diverge first in their expectations concerning socioeconomic development. On the one hand, models of “migration transition” and “migration cycles” share an optimistic view of developmental prospects of peripheral and semi-peripheral societies. For instance, Skeldon considered the Eastern European region as an “emerging or potential core”. As a consequence, he expected that these societies would become new destinations of global migratory flows. On the other hand, researchers relying on world-system theory emphasize that global structural inequalities are likely to persist, thus Eastern European societies are likely to remain enclosed in their semi-peripheral condition. Under such circumstances massive emigration could continue and could lead to large-scale depopulation of certain regions. Our paper argues that the long-term evolution of macro-structural indicators and migratory flows in Romania do not substantiate developmental optimism. World-system theories could provide useful frame to interpret existing data.

In studies of world politics and international relations (IR, IPE and world order), the concept of “hegemony” is often applied to describe different enduring aspects of an order in the international system. It is a useful instrument in conceptualizing and understanding the dynamic and dialectic interplays in world order and international relations/systems. Realism perceives hegemony as the dominance by one leading state in interstate relations, such as in the concept often used by realism: “hegemonic stability”. Liberalism sees hegemony as being embedded in the interactions of each individual at the bottom, and in the norms and values of international institutions as rule-settlers at the top. And world system theory emphasizes state-based class and material forms of a hegemony which is shaped and maintained by a global division of labor. This division of labor constantly generates and regenerates unequal exchange, and that, in turn, differentiates the strong/rich versus the weak/poor, not only economically, but also politically and militarily.

The debate about the international division of labour, coming along with expanding world trade, has gone through a number of phases characterized by dominant definitions of the situation since the 1950s (cf. Held et al. 1999). At the beginning, economic development theory and sociological modernization theory expected continuous advancement of developing countries along the tracks of the industrial countries as a result of capital inflow and educational upgrading of the population. In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, Dependencia theory pointed to the unequal terms of trade, and world systems theory to the shift of exploitation to the relationship between capitalist core countries and developing peripheral ones. The outcome should be increasing inequality between industrial and developing countries (Sunkel 1969; Cardoso and Faletto 1979; Hopkins and Wallerstein 1982). On the tracks of the Uruguay Round of the GATT and its successful transformation into the WTO in 1994, the teaching of free trade in the tradition of Adam Smith (1776/1952) and David Ricardo (1817/1977) has become the dominant position. From this perspective, each participating country should benefit from global labour division (Bhagwati and Hudec 1996).

Elsenhans contextualises his economic views with particular reference to John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx, neoclassical economics and World Systems Theory. For some, he is a theorist of turbo-capitalism, given his trust in markets to produce equitable and efficient results, but for others he is a far leftist, given his support for raising incomes and redistribution. He sees himself as closest to Keynes, particularly in demand-side economics, albeit with a more international perspective on national economic development, and distinguishes himself from contemporary ‘monetary Keynesians’, who only seek solutions in altering the money supply. He reconciles his socialist beliefs with the capitalist solutions he proposes by arguing the self-regulating mechanisms of capitalism are most fitting for achieving prosperity, albeit within a redis-tributive state mechanism that socialises risks. On more general thoughts, he explains why capital accumulation does not play a role in today’s capitalism of widening gaps between rich and poor, reflects why he is against the free-trade agreement between Europe and the USA [the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)], and talks about our destructive fetish with property.

1979 was as good a time as any to be a student in the sociological study of education. Power and Ideology in Education had been in print for three years. Schooling in Capitalist America was published two years earlier. The Credential Society was in press. While writing my doctoral dissertation, I took time out to read the Sunday New York Times. There it was—an ad for a lectureship in the sociology of education at the University of Hong Kong. The ad roused my interest. I had taken a course on world systems theory. I was curious about the consequences of the War in Vietnam for Asia.

This chapter introduces the argument that the South has risen in recent years. It outlines two initial arguments: (1) that there has been a rise and this is a threat to the USA and the West; (2) that there has been a rise and this is because of market friendly policies as advocated by the West. It then relates these views to international relations (IR) theory—showing how realists and liberal internationalists respond to these questions—and shows that while these approaches are different, they are not objective, but in many respects “recommendations” for how the USA should respond to these changes. It then introduces approaches more critical of US hegemony (world systems theory [WST], global history and dependency theory), and in doing so shows how these are also perspectives on development. The chapter then moves on to explicitly consider the development question, showing how older modernisation theory overlaps, despite their considerable differences, with contemporary neoliberalism, in that both see contact with “the West” as desirable and progressive. And in particular I show how liberal internationalism and neoliberal political economy can be seen as new versions of modernisation theory. The chapter then focuses in more depth on dependency theory, arguing that, for all its problems, this approach does address important questions about inequality, marginalisation and subordination in the international order. The chapter then suggests that we might think of the rise (and fall) of the South in terms of modernisation and dependency approaches (rather than the specific details of these problematic theories), albeit updated to take account of new realities (including the uneven and unequal effects of China’s rise and premature industrialisation in much of the rest of the South). The final section provides an initial introduction to the rise and fall of the South through the lens of these two broad approaches.

