PEWS02 Program

IROWS Annual Report

This is the annual report on IROWS accomplishments and initiatives from June 1, 2001 to June 2002.

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

·Globalization and the World Political Economy, 

·The Evolution of Macrosocial Systems, 

·Sustainable Development, 

·Anthropogenic Causes and Consequences of Climate Change, and 

·Co-evolution of Human Social Complexity and Pathogenic Microorganisms. 

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

See https://irows.ucr.edu/

Accomplishments:

• PEWS02 Conference: IROWS hosted the annual spring Political Economy of World-Systems (PEWS) conference at UCR May 3-4, 2002. [1] The theme of the conference was “Hegemonic Decline: Present and Past.” See http://www.irows.ucr.edu/conferences/pews02/pews02page.htm

• Director is AAAS Fellow: IROWS Director Christopher Chase-Dunn was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in September of 2001. 
• Reifer On Board: Thomas E. Reifer, now the Associate Director of IROWS, arrived in Riverside in January of 2002. Dr. Reifer is heading up a research project on global elite integration over the past 200 years. He presented a paper on this topic at the World History conference organized by Ray Kea and Randall Head of the Department of History. Dr. Reifer is also serving as Managing Editor of the Journal of World-Systems Research. See http://www.irows.ucr.edu/ter/reiferhmpg.htm
• JWSR Produces Special Issues: The Journal of World-Systems Research (JWSR), co-published by IROWS and the Center for Global, International and Regional Studies at UC, Santa Cruz, produced two special issues on Global Inequality. Andrew Jorgenson, Salvatore Babones and John Gulick are Assistant Editors of JWSR. See http://csf.colorado.edu/jwsr/
• Johns Hopkins Book Series: IROWS Director Chase-Dunn is the Editor of two book series at Johns Hopkins University Press. Four books in these series will be published in 2003.
•  POGS Established: IROWS Director Chase-Dunn and Juliann Allison of the UCR Department of Political Science were appointed co-directors of the Riverside branch of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) in February of 2002. Allison and Chase-Dunn have reorganized the UCR IGCC branch as the Program on Global Studies, which is intended to involve researchers from several UCR colleges in interdisciplinary research on global issues. They kicked off the program speaker series with a lecture by famous South Asian activist and author Vandana Shiva in April of 2002. See https://irows.ucr.edu/pogs/pogs.htm
• Desai Hired by Sociology Department: The UCR Department of Sociology hired Dr. Manali Desai (UCLA, Sociology). Dr. Desai studies the political sociology of post-colonial societies and globalization processes. She will contribute to the Sociology Department’s new graduate specialization in Political Economy and Global Social Change.

ØWaves of Globalization:the National Science Foundation’s Sociology Program has funded our study of economic globalization in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Andrew Jorgenson, Rebecca Giem, John Rogers and Shoon Lio have made major contributions to the project this year. A paper based on the results of this project will be presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association in August 2002. See https://irows.ucr.edu/research/globres/globproj.htm

ØCities and Empires: Another IROWS project is focusing on time-mapping the growth of cities and empires in Afroeurasia over the past 3000 years. Alexis Alvarez and Daniel Pasciuti have contributed greatly to this project. A paper based on the research of this project is forthcoming in Cross-Cultural Research, and another paper was presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association in March of 2002. See https://irows.ucr.edu/research/citemp/citemp.html

ØGlobal Elite Formation: IROWS has begun research on the evolution of a global elite over the past 200 years, looking at the wealthiest and most powerful individuals, families, firms and political organizations at certain intervals since 1840. Dr. Thomas Reifer currently leads this project. A paper on this topic will be presented at the World Congress of Sociology, Brisbane, Australia in July of 2002. See https://irows.ucr.edu/research/glbelite/globelite.htm

ØBiotechnology and Hegemony: IROWS is starting a project that will time-map the global emergence of the biotechnology industry in order to consider its potential effects on regional and international economic comparative advantages. Director Chase-Dunn presented a preliminary paper on this topic at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in November of 2001.

Initiatives:

IROWS has invested considerable effort in several major research initiatives: 

ØMISTAM Proposal: IROWS contributed to a campus-wide initiative proposal to develop a Multidisciplinary Institute for Spatio-Temporal Analysis and Modeling (MISTAM). This research and development institute would bring together UCR researchers from three UCR colleges to develop new techniques for analyzing GIS and crosstemporal data. Acting EVC Satish Tripathi and the Deans of the Colleges requested a revision of this proposal and a proposed budget in February of 2002.

ØCalGrows Regent’s Proposal:IROWS submitted a proposal to the 2002-2003 Regent’s Budget to establish CalGROWS, the California Group for Research on the Organization of the World-System, a five-year six-campus MRU with a budget of $3 million dollars the first year. This proposal was not funded, but neither were any of the other proposals. The Regent’s Budget was withdrawn because of the emerging state budget deficit.

ØMultidisciplinary Graduate Training in Global Sciences: A preproposal was submitted June 28, 2001, to the NSF’s Integrated Research and Training (IGERT) initiative for a multidisciplinary graduate training program on Global Sciences that included four Departments in CHASS and four Departments in CNAS. The proposed five-year budget was for $2.7 million. A revised version of this preproposal organized around the topic of “multiscalar political ecology” will be submitted in September 2002.

ØNSF Biocomplexity Initiative: A major interdisciplinary grant proposal to the National Science Foundation’s program on “Biocomplexity in the Environment” was submitted in January of 2002. The proposed five-year budget for this research was $1,690,310. This proposal was not recommended for funding. A revised version will be resubmitted in the next round.

ØNSF Information Technology Research: An interdisciplinary grant proposal to the National Science Foundation’s program in Information Technology Research entitled “Time Mapping 3000 Years of Globalization: Knowledge Modeling Urbanization, Empire Formation, Climate Change and Emerging Global Complexity” was submitted in November of 2001. The total proposed budget for this project for five years of research support was $4,271,446. This proposal was not recommended for funding, but the reviews were quite encouraging. An improved revision with greater participation by UCR computer scientists will be submitted in the next round. 

ØNSF Sociology Program:IROWS submitted a proposal to study global elite formation to the National Science Foundation’s Sociology Program in August 2001. This proposal was not recommended for funding. A revised version will be submitted in August of 2002.

ØFoundation Funding: IROWS has sent letters of inquiry about project support to the Carnegie, Packard, Hewlett, Sloan and Mac Arthur Foundations.