World‐Systems Theory: Toward a Heuristic and Pedagogic Conceptual Tool*

Abstract

While its proponents generally agree that a world‐system exists, with properties and dynamics that in the modern world function at a global scale, there is still a lack of consensus as to what those properties and dynamics are and as to what they mean in terms of an understanding of the past and an approach to the future. In this paper I seek to clarify some of the ambiguities in the definitions of world‐system concepts, particularly those surrounding the core‐periphery typology of structure. I then suggest a larger frame of reference for world‐systems theory derived from theoretical concepts in complex systems theory and augmenting Marxist conceptions of economic structure with the four‐capital model from ecological economics. I present a model for the structure of the modern world‐system that clarifies and builds on the core‐periphery structural definitions, along with an economic model by which “coreness” and “peripheryness” may be operationalized according to four sets of measures. Finally, I introduce a theory of the dynamic processes sustaining and effecting changes in this structure.

Export-Orientation and Enterprise Development: A Comparison of New Zealand and Chilean Wine Production

“…Many countries in Latin America and the Pacific Rim could be classified as semi-peripheral, using Wallerstein's (1979) classification of those states that are neither part of the core nor part of the periphery in his world-systems theory. A semi-peripheral state can also be seen as a semi-core state, the idea of 'semi' implying 'somewhere in between' (Straussfogel 1997); for example, a semiperipheral state may be in between a core state and a peripheral state in terms of the mix of its economy and the nature of its exports.…”

Classification Analysis of World Economic Regions

“…The variables selected for analysis must reflect the processes that both lead to the formation of the economic differences inducing regionalization as well as the ongoing processes of class and economic differentiation. The classification should provide a statistical framework for the assignment of states to economic regions/classes under the assumption of variability-induced orderings in a world-economy framework (c.f., Arrighi and Drangell986;Chase-Dunn 1998;Straussfogel 1997a, Taylor 1993, Terlouw 1990) and provide some variational explanation for the assignment. The classification is examined over four time periods so that changes in the orderings can be evaluated.…”

“…As described by Wallerstein and others, the core-periphery framework exhibits a potential for discerning economic differences between countries and thus providing an explanatory framework for the process of differentiation in the developing world economy (Krugman 1991c;Taylor 1993;Straussfogel 1997a). Straussfogel delineates a number of requirements to accurately define the structure of the world economy.…”

Transformations in resource peripheries: an analysis of the Chilean experience

“…Within the contemporary map of globalisation, not only the role of traditional and new cores and peripheries, but also the transformations within semi‐core and semi‐peripheral spaces (Straussfogel 1997), remain as important as they were in the 1950s and 1960s. The benefits of globalisation tend to flow to power bases rooted, and often established in colonial times, such as the constitution of the UN Security Council, the US and European presidencies of the World Bank and the IMF, and the central role of the G8 countries in global decisionmaking.…”