Alive
and Well: A Response to Sanderson
Christopher Chase-Dunn
Institute for Research on World-Systems and
Department of Sociology
Kirk
Institute for Research on World-Systems and
Department of Sociology
v. 10-13-10 6151 words
Forthcoming in the International Journal of Comparative Sociology
Keywords
world-systems, global inequality,
methodological individualism, socialism
Corresponding author: Christopher Chase-Dunn, Institute for Research
on World-Systems and Department of Sociology,
Abstract
Stephen Sanderson’s (2005) “World-Systems Analysis After Thirty Years:
Should it Rest in Peace?” raised the prospect of an area of scholarship that
had run its course. We answer the five main criticisms that he asserts against
world-systems analysis: the primacy of exogenous over endogenous forces;
teleology and reification; an incorrect understanding of the role of foreign investment;
an inaccurate analysis of long-term trends of inequality; and, a
misinterpretation of state socialism. As we respond to his criticisms, we find
that while some of his arguments have merit, particularly against the
relatively narrow form of world-systems analysis that he considered, his assumption
of methodological individualism runs counter to the epistemological position of
most world-systems scholars. Our review of the field finds it to be evolving
and expanding into new realms that no do not suffer from the deficiencies
Sanderson identified. Indeed, now at thirty-five years and counting,
world-systems analysis is not dying, it is thriving.
Stephen
Sanderson’s (2005) summary and critique of world-systems analysis, “World-Systems
Analysis After Thirty Years: Should it Rest in Peace?,” previously published in
this journal, is one of the most informed criticisms that have been written.
Many of the earlier critiques dismissed the world-systems perspective as
circulationist, economistic, functionalist, or as holistic determinism without
ever really understanding or taking seriously what was being said (Brenner,
1977; Chirot, 1986; Skocpol, 1977; Zolberg, 1981; cf. Shannon, 1996:155-185,
209-218). Sanderson does understand—and that translated into a thorough and
thoughtful critique.
Despite the provocative title, Sanderson finds
much in world-systems analysis (WSA) with which to agree and recognizes its
importance and validity in explaining the social world over the longue durée.
Yet he also presents a substantial list of what he perceives to be major
weaknesses. These shortcomings must be addressed, in his opinion, for WSA to
continue to be relevant. As we will
detail, Sanderson is correct in calling for attention to the points he raises,
but is guilty of caricaturing world-systems analysis—claiming dogma where there
is debate and not recognizing the expansion and innovation in this evolving
area of scholarship. The first part of this response will critique Sanderson’s relatively narrow view
of WSA and will provide a much broader understanding of the world-systems
perspective as a theoretical research program, in the sense detailed by Lakatos
(1978). This theoretical research program can be understood as a school, à la
the Annales school of historical
analysis, in which arrays of theorization and empirical research are taking
place within a general framework and overarching epistemology. We contend that
WSA does not need a new title—world-systems analysis is fine. It does, however,
require the recognition of its diversity of approaches amid a unifying
world-systems framework and an overarching epistemology that stresses the
importance of whole world-systems in the understanding of social reality.
We will
situate the issues Sanderson raises within this more representative
world-systems analysis, the result of which significantly reduces the necessity
of corrective action. Finally, we will highlight some epistemological issues
that motivate Sanderson’s critique, revealing impotant differences in orientation
that account for some of our disagreements. Periodic assessments of the state
of the field are important, particularly when they are as well-informed as
Sanderson’s, yet world-systems analysis is continually developing as it
responds to criticism and historical conjunctures—as all progressive research
programs must.
Sanderson mainly critiques the world-systems
analysis as developed by Immanuel Wallerstein. Though some think of Wallerstein
as the primary creator of the world-systems perspective, quite similar
approaches were emerging in the 1970s in
the works of several of his colleagues and collaborators, especially Samir
Amin, Andre Gunder Frank, Terence Hopkins and Giovanni Arrighi. Together these
seminal thinkers discovered, or rediscovered, and reinterpreted the modern
system of national states and the capitalist world economy that emerged with
the rise of
The world-systems perspective is a strategy for
explaining institutional change that focuses on whole interpolity systems
rather than single polities. The tendency in sociological theory has been to
think of single national societies as whole systems. This has led to many
errors, because the idea of a system usually implies closure and endogenous
processes. National societies (both their states and their nations) emerged
over the last few centuries to become the strongest socially constructed
identities and organizational structures in the modern world, but they have
never been whole systems. They have always existed in a larger context of
important interaction networks (trade, warfare, long-distance communication)
that has greatly shaped events and social change. Well before the emergence of
globalization in the popular consciousness the world-systems perspective
focused on the world economy and the system of interacting polities, rather
than on single national societies one at a time.
