View source for World-systems theory

{{Short description|Approach emphasizing the world-system as the primary unit of social analysis}}

[[File:World trade map.svg|thumb|428x428px|A world map of countries by their supposed [[International trade#Largest countries or regions by total international trade|trading status]] in 2000, using the world system differentiation into core countries (blue), semi-periphery countries (yellow) and periphery countries (red). Based on the list in Chase-Dunn, Kawana, and Brewer (2000).<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Chase-Dunn |first1=Christopher |last2=Kawano |first2=Yukio |last3=Brewer |first3=Benjamin D. |date=2000 |title=Trade Globalization since 1795: Waves of Integration in the World-System |journal=American Sociological Review |volume=65 |issue=1 |pages=77–95 |doi=10.2307/2657290 |jstor=2657290 |s2cid=147609071 |issn=0003-1224 |author1-link=Christopher Chase-Dunn}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20220305181504/https://www.irows.ucr.edu/cd/appendices/asr00/asr00app.htm See appendix with the country list ("Table A2")]. Some countries with a population of less than one million were excluded from the analysis.</ref>]]
[[File:World trade map 1965.png|thumb|A world map of countries in 1965 colour-coded into 'blocks' based on trade, military interventions, diplomats and treaties:<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Snyder |first1=David |last2=Kick |first2=Edward L. |date=1979-03-01 |title=Structural Position in the World System and Economic Growth, 1955–1970: A Multiple-Network Analysis of Transnational Interactions |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/226902 |journal=American Journal of Sociology |volume=84 |issue=5 |pages=1096–1126 |doi=10.1086/226902 |s2cid=144895613 |issn=0002-9602 |access-date=2022-04-08 |archive-date=2022-04-08 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220408033741/https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/226902 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> {{Legend|#e41a1c|Block A}} {{Legend|#4daf4a|Block B}} {{Legend|#377eb8|Block C & with dashed lines indicates colonies of Block C countries}} {{Legend|#74a9cf|Block C'}} {{Legend|#ff7f00|Block D}} {{Legend|#feb24c|Block D'}} {{Legend|#984ea3|Block E}} {{Legend|#8c6bb1|Block E'}} {{Legend|#35978f|Block F}} {{Legend|#80cdc1|Block F'}}]]
{{Imperialism Studies sidebar|Theories}}
'''World-systems theory''' (also known as '''world-systems analysis''' or '''the world-systems perspective''')<ref name=IW>Immanuel Wallerstein, (2004), "World-systems Analysis." In ''World System History'', ed. George Modelski, in ''Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems'' (EOLSS), Developed under the Auspices of the UNESCO, Eolss Publishers, Oxford, UK</ref> is a multidisciplinary approach to [[World history (field)|world history]] and [[social change]] which emphasizes the [[world-system]] (and not [[nation state]]s) as the primary (but not exclusive) unit of [[social analysis]].<ref name=IW/> World-systems theorists argue that their theory explains the rise and fall of states, [[income inequality]], [[social unrest]], and [[imperialism]].

The "world-system" refers to the inter-regional and transnational [[division of labor]], which divides the world into [[core countries]], [[semi-periphery countries]], and [[periphery countries]].<ref name="TB">{{cite book |editor-first=Thomas |editor-last=Barfield |title=The dictionary of anthropology |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |isbn=1-57718-057-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V5dkKYyHclwC&pg=PA498 |year=1998 |pages=498–499 |access-date=2016-03-15 |archive-date=2021-07-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210726064552/https://books.google.com/books?id=V5dkKYyHclwC&pg=PA498 |url-status=live }}</ref> Core countries have higher-skill, [[Capital (economics)|capital]]-intensive industries, and the rest of the world has low-skill, labor-intensive industries and extraction of [[raw material]]s.<ref name="glob" /> This constantly reinforces the dominance of the core countries.<ref name="glob" /> This structure is unified by the division of labour. It is a world-economy rooted in a capitalist economy.<ref>{{Cite book|title=World-systems analysis: An introduction|url=https://archive.org/details/worldsystemsanal00wall|url-access=limited|last=Wallerstein|first=Immanuel Maurice|publisher=Duke University Press|year=2004|pages=[https://archive.org/details/worldsystemsanal00wall/page/n20 23]–24}}</ref> For a time, certain countries have become the world [[hegemon]]; during the last few centuries, as the world-system has extended geographically and intensified economically, this status has passed from the [[Netherlands]], to the [[United Kingdom]] and (most recently) to the [[United States]].<ref name="glob" />

[[Immanuel Wallerstein]] is the main proponent of world systems theory.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last1=Chirot |first1=Daniel |last2=Hall |first2=Thomas D. |date=1982 |title=World-System Theory |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2945989 |journal=Annual Review of Sociology |volume=8 |pages=81–106 |doi=10.1146/annurev.so.08.080182.000501 |jstor=2945989 |issn=0360-0572|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Components of the world-systems analysis are ''[[longue durée]]'' by [[Fernand Braudel]], "development of underdevelopment" by [[Andre Gunder Frank]], and the single-society assumption.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last1=Flint|first1=C.|title=Political Geography: world-economy, nation-state, and locality|last2=Taylor|first2=P. J.|publisher=Routledge|year=2018|isbn=9781138058262|edition=7|language=English}}</ref> ''Longue durée'' is the concept of the gradual change through the day-to-day activities by which social systems are continually reproduced.<ref name=":1" /> "Development of underdevelopment" describes the economic processes in the [[Periphery countries|periphery]] as the opposite of the development in the [[Core countries|core]]. Poorer countries are impoverished to enable a few countries to get richer.<ref name=":1" /> Lastly, the single-society assumption opposes the multiple-society assumption and includes looking at the world as a whole.<ref name=":1" />

==Background==

[[Immanuel Wallerstein]] has developed the best-known version of world-systems analysis, beginning in the 1970s.<ref>Wallerstein, Immanuel (1974). The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press.</ref><ref name=PH>Paul Halsall [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/wallerstein.html Modern History Sourcebook: Summary of Wallerstein on World System Theory] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071026020045/http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/wallerstein.html |date=2007-10-26 }}, August 1997</ref> Wallerstein traces the rise of the [[capitalism|capitalist]] world-economy from the "long" 16th century (c. 1450–1640).<ref>{{Citation |last=Chase-Dunn |first=Christopher |title=World-System Theory |date=2019-11-26 |work=International Relations |url=https://oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199743292/obo-9780199743292-0272.xml |access-date=2024-10-07 |publisher=Oxford University Press |language=en |doi=10.1093/obo/9780199743292-0272 |isbn=978-0-19-974329-2 |last2=Grell-Brisk |first2=Marilyn|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The rise of capitalism, in his view, was an accidental outcome of the protracted crisis of feudalism (c. 1290–1450).<ref>Wallerstein, Immanuel (1992). "The West, Capitalism, and the Modern World-System", Review 15 (4), 561-619; also Wallerstein, The Modern World-System I, chapter one; Moore, Jason W. (2003) "[http://www.jasonwmoore.com/uploads/Moore__The_Modern_World-System_as_Environmental_History__Theory___Society__2003_.pdf The Modern World-System as Environmental History?] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140722072751/http://www.jasonwmoore.com/uploads/Moore__The_Modern_World-System_as_Environmental_History__Theory___Society__2003_.pdf |date=2014-07-22 }} Ecology and the rise of Capitalism," Theory & Society 32(3), 307–377.</ref> Europe ([[Western world|the West]]) used its advantages and gained control over most of the world economy and presided over the development and spread of [[industrialization]] and capitalist economy, indirectly resulting in [[international inequality|unequal development]].<ref name=TB/><ref name=glob/><ref name=PH/>

