world systems

In essence, world-systems theory provides a framework for understanding global inequalities and the historical development of the interconnected world we live in. It emphasizes the systemic nature of these relationships and how they shape the development trajectories of different societies, the key aspects:

• Socioeconomic System: World-systems theory focuses on the totality of social and economic interactions. It’s not just about politics or just about economics, but the complex interplay between them. This includes trade, the flow of resources, raw materials, finished goods, capital, labor migration, cultural exchange, and political influence

• Aggregate Structural Result: The structure of a world-system isn’t planned or imposed from above. It emerges from the sum of countless interactions between different political entities or polities. These polities can be states, empires, city-states, or even large-scale organizations. The structure refers to the patterns of relationships and power dynamics that arise from these interactions. Think of it like a complex web where the connections between different points create the overall shape of the web

• Larger than Single States, Not Necessarily Global: A key point is that a world-system is larger than any single state. It involves a network of interconnected polities. However, it doesn’t have to encompass the entire globe. Historically, there have been regional world-systems, like the Mediterranean world-system or the Indian Ocean world-system, before the modern, globally integrated system emerged

Immanuel Wallerstein is the central figure when it comes to World-Systems Analysis. He developed this approach to understanding global history and social change, emphasizing the world-system, not individual nation-states, as the core unit of analysis

Here’s a breakdown of Wallerstein’s key contributions to World-Systems Analysis:

• Challenging Traditional Approaches: Wallerstein argued that traditional social science methods focusing on individual nation-states were too narrow. He advocated for a broader historical perspective that considers the interconnectedness of the world economy

• The Modern World-System: His core concept revolves around the idea of a single, integrated “modern world-system” that emerged around the 15th and 16th century. This system encompasses all the economic and political interactions happening globally

• Core-Periphery Model: Wallerstein further divided this world-system into three zones:

  • Core: Powerful, industrialized states that control the production of high-value goods and extract resources/labor from the periphery
  • Semi-Periphery: Countries occupying a middle ground, producing some high-value goods but also serving the core
  • Periphery: The least developed states, exploited for raw materials and cheap labor by the core. This is essentially the international division of labor in action within the world-system

• Long-Term Historical Trends: Wallerstein emphasized analyzing long-term historical trends and structural forces that shape the world-system, rather than focusing on isolated events or individual national histories

• World-Systems Analysis as a Knowledge Movement: Wallerstein went beyond just a theory. He envisioned World-Systems Analysis as a broader knowledge movement that challenged traditional disciplinary boundaries in social sciences and history. It aimed to integrate insights from various fields to understand the world as a complex interconnected system

rich get richer and the poor get poorer?

Dependency theory is the notion that resources flow from a periphery of poor and underdeveloped states to a core of wealthy states, enriching the latter at the expense of the former. It is a central contention of dependency theory that poor states are impoverished and rich ones enriched by the way poor states are integrated into the world system. The theory arose as a reaction to modernization theory, an earlier theory of development which held that all societies progress through similar stages of development, that today’s underdeveloped areas are thus in a similar situation to that of today’s developed areas at some time in the past, and that, therefore, the task of helping the underdeveloped areas out of poverty is to accelerate them along this supposed common path of development, by various means such as investment, technology transfers, and closer integration into the world market

le pays légal  is not  le pays réel

the systems collector –  stamps by 1518&projects 2013

• Immanuel Wallerstein – World-Systems Analysis 1982 – 2004
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