World-systems theory (also known as world-systems analysis or the world-systems perspective) is a multidisciplinary, macro-scale approach to world history and social change that stresses that the world-system (and not nation states) should be the primary (but not exclusive) unit of social analysis.
World-system refers to the inter-regional and transnational division of labor, which divides the world into core countries, semi-periphery countries and the periphery countries. Core countries focus on higher skill, capital-intensive production, and the rest of the world focuses on low-skill, labor-intensive production and extraction of raw materials. This constantly reinforces the dominance of the core countries. Nonetheless, the system is dynamic, in part as a result of revolutions in transport technology, and individual states can gain or lose the core (semi-periphery, periphery) status over time. For a time, some countries become the world hegemon; throughout last few centuries during which time 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.
Immanuel Wallerstein has developed the best-known version of world-systems analysis, beginning in the 1970s. Wallerstein traces the rise of the world system from the 15th century, when European feudal economy suffered a crisis and was transformed into a capitalist one. Europe (the West) utilized its advantages and gained control over most of the world economy, presiding over the development and spread of industrialization and capitalist economy, indirectly resulting in unequal development.
Wallerstein's project is frequently misunderstood as world-systems "theory," a term that he consistently rejects. For Wallerstein, world-systems analysis is above all a mode of analysis that aims to transcend the structures of knowledge inherited from the 19th century. This includes, especially, the divisions within the social sciences, and between the social sciences and history. For Wallerstein, then, world-systems analysis is a “knowledge movement” that seeks to discern the “totality of what has been paraded under the labels of the… human sciences and indeed well beyond." “We must invent a new language,” Wallerstein insists, to transcend the illusions of the “three supposedly distinctive arenas” of society/economy/politics. This trinitarian structure of knowledge is grounded in another, even grander, modernist architecture – the alienation 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.”
Significant work by many other scholars has been done since then.
Read more about World-systems Theory: Characteristics, Interpretation of The World History, Criticisms, New Developments
Famous quotes containing the word theory:
“A theory of the middle class: that it is not to be determined by its financial situation but rather by its relation to government. That is, one could shade down from an actual ruling or governing class to a class hopelessly out of relation to government, thinking of gov’t as beyond its control, of itself as wholly controlled by gov’t. Somewhere in between and in gradations is the group that has the sense that gov’t exists for it, and shapes its consciousness accordingly.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)