Conceptual and Methodological Issues
in the Study of Global Social Change
Route of the
Christopher Chase-Dunn
Institute for Research on World-Systems
University of California-Riverside
chriscd@ucr.edu
To be presented at the workshop on “Globalization and Social Science Data” to be held at the Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara, November 9, 2006
Conceptual problems:
- What is globalization?:
-structural globalization: the ratio of large and small interaction networks;
-the Reagan-Thatcher (neoliberal) globalization project and other global
governance projects.
- Structural globalization: waves of the growth of large-scale interaction networks since the Mesolithic --world-systems can be small (Chase-Dunn and Mann 1998)
- Global civil society: Studying the contours of the global progressive sector using survey research and Internet discourse analysis (irows working paper #26)
Methodological issues and potential
solutions:
Methodological nationalism—the interstate system and global
class, party and state formation
Other important units of analysis besides the nation-state:
-Big history of the whole global system: socio-cultural (economic, political,
military, communications, cultural, etc.); biosphere, geosphere (Christian 2004)
-Core, Periphery and Semiperiphery: a multidimensional global stratification
system
-Settlements (cities) (Taylor 2004)
Important new methods for
global research:
GIS, geocoding points and polygons, object-based coding (Alexandria Digital
Library, Digital Earth)
Standardized time coding: Before Present (BP) 1950=0. time points, time polygons. Electronic Cultural Atlas Initiative (ECAI) at UC-Berkeley.
Formal network analysis: putting it together with GIS
Dynamical time-mapping: marrying spatial modeling with GIS
Bibliography
Anheier, Helmut and Hagai Katz
2006 “Learning from history?: comparative historical
methods and researching global
civil society” Pp. 288-303 in Marlies Glasius, et al
(eds.) Global Civil Society 2005/6.
Babones, Salvatore 2006 “Conducting global social
research” Pp. 8-32 in C. Chase-Dunn and S. Babones
(eds.) Global Social Change: Historical
and Comparative Perspectives.
Chase-Dunn,
Christopher and Kelly M. Mann.
The Wintu and Their Neighbors: A Very
Small
World-System in Northern California,
Chase-Dunn, Christopher
1998 “Research Methods” Chapter 15 of Global
Formation: Structures of the
World-Economy.
Chase-Dunn, Christopher,
Yukio Kawano and Benjamin Brewer 2000 "Trade Globalization
since 1795: waves of integration
in the world-system," American Sociological Review
65:77-95
Chase-Dunn, Christopher
and Andrew K. Jorgenson, “Regions and Interaction Networks: an institutional materialist perspective,” 2003 International Journal of Comparative Sociology 44,1:433-450 http://www.irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows13/irows13.htm
Chase-Dunn, Christopher,
Christine Petit, Richard Niemeyer, Robert A. Hanneman,
Rebecca Giem,
Erika Gutierrez and Ellen Reese 2006 “ The Contours of Solidarity and
Division Among Global movements” IROWS Working Paper # 26 https://irows.ucr.edu/papers/irows26/irows26.htm
Christian,
David 2004 Maps of Time.
McMichael, Phillip 1990 “Incorporating comparison within a
world-historical perspective: and alternative comparative method” American Sociological Review 55: 385-97.
Robinson, William I. 2004
A Theory of Global Capitalism. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press.
Sehm-Patomaki, Katarina and Marko Ulvila (eds.) 2006 Democratic Politics Globally:
Elements for a Dialogue on Global Political Party Formations.
NIGD Working Paper #1/2006
University of California-Riverside