Though other commentators refer to Wallerstein's project as world-systems "theory," he consistently rejects that term.<ref>Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2004. ''The Uncertainties of Knowledge''. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.</ref> For Wallerstein, world-systems analysis is a mode of analysis that aims to transcend the structures of knowledge inherited from the 19th century, especially the definition of capitalism, the divisions within the social sciences, and those between the social sciences and history.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Social Change and Development: Modernization, Dependency, and World-Systems Theory|last=So|first=Alvin Y.|publisher=Sage Publications|year=1990|location=Newbury Park, London and New Delhi|pages=169–199}}</ref> For Wallerstein, then, world-systems analysis is a "knowledge movement"<ref>Wallerstein, Immanuel. 2004. 2004a. "World-Systems Analysis." In ''World System History: Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems'', edited by George Modelski. Oxford: UNESCO/EOLSS Publishers, http://www.eolss.net {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100824043138/http://www.eolss.net/ |date=2010-08-24 }}.</ref> that seeks to discern the "totality of what has been paraded under the labels of the... human sciences and indeed well beyond".<ref>Wallerstein, ''The Uncertainties of Knowledge'', p. 62.</ref> "We must invent a new language," Wallerstein insists, to transcend the illusions of the "three supposedly distinctive arenas" of society, economy and politics.<ref>Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1991. "Beyond Annales," ''Radical History Review'', no. 49, p. 14.</ref> The trinitarian structure of knowledge is grounded in another, even grander, modernist architecture, the distinction of biophysical worlds (including those within bodies) from social ones: "One question, therefore, is whether we will be able to justify something called social science in the twenty-first century as a separate sphere of knowledge."<ref>Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1995. "What Are We Bounding, and Whom, When We Bound Social Research?" ''Social Research'' 62(4):839–856.</ref><ref>Moore, Jason W. 2011. 2011. "Ecology, Capital, and the Nature of Our Times:  Accumulation & Crisis in the Capitalist World-Ecology," ''Journal of World-Systems Analysis'' 17(1), 108-147, {{cite web |url=http://www.jasonwmoore.com/Essays.html |title=Essays |access-date=2011-02-11 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110510142258/http://www.jasonwmoore.com/Essays.html |archive-date=2011-05-10 }}.</ref> Many other scholars have contributed significant work in this "knowledge movement."<ref name=TB/>
==Origins==

===Influences===
World-systems theory traces emerged in the 1970s.<ref name=IW/> Its roots can be found in [[sociology]], but it has developed into a highly interdisciplinary field.<ref name=TB/>
World-systems theory was aiming to replace [[modernization theory]], which Wallerstein criticised for three reasons:<ref name=TB/>
# its focus on the [[nation state]] as the only [[unit of analysis]]
# its assumption that there is only [[sociocultural evolution|a single path of evolutionary development for all countries]]
# its disregard of transnational structures that constrain local and national development.

There are three major predecessors of world-systems theory: the Annales school, the Marxist tradition, and dependency theory.<ref name=TB/><ref name="CAMV">Carlos A. Martínez-Vela,</ref> The [[Annales School]] tradition, represented most notably by [[Fernand Braudel]], influenced Wallerstein to focus on [[longue durée|long-term processes]] and geo-ecological regions as [[unit of analysis|units of analysis]]. [[Marxism]] added a stress on [[social conflict]], a focus on the [[capital accumulation]] process and competitive [[class struggle]]s, a focus on a relevant totality, the transitory nature of social forms and a [[dialectic]]al sense of motion through conflict and contradiction.

World-systems theory was also significantly influenced by [[dependency theory]], a [[neo-Marxist]] explanation of development processes.

Other influences on the world-systems theory come from scholars such as [[Karl Polanyi]], [[Nikolai Kondratiev]]<ref>Kondratieff Waves in the World System Perspective. ''[http://cliodynamics.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=336&Itemid=1 Kondratieff Waves. Dimensions and Perspectives at the Dawn of the 21st Century] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140429050452/http://cliodynamics.ru/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=336&Itemid=1 |date=2014-04-29 }}'' / Ed. by Leonid E. Grinin, Tessaleno C. Devezas, and Andrey V. Korotayev. Volgograd: Uchitel, 2012. P. 23–64.</ref> and [[Joseph Schumpeter]]. These scholars researched  [[business cycles]] and developed concepts of three basic modes of economic organization: reciprocal, redistributive, and market modes. Wallerstein reframed these concepts into a discussion of mini systems, world empires, and world economies.

Wallerstein sees the development of the capitalist world economy as detrimental to a large proportion of the world's population.<ref>Wallerstein, Immanuel (1983). Historical Capitalism. London: Verso.</ref> Wallerstein views the period since the 1970s as an "age of transition" that will give way to a future world system (or world systems) whose configuration cannot be determined in advance.<ref>[[Terence Hopkins|Hopkins, Terence K.]], and Immanuel Wallerstein, coordinators (1996). ''The Age of Transition''. London: Zed Books.</ref>

Other world-systems thinkers include [[Oliver Cox]], [[Samir Amin]], [[Giovanni Arrighi]], and [[Andre Gunder Frank]], with major contributions by [[Christopher Chase-Dunn]], [[Beverly Silver]], [[Janet Abu Lughod]], [[Li Minqi]], [[Kunibert Raffer]], and others.<ref name=TB/> In sociology, a primary alternative perspective is [[World Polity Theory]], as formulated by [[John W. Meyer]].{{citation needed|date=October 2016}}

===Dependency theory===
{{Main|Dependency theory}}

World-systems analysis builds upon but also differs fundamentally from [[dependency theory]]. While accepting world inequality, the world market and imperialism as fundamental features of historical capitalism, Wallerstein broke with orthodox dependency theory's central proposition. For Wallerstein, core countries do not exploit poor countries for two basic reasons.

Firstly, core capitalists exploit workers in all zones of the capitalist world economy (not just the periphery) and therefore, the crucial redistribution between core and periphery is surplus value, not "wealth" or "resources" abstractly conceived. Secondly, core states do not exploit poor states, as dependency theory proposes, because capitalism is organised around an inter-regional and transnational division of labor rather than an international division of labour. Thirdly, economically relevant structures such as [[metropolitan region]]s, [[supranational union|international unions]] and [[bilateralism|bilateral]] agreements tend to weaken and blur out the economic importance of [[nation state|nation-states]] and their borders.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Globalization and the welfare state |date=1998 |url=https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/01443339810788344/full/html |publisher=Emerald Insight |doi=10.1108/01443339810788344 |access-date=14 April 2023 |archive-date=14 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230414105209/https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/01443339810788344/full/html |url-status=live |last1=Stryker |first1=Robin |journal=International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy |volume=18 |issue=2/3/4 |pages=1–49 |url-access=subscription }}</ref>

During the Industrial Revolution, for example, English capitalists exploited slaves (unfree workers) in the cotton zones of the American South, a peripheral region within a semiperipheral country, United States.<ref>Wallerstein, Immanuel (1989). The Modern World-System III. San Diego: Academic Press</ref>

From a largely Weberian perspective, [[Fernando Henrique Cardoso]] described the main tenets of dependency theory as follows:

* There is a financial and technological penetration of the [[periphery countries|periphery]] and [[semi-periphery countries]] by the developed capitalist [[core countries]].
* That produces an unbalanced economic structure within the peripheral societies and between them and the central countries.
* That leads to limitations upon self-sustained growth in the periphery.
* That helps the appearance of specific patterns of class relations.
* They require modifications in the role of the state to guarantee the functioning of the economy and the political articulation of a society, which contains, within itself, foci of inarticulateness and structural imbalance.<ref>Cardoso, F. H. (1979). Development under Fire. Mexico D.F.: Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios Transnacionales, DEE/D/24 i, Mayo (Mexico 20 D.F., Apartado 85 - 025). Cited after Arno Tausch, Almas Heshmati, [http://ftp.iza.org/dp4393.pdf Re-Orient? MNC Penetration and Contemporary Shifts in the Global Political Economy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181103000935/http://ftp.iza.org/dp4393.pdf |date=2018-11-03 }}, September 2009, IZA Discussion Paper No. 4393</ref>

Dependency and world system theory propose that the [[poverty]] and backwardness of poor countries are caused by their peripheral position in the international [[division of labor]]. Since the capitalist world system evolved, the distinction between the central and the peripheral states has grown and diverged. In recognizing a tripartite pattern in the division of labor, world-systems analysis criticized [[dependency theory]] with its bimodal system of only cores and peripheries.

===Immanuel Wallerstein===
The best-known version of the world-systems approach was developed by [[Immanuel Wallerstein]].<ref name=":2" /><ref name=PH/> Wallerstein notes that world-systems analysis calls for a unidisciplinary 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.<ref name=IW/> Wallerstein offers several definitions of a [[world-system]], defining it in 1974 briefly:

{{quote|a system is defined as a unit with a single division of labor and multiple cultural systems.<ref name="Wallerstein">{{cite journal|last=Wallerstein|first=Immanuel|date=Sep 1974|title=Wallerstein. 1974. "The Rise and Future Demise of the World-Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis|journal=[[Comparative Studies in Society and History]]|volume=16|issue=4|page=390|url=http://bev.berkeley.edu/ipe/readings/Wallerstein.pdf|doi=10.1017/S0010417500007520|s2cid=144170935 |access-date=2014-06-23|archive-date=2012-04-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120417144746/http://bev.berkeley.edu/ipe/readings/Wallerstein.pdf|url-status=live}} Cited after [http://www.sociology.emory.edu/globalization/theories01.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130429010208/http://www.sociology.emory.edu/globalization/theories01.html |date=2013-04-29 }}</ref>}}

He also offered a longer definition:

{{blockquote|text=...a social system, one that has boundaries, structures, member groups, rules of legitimation, and coherence. Its life is made up of the conflicting forces which hold it together by tension and tear it apart as each group seeks eternally to remold it to its advantage. It has the characteristics of an organism, in that it has a life-span over which its characteristics change in some respects and remain stable in others. One can define its structures as being at different times strong or weak in terms of the internal logic of its functioning.<ref>{{cite book |last=Wallerstein |first=Immanuel  |date=1974 |title=The Modern World-System |location=New York |publisher=Academic Press |pages=347–57}}</ref>}}

In 1987, Wallerstein again defined it:

{{quote|...&nbsp;not the system of the world, but a system that is a world and which can be, most often has been, located in an area less than the entire globe. World-systems analysis argues that the units of social reality within which we operate, whose rules constrain us, are for the most part such world-systems (other than the now extinct, small minisystems that once existed on the earth). World-systems analysis argues that there have been thus far only two varieties of world-systems: world-economies and world empires. A world-empire (examples, the [[Roman Empire]], [[Han China]]) are large bureaucratic structures with a single political center and an axial division of labor, but multiple cultures. A world-economy is a large axial division of labor with multiple political centers and multiple cultures. In English, the hyphen is essential to indicate these concepts. "World system" without a hyphen suggests that there has been only one world-system in the history of the world.|<ref name=IW/>}}

Wallerstein characterizes the world system as a set of mechanisms, which redistributes surplus value from the ''[[periphery countries|periphery]]'' to the ''[[core countries|core]]''. In his terminology, the ''core'' is the developed, [[industrialized]] part of the world, and the ''periphery'' is the "[[underdeveloped]]", typically raw materials-exporting, poor part of the world; the ''market'' being the means by which the ''core'' exploits the ''periphery''.

Apart from them, Wallerstein defines four temporal features of the world system. ''Cyclical rhythms'' represent the short-term fluctuation of [[economy]], and ''secular trends'' mean deeper long run tendencies, such as general [[economic growth]] or decline.<ref name=IW/><ref name=TB/> The term ''contradiction'' means a general controversy in the system, usually concerning some short term versus long term tradeoffs. For example, the problem of [[underconsumption]], wherein the driving down of wages increases the profit for capitalists in the short term, but in the long term, the decreasing of wages may have a crucially harmful effect by reducing the demand for the product. The last temporal feature is the ''crisis'': a crisis occurs if a constellation of circumstances brings about the end of the system.

In Wallerstein's view, there have been three kinds of historical systems across human history: [https://escholarship.org/content/qt9c21h2pv/qt9c21h2pv_noSplash_6687ab4a06d10b7cfe24b857fe30adc5.pdf?t=lggoyl "mini-systems"] or what anthropologists call bands, tribes, and small chiefdoms, and two types of world-systems, one that is politically unified and the other is not (single state world [[empire]]s and multi-polity world economies).<ref name=IW/><ref name=TB/> World-systems are larger, and are ethnically diverse. The modern world-system, a capitalist world-economy, is unique in being the first and only world-system, which emerged around 1450 to 1550, to have [[geography|geographically]] expanded across the entire planet, by about 1900. It is defined, as a world-economy, in having many political units tied together as an [[Interstate system (world-systems theory)|interstate system]] and through its division of labor based on capitalist enterprises.<ref name=IW-D />

== Importance ==
World-Systems Theory can be useful in understanding world history and the core countries' motives for imperialization and other involvements like the US aid following natural disasters in developing Central American countries or imposing regimes on other core states.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gowan |first1=Peter |title=Contemporary Intra-Core Relations and World Systems Theory |journal=Journal of World-Systems Research |date=26 August 2004 |pages=471–500 |doi=10.5195/jwsr.2004.291|volume=10|issue=2|doi-access=free }}</ref> With the interstate system as a system constant, the relative economic power of the three tiers points to the internal inequalities that are on the rise in states that appear to be developing.<ref>Chase-Dunn, C. (2001). World-Systems Theorizing. Handbook of Sociological Theory. https://irows.ucr.edu/cd/theory/wst1.htm {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200927090716/https://irows.ucr.edu/cd/theory/wst1.htm |date=2020-09-27 }}</ref> Some argue that this theory, though, ignores local efforts of innovation that have nothing to do with the global economy, such as the labor patterns implemented in Caribbean sugar plantations.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Balkiliç |first1=Özgür |title=Historicisizing World System Theory: Labor, Sugar, and Coffee in Caribbean and in Chiapas |journal=Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences |date=27 September 2018 |volume=17 |issue=4 |pages=1298–1310 |doi=10.21547/jss.380759|doi-access=free }}</ref> Other modern global topics can be easily traced back to the world-systems theory.