As Sanderson suggests, an updated critique of the WSA
is entirely appropriate, as most assessments are “now rather dated” (2005:179).
Indeed, if we were to criticize Wallerstein’s analysis, we would add to many of
the points Sanderson makes. For example, Wallerstein’s portrayal of the modern
world-system maintains that
Criticism of Wallerstein’s analysis does not
suffice as a critique of world-systems analysis en toto. World-systems analysis has taken on a life of
its own well beyond the work of its founding fathers. Numerous scholars from
many different social science disciplines have produced important work
utilizing a world-systems perspective. Wallerstein is certainly an important
scholar in the world-systems universe, but now one of many. As the body of work
has moved in new directions, world-systems analysis has matured, expanded and
diversified such that it can no longer be accurately described solely with
reference to Wallerstein’s vision.
The topics that have been addressed using world-systems analysis have greatly expanded.
For example, the 2010 program for the
Political Economy of the World-System (PEWS) section of the American Sociological Association (ASA)
Annual Meeting included research on the current economic crisis, global class
formation, migration and development, ecological degradation, energy use, food
production and labor, indigenous peoples and the Fourth World, commodity chains
and trade networks, stratification and inequality, the modeling the evolution
of world-systems, transnational social movements, human rights, terrorism,
militarization, global governance and hybrid institutions, epidemics, gender
and sexuality, and Darfur and imperialism. Moreover, in 2008, the electronic Journal of World-Systems Research (JWSR), was approved as an official
journal of the PEWS section of the ASA (only the second section journal to
receive official ASA status).
World-systems analysis has been developed outside
of sociology by historians, geographers, ecologists, archaeologists and
political scientists. A subsection of the International Political Economy
section of the U.S. International Studies Association (ISA) that focusses on
world historical systems has functioned and organized sessions at ISA meetings
since 1998.[1]
Clearly, Wallerstein’s focus is now one of myriad
components of this expanding world-systems analysis. We believe the dynamics of
this field, including the refutation and/or modification of extant thought and
the pursuit of new research areas, is evidence of a progressive research
program. The unity amid the diversity of approaches comes from a more or less
shared set of basic assumptions:
1) world-systems consist of local, regional and
system-wide interaction networks;
2) since the emergence of complex chiefdoms
world-systems have been structured as interpolity core/periphery hierarchies; and,
3) the structures and processes of world-systems
have impacts on the component parts that differ depending on the latter's
relative structural location within the larger system.
Sanderson fails to capture the dynamism and basic
assumptions of today’s world-systems analysis. Instead, he presents a narrow,
rigid, and tired WSA, one that has not advanced much beyond its birth in the
1970s and that could be in decline. We believe that Sanderson’s prognoses is
off the mark. He presents five main criticisms that pertain to “the most
serious weaknesses” (185). These are:
1.
the primacy
of exogenous over endogenous forces;
2.
reification
of the world-system as a whole;
3.
incorrect understanding of the role of foreign
investment;
4.
inaccurate analysis of long-term trends of
inequality; and
5.
misinterpretation of state socialism.
Sanderson’s claim that WSA gives primacy or
exclusivity to exogenous over endogenous factors relates to the level and scope
of analysis. Here, Sanderson repeats a claim that has been made by many others:
world-systems analysts privilege the causal importance of intersocietal and
system-wide processes and structures. In the contemporary world, which is now
truly globally connected, yet in which each national society—despite all the
hubbub about globalization—is still routinely described by both social scientists
and many other commentators as if it were a self-contained entity that is
unique and largely unconnected and incomparable with other national societies,
this claim of a bias toward world historical explanations seems ironic. That
said, world-systems analysts nowhere claim that intersocietal or global level
processes cause everything that happens. Rather the point is made that
world-level processes and patterns are important in their own right and that
pretending that each national society is a whole independent universe is an
ideological mystification that supports, and is based on, nationalism -- still the
most salient institutionalized form of collective identity in the contemporary
system.
Sanderson says that world-systems analysts
privilege exogenous processes. Exogenous to what? The very distinction between
endogenous and exogenous processes is what is being challenged by the
world-systems perspective. Sanderson means that societies (meaning modern
national societies such as the
Sanderson’s second main criticism claims that
reification of the core/periphery hierarchy is a major weakness of WSA. The core/periphery hierarchy in the modern
world-system is a system of stratification in which socially structured
inequalities are reproduced by the institutional features of the system. The
periphery is not “catching up” with the core. Rather both core and peripheral
regions are developing, but most core states are staying well ahead of most
peripheral states. There is also a stratum of countries that are in between the
core and the periphery that we call the semiperiphery. The semiperiphery
in the modern system includes countries that have intermediate levels of
economic development or a balanced mix of developed and less developed regions.
