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World-systems analysis is not a theory, but an approach to social analysis and social change developed principally by Immanuel Wallerstein, with major contributions by Samir Amin, Giovanni Arrighi and Andre Gunder Frank. World-systems analysis is derived from two key intellectual sources, the neo-Marxist literature on development and the French Annales School and Fernand Braudel. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (born 28 September 1930, New York City) is a U.S. sociologist by credentials, but a historical social scientist, or world-systems analyst by trade. ... Samir Amin (b. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Andre Gunder Frank (Berlin, February 24, 1929 – Luxembourg, April 23, 2005) was a German economic historian and sociologist who was one of the founders of the Dependency theory and the World Systems Theory in the 1960s. ... In a sociological sense, neo-Marxism adds Max Webers broader understanding of social inequality -- such as status and power -- to Marxist philosophy. ... The Annales School is a school of historical writing named after the French scholarly journal Annales dhistoire économique et sociale (later called , then renamed in 1994 as ) where it was first expounded. ... Fernand Braudel Fernand Braudel (August 24, 1902–November 27, 1985) was a French historian. ...

In Wallerstein’s 1987 publication, World-System Analysis, he disavows the term "world-system theory." He proclaims that "World-systems analysis is not a theory about the social world, or about part of it. It is a protest against the way in which social scientific inquiry was structured for all of us at its inception in the middle of the nineteenth century." He goes on to lay out seven common assumptions of modern social science challenged by world-systems analysis. Paraphrasing, these include the following assumptions:

(1) The 'disciplines' of modern social science are intellectually coherent groupings of subject matter that refer to discrete 'logics.' World-systems analysis calls for a unidiciplinary historical social science, and contends that the modern disciplines, products of the 19th century, are deeply flawed because they are not separate logics, as is manifest for example in the de facto overlap of analysis among scholars of the 'disciplines.'

(2) History is the study of events (the ideographic approach) and social science discovers universal rules of human/social behavior (the nomothetic approach). Wallerstein writes that "World-systems analysis offers the heuristic value of the via mediabetween trans-historical generalizations and particularistic narrations...It argues that the optimal method is to pursue analysis within systemic frameworks, long enough in time and large enough in space to contain governing 'logics' which 'determine' the largest part of sequential reality, while simultaneously recognizing and taking into account that these systemic frameworks have beginnings and ends and are therefore not to be conceived of as 'eternal' phenomena."

(3) Modern countries or 'states' are societies, or there is a society underlying each state. World-systems analysis argues that modern states have never been societies, but are the political units of modern society's interstate system and economy. In Wallerstein's view, there have been three kinds of societies across human history: mini-systems or what anthropologists call bands, tribes, and small chiefdoms, and two types of world-systems (single state world-empires and multi-polity world-economies). World-systems are larger, and ethnically diverse. Modern society, called the "modern world-system" is of the latter type, but unique in being the first and only fully capitalist world-economy to have emerged, around 1450-1550 and to have geographically expanded across the entire planet, by about 1900.

(4) Capitalism is a system based on competition between free producers using free labor with free commodities, 'free' meaning its available for sale and purchase on a market. Situations in countries that deviate from this definition, such as the communist or socialist countries, and Third countries, are not yet capitalist. World-systems analysis argues that capitalism, as a historical social system, has always integrated a variety of labor forms within a functioning division of labor (world-economy). Countries do not have economies, but are part of the world-economy. Far from being separate societies or worlds, the world-economy manifests a tripartite division of labor with core, semi-peripheral, and peripheral zones. In core zones businesses, with the support of states they operate within, monopolize the most profitable activities of the division of labor.

