A world-system is a

socioeconomic Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

system A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its open system (systems theory), environment, is described by its boundaries, str ...

, under

systems theory Systems theory is the Transdisciplinarity, transdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or artificial. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, de ...

, that encompasses part or all of the globe, detailing the aggregate

structural A structure is an arrangement and organization of interrelated elements in a material object or system, or the object or system so organized. Material structures include man-made objects such as buildings and machines and natural objects such as ...

result of the sum of the interactions between

polities A polity is a group of people with a collective identity, who are organized by some form of political institutionalized social relations, and have a capacity to mobilize resources. A polity can be any group of people organized for governance ...

. World-systems are usually larger than single

states State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

, but do not have to be global. The

Westphalian System The Westphalian system, also known as Westphalian sovereignty, is a principle in international law that each state has exclusive sovereignty over its territory. The principle developed in Europe after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, based on the s ...

is the preeminent world-system operating in the contemporary world, denoting the system of

sovereign ''Sovereign'' is a title that can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to ...

and nation-states produced by the Westphalian Treaties in 1648. Several world-systems can coexist, provided that they have little or no interaction with one another. Where such interactions becomes significant, separate world-systems merge into a new, larger world-system. Through the process of

globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

, the modern world has reached the state of one dominant world-system, but in human history there have been periods where separate world-systems existed simultaneously, according to Janet Abu-Lughod. The most well-known version of the world-system approach has been developed by

Immanuel Wallerstein Immanuel Maurice Wallerstein (; September 28, 1930 – August 31, 2019) was an American sociologist and economic historian. He is perhaps best known for his development in sociology of world-systems approach."Wallerstein, Immanuel (1930– )." ...

. A world-system is a crucial element of the world-system theory, a multidisciplinary, macro-scale approach to

world history Human history or world history is the record of humankind from prehistory to the present. Early modern human, Modern humans evolved in Africa around 300,000 years ago and initially lived as hunter-gatherers. They Early expansions of hominin ...

and

social change Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Sustained at a larger scale, it may lead to social transformation or societal transformat ...

Characteristics

World-systems are defined by the existence of a division of labor. The modern world-system has a multi-state political structure (the interstate system) and therefore its division of labor is international

division of labor The division of labour is the separation of the tasks in any economic system or organisation so that participants may specialise (Departmentalization, specialisation). Individuals, organisations, and nations are endowed with or acquire specialis ...

. In the modern world-system, the division of labor consists of three zones according to the prevalence of profitable industries or activities: core, semiperiphery, and periphery. Countries tend to fall into one or another of these interdependent zones

core countries In world-systems theory, core countries or the imperial core are the Industrialization, industrialized Capitalism, capitalist and/or Imperialism, imperialist countries. Core countries control and benefit the most resources from the global marke ...

, semi-periphery countries and the

periphery countries In world-systems theory, periphery countries are those that are less developed than the semi-periphery and core countries. These countries usually receive a disproportionately small share of global wealth. They have weak state institution ...

.Carlos A. Martínez-Vela
World Systems Theory
paper prepared for th

November 2003Thomas Barfield, ''The dictionary of anthropology'', Wiley-Blackwell, 1997,
is" hyphen&f=false Google Print, p.498-499
/ref> Resources are redistributed from the underdeveloped, typically raw materials-exporting, poor part of the world (the periphery) to developed, industrialized core. World-systems, past world-systems and the modern world-system, have temporal features. ''Cyclical rhythms'' represent the short-term fluctuation of

economy An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

, while ''secular trends'' mean deeper long run tendencies, such as general

economic growth In economics, economic growth is an increase in the quantity and quality of the economic goods and Service (economics), services that a society Production (economics), produces. It can be measured as the increase in the inflation-adjusted Outp ...

or decline. The term ''contradiction'' means a general controversy in the system, usually concerning some short term vs. long term trade-offs. For example, the problem of

underconsumption Underconsumption is a theory in economics that recessions and stagnation arise from an inadequate consumer demand, relative to the amount produced. In other words, there is a problem of overproduction and overinvestment during a demand crisis. The ...

, wherein the drive-down of wages increases the profit for the capitalists on the short-run, but considering the long run, 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. The world-systems theory stresses that world-systems (and not

nation state A nation state, or nation-state, is a political entity in which the State (polity), state (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and the nation (a community based on a common identity) are (broadly ...

s) should be the basic unit of social analysis.Immanuel Wallerstein, (2004)
WORLD-SYSTEMS ANALYSIS, in World System History , [Ed. George Modelski
in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems">d. George Modelski">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 Thus, we should focus not on individual states, but on the relations between their groupings (core, semi-periphery, and periphery).

Immanuel Wallerstein

The most well-known version of the world-system approach has been developed by

, who has provided several definitions of what a world-system is, twice in 1974, first and second as In 1987, he elaborated his definition: Thus, we can differentiate world-systems into politically unified (world-empires) and not unified (world-economies). Small, non-state units such as tribes are micro-systems.

World system vs. world-system(s)

World system refers to the entire world, whereas world-system is its fragment - the largest unit of analysis that makes sense. Wallerstein stresses the importance of

hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (en dash , em dash and others), which are wider, or with t ...

in the title: There is an ongoing debate among scholars whether we can talk about multiple world-systems. For those who support the multiple world-systems approach, there have been many world-systems throughout worlds history, some replacing others, as was the case when a multipolar world-system of the 13th-14th centuries was replaced by a series of consecutive

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

- and

the West West is a cardinal direction or compass point. West or The West may also refer to: Geography and locations Global context * The Western world * Western culture and Western civilization in general * The Western Bloc, countries allied with NAT ...

-centered world-systems. Others coexisted unknowingly with others, not linked to them directly or indirectly; in those cases the world-systems weren't worldwide (for example, prior to colonization of Americas, the Americas world-systems had no connection with the one encompassing

Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...

and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

). From around 19th century onward, due to the process of

, many scholars agree that there has been only one world-system, that of

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

. There are, however, dissenting voices, as some scholars do not support the contention that there is only one world-system in the modern day; Janet Abu-Lughod states that multiple world-systems did exist in past epochs. Janet Abu-Lughod. ''Discontinuities and persistence. One world system or a succession of systems?''. In The alternative approach insists that there was only one World System that originated in the Near East five or even tenKorotayev A. A Compact Macromodel of World System Evolution // Journal of World-System Research 11 (2005): 79–93
; Korotayev A., Malkov A., Khaltourina D. (2006)
''Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth''
Moscow: KomKniga. ; Korotayev A.br>The World System urbanization dynamics
''History & Mathematics: Historical Dynamics and Development of Complex Societies''. Edited by

Peter Turchin Peter Valentinovich Turchin (; born 22 May 1957) is a Russian-American complexity scientist, specializing in an area of study he and his colleagues developed called cliodynamics—mathematical modeling and statistical analysis of the dynamics o ...

, Leonid Grinin, Andrey Korotayev, and Victor C. de Munck. Moscow: KomKniga, 2006. . P. 44-62 thousand years ago, and gradually encompassed the whole world; thus, the present-day truly global World System can be regarded as its continuation.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:World-System Economic systems Imperialism studies Military globalization Political systems Sociological terminology Systems theory World systems theory

Characteristics

Immanuel Wallerstein

World system vs. world-system(s)

See also

References