The Politics of the World-Economy: The States, the Movements and the CivilizationsIn these essays, written (with one exception) between 1978 and 1982, Immanuel Wallerstein elaborates on the political and theoretical implications of the world-systems perspective outlined in his celebrated books The Modern World-System and The Capitalist World-Economy. Whereas those books centred on the historical development of the modern world-system, the essays in this volume explore the nature of world politics in the light of Wallerstein's analysis of the world-system and capitalist world-economy. Throughout, the essays offer new perspectives on the central issues of political debate today: the roles of the USA and the USSR in the world-system, the relations of the Third World states to the capitalist 'core', and the potential for socialist or revolutionary change. Different sections deal with the three major political institutions of the modern world-system: the states, the antisystemic movements, and the civilizations. The states are a classic rubric of political analysis. For Wallerstein, the limits of sovereignty are at least as important as the powers - these limits deriving from the obligatory location of the modern state in the interstate system. Social movements are a second classic rubric. For Wallerstein, the principal questions are the degree to which such movements are antisystemic, and the dilemmas state power poses for antisystemic movements. Civilizations, in contrast, are not normally seen as a political institution. That however is for Wallerstein the key to the analysis of their role in the contemporary world, and thereby a key to understanding the politics of social science. |
Contents
World networks and the politics of the worldeconomy | 1 |
Patterns and prospectives of the capitalist worldeconomy | 13 |
The states and the interstate system | 27 |
The three instances of hegemony in the history of the capitalist worldeconomy | 37 |
The withering away of the states | 47 |
Friends as foes | 58 |
The USA in the world today | 69 |
The worldeconomy and the statestructures in peripheral and dependent countries the socalled Third World | 80 |
Eurocommunism its roots in European workingclass history | 112 |
Nationalism and the world transition to socialism is there a crisis? | 123 |
Revolutionary movements in the era of US hegemony and after | 132 |
The civilizational project | 147 |
Civilizations and modes of production conflicts and convergences | 159 |
The dialectics of civilizations in the modern worldsystem | 169 |
The development of the concept of development | 173 |
| 187 | |
Socialist states mercantilist strategies and revolutionary objectives | 86 |
Antisystemic movements | 97 |
Common terms and phrases
accumulation alliance analysis antisystemic movements arena argued basic boundaries bourgeois bourgeoisie capital capitalist world-economy China civilization civilizational class struggle collective communist parties concept continuing contradictions core countries CPSU created creation crisis cultural cyclical debate defined direct producers division of labor economic enterprises entities entrepreneurs Eurocommunism Eurocommunist European existence expanded fact forces global groups hegemonic power hegemony Hence historical system households ideological Immanuel Wallerstein individual institutions internal interstate system law of value machinery major Mao Zedong Marxism Marxist mechanisms ment military mini-systems mode of production modern world-system national movement nationalist nineteenth century objective operations organization organizational particular period peripheral political pressure production processes proletarian reality redistributive relatively revolution revolutionary seek semiperipheral social movement social science socialist society Soviet stagnation state-structures status-group strata strategy structures surplus surplus-value survival transformation transition twentieth century unequal exchange United USSR vis-à-vis Wallerstein western Europe workers world-empires worldwide zones