The semiperiphery includes large countries that have political/military power
as a result of their large size, and smaller countries that are relatively more
developed than those in the periphery.
The exact boundaries between the
core, semiperiphery and periphery are unimportant because the main point is
that there is a continuum of economic and political/military power that
constitutes the core-periphery hierarchy. It does not matter exactly where we
draw lines across this continuum in order to categorize countries. Indeed we
could as well make four or seven categories instead of three. The categories
are only a convenient terminology for pointing to the fact of international
inequality and for indicating that the middle of this hierarchy may be an
important location for processes of social change. These terms are similar to
the conventional usage of Global North and Global South, but with the value
added that there are frequently important differences between the semiperiphery
and the periphery in the Global South.
There have been a few cases of upward and downward
mobility in the core/periphery hierarchy, though most countries simply run hard
to stay in the same relative positions that they have long had. A most
spectacular case of upward mobility is the
The global stratification system is a continuum of
economic and political-military power that is reproduced by the normal
operations of the system. In such a hierarchy there are countries that are
difficult to categorize. For example, most oil-exporting countries have very
high levels of GNP per capita, but their economies do not produce high
technology products that are typical of core countries. They have wealth but
not development. The point here is that the categories (core, periphery and
semiperiphery) are just a convenient set of terms for pointing to different
locations on a continuous and multidimensional hierarchy of power. It is not
necessary to have each case fit neatly into a box. The boxes are only
conceptual tools for analyzing the unequal distribution of power among
countries.
Sanderson notes that Wallerstein and other
world-systems scholars sometimes state that various parts of the core/periphery
hierarchy perform certain “roles” in the system, such as the periphery
providing cheap resources for capitalists in the core. Sanderson calls this
reification and compares it with Parsonsian functionalism (186). We agree that
the core, periphery and semiperiphery labels should be taken as a kind of
short-hand for system-wide hierarchical relations. It is a mistake to hunt for
the “real” as opposed to convenient empirical cutting points between these
categories. But using the concepts does not necessitate reification any more
than using the term “middle class” requires that we have precisely designated
the boundaries of that concept. The important point is that a global hierarchy
exists. And there is domination and exploitation at this level. Some states and
national societies have much more power than others and they often use their
power to gain advantages, to extract resources and to have their way in
politics. The histories of empires, colonialism, and imperialism shows that
some polities pillage, control, tax, invest and extract resources from others.
This does not mean that all peripheries are the same, but it does mean that
they stand in a somewhat similar structural relationship with core societies. Many
societies throughout history have used various forms of power to extract
resources from distant others. Peripheral areas have been an important part of
the evolution of world-systems for millennia.
Sanderson admits that colonialism “has been associated with very high
levels of exploitation and production of a great deal of poverty and misery,”
although he claims that “not all of this poverty and misery can be laid at the
feet of the economic intrusion of capitalist colonizers” (187). No one has
claimed that imperialism is the cause of all suffering. The basic idea is that
the stratification of the whole system is important for understanding the
evolution of the system. Capitalist accumulation, uneven development and the
evolution of global governance can all be explained as a competition among
competing powers to successfully exploit global opportunities while exploited
and dominated people resist and challenge the powers that be.
Sanderson correctly points out that there have
been great disagreements among scholars about the right way to place
nation-states in the zones (core/periphery/semiperiphery) of the world-system hierarchy
(cf. Kentor, 2000; Kick and
Despite these criticisms Sanderson admits that the
core, semiperiphery, and periphery hierarchy
are a useful and reasonable way to characterize the capitalist
world-economy, but the concepts are often reified; instead “it might be
preferable simply to talk of global inequalities” (183). But how can one study
and analyze global inequalities without understanding the ways in which they
are organized?