Immanuel M. Wallerstein eredetileg az altalanos vagy a komplex rendszerelmeletre valo barmifele kozelebbi utalas nelkul dolgozta ki vilagrendszer-szemleletet. Peldamutato tudosi nagysagat jelzi es jellemzi, hogy miutan megismerkedett a – tarsadalomtudomanyoktol (latszolag) tavol allo – termeszettudomanyi jelensegek elemzesenek altalanos alkalmazhatosagat hirdető tudosok munkassagaval, nem habozott csatlakozni a (viszonylag) ujnak mutatkozo iranyzathoz, sőt annak egyik zaszlovivői szerepet vallalni. Wallerstein – es az altala valasztott utat jaro nehany mas tarsadalomkutato is – vegul visszaretten a komplexitaselmelet teljes modszertani fegyverzetenek bevetesetől, s a bifurkacio, a kaosz, a turbulencia bevett fogalmait csupan metaforakent alkalmazza a vilagrendszer komplex jelensegeinek leirasara, szamos felreertesre okot adva.

Although few disagree that advancements in technology and the establishment of trade-conducive transnational institutions play an important role in augmenting the potential for trade globalization, there is more disagreement surrounding alternative causal explanations of trade during the postwar period. While world-system scholars argue that international trade increases when a hegemonic nation-state is powerful enough to provide geopolitical stability and trade-conducive policies, world-polity theorists maintain that trade results from the emanation of “cultural scripts” that create compatible national institutions and trust among nation-states. This article tests these theories by analyzing a global-level data set with information from 1945 to 2005 via autoregressive integrated moving-average models. The results provide strong support for the world-system contention that increases in the power of the hegemonic nation-state amplify levels of trade globalization. Furthermore, although there is some support for the world-polity contention that the spread of democracy is positively associated with international trade, there is little evidence to validate the claim that the proliferation of intergovernmental organizations enhances trade globalization.

Palumbo-Liu,David, Bruce Robbins, and Nirvana Tanoukhi, eds. 2011. Immanuel Wallerstein and the Problem of the World. Durham NC: Duke University Press. $84.95 hc. $23.95 sc. 272 pp.Sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein is well known in social science circles for his theory of the modern world-system as an interdependent network of core, semi-periphery, and periphery states. This edited collection, which emerged from a conference at Stanford's Program in Modern Thought and Literature, considers what the humanities, so much concerned with the particular, the local, and the subjective, can learn from Wallerstein's systematic vision. As the introduction argues, many disciplines have already begun to transform their methodologies under the pressure of globalization, a process which has led, in literary studies, to the highly contested (re)emergence of world literature. Participants in the discussion about appropriate methodologies for understanding the relationship between macro and micro, systemic and particular, are typically loath to practice the kind of "worlding" that Gayatri Spivak associates with a (neo)imperial impulse to assimilate the world into Western rubrics of civilization and development. Contributors challenge existing models of world-scale thinking put forward by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Wai Chee Dimock, and Wallerstein himself on this issue and others. Engaging with Wallerstein's work thus presents an occasion for scholars from a variety of disciplinary positions to explore current models of the global within the terms of their respective fields.The collection is organized into four sections. In the first, "System and Responsibility," sociologist Richard E. Lee situates world systems theory within its historical context, claiming that its emergence during the tumultuous decade of the 1970s makes it particularly useful for understanding our contemporary moment of crisis. Speaking to scholars in the humanities, Lee represents "structures of knowledge" as an essential part of the modern world-system in Wallerstein's tripartite schema (alongside the political and the economic). He points to "the new liberalism" as one such structure of knowledge, which has exhausted its ability to contain the growing political and economic turmoil of the world capitalist system. For Lee, the outcome of this crisis is uncertain, but he sees some promising signs for interdisciplinary scholarship in the collapse of established structures of knowledge, which is "closing the gap between the humanities and the historical social sciences" (37). Wrapping up the first section, Bruce Robbins challenges the conventional critique that world-systems theory misreads culture "as merely a passive reflection of economic relations" (48), cautioning against the tendency in the humanities to overemphasize agency at the expense of larger forces that constrain individual action. Rather than a choice between system or agent, he calls upon scholars to approach this dilemma as "an open question: how far have people actually been able to make their own history in this case or that, under these circumstances or those?" According to Robbins, such an approach "will help us understand what can and can't be done about global injustice and thus how our interpretive puzzles do or don't contribute to that goal" (50).Moving beyond the challenge that world-system theory's marginalization of culture poses to the humanities as a whole, the second section, "Literature: Restructured, Rehistoricized, Rescaled," assesses the particular costs and benefits of systemic global analysis for literary studies as a discipline. Franco Moretti identifies world systems theory as a critical tool for describing the production and circulation of literature within an ever more homogenized global literary market after the eighteenth century; but he contends that evolutionary theory presents a more accurate picture of the disparate forms produced prior to this period within relatively isolated cultures. …