As global talk about climate change and the future of industrial corporations, the world systems theory can help to explain the creation of the G-77 group, a coalition of 77 peripheral and semi-peripheral states wanting a seat at the global climate discussion table. The group was formed in 1964, but it now has more than 130 members who advocate for multilateral decision making. Since its creation, G-77 members have collaborated with two main aims: 1) decreasing their vulnerability based on the relative size of economic influence, and 2) improving outcomes for national development.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hochstetler |first1=Kathryn Ann |title=The G-77, BASIC, and global climate governance: a new era in multilateral environmental negotiations |journal=Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional |date=2012 |volume=55 |issue=spe|pages=53–69 |doi=10.1590/S0034-73292012000300004|doi-access=free }}</ref> World-systems theory has also been utilized to trace CO<sub>2</sub> emissions’ damage to the ozone layer. The levels of world economic entrance and involvement can affect the damage a country does to the earth. In general, scientists can make assumptions about a country's CO<sub>2</sub> emissions based on GDP. Higher exporting countries, countries with debt, and countries with social structure turmoil land in the upper-periphery tier. Though more research must be done in the arena, scientists can call core, semi-periphery, and periphery labels as indicators for CO<sub>2</sub> intensity.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Roberts |first1=J. Timmons |last2=Grimes |first2=Peter E. |last3=Manale |first3=Jodie L. |title=Social Roots of Global Environmental Change: A World-Systems Analysis of Carbon Dioxide Emissions |journal=Journal of World-Systems Research |date=26 August 2003 |volume=9|issue=2|pages=277–315 |doi=10.5195/jwsr.2003.238|doi-access=free }}</ref>

In a health realm, studies have shown the effect of less industrialized countries’, the periphery's, acceptance of packaged foods and beverages that are loaded with sugars and preservatives. While core states benefit from dumping large amounts of processed, fatty foods into poorer states, there has been a recorded increase in obesity and related chronic conditions such as diabetes and chronic heart disease. While some aspects of the modernization theory have been found to improve the global obesity crisis, a world systems theory approach identifies holes in the progress.<ref>Fox, A., Feng, W., & Asal, V. (2019). What is driving global obesity trends? Globalization or “modernization”? Globalization & Health, 15(1), N.PAG.</ref>

Knowledge economy and finance now dominate the industry in core states while manufacturing has shifted to semi-periphery and periphery ones.<ref>Cartwright, Madison. (2018). Rethinking World Systems Theory and Hegemony: Towards a Marxist-Realist Synthesis. https://www.e-ir.info/2018/10/18/rethinking-world-systems-theory-and-hegemony-towards-a-marxist-realist-synthesis/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200223043752/https://www.e-ir.info/2018/10/18/rethinking-world-systems-theory-and-hegemony-towards-a-marxist-realist-synthesis/ |date=2020-02-23 }}</ref> Technology has become a defining factor in the placement of states into core or semi-periphery versus periphery.<ref>Martínez-Vela, Carlos A. (2001). World Systems Theory. https://web.mit.edu/esd.83/www/notebook/WorldSystem.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200227124746/http://web.mit.edu/esd.83/www/notebook/WorldSystem.pdf |date=2020-02-27 }}</ref> Wallerstein's theory leaves room for poor countries to move into better economic development, but he also admits that there will always be a need for periphery countries as long as there are core states who derive resources from them.<ref>Thompson, K. (2015). World Systems Theory. https://revisesociology.com/2015/12/05/world-systems-theory/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200223043754/https://revisesociology.com/2015/12/05/world-systems-theory/ |date=2020-02-23 }}</ref> As a final mark of modernity, Wallerstein admits that advocates are the heart of this world-system: “Exploitation and the refusal to accept exploitation as either inevitable or just constitute the continuing antinomy of the modern era”.<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press, 1976, pp. 229-233. https://www.csub.edu/~gsantos/WORLDSYS.HTML {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200223043753/https://www.csub.edu/~gsantos/WORLDSYS.HTML |date=2020-02-23 }}</ref>

== Influence on International Law ==

[[Third World approaches to international law|Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL)]], influenced by world-systems theory, critique the traditional view of international law (IL) as a horizontal system of equal sovereign states. This orthodox perspective, rooted in legal positivism, is challenged by the argument that global capitalism functions as a de facto sovereign power, shaping and enforcing international law in a hierarchical, top-down manner.

Scholars like [[Antony Anghie]] have examined the historical role of international law in advancing colonial agendas, aligning this analysis with the [[Marxism|Marxian]] concept of [[Primitive accumulation of capital|primitive accumulation.]] This concept situates colonialism within the broader framework of capital accumulation, demonstrating how IL has historically facilitated the exploitation and subordination of non-European states. From this perspective, international law is not a neutral framework of horizontal equality but a tool that mirrors and perpetuates the dominance of global capital. By doing so, it enforces a vertical hierarchy of power, subordinating states and communities to the interests of dominant economic and political forces.<ref>Ugalde, Elliot Goodell. [https://heinonline.org/hol-cgi-bin/get%20pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/ijlet2023&section=12&casa%20token=bLBnVyT1WbEAAAAA:NP%20ENnT5ma1bwxF7H8H3CmPJSKDbRPxh--zRlAEuwTtVYgWr2q5C5i%20K%20FIhYVpoIof7CRnS "The Ascendancy of Capital over Nation-States in the International Legal Arena: A Historical-Materialist Perspective on Redefining Horizontality in International Law."] Int'l JL Ethics Tech. (2023): 28.</ref>

==Characteristics==
{{See also|Core-periphery}}
{{more citations needed|date=March 2023|section=yes}}
[[File:Wallerstein's Core-periphery model.png|thumb|A model of a core-periphery system like that used in world-systems theory]]
World-systems analysis argues that capitalism, as a historical 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, semiperipheral and peripheral zones. In the core zones, businesses, with the support of states they operate within, monopolise the most profitable activities of the division of labor.

There are many ways to attribute a specific country to the core, semi-periphery, or periphery. Using an empirically based sharp formal definition of "[[wikt:domination|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 that are dominated (usually, but not necessarily, by core countries) but at the same time dominating others (usually in the periphery) and "periphery" as the countries dominated. Based on 1998 data, the full list of countries in the three regions, together with a discussion of methodology, can be found.

The late 18th and early 19th centuries marked a great turning point in the development of capitalism in that capitalists achieved state society 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 and that countries do not "develop" in stages, but the system does, and events have a different meaning as a phase in the development of historical capitalism, 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.
[[File:The World Economy. Wallerstein. World-systems analysis.svg|alt=Classification of the countries according to the world-system analysis of I. Wallerstein: core, semi-periphery and periphery. |thumb|459x459px|Classification of the countries according to the world-system analysis of I. Wallerstein: core, semi-periphery and periphery. ]]
Proponents of world-systems analysis see the world stratification system the same way [[Karl Marx]] viewed class (ownership versus nonownership of the means of production) and [[Max Weber]] viewed class (which, in addition to ownership, stressed occupational skill level in the production process). The core states primarily own and control the major means of production in the world and perform the higher-level production tasks. The periphery nations own very little of the world's means of production (even when they are located in periphery states) and provide less-skilled labour. Like a class system within states, class positions in the [[world economy]] result in an unequal distribution of rewards or resources. The core states receive the greatest share of surplus production, and periphery states receive the smallest share. Furthermore, core states are usually able to purchase raw materials and other goods from non-core states at low prices and demand higher prices for their exports to non-core states. Chirot (1986) lists the five most important benefits coming to core states from their domination of the periphery:

# Access to a large quantity of raw material
# Cheap labour
# Enormous profits from direct [[capital investments]]
# A market for [[exports]]
# Skilled professional labor through [[human migration|migration]] of these people from the non-core to the core.<ref name=chirot1986>Chirot, Daniel. 1986. ''Social Change in the Modern Era.'' New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.</ref>

