Showing papers in "Journal of World-Systems Research in 2006"

The World Distribution of Income and Income Inequality: A Review of the Economics Literature*

Abstract: This review covers a range of measures and methods frequently employed in the empirical analysis of global income inequality and global income distribution. Different determinant factors along with the quantification of their impacts and empirical results from different case studies are presented. A number of issues crucial to the study of global income inequality are also addressed. These are the concepts, measurement and decomposition of inequality, the world distribution of income and inequality measured at different levels of aggregation:global, international and intra-national. We analyze income at each of these levels, discuss the benefits and limitations of each approach and present empirical results found in the literature and compare them with those based on the World Income Inequality Database. Research on world income inequality supports increased awareness of the problem, its measurement and quantification, the identification of causal factors and policy measures that affect global income inequality.

Semiperipheries in the World-System: Reflecting Eastern European and Latin American Experiences

Abstract: This paper claims that, since many of the concepts relevant to our analysis of systemic change were coined in and about the core, the potential with which solutions to world-systemic crisis are credited in the long run should be assessed differently depending on the structural location of their origin. In the periphery, such concepts as conservatism, socialism and even liberalism took forms that often retained nothing of the original model but the name, such that strategies of applying them to (semi)peripheral situations ranged from “stretching the ideology” to “discarding the (liberal) myth” altogether. In a first step, “the hypothesis of semiperipheral development” (Chase-Dunn and Hall), according to which the semiperiphery represents the most likely locus of political, economical, and institutional change, is amended to say that, at least for the late modern world-system, the strength of the semiperiphery resides primarily in the cultural and epistemic sphere. In a second step, this contention is illustrated with the help of major challenges that the Eastern European and Latin American (semi)peripheries have posed to the world-system’s political fields and institutional settings both in the past and to date—with different degrees of success corresponding to their respective structural position. In light of these examples, it is argued that a comparative analysis of continuities among political epistemologies developed in the semiperiphery can help us understand the ways in which similar attempts can become antisystemic today.

East-West Orientation of Historical Empires and Modern States

Abstract: Jared Diamond (1997) hypothesized that if environment is important in limiting the spread of cultures, cultural units would also tend to extend more broadly along lines of latitude than along lines of longitude. We test this hypothesis by studying the range shapes of (a) historical empires and (b) modern states. Our analysis of the 62 largest empires in history supports this conjecture: there is a statistically significant tendency to expand more east-west than north-south. Modern states also show this trend, although the results are not statistically significant.

Board Interlocks and the Study of the Transnational Capitalist Class

Abstract: In a recent synopsis of theories and findings on transnational corporate ties published in this journal, Nollert (2005) argues that while there may be good theoretical reasons to hypothesize the emergence of a Transnational Capitalist Class (tcc), to this point there is relatively little empirical evidence, aside from Sklair’s (2001) work, to support the claim that such a class exists or is forming. However, a few researchers have attempted to apply the study of interlocking directorates to the search for a network of transnational directors who might be in a position to form such a class. Drawing on empirical findings on the world’s largest transnational corporations and banks reported elsewhere (Staples 2007a; Staples 2007b), as well as additional analyses done specifically for this paper, I argue that studies that rely exclusively on transnational corporate interlocks dramatically underestimate the extent of the tcc network because such studies count only transnational connections between corporations and miss transnational connections within corporations—connections that have grown more numerous in recent years as corporate boards have become more multinational, largely as a result of the concentration of global capital. Counting both between and within transnational capitalist connections points to a far greater level of capitalist transnationality than is suggested by focusing exclusively on between corporate connections, as has been done in this work so far. And while the existence of such a network falls well short of convincing proof that a tcc exists, it does show that capitalists from different countries increasingly have opportunities to interact as they work together to run the world’s largest corporations, and it is out of such interactions that we would expect a tcc to emerge.