Abstract The mass mobilizations against neo-liberal austerity drives that took place in Greece, France, Spain, and Madison, Wisconsin from 2010 into the summer of 2011 reflect deeply global forces and suggest several trends in contemporary global capitalism. These include an emerging pattern of inequality among member states of the European Union, deep alienation of workers from the Social Democracy and other traditional labor organizations who have championed neo-liberal economic policies and implemented austerity drives, and new forms of collective action.

Este artículo pretende entregar una brevísima respuesta histórica y aclaratoria a la pregunta: ¿cuándo comienza la historia de la sociedad mundial? La teoría del sistema mundial (Wallerstein) y la teoría de sistemas (Luhmann) coinciden en situar los orígenes de la sociedad mundial en los procesos de diferenciación característicos de los siglos XV y XVI en Europa. La teoría de la sociedad mundial es la teoría del sistema social que emerge de esta coyuntura. A partir de lo anterior, este texto busca desarrollar dos argumentos. En primer lugar, se exponen tres innovaciones estructurales, que tienen especial relevancia en la génesis de la sociedad mundial: 1. Diferenciación funcional; 2. Organizaciones (especialmente empresas multinacionales y organismos no gubernamentales); 3. Tecnologías comunicativas. Esta es una lista abierta de innovaciones estructurales que se mantiene abierta a la inclusión de otras innovaciones (redes, mercados, comunidades epistemológicas, etc.). En segundo lugar, nuestro argumento sobre las innovaciones estructurales es respaldado por tres mecanismos o mecanismos procesuales a los cuales se debe la dinámica de la sociedad mundial: 1. Difusión global de pautas institucionales; 2. Interdependencia global; 3. Descentralización de los sistemas funcionales. Gracias al desarrollo de esta perspectiva explicativa resulta claro que no parecen haber argumentos convincentes para observar a la sociedad mundial como un sistema caracterizado por patrones estructurales y culturales homogéneos.

This article examines why global corporate social responsibility (CSR) frameworks have gained popularity in the past decade, despite their uncertain costs and benefits, and how they affect adherents’ behavior. We focus on the two largest global frameworks—the United Nations Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiative—to examine patterns of CSR adoption by governments and corporations. Drawing on institutional and political-economy theories, we develop a new analytic framework that focuses on four key environmental factors—global institutional pressure, local receptivity, foreign economic penetration, and national economic system. We propose two arguments about the relationship between stated commitment and subsequent action: decoupling due to lack of capacity and organized hypocrisy due to lack of will. Our cross-national time-series analyses show that global institutional pressure through nongovernmental linkages encourages CSR adoption, but this pressure leads to ceremonial commitment in developed countries and to substantive commitment in developing countries. Moreover, in developed countries, liberal economic policies increase ceremonial commitment, suggesting a pattern of organized hypocrisy whereby corporations in developed countries make discursive commitments without subsequent action. We also find that in developing countries, short-term trade relations exert greater influence on corporate CSR behavior than do long-term investment transactions.

This article starts from the assumptions that the world can learn a lot from the empirical and theoretical debates and research results of dependency and world systems research. The European ‘political class’ seems to react more slowly to the implications of the global economic crisis. The policy package currently offered by the Commission still relies on open economies as pillar number 1 of any conceivable strategy. A rediscovery of this radical ‘dependency perspective’, first introduced by the Argentine economist Raul Prebisch and other Latin American thinkers during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and more fully developed in the so-called Latin American ‘dependency debate’ of the late 1960s and 1970s; and the current empirical ‘world systems theory’ mean a fundamental break with the existing dominant thinking on the subject of economic and social convergence. Continuing critical perspectives, initiated by Polanyi, and developed in Hungary by Andor, Inotai and Szentes, and above all in the quantitati...