According to Wallerstein, the unique qualities of the modern world system include its capitalistic nature, its truly global nature, and the fact that it is a world economy that has not become politically unified into a world empire.<ref name=TB/>

===Core states===
{{Main|Core countries}}
In general, core states:
* Are the most economically diversified, wealthy, and powerful both economically and militarily<ref name=TB/><ref name=PH/>
* Have strong central governments controlling extensive bureaucracies and powerful militaries<ref name=TB/><ref name=PH/>
* Have stronger and more complex state institutions that help manage economic affairs internally and externally
* Have a sufficiently large tax base, such that state institutions can provide the infrastructure for a strong economy
* Are highly industrialised and produce manufactured goods for export instead of raw materials<ref name=TB/>
* Increasingly tend to specialise in the information, finance, and service industries
* Are more regularly at the forefront of new technologies and new industries. Contemporary examples include the electronics and biotechnology industries. The use of the assembly line is a historic example of this trend.
* Have strong [[bourgeois]] and [[working class]]es<ref name=TB/>
* Have significant means of influence over non-core states<ref name=TB/>
* Are relatively independent of outside control
[[File:World Systems Theory (Dunaway and Clelland 2015).svg|alt=World Systems Theory (Dunaway and Clelland 2015)|thumb|459x459px|World Systems Theory (Dunaway and Clelland 2015)]]
Throughout the history of the modern world system, a group of core states has competed for access to the world's resources, economic dominance, and [[hegemony]] over periphery states. Occasionally, one core state possessed clear dominance over the others.<ref name=glob/> According to Immanuel Wallerstein, a core state is dominant over all the others when it has a lead in three forms of economic dominance:

# '''''Productivity dominance''''' allows a country to develop higher-quality products at a cheaper price compared to other countries.
# Productivity dominance may lead to '''''trade dominance.''''' In this case, there is a favorable balance of trade for the dominant state since other countries are buying more of its products than those of others.
# Trade dominance may lead to '''''financial dominance'''''. At this point, more money is flowing into the country than is leaving it. Bankers from the dominant state tend to acquire greater control over the world's financial resources.<ref name=wallerstein1980>Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1980. The Modern World System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600-1750. New York: Academic Press.</ref>

[[Military]] dominance is also likely once a state has reached this point. However, it has been posited that throughout the modern world system, no state has been able to use its military to gain economic dominance. Each of the past dominant states became dominant with fairly small levels of military spending and began to lose economic dominance with military expansion later on.<ref name=kennedy1987>Kennedy, Paul. 1987. ''The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict From 1500 to 2000.'' New York: Random House.</ref> Historically, cores were located in northwestern Europe (England, France, Netherlands) but later appeared in other parts of the world such as the United States, Canada, and Australia.<ref name=glob/><ref name=PH/>

===Peripheral states===
{{Main|Periphery countries}}
* Are the least economically diversified
* Have relatively weak governments<ref name=TB/><ref name=PH/>
* Have relatively weak institutions, with tax bases too small to support infrastructural development
* Tend to depend on one type of economic activity, often by extracting and exporting raw materials to core states<ref name=TB/><ref name=PH/>
* Tend to be the least industrialized<ref name=PH/>
* Are often targets for investments from [[multinational corporation|multinational]] (or [[international corporation|transnational]]) [[corporation]]s from core states that come into the country to exploit cheap unskilled labor in order to export back to core states
* Have a small bourgeois and a large peasant classes<ref name=TB/>
* Tend to have populations with high percentages of poor and uneducated people
* Tend to have very high social inequality because of small upper classes that own most of the land and have profitable ties to multinational corporations
* Tend to be extensively influenced by core states and their multinational corporations and often forced to follow economic policies that help core states and harm the long-term economic prospects of peripheral states.<ref name=TB/>

Historically, peripheries were found outside Europe, such as in [[Latin America]] and today in [[sub-Saharan Africa]].<ref name=PH/>

===Semi-peripheral states===
{{Main|Semiperiphery countries}}

Semi-peripheral states are those that are midway between the core and periphery.<ref name="PH" /> Thus, they have to keep themselves from falling into the category of peripheral states and at the same time, they strive to join the category of core states. Therefore, they tend to apply protectionist policies most aggressively among the three categories of states.<ref name="IW-D">Wallerstein, Immanuel Maurice. "The Modern World System as a Capitalist World-Economy." ''World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction.'' Durham: Duke UP, 2004. 23-30. Print.</ref> They tend to be countries moving towards industrialization and more diversified economies. These regions often have relatively developed and diversified economies but are not dominant in international trade.<ref name="PH" /> They tend to export more to peripheral states and import more from core states in trade. According to some scholars, such as Chirot, they are not as subject to outside manipulation as peripheral societies; but according to others (Barfield), they have "periperial-like" relations to the core.<ref name="TB" /><ref name="chirot1977">Chirot, Daniel. 1977. Social Change in the Twentieth Century. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.</ref> While in the sphere of influence of some cores, semiperipheries also tend to exert their own control over some peripheries.<ref name="PH" /> Further, semi-peripheries act as buffers between cores and peripheries<ref name="PH" /> and thus "...partially deflect the political pressures which groups primarily located in peripheral areas might otherwise direct against core-states" and stabilise the world system.<ref name="TB" /><ref name="glob" />

Semi-peripheries can come into existence from developing peripheries and declining cores.<ref name=PH/> Historically, two examples of semiperipheral states would be Spain and Portugal, which fell from their early core positions but still managed to retain influence in Latin America.<ref name=PH/> Those countries imported silver and gold from their American colonies but then had to use it to pay for manufactured goods from core countries such as England and France.<ref name=PH/> In the 20th century, states like the "settler colonies" of Australia, Canada and New Zealand had a semiperipheral status. In the 21st century, states like Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa ([[BRICS]]), and Israel are usually considered semiperipheral.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Morales Ruvalcaba|first1=Daniel Efrén|title=INSIDE THE BRIC: ANALYSIS OF THE SEMIPERIPHERAL NATURE OF BRAZIL, RUSSIA, INDIA AND CHINA|journal=Austral: Brazilian Journal of Strategy & International Relations|date=11 September 2013|volume=2|issue=4|url=http://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/austral/article/view/40942/26976|language=es|issn=2238-6912|access-date=4 May 2017|archive-date=15 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200215081514/https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/austral/article/view/40942/26976|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Interstate system ===
{{Main|Interstate system (world-systems theory)}}
Between the core, periphery and semi-periphery countries lies a system of interconnected state relationships, or the interstate system. The interstate system arose either as a concomitant process or as a consequence of the development of the capitalist world-system over the course of the “long” 16th century as states began to recognize each other's [[sovereignty]] and form agreements and rules between themselves.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wallerstein |first1=Immanuel |author1-link=Immanuel Wallerstein |title=The Politics of the World-Economy: The States, the Movements and the Civilizations (Studies in Modern Capitalism) |date=December 1984 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, UK |isbn=9780521277600 |pages=17–179 |edition=First |language=English}}</ref>