The Effect of Economic and Cultural Globalization on Anti-U.S. Transnational Terrorism 19712000*

Abstract: The events of 9/11 have rekindled interest in the social sciences concerning the global factors responsible for transnational terrorism. Two opposing frameworks currently dominate the scene: proponents of a “destructive globalization” approach argue that processes related to the transnationalization of capital produce native resistance in the more economically disadvantaged areas of the globe that is manifested as transnational terrorist attacks, especially against the U.S., “civilizing globalization” arguments point to precisely the opposite effect: economic globalization through the spread of markets and material goods brings with it prosperity and higher living standards, thus defusing the motivation to engage in high-risk political violence. In this paper, I propose an additional framework that goes beyond the narrow realism of the destructive globalization and civilizing globalization perspectives by examining the role of the globalization of world culture in theproduction of anti-u.s. terrorism. I argue that looking at the role of world cultural structuration is important because even though economic globalization may help create local grievances outside of the most economically advantaged areas of the world, cultural globalization provides the requisite models of individual and organizational action and the interpretive schemas that “empower” local actors with the constitutive capacity to engage in high-risk acts of political violence and allows them to make local/global connections. I test this framework using time-series world-level data in order to examine the global correlates of anti-u.s. terrorist activity for the last 30 years. The results provide mixed support for both civilizing globalization and destructive globalization viewpoints. Further, and in accord with the model proposed here, cultural globalization has a positive effect on the rate of anti-u.s. terrorist activity.

The Interplay between Social and Environmental Degradation in the Development of the International Political Economy

Abstract: This article considers capitalism as a dissipative system, developing at the expense of exporting disorder into two sorts of ‘environment’: the physical ecosystem; and a subordinate area of society which serves to nourish mainstream order without experiencing its benefits. Particularly significant is the relationship between the two forms of dissipation. The paper begins by assessing the dangers of translating systems theory into social relations, concluding that the project is nevertheless worthwhile, provided that exploitation and struggle are constantly borne in mind. Exploring the concepts of ‘core’ and ‘periphery,’ the paper highlights the contradictory nature of an attribute of chaos which is both ascribed to the out-group, and also really exported to it. If the core’s growth merely destroyed peripheral order, the entropy of capitalism would be starkly exposed in the form of an exhaustion of future room for maneuver. This problem can be kept at bay by maintaining a self-reproducing ‘low’ order within the subordinate social system; however the fundamental entropy is still there, and will sooner or later manifest itself in the shape of threats to the sustainability of that subordinate system. At the level of the international political economy (IPE), this dialectic unfolds against the background of a ‘lumpy’ development whereby (following structural crises) order can be reconstituted, but at a cost which must be absorbed somewhere. In the case of the post-World War II reordering, this cost was massively exported to the physical environment. Since a high level of ecological depletion now appears permanently embedded within the capitalist IPE, future major efforts of order-building cannot rely on this dimension to the same degree, and must instead access some new forms of dissipative relationship with the social environment. The paper argues that this is the fundamental significance of the ‘sustainable development’ discourse: it brings together the physical and social environments into a single approach, where substitution between one and the other can be experimented. To some extent, the social environment can be treated as ‘fuel,’ and contemporary management sys-tems are noteworthy for exploring the access to an added value through the self-exploitation of small producers, realized through emergent process such as production chains. But ultimately, the ‘fuel’ definition cannot be separated from the other definition of dissipa-tion, the export of disorder; and this must be managed somehow. The dominant interests respond by means of social engineering in the periphery, for example by pushing the sustainability notion in the direction of social development theories like ‘sustainable livelihoods.’ Most immediately the problem appears in the form of purely negative phenomena: namely unmanageable levels of poverty and conflict. But there is another issue, even more threatening to the capitalist order, but hopeful for those critical of it: the increasing likelihood of unco-opted forms of emergent social order.