In recognizing a tripartite pattern, world-systems analysis criticized dependency theory with its bimodal system of only cores and peripheries. There are many ways to attribute a specific country to the core, semi-periphery, or periphery. Using an empirically-based sharp formal definition of "domination" in a two-country relationship, Piana in 2004 defined the "core" as made up of "free countries" dominating others without being dominated, the "semi-periphery" as the countries which are dominated (usually—but not necessarily—by core countries) while at the same time they dominate others (usually in the periphery)and "periphery" as the countries which are dominated. Based on 1998 data, the full list of countries in the three regions—together with a discussion of methodology—can be found here. Main International Relations Theories and derivates Realism & Neorealism Idealism, Liberalism & Neoliberalism Marxism & Dependency theory Functionalism & Neofunctionalism Critical theory & Constructivism Dependency theory is a body of social science theories, both from developed and developing nations, that create a worldview which suggests that poor underdeveloped states of the periphery are exploited by...

(5) The late 18th and early 19th centuries marked a great turning point in the development of capitalism in that capitalists achieved state-societal power in the key states which furthered the industrial revolution marking the rise of capitalism. World-systems analysis contends that capitalism as a historical system formed earlier, that countries do not "develop" in stages, but rather the system does, and these events have a different meaning as a phase in the development of historical capitalism; namely the emergence of the three ideologies of the national developmental mythology (the idea that countries can develop through stages if they pursue the right set of policies): conservatism, liberalism, and radicalism.

(6) Human history is progressive and inevitably so. World-systems analysts, along with anthropologists, argue that the historical evidence suggests the contrary, that human societies have become increasingly unequal. The reason for the belief otherwise is precisely that modern social science emerged in the core zones, which contain about 20% of the modern world-system's population but controls about 80% of its wealth, which has expanded as inequality and power polarization has increased as a trend of the system.

(7) Science is the search for rules which summarize most succinctly why everything is the way it is and how things happen. Wallerstein writes: World-systems analysis is a call for the construction of a historical social science that feels comfortable with the uncertainties of transition, that contributes to the transformation of the world by illuminating the choices without appealing to the crutch belief in the inevitable triumph of good. World-systems analysis is a call to open the shutters that prevent us from exploring many areas of the real world. World-systems analysis is not a paradigm of historical social science. It is a call for a debate about the paradigm.

Developments of World Systems Analysis

Regarding core, semiperiphery, and periphery,

An article by Sobocinski (pages 14-15) points to the relevance of even the simplest indicators - per capita GDP - to identify core, semi-peripheral, and peripheral countries, and notes that, as the areas "external" to the world system have disappeared over time, so also has there been a decrease in the percentage of the world's population that exists in peripheral countries, as defined in traditional developmental terms. Sobocinski's approach favors degree of proletarianization (described in Wallerstein's "Historical Capitalism") as an indicator of a country's status rather than degree of domination (as described above). Sobocinski indicates that economic trends seem to point to semi-peripheral status for the vast majority of the world's population, and the importance of internal inequalities (and internal colonialism) within such countries as a predominant concern over the near future, to likely be followed by the emergence of international class-based conflict on a global scale (rather than merely within selected nations and regions) as (per-capita) wealth inequalities between nations continue to decrease. Note that this sort of analysis is one of convenience, due to the ease of using data at the state level, although Wallerstein has pointed out that peripheral areas are not to be confused with peripheral states. Thus, one of the modern trends would seem to be the decline in peripheral states, in favor of a reemergence of peripheral areas within states - a kind of neo-"internal colonialism."

Originally Wallerstein distinguished two types of world-systems: "world-economies", systems of polities integrated within a single economy, and "World-Empires" where a single polity dominated and integrated an economy. What exactly constitutes an Empire (from the Latin imperium, denoting military command within the ancient Roman government) is a topic of intense debate within the scholarly community. ...

Janet Abu Lughod argues that a pre-modern World System extensive across Eurasia existed in the 13th Century prior to the formation of the modern world-system identified by Wallerstein. Janet Abu Lughod contends that the Mongol Empire played an important role in stitching together the Chinese, Indian, Muslim and European regions in the 13th century, before the rise of the modern world system^[1]. In debates, Wallerstein contends that her system was not a "world-system" because it did not entail integrated production networks, but was instead a vast trading network. The Secret History of the Mongols is the first literary work of Mongolian culture. ...