Wallerstein wrote that there were no concrete rules about what exactly constitutes an individual state as various indicators of statehood (sovereignty, power, market control etc.) could range from total to nil. There were also no clear rules about which group controlled the state, as various groups located inside, outside, and across the states’ frontiers could seek to increase or decrease state power in order to better profit from a world-economy.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wallerstein |title=The Politics of the World-Economy |page=30}}</ref> Nonetheless, the “relative power continuum of stronger and weaker states has remained relatively unchanged over 400-odd years” implying that while there is no universal state system, an interstate system had developed out of the sum of state actions, which existed to reinforce certain rules and preconditions of statehood. These rules included maintaining consistent [[relations of production]], and regulating the flow of capital, commodities and labor across borders to maintain the price structures of the global market. If weak states attempt to rewrite these rules as they prefer them, strong states will typically intervene to rectify the situation.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wallerstein |title=The Politics of the World-Economy |pages=30–31}}</ref>

The ideology of the interstate system is sovereign equality, and while the system generally presents a set of constraints on the power of individual states, within the system states are “neither sovereign nor equal.” Not only do strong states impose their will on weak states, strong states also impose limitations upon other strong states, and tend to seek strengthened international rules, since enforcing consequences for broken rules can be highly beneficial and confer comparative advantages.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wallerstein |title=The Politics of the World-Economy |pages=33–34}}</ref>

===External areas===
External areas are those that maintain socially necessary divisions of labor independent of the capitalist world economy.<ref name=PH/>

==The interpretation of world history==
[[File:Archaic globalization.svg|thumb|right|400px|The 13th century world-system]]
Wallerstein traces the origin of today's world-system to the "long 16th century" (a period that began with the [[voyages of Christopher Columbus|discovery of the Americas]] by Western European sailors and ended with the [[English Revolution]] of 1640).<ref name="TB" /><ref name="glob" /><ref name="PH" />  And, according to Wallerstein, globalization, or the becoming of the world's system, is a process coterminous with the spread and development of capitalism over the past 500 years.

[[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. She contends that the [[Secret History of the Mongols|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.<ref>Abu-Lugod, Janet (1989), "Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D. 1250-1350"</ref> In debates, Wallerstein contends that Lughod's system was not a "world-system" because it did not entail integrated production networks, but it was instead a vast trading network.

[[File:Silk route.jpg|thumb|left|The 11th century world system]]

[[Andre Gunder Frank]] goes further and claims that a global world system that includes Asia, Europe and Africa has existed since the [[4th millennium BCE]]. The centre of this system was in Asia, specifically China.<ref>André Gunder Frank, Barry K. Gills, The world system: five hundred years or five thousand?, Routledge, 1996, {{ISBN|0-415-15089-2}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=LVAWQ1D8UJUC&dq=%22world-system+is%22&pg=PA3 Google Print, p.3] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140429163753/http://books.google.com/books?id=LVAWQ1D8UJUC&pg=PA3&dq=%22world-system+is%22&hl=en&ei=ALVRTLv1J5SssAa_15zoAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22world-system%20is%22&f=false|date=2014-04-29}}</ref> [[Andrey Korotayev]] goes even further than Frank and dates the beginning of the world system formation to the 10th millennium BCE and connects it with the start of the [[Neolithic Revolution]] in the Middle East. According to him, the centre of this system was originally in [[Western Asia]].<ref>[http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol11/number1/pdf/jwsr-v11n1-korotayev.pdf Korotayev A. A Compact Macromodel of World System Evolution // Journal of World-Systems Research 11 (2005): 79–93] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090706205516/http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol11/number1/pdf/jwsr-v11n1-korotayev.pdf|date=2009-07-06}}; Korotayev A., Malkov A., Khaltourina D. (2006). [https://www.academia.edu/32757085/Introduction_to_Social_Macrodynamics._Models_of_the_World_System_Development._Moscow_KomKniga_URSS_2006 ''Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190709103050/https://www.academia.edu/32757085/Introduction_to_Social_Macrodynamics._Models_of_the_World_System_Development._Moscow_KomKniga_URSS_2006|date=2019-07-09}}. Moscow: KomKniga. {{ISBN|5-484-00414-4}}; [[Andrey Korotayev|Korotayev A.]] [https://ssrn.com/abstract=1703534 The World System urbanization dynamics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210726064552/https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1703534|date=2021-07-26}}. ''History & Mathematics: Historical Dynamics and Development of Complex Societies''. Edited by [[Peter Turchin]], [[Leonid Grinin]], Andrey Korotayev, and Victor C. de Munck. Moscow: KomKniga, 2006. {{ISBN|5-484-01002-0}}. P. 44-62. For a detailed mathematical analysis of the issue, see [[arxiv:1206.0496|A Compact Mathematical Model of the World System Economic and Demographic Growth]] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190217142233/https://arxiv.org/abs/1206.0496|date=2019-02-17}}.</ref>

Before the 16th century, [[Europe]] was dominated by [[feudal]] economies.<ref name="PH" /> European economies grew from mid-12th to 14th century but from 14th to mid 15th century, they suffered from a [[Crisis of the Late Middle Ages|major crisis]].<ref name="glob">Frank Lechner, [http://www.sociology.emory.edu/globalization/theories01.html Globalization theories: World-System Theory] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130429010208/http://www.sociology.emory.edu/globalization/theories01.html |date=2013-04-29 }}, 2001</ref><ref name="PH" /> Wallerstein explains this crisis as caused by the following:
# stagnation or even decline of agricultural production, increasing the burden of peasants,
# decreased agricultural productivity caused by changing climatological conditions ([[Little Ice Age]]),
# an increase in epidemics ([[Black Death]]),
# optimum level of the feudal economy having been reached in its [[economic cycle]]; the economy moved beyond it and entered a [[Depression (economics)|depression]] period.<ref name=PH />

As a response to the failure of the feudal system, European society embraced the capitalist system.<ref name=PH /> Europeans were motivated to develop technology to explore and trade around the world, using their superior military to take control of the trade routes.<ref name=glob /> Europeans exploited their initial small advantages, which led to an accelerating process of accumulation of wealth and power in Europe.<ref name=glob />

Wallerstein notes that never before had an economic system encompassed that much of the world, with trade links crossing so many political boundaries.<ref name=PH /> In the past, geographically large economic systems existed but were mostly limited to spheres of domination of large empires (such as the [[Roman Empire]]); development of capitalism enabled the world economy to extend beyond individual states.<ref name=PH /> [[International division of labor]] was crucial in deciding what relationships exists between different regions, their labor conditions and political systems.<ref name=PH /> For classification and comparison purposes, Wallerstein introduced the categories of core, semi-periphery, periphery, and external countries.<ref name=PH /> Cores monopolized the capital-intensive production, and the rest of the world could provide only workforce and raw resources.<ref name=glob /> The resulting inequality reinforced existing unequal development.<ref name=glob />

According to Wallerstein there have only been three periods in which a core state dominated in the modern world-system, with each lasting less than one hundred years. In the initial centuries of the rise of European dominance, Northwestern Europe constituted the core, Mediterranean Europe the semiperiphery, and Eastern Europe and the Western hemisphere (and parts of Asia) the periphery.<ref name=glob /><ref name=PH /> Around 1450, Spain and Portugal took the early lead when conditions became right for a capitalist world-economy. They led the way in establishing overseas colonies. However, Portugal and Spain lost their lead, primarily by becoming overextended with [[empire]]-building. It became too expensive to dominate and protect so many colonial territories around the world.<ref name="kennedy1987" /><ref name="chirot1977" /><ref name=wallerstein1974>Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. ''The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the 16th Century.'' New York: Academic Press.</ref>

[[File:Fleuten 1647.jpg|right|thumb|Dutch [[fluyt]]s of the seventeenth century]]
The first state to gain clear dominance was the Netherlands in the 17th century, after its revolution led to a new financial system that many historians consider revolutionary.<ref name="kennedy1987" /> An impressive [[shipbuilding]] industry also contributed to their economic dominance through more exports to other countries.<ref name="chirot1986" /> Eventually, other countries began to copy the financial methods and efficient production created by the Dutch. After the Dutch gained their dominant status, the [[standard of living]] rose, pushing up production costs.<ref name="wallerstein1980" />

Dutch [[bankers]] began to go outside of the country seeking profitable investments, and the flow of [[capital (economics)|capital]] moved, especially to England.<ref name="kennedy1987" /> By the end of the 17th century, conflict among core states increased as a result of the economic decline of the Dutch. Dutch [[financial investment]] helped England gain [[productivity]] and trade dominance, and Dutch military support helped England to defeat France, the other country competing for dominance at the time.