The purpose of this article is to critically review the work of Andre Gunder Frank. This is no easy task given the prolific and controversial nature of his life work. His main distinction is as a paradigm breaker and a paradigm maker. Frank is one of the founders of contemporary world system theory. He coined some memorable expressions such as the ‘development of underdevelopment’ and ‘Re-Orient’. Indeed, these two concepts highlight two distinct phases in his work. His first phase is characterised by his writings on dependency theory and his initial understanding of world system theory broadly in line with Amin, Arrighi and Wallerstein. His second phase is distinguished by what he considers to be the ‘Eurocentric’ interpretation of world system theory of Wallerstein and others as well as by his critique of his own earlier work. While some of Frank's analyses and assertions proved to be wrong, he provided much inspiration to a new generation of scholars and activists, some of whom provided the necessary e...

In this study, we examined the structure of the international hyperlink network as a global communication system at two different points in time (2003 and 2009). Research was carried out on the web-based network linking country code top-level domains (ccTLDs) that represent countries, using hyperlink connectivity by the means of network analysis. The results indicate that the 2009 international hyperlink network was completely interconnected. G7 countries and Spain were at the centre of the network. At the periphery were poorer countries from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In addition, several regional clusters based on geography, language and culture emerged. A comparison of the 2003 and 2009 results showed that the level of centralization and diversification among semi-peripheral countries increased. We discuss the results from the perspective of world-systems theory. We propose methodological procedures to overcome potential bias in international hyperlink data.

Since the mid-1990s, global commodity chain (GCC) analysis has contributed much to our understanding of processes of globalization and development. It has however, broadly failed to integrate class relations generally and labour in particular into its approach. This article suggests that we can understand this failure by revisiting and critically interrogating GCC's intellectual foundationsin World Systems Theory and Schumpeterian conceptions of capitalist innovation. It also argues that if carefully reformed, these foundations can provide a useful framework from which to conduct research into processes of contemporary development. A central argument of this paper is that evolving capitallabour relations co-determine processes of capitalist expansion and development, and that a commitment to understanding and investigating these relations should be placed more firmly at the centre of GCC analysis.

How should nursing knowledge advance? This exploration contextualizes its evolution past and present. In addressing how it evolved in the past, a probable historical evolution of its development draws on the perspectives of Frank & Gills's World System Theory, Kuhn's treatise on Scientific Revolutions, and Foucault's notions of Discontinuities in scientific knowledge development. By describing plausible scenarios of how nursing knowledge evolved, I create a case for why nursing knowledge developers should adopt a post-structural stance in prioritizing their research agenda(s). Further, by adopting a post-structural stance, I create a case on how nurses can advance their disciplinary knowledge using an engaging post-colonial strategy. Given an interrupted history caused by influence(s) constraining nursing's knowledge development by power structures external, and internal, to nursing, knowledge development can evolve in the future by drawing on post-structural interpretation, and post-colonial strategy. The post-structural writings of Deleuze & Guattari's understanding of ‘Nomadology’ as a subtle means to resist being constrained by existing knowledge development structures, might be a useful stance to understanding the urgency of why nursing knowledge should advance addressing the structural influences on its development. Furthermore, Bhabha's post-colonial elucidation of ‘Hybridity’ as an equally discreet means to change the culture of those constraining structures is an appropriate strategy to enact how nursing knowledge developers can engage with existing power structures, and simultaneously influence that engagement. Taken together, ‘post-structural stance’ and ‘post-colonial strategy’ can refocus nursing scholarship to learn from its past, in order to develop relevant disciplinary knowledge in its future.

Adam Smith in Beijing offers a subversive analysis of China's rise, an analysis which has provoked a strong reaction in the academic world outside China. Based on Adam Smith's economic principles and world systems analysis, the book comprehensively explores China's reform and opening up and its market economy, as well as the role they have played in China's rise. In his view, Adam Smith's economic principles offer the best way of understanding China's rise. But objectively speaking, in this book, Arrighi misjudges the significance of China's rise and actual situation. Therefore, to a certain degree, his theory serves as the contemporary protector and defender of bourgeois political domination and the capitalist system.

World-systems theory emphasizes the unequal structure of the world economy. Relying on world-systems theory as an analytical framework, this study examines how globalization differently affects citizens’ perceptions of global capitalism in the core, semi-periphery, and periphery. Statistical analyses relying on the Pew Global Attitudes Project, 2002, generate findings that are consistent with world-systems theory. While globalization positively affects citizens’ evaluations of global capitalism in the core, globalization undermines citizens’ support for global capitalism in the periphery. By dissecting the relationship between globalization and citizens’ perceptions of global capitalism, this study contributes to our understanding of globalization.