Sanderson also alleges that WSA has an incorrect understanding of the effects of
foreign direct investment and an inaccurate analysis of long-term trends in the
modern world-system. In reviewing the literature on the effects of foreign
investment, Sanderson presents findings from a number of studies that have
asserted that foreign investment and/or capital penetration and/or investment
concentration either: 1) is less optimal than domestic investment; 2) slows
growth; and/or 3) leads to decline or shrinkage (192-94). Hanging his hat on
Kentor and Boswell’s (2003) study that found that integration in the
world-system (the ratio of international trade to GDP) has a positive impact on
economic growth, Sanderson arrives at the conclusion that “at the very least
serious questions have been raised regarding a key principle of world-system
theory—that the development of the core occurs at the expense of the periphery
and that foreign capital investment in less-developed countries serves to
maintain the core-periphery hierarchy” (194). Our response here is that
Sanderson is right that the effects of dependence on foreign investment (having
a large chunk of the national economy be owned by foreigners) is controversial
and may have changed over time. But no one ever argued that dependence on
foreign investment is the only mechanism by which the core exploits the
periphery. If it is agreed that global
inequalities are great and have not been much reduced, then something is reproducing
global inequality. There are many theories about neocolonialism, unequal
exchange, the nature of international financial institutions such as the
Intermonetary Fund, etc. So the effects
of dependence on foreign investment are just part of the story.
Regarding the long-term trends in global
inequality, absolute growth of the periphery and semiperiphery is not at all inimical to world-systems theory.
Wallerstein’s idea of absolute immiseration has always been contested by other
world-systems analysts (e.g. Chase-Dunn 1998: 261-270). It is obvious that average
life expectancy and GNP per capita have gone up over the long run in the
periphery. The question of global
inequality has always been a matter of relative inequality between the core and
the periphery. Sanderson contends that WSA depends on the idea that the
relative gap between the core and the non-core is increasing. Instead, he
claims that convergence is occurring and that the semiperiphery and periphery,
with the exception of sub-Saharan
Sanderson also criticizes the way in which state
socialism (the communist countries) have
been treated by world-systems scholars. He contnds that most world-systemists
consider socialism to be the future of a post-capitalist world. Sanderson claims
that WSA scholars are in denial, or at least overly optimistic, about “the
nature of state socialist societies, their collapse after 1989, and the
potential future of socialism” (199). He contends that socialism did not work
as well as capitalism in the past and that it cannot work as well as capitalism
in the future. We contend that a major factor behind Sanderson’s critique of
the political stances and implications of world-systems analysis is his methodological and political
individualism—an epistemological stance that places him at odds with most
world-systems scholars.
Sanderson’s strong materialist position is
admirable. He acknowledges the importance of demographic and ecological factors
in human socio-cultural evolution, especially in early periods. And he also
contends that these factors recede somewhat as technology becomes more and more
an endogenous process (cf. Sanderson and Alderson, 2005). But Sanderson embraces
a kind of methodological individualism that, though it is commonsensical because
it conforms to the predominant assumptions of modern societies, downplays the
importance of emergent institutional features in explaining social change. He
accuses world-systems theorists of reifying the world-system, the core, the
periphery and the semiperiphery, and of treating these structural features as
if they were real actors when, in his view, the only real reality is the
existence of human individuals.
We agree that the language of
functionalism has occasionally been used as a shorthand in describing the
processes of the world-system, and that this can be misleading. But recognizing
this does not also require us to embrace methodological individualism. As Émile
Durkheim and many more recent social constructionists have argued, it is the
individual that is most often reified by modern society. The individual self is
an institution in the same way that money and the New York Stock Exchange are
institutions. Modern societies strongly constitute the ontology of the
individual as a unique, empowered agent that is thought to be the main
constituent element of social order. Economists presume that social patterns
are primarily created by the rational choices of individuals, and rationality
itself is construed as a matter of individual decision-making and interests.
But many sociologists see that
agency is not just based on the actions of individual decision-makers. Humanly
created institutions alter the logic of social order and make possible things
that would be impossible in their absence. The institution of money is a huge
force in social life that only partly is under the control of individual or
even of collective actors. To speak of global capitalism as if it is an actor
is perhaps to over-carry the point, but this matter of usage should not justify
a denial of the power of the emergent properties of institutions. Large social
structures and world-wide institutions have a definite reality and enormous
consequences for the behavior of individual actors. This sociological approach
is entirely relevant for understanding world-historical processes.
Methodological individualism is of little help here. But this recognition does
not require that we deny that individuals also have agency. Here is where
Phillip McMichael’s version of the comparative method, discussed above, is very
helpful.
Sanderson also engages in political
individualism as a basis for his attack on world-systems thinking about future
possibilities. He claims that world-systems theorists are anachronistic
utopians with regard to the human future because they have an incorrect
understanding of human nature. He claims that biosociology affirms that the
human species is rather more individualistic than some other animals and many
social insects, but also that humans are rather more innately social than many
other animals. So there is a biologically programmed aspect of human sociality
rather than a blank slate upon which society can write anything.
So far this is probably correct.
Radical utopian ideas that humans can be completely altruistic are probably
wrong, though some humans do manage a rather impressive amount of altruistic
behavior. Sanderson and others are right to point out that institutional
structures in the future must take into account that humans are rather
individualistic, acquisitive, and that many like to exercise power over other
humans.