[[File:British Empire 1921.png|left|400px|thumb|Map showing the British Empire in 1921]]
In the 19th century, Britain replaced the Netherlands as the hegemon.<ref name=glob /> As a result of the new British dominance, the world system became relatively stable again during the 19th century. The British began to expand globally, with many colonies in the New World, Africa, and Asia. The colonial system began to place a strain on the British military and, along with other factors, led to an economic decline. Again there was a great deal of core conflict after the British lost their clear dominance. This time it was Germany, and later Italy and Japan that provided the new threat.

[[Industrialization]] was another ongoing process during British dominance, resulting in the diminishing importance of the agricultural sector.<ref name=PH /> In the 18th century, Britain was Europe's leading industrial and agricultural producer; by 1900, only 10% of England's population was working in the [[agricultural sector]].<ref name=PH />

By 1900, the modern world system appeared very different from that of a century earlier in that most of the periphery societies had already been colonised by one of the older core states.<ref name="chirot1986" /> In 1800, the old European core claimed 35% of the world's territory, but by 1914, it claimed 85% of the world's territory, with the [[Scramble for Africa]] closing out the imperial era.<ref name="kennedy1987" /> If a core state wanted periphery areas to exploit as had done the Dutch and British, these periphery areas had to be taken from another core state, which the US did by way of the [[Spanish–American War]], and Germany, and then Japan and Italy, attempted to do in the leadup to [[World War II]]. The modern world system was thus geographically global, and even the most remote regions of the world had all been integrated into the global economy.<ref name=TB /><ref name=glob />

As countries vied for core status, so did the United States. The [[American Civil War]] led to more power for the Northern industrial elites, who were now better able to pressure the government for policies helping industrial expansion. Like the Dutch bankers, British bankers were putting more investment toward the United States. The US had a small [[military budget]] compared to other industrial states at the time.<ref name="kennedy1987" />

The US began to take the place of the British as a new dominant state after [[World War I]].<ref name=glob /> With Japan and Europe in ruins after [[World War II]], the US was able to dominate the modern world system more than any other country in history, while the [[USSR]] and to a lesser extent China were viewed as primary threats.<ref name=glob /> At its height, US economic reach accounted for over half of the world's industrial production, owned two thirds of the [[gold reserves]] in the world and supplied one third of the world's exports.<ref name="kennedy1987" />

However, since the end of the [[Cold War]], the future of US hegemony has been questioned by some scholars, as its hegemonic position has been in decline for a few decades.<ref name=glob /> By the end of the 20th century, the core of the wealthy industrialized countries was composed of Western Europe, the United States, Japan and a rather limited selection of other countries.<ref name=glob /> The semiperiphery was typically composed of independent states that had not achieved Western levels of influence, while poor [[decolonization|former colonies]] of the West formed most of the periphery.<ref name=glob />

==Criticisms==
World-systems theory has attracted criticisms from its rivals; notably for being too focused on economy and not enough on [[culture]] and for being too core-centric and state-centric.<ref name=TB/> [[William I. Robinson]] has criticized world-systems theory for its nation-state centrism, state-structuralist approach, and its inability to conceptualize the rise of globalization.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Robinson|first=William I.|date=2011-11-01|title=Globalization and the sociology of Immanuel Wallerstein: A critical appraisal|journal=International Sociology|language=en|volume=26|issue=6|pages=723–745|doi=10.1177/0268580910393372|s2cid=5904746|issn=0268-5809|url=http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/9c21h2pv|access-date=2020-09-08|archive-date=2020-10-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201028231336/https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9c21h2pv|url-status=live}}</ref> Robinson suggests that world-systems theory does not account for emerging transnational social forces and the relationships forged between them and global institutions serving their interests.<ref name=":0" /> These forces operate on a global, rather than state system and cannot be understood by Wallerstein's nation-centered approach.<ref name=":0" />

According to Wallerstein himself, critique of the world-systems approach comes from four directions: the positivists, the orthodox Marxists, the state autonomists, and the culturalists.<ref name=IW/> The positivists criticise the approach as too prone to [[generalization]], lacking [[quantitative data]] and failing to put forth a [[falsifiable]] proposition.<ref name=IW/> Orthodox Marxists find the world-systems approach deviating too far from orthodox Marxist principles, such as by not giving enough weight to the concept of [[social class]].<ref name=IW/> It is worth noting, however, that "[d]ependency theorists argued that [the beneficiaries of class society, the bourgeoisie,] maintained a dependent relationship because their private interests coincided with the interest of the dominant states."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-04-29 |title=Is Dependency Theory still relevant today? A perspective from the Global South |url=https://anticonquista.com/2021/04/29/is-dependency-theory-still-relevant-today-a-perspective-from-the-global-south/ |access-date=2023-11-16 |website=ANTICONQUISTA |language=en-US}}</ref> The state autonomists criticize the theory for blurring the boundaries between state and businesses.<ref name=IW/> Further, the positivists and the state autonomists argue that state should be the central [[unit of analysis]].<ref name=IW/> Finally, the culturalists argue that world-systems theory puts too much importance on the economy and not enough on the culture.<ref name=IW/> In Wallerstein's own words:

{{quote|In short, most of the criticisms of world-systems analysis criticize it for what it explicitly proclaims as its perspective. World-systems analysis views these other modes of analysis as defective and/or limiting in scope and calls for unthinking them.<ref name=IW/>}}

One of the fundamental conceptual problems of the world-system theory is that the assumptions that define its actual conceptual units are social systems. The assumptions, which define them, need to be examined as well as how they are related to each other and how one changes into another. The essential argument of the world-system theory is that in the 16th century a capitalist world economy developed, which could be described as a world system.<ref name="Pieterse">Jan Nederveen Pieterse,  A Critique of World System Theory, in International Sociology, Volume 3, Issue no. 3, 1988.</ref> The following is a theoretical critique concerned with the basic claims of world-system theory:
"There are today no socialist systems in the world-economy any more than there are feudal systems because there is only one world system. It is a world-economy and it is by definition capitalist in form."<ref name=Pieterse/>

Robert Brenner has pointed out that the prioritization of the world market means the neglect of local class structures and class struggles:
"They fail to take into account either the way in which these class structures themselves emerge as the outcome of class struggles whose results are incomprehensible in terms merely of market forces."<ref name=Pieterse/>
Another criticism is that of reductionism made by Theda Skocpol: she believes the interstate system is far from being a simple superstructure of the capitalist world economy:
"The international states system as a transnational structure of military competition was not originally created by capitalism. Throughout modern world history, it represents an analytically autonomous level [... of] world capitalism, but [is] not reducible to it."<ref name=Pieterse/>