Diachronic Frontiers: Landscape Archaeology in Highland Albania

Abstract: The modern practice of archaeological survey—regional, intensive, diachronic, and interdisciplinary—is well-suited to the study of frontiers. In this paper we provide the example of the Shala Valley Project, which studies the northern Albanian mountain valley of Shala, home to the Shala tribe. Northern Albania is the only place in Europe where tribal societies survived into the 20th century. We attribute their survival to the frontier position of northern Albania, wherein tribal chiefs controlled access to and through valley systems. Shala provides a classic example of a “refuge” society, perched within a strongly contested peripheral zone. The tribe actively and creatively resisted state incorporation during both the Ottoman (Early Modern) and Modern periods. The northern Albanian frontier may have formed much earlier, though, perhaps as early as the Bronze Age. We bring a broad array of evidence to bear on this question, drawn from the ethno-historical, excavation, and of course, survey-archaeological records.

Globalization from a World-System Perspective: A New Phase in the Core-A New Destiny for Brazil and the Semiperiphery?*

Abstract: The study of globalization, prominent in all fields of social science, scarcely draws upon the insights generated by the world-systems theory. In this essay, I delineate five key dimensions on which a world-systems approach diverges from a world society approach. When linked together, these five stages offer support for a dependency perspective that was elaborated in the theoretical work underpinning the world-system paradigm. I use the case of Brazil to demonstrate how a consent model, derived from this paradigm, offers a better understanding of the dynamics leading to global convergence than a consensus model derived from a world society paradigm.

Global Disparities Since 1800: Trends and Regional Patterns

Abstract: This paper reviews the growing body of evidence on the relative economic standing of different regions of the world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In general, it does not find support for Eurocentric claims regarding Western Europe’s early economic lead. The Eurocentric claims are based primarily on estimates of a per capita income, which are plagued by conceptual problems, make demands on historical data that are generally unavailable, and they use questionable assumptions to reconstruct early per capita income. A careful examination of these conjectural estimates of per capita income, however, does not support claims that Western Europe had a substantial lead over the rest of the world at the beginning of the nineteenth century. An examination of several alternative indices of living standards in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries – such as real wages, labor productivity in agriculture, and urbanization – also fails to confirm claims of European superiority. In addition, this paper examines the progress of global disparities – including the presence of regional patterns – using estimates of per capita income.

“Assimilating to Power in Two Different World-Systems: An Analysis of Paul and Herzl”

Abstract: This essay concerns two Jewish men from different historical formations: the Apostle Paul, a Jew living in the Roman Empire in the first century and one of the founding figures of Christianity, and Theodor Herzl, a Jew living in late-nineteenth-century Austria and the founding father of Zionism, a Jewish nationalist movement. My central argument is that both men employed an assimilationist strategy that linked their identity to powerful social forces of their time, strategically restructuring their identity so that they could move into the most powerful centers of their social system—Paul navigating himself towards Rome and Herzl setting his gaze west even while physically moving east. My objective here is to demonstrate how these two Jewish figures used Christianity and Zionism, respectively, to assimilate towards those who hold real power, each of them appropriating the ideology of his movement in order to join the most powerful sector of his “world.” Yet I also intend to demonstrate that, while they both shared a desire to assimilate to power, the strategies they implemented to reach their goals were radically different: Paul using a universalistic discourse, what I shall call “Israel in the spirit,” whereas Herzl chose the particularistic discourse of “Israel in the flesh.” This is due, I argue, to the fact that both of these great historical figures were reacting to the social and political forces of their times, Paul to the centripetal forces of ancient world-empires and Herzl to the centrifugal forces of the modern world-system.

Globalization, Development and Ordinary Cities: A Review Essay

Abstract: What are the underlying spatial assumptions about the world that renders some cities exemplars of modernity and innovation, while others are cast as being behind, and worse yet, forgotten places? This is a key question that has emerged in geography and sociology, and is addressed in Jennifer Robinson’s book Ordinary Cities: Between Modernity and Development. The purpose of this essay is two-fold in that it provides a review of Robinson’s book and it also uses her text as a vehicle to interrogate the geo-politics of urban theory development. In particular, scholars have voiced concern over the manner in which “world cities” and then “global cities” have the power/knowledge e?ect of reifying the idea that there is one “world system” that can be measured objectively.