But then Sanderson goes on to make
the claim that human nature was the main cause of the failure of utopian socialist
and communist movements of past centuries. We agree that some collectivist
movements may have wrongly attacked individualism as the source of social
problems and that this may have caused some of their difficulties. But we do
not agree that this over-emphasis on collectivism was the main cause of the
failures of these movements, nor do we agree with Sanderson’s contention that
this means that future efforts to reform or restructure global capitalism are
necessarily doomed or can only lead to an even more repressive system.
It is possible to learn from both
the successes and the failures of earlier movements rather than just rejecting
them as utopian mistakes. This involves being able to transcend both the
ideologies that legitimate contemporary capitalism and the ideologies of
socialism and communism. We would agree that some of the Marxist antisystemic
movements of the twentieth century mistakenly blamed markets and individualism
as the major elements of capitalism that cause inequalities and exploitation.
Future movements to create a more humane world society need to focus their
energies on those problems that really are what is wrong with capitalism—that it
distributes the fruits of the market system too narrowly and that it tends to
destroy the biosphere upon which human life depends. Solutions to these
problems will require building institutions that can reduce the huge
inequalities of the contemporary system and protect the environment by slowing
population growth, encouraging fairer and sustainable use of scarce natural
resources, and continuing to incentivize the development of technologies that use
non-renewable and limited resources more efficiently (cf. Chase-Dunn and
Lawrence, Forthcoming b).
Sanderson says that a world state is
impossible by definition and because humans are incapable of cooperating with
one another on an Earth-wide scale. Political scientists and some sociologists
who study international relations define a state in terms of its interaction
with other states, and so a world state is impossible by definition. This is
like saying that something cannot exist because it is not in the dictionary.
States have been getting larger, albeit unevenly in time and space, since they
emerged 5000 years ago, and before that chiefdoms were getting larger. Human
nature does not prevent people from living in very large cities and in very
large states. The main limits to growth are the availability of clean water and
other natural resources on the Earth. The human species is going through a demographic
transition from a high birth rate to a lower birth rate that will stabilize the
number of people on the Earth probably around 2075 or so. This stable
population will be between eight and twelve billion. Eight would be far better
than twelve. One of the main causes of lowering the birth rate is the education
of women.
The claim that contemporary efforts
to invent better human institutions are doomed because of human nature sounds
very much like many earlier efforts to justify the inevitability of existing
social orders. Perhaps sociologists overemphasized the flexibility and
malleability of human nature to some extent, but this observation does not
require that we accept the current order as ordained by nature. Humans may be
somewhat individualistic, but if individualism is good (as we believe it is) it is possible to devise institutions that
protect it while also solving the big distributional and environmental problems
that we have created for ourselves. It is inventiveness that makes human beings
interesting and that can be the source of future institutional solutions. We
contend that more democratic and more collectively rational forms of global
governance are possible. The claim that humans are incapable of solving their
collective action problems because of genetic deficiencies is not much help. The
scale of governance institutions has been increasing for millennia. Fears about
global empire, especially on the part of those who have been oppressed and
exploited by earlier incarnations of global governance, are quite
understandable. That is why the struggle for global democracy will require
strong inputs and leadership from the Global South. Otherwise the result will
be another “universalism” that is illegitimate in the eyes of the majority.
We are grateful to Stephen Sanderson for asking
important questions about the state of world-systems scholarship World-systems
analysis needs informed debate in order to remain a progressive research
program. We object to some aspects of his portrayal, particularly his
characterization of a rigid Wallersteinian-version as the predominant model,
and we also dispute his methodological and political individualism. World-systems
analysis is not dead, but where is it heading? Using whole human interaction
system as the unit of analysis can make big contributions to social science and
to comprenhension of the ways in which human actions interact with natural
systems. And the world-systems perspective may also be useful for those who
want to push world history in the direction of a more egalitarian and
sustainable world society.
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[1] The “power cycle” approach to the evolution of world systems developed by George Modelski and William R. Thompson (Modelski and Thompson 1996) is very close to the world-systems perspective except that it usually ignores core/periphery hierarchies and the important roles that non-core actors have played in world-systems evolution,
[2] Sanderson does not address the criticisms of the world-systems perspective that has been mounted by the “global capitalism school” (see Robinson 2010). They contend that global class relations are emerging and transforming the nature of the core/periphery hierarchy. They also claim that the core/periphery hierarchy is no longer relevant. Here we can simply point to the remaining important differences between being a worker in the core versus being a worker in the periphery.