A concept that we can perceive as critique and mostly as renewal is the concept of coloniality ([[Anibal Quijano]], 2000, Nepantla, Coloniality of power, eurocentrism and Latin America).<ref>{{cite web|title=Quijano, 2000, Nepantla, Coloniality of power, eurocentrism and Latin America|url=https://www.unc.edu/~aescobar/wan/wanquijano.pdf|website=unc.edu|access-date=2016-11-16|archive-date=2017-02-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170212123942/http://www.unc.edu/~aescobar/wan/wanquijano.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Issued from the think tank of the {{ill|modernity/coloniality group|es|Grupo modernidad/colonialidad|lt=group "modernity/coloniality"}} in Latin America, it re-uses the concept of world working division and core/periphery system in its system of coloniality. But criticizing the "core-centric" origin of World-system and its only economical development, "coloniality" allows further conception of how power still processes in a colonial way over worldwide populations (Ramon Grosfogel, "the epistemic decolonial turn" 2007):<ref>Ramon Grosfogel, "the epistemic decolonial turn", 2007</ref> "by 'colonial situations' I mean the cultural, political, sexual, spiritual, epistemic and economic oppression/exploitation of subordinate racialized/ethnic groups by dominant racialized/ethnic groups with or without the existence of colonial administration". Coloniality covers, so far, several fields such as coloniality of gender ([[Maria Lugones]]),<ref>{{cite web|title=M. Lugones, coloniality of gender, 2008|url=https://globalstudies.trinity.duke.edu/wp-content/themes/cgsh/materials/WKO/v2d2_Lugones.pdf|website=duke.edu|access-date=2016-11-16|archive-date=2016-10-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161009183521/https://globalstudies.trinity.duke.edu/wp-content/themes/cgsh/materials/WKO/v2d2_Lugones.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> coloniality of "being" (Maldonado Torres), coloniality of knowledge ([[Walter Mignolo]]) and [[Coloniality of power]] ([[Anibal Quijano]]).

==Related journals==
* ''[[Annales. Histoire, Sciences sociales]]''
* ''[[Ecology and Society]]''
* ''[[Journal of World-Systems Research]]''

==See also==
{{portal|World}}
{{div col|colwidth=22em}}
* [[Big History]]
* [[Dependency theory]]
* [[Structuralist economics]]
* [[Third Space Theory]]
* [[Third place]]
* [[Hybridity]]
* [[Post-colonial theory]]
* [[General systems theory]]
* [[Geography and cartography in medieval Islam]]
* [[Globalization]]
* [[International relations theory]]
* [[List of cycles]]
* [[Social cycle theory]]
* [[Sociocybernetics]]
* [[Systems philosophy]]
* [[Systems thinking]]
* [[Systemography]]
* [[War cycles]]
* [[Hierarchy theory]]
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
* Works of [[Samir Amin#Publications|Samir Amin]]; especially 'Empire of Chaos' (1991) and 'Le developpement inegal. Essai sur les formations sociales du capitalisme peripherique' (1973)
*Works of [[Giovanni Arrighi#Works|Giovanni Arrighi]]
*{{WorldCat|id=lccn-n81028985|name=Volker Bornschier}}
* [[József Böröcz]]
**(2005), [https://ssrn.com/abstract=936258 'Redistributing Global Inequality: A Thought Experiment'], [http://epw.org.in ''Economic and Political Weekly''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090227025736/http://www.epw.org.in/ |date=2009-02-27 }}, February 26:886-92.
**(1992) [https://ssrn.com/abstract=936264 'Dual Dependency and Property Vacuum: Social Change in the State Socialist Semiperiphery'] Theory & Society, 21:74-104.
* {{WorldCat|id=lccn-n82100177|name=Christopher K. Chase-Dunn}}
* {{WorldCat|id=lccn-n79084886|name=Andre Gunder Frank}}
* Grinin, L., Korotayev, A. and Tausch A. (2016) ''Economic Cycles, Crises, and the Global Periphery''. Springer International Publishing, Heidelberg, New York, Dordrecht, London, {{ISBN|978-3-319-17780-9}}.
* {{cite book |editor-last=Kohler |editor-first=Gernot |editor2=Emilio José Chaves | title = Globalization: Critical Perspectives | year = 2003 | publisher=Hauppauge, New York: Nova Science Publishers |isbn = 1-59033-346-2|url = http://www.novapublishers.com/}} With contributions by [[Samir Amin]], [[Christopher Chase-Dunn]], [[Andre Gunder Frank]], [[Immanuel Wallerstein]]. Pre-publication download of Chapter 5: The European Union: global challenge or global governance? 14 world system hypotheses and two scenarios on the future of the Union, pages 93 - 196 [[Arno Tausch]] at http://edoc.vifapol.de/opus/volltexte/2012/3587/pdf/049.pdf.
*{{Cite journal|last=Gotts|first=Nicholas M.|date=2007|title=Resilience, Panarchy, and World-Systems Analysis|url=http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol12/iss1/art24/|journal=Ecology and Society|volume=12|issue=1|doi=10.5751/ES-02017-120124|hdl=10535/3271|hdl-access=free}}
* [[Andrey Korotayev|Korotayev]] A., Malkov A., Khaltourina D. [https://www.academia.edu/32757085/Introduction_to_Social_Macrodynamics._Models_of_the_World_System_Development._Moscow_KomKniga_URSS_2006 ''Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth.''] Moscow: URSS, 2006. {{ISBN|5-484-00414-4}} .
* [[Lenin]], Vladimir, '[[Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism]]'
* Moore, Jason W. (2000). "[http://www.jasonwmoore.com/uploads/Moore__Environmental_Crises___the_Metabolic_Rift__O_E__2000_.pdf Environmental Crises and the Metabolic Rift in World-Historical Perspective] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170309102512/http://www.jasonwmoore.com/uploads/Moore__Environmental_Crises___the_Metabolic_Rift__O_E__2000_.pdf |date=2017-03-09 }}," Organization & Environment 13(2), 123–158.
* Raffer K. (1993), ‘Trade, transfers, and development: problems and prospects for the twenty-first century’ Aldershot, Hants, England; Brookfield, Vt., USA: E. Elgar Pub. Co.
* Raffer K. and Singer H.W. (1996), ‘The Foreign Aid Business. Economic Assistance and Development Cooperation’ Cheltenham and Borookfield: Edward Alger.
* {{WorldCat|id=lccn-n50011426|name=Osvaldo Sunkel}}
* Tausch A. and Christian Ghymers (2006), 'From the "Washington" towards a "Vienna Consensus"? A quantitative analysis on globalization, development and global governance'. Hauppauge, New York: Nova Science.

==External links==
{{commonscat|World-systems theory}}
{{Library resources box}}
* [http://fbc.binghamton.edu Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems and Civilizations] closed {{As of|2020|June|lc=y}}
*''[http://fbc.binghamton.edu/rev.htm Review, A Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center]''
* [http://irows.ucr.edu Institute for Research on World-Systems] (IROWS), [[University of California, Riverside]]
** [http://wsarch.ucr.edu/ World-Systems Archive]
** [http://wsarch.ucr.edu/archive/papers.htm Working Papers in the World Systems Archive]
** [http://wsarch.ucr.edu/archive/books.htm World-Systems Archive Books]
** [http://wsarch.ucr.edu/archive/seminars.htm World-Systems Electronic Seminars]
** [http://wsarch.ucr.edu/archive/papers/gunder/prefreor.htm Preface to "ReOrient" by Andre Gunder Frank]

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