This paper draws from world-systems and sustainable livelihoods approaches to analyze the connections between multinational exports of rutile (titanium oxide), diminished ecological resources and resource-based livelihoods, and gendered household dynamics in a peripheralized mining region in Sierra Leone. The discussion focuses on how the extraction of mineral resources instigated by exogenous capital investors forces links to household transformation, particularly the vulnerability context of women. Using archival records and field survey data, the case study of rutile mining in southwestern Sierra Leone connects the low-waged mining labour of traditional resource-based subsistence communities and deepening marginalization of and financial pressures on women in mining households to global mineral markets. The study focuses on women's coping mechanisms that are embedded within traditional social networks in relation to an external intervention, a low-tech mechanical cassava grater, intended to strengthen their livelihoods. It finds that the potential for this transformation is impeded by sociocultural, environmental and financial limitations.

Continental Divides: Remapping the Cultures of North America by Rachel Adams University of Chicago Press, 2009. 310 pages The "transnational turn" in American Studies is often traced to the early 1990s, when the impact of postcolonial studies and global perspectives was being felt even within the reputedly isolationist realms of American Studies. Seminal pieces such as Carolyn Porter's "What We Know that We Don't Know" and influential essays and collections by Donald Pease, Jose David Saldivar, Doris Sommer, Amy Kaplan, and John Carlos Rowe, among others, articulated the growing awareness that "America" did not stand by, or even for, itself, even if most scholars in the field (at least in the US) seemed to have assumed so. Decentering the United States in descriptions of "America" has of course been precisely the point of much scholarly and cultural commentary across the Western Hemisphere, at least since the nineteenth century when US domination became increasingly palpable and inescapable. As Jose Marti famously noted, the American "octopus" was already looming over "nuestra America" ("Our America") by the mid 1800s and showed no signs of slowing its drive for economic and political domination of the continent. Well aware of these historical and political genealogies, Rachel Adams has taken up the baton of comparative American Studies in a lucid and elegant new book. Offering a valuable corrective to some of the already-solidifying archives and habits of thought that have come to characterize the emerging field of study and cultural production focusing on the Americas, Adams's book announces its ambitions in a title that turns out to be impressively precise: Continental Divides: Remapping the Cultures of North. America. There is nothing accidental about either Adams's emphasis on "continent" or the active process of "remapping," and she mines even seemingly static terms such as "cultures" and "North America" for their significance to a project that works from the outset to set itself apart from the mainstream of Americanist scholarship. As her introduction repeatedly notes, Adams hopes that the frame of the continent of North America will underline how nation-states, their borders, and even the continent itself are imagined places: i.e., the somewhat arbitrary products of a history of contingent and politically charged events and turns. In defamiliarizing the continent as a figure in world mapping (as opposed to perhaps more standard interrogations of the "nation" in American Studies), Adams raises interesting conceptual questions that draw on an influential line of hemispheric thought including Edmundo O'Gorman on "the invention of America" (9) and the "world systems theory" (10) of Anibal Quijano and Immanuel Wallerstein. In setting up these various threads and sources, the introduction to Continental Divides offers a comprehensive overview of transamerican thinking and indicates how the history of such thinking informs the more specific readings that follow. The nation provides the main target of Adams's announced desire to grant "new centrality to people and places that have been marginalized by official histories of conquest and nation building, thus bringing a new repertoire of texts and subjects into view" (7). Similar interrogations of the nation-state have been, by many estimations, the most transformative angle brought to American studies by transnational approaches. Adams's introduction does an admirable job of explaining how and why her continental frame shifts and critiques the reliance on the nation as the primary rubric of literary and cultural analysis, even as she highlights the neglect given to marginalized national entities--Mexico and Canada, especially in relation to one another--in most critical studies of North America. The overall organization of Continental Divides thus involves a series of texts and conceptual questions that highlight the ambivalent status of national borders in North America, where they function as political and affective fictions and/or limits. …

The article examines structural conditions that determine the direction of international student flows. The influence of two factors is widely recognized in the current discussion on international student mobility. The first one is the economic factor that influences the individual decisions of a student or his/ her family to migrate to a more prosperous country (push–pull argument). The second is derived from world system theory: students from the world periphery seek better education and go to the core countries specializing in information and high-technology production (including education). The article offers a third perspective on international student migration, which is both institutional and historical. The author focuses on the structural connections between sending and receiving countries that support student migration. Methods of network analysis are used to examine UNESCO and Russian official statistics, which show deep and stable channels of student migration. The results suggest that deep migration channels direct international students from former colonies to their respective former imperial centers. A case study of student migration from Kazakhstan to Russia is employed to describe the organization of international student flows on the micro- and meso-levels.