Andre Gunder Frank goes even further and claims that a global-scale world system that includes Asia, Europe and Africa has existed since the 4th millennium BCE.^[2] The center of this system was in Asia, specifically China. Europe only prospered when Asian economy was in its contracting phase of long-term economic cycle and Europe had access to virtually free silver and gold from the Americas. There was no European miracle, Europe simply had geographical advantage in discovery of Americas. This contracting phase is now coming to an end and the center is moving back to Asia. In a joint critique, Wallerstein, Arrighi, and Samin attacked the empirical data of this argument. Andre Gunder Frank (Berlin, February 24, 1929 – Luxembourg, April 23, 2005) was a German economic historian and sociologist who was one of the founders of the Dependency theory and the World Systems Theory in the 1960s. ... A world map showing the continent of Africa. ... (5th millennium BC – 4th millennium BC – 3rd millennium BC - other millennia) Events City of Ur in Mesopotamia (40th century BC). ... World map showing the location of Asia. ... This article is 150 kilobytes or more in size. ... The term European miracle was coined by Eric Jones to describe his position that Europe was more advanced and progressive than all other civilizations prior to the year 1492, allowing it to develop capitalism, reach the New World first, and dominate world trade and politics. ... You might find what you are looking for in any of the following pages Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact. ...

Archaeologically too the idea of a World System was extended to the Late Chalcolithic-Early Bronze Age, looking at the period of dominance of ancient Uruk, within the system that stretched from Egypt to the Indus. The Chalcolithic (Greek khalkos + lithos copper stone) period, also known as the Eneolithic (Aeneolithic) or Copper Age period, is a phase in the development of human culture in which the use of early metal tools appeared alongside the use of stone tools. ... The Bronze Age is a period in a civilizations development when the most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use) consisted of techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally occurring outcroppings of ore, and then alloying those metals in order to cast bronze. ... Uruk (Sumerian Unug, Biblical Erech, Greek Orchoë and Arabic وركاء Warka), was an ancient city of Sumer and later Babylonia, situated east of the present bed of the Euphrates, on the line of the ancient Nil canal, in a region of marshes, about 140 miles (230 km) SSE from Baghdad. ... The Indus is a river; the Indus River. ...

These debates have seen a split in the identification of world-systems analysis and "world systems theory."

Looking at World Systems Theory (as distinct from world-systems analysis) from this perspective demonstrates similarity to the concept of the Oecumene, used by cultural historians like William McNeill. Historically World Systems Theory have been very useful as an antidote to the exceptionalism of Globalisation Theorists who argue that the current system is wholly without precedent in world history. Oecumene Oecumene is a term originally adopted within Christianity, where it has been suggested there is a single believing community amongst the various different Christian denominations, particularly between the Roman Catholic Church and the denominations which has arose by the Great Schism of 1054 and with the European Reformation. ... William H. McNeill (born 1917, Vancouver, British Columbia) is a Canadian historian. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The Microsoft building in GAYTOWN, the information technology capital of India Globalization, also globalisation, refers to a process of increasing integration between units around the world, including nation-states, households/individuals corporations and other organizations. ... World History is a field of historical study that emerged as a distinct academic field in the 1980s. ...

References

Andrey Korotayev (born in 1961) is an anthropologist, economic historian, and sociologist. ... It has been suggested that First agricultural revolution be merged into this article or section. ...

External links

• Institute for Research on World-Systems
• Journal of World-Systems Research
• World-Systems Archive
• Preface to ReOrient by Andre Gunder Frank
• Andre Gunder Frank resources
• The Modern World-System by Immanuel Wallerstein
• Immanuel Wallerstein resources
• The African Crisis - World Systemic and Regional Aspects by Giovanni Arrighi
• The Rise of East Asia in World Historical Perspective by Giovanni Arrighi
• Neo-marxist Political Economy