Institute for

Research on

World-Systems

 

https://irows.ucr.edu/

University of California-Riverside

 

rise, fall and upward sweeps

 

IROWS Annual Report

September 2005

This is the annual report on IROWS’ projects, accomplishments and initiatives from September 2004 to September 2005. IROWS is the world’s premier institute doing research on globalization, global social change and the historical evolution of intersocietal systems.

The main purpose of the Institute for Research on World-Systems (IROWS) is to do long term, large scale interdisciplinary research on:

·         Global Social Change,

·        The Historical Evolution of Cities and Polities,

·        Global and Regional Political Ecology,

·        Biotechnology and Global Political Economy,

·        Waves and Contours of Global Elite Integration Since 1840,

·        The Rise, Fall and Upward Sweeps of Polity Formation and the Emergence of a Global State, and

·        Transnational Social Movements and Global Party Formation.

 

The Institute serves as an incubator for collaborative research proposals by organizing interdisciplinary faculty seminars and research working groups.  It has developed an electronic research archive, a working paper series, and publishes a scholarly electronic journal focusing on interdisciplinary global research, the Journal of World-Systems Research.

Thanks to Ken Barr, Nelda Thomas, Eric Titolo and Ed Kick for their hard work at IROWS and on JWSR.

 

IROWS 04-05 Accomplishments: 

·        Publications from PEWS02 Conference: IROWS hosted the annual spring Political Economy of World-Systems (PEWS) conference at UCR May 3-4, 2002 on the theme of “Hegemonic Declines: Present and Past.”  See http://www.irows.ucr.edu/conferences/pews02/pews02page.htm

Three books composed mainly of papers presented at the conference have been published:

v     Thomas E. Reifer (ed.) 2004 Hegemony, Globalization and Antisystemic Movements. Paradigm Press.

v     Jonathan Friedman and Christopher Chase-Dunn (eds.) 2005  Hegemonic Declines: Present and Past. Paradigm Press, and

v     Christopher Chase-Dunn and E. N. Anderson (eds.) 2005 The Historical Evolution of World-Systems, Palgrave

 

q       JWSR Produces New Issues: The Journal of World-Systems Research, is housed at IROWS and electronically distributed by UCR. JWSR produced three new issues during this period, including a Special Section on Premodern Historical Systems: The Rise and Fall of States and Empires.” The Political Economy of World-Systems (PEWS) section of the American Sociological Association is preparing a proposal to the ASA Publications Committee that will make JWSR the official journal of the PEWS section.

q       Johns Hopkins Book Series: IROWS Director Chase-Dunn is the Editor of two book series at Johns Hopkins University Press. William I. Robinson’s A Theory of Global Capitalism was published in the series in 2004. Valentine Moghadam’s Globalizing Women appeared in 2005 and Stephen Bunker and Paul Ciccantell’s Globalization and the Race for Resources is forthcoming.

q        POGS Speaker Series: IROWS Director Chase-Dunn and Juliann Allison of the UCR Department of Political Science are co-directors of the Riverside branch of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) entitled the Program on Global Studies (POGS). Kenneth Barr is the Associate Director of POGS. He organized the speaker series on “Challenges of Global Democracy” , which is co-sponsored by the UCR Mellon Foundation Project. We have received new support from Mellon and IGCC for a 2005-2006 speaker series.

q       International Sociological Association-RC02: IROWS Director Chase-Dunn is the President of the Research Committee on Economy and Society (RC02) of the International Sociological Association. He is organizing a program of sixteen sessions for the World Congress of Sociology in Durban, South Africa in July of 2006.

Research Projects: IROWS is currently participating in five on-going research projects:

 

New IROWS Initiatives:

 

IROWS has invested considerable effort in several major new research and educational initiatives:

 

IROWS Working Papers are available at: http://www.irows.ucr.edu/workpaptoc.htm