{{Short description|Socioeconomic system}} A '''world-system''' is a socioeconomic system, under systems theory, that encompasses part or all of the globe, detailing the aggregate structural result of the sum of the interactions between polities. World-systems are usually larger than single states, but do not have to be global. The Westphalian System is the preeminent world-system operating in the contemporary world, denoting the system of sovereign states 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, 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. A world-system is a crucial element of the world-system theory, a multidisciplinary, macro-scale approach to world history and social change.
==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. 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, semi-periphery countries and the periphery countries.<ref name=CAMV>Carlos A. Martínez-Vela, [http://web.mit.edu/esd.83/www/notebook/WorldSystem.pdf World Systems Theory], paper prepared for the [http://web.mit.edu/esd.83/www/notebook/NewNotebook.htm Research Seminar in Engineering Systems], November 2003</ref><ref name=TB>Thomas Barfield, ''The dictionary of anthropology'', Wiley-Blackwell, 1997, {{ISBN|1-57718-057-7}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=V5dkKYyHclwC&q=%22world-system&pg=PA498 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, while ''secular trends'' mean deeper long run tendencies, such as general economic growth or decline.<ref name=IW/> 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, 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 states) should be the basic unit of social analysis.<ref name=TB/><ref name=IW>Immanuel Wallerstein, (2004), [http://www.uop.edu.jo/download/PdfCourses/SA/E6-94-01.pdf 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</ref> 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 Immanuel Wallerstein, who has provided several definitions of what a world-system is, twice in 1974, first
{{cquote|"...a system is defined as a unit with a single division of labor and multiple cultural systems."<ref>Wallerstein. 1974. "The Rise and Future Demise of the World-Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis." ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'' 16: p. 390. Cited after [http://www.sociology.emory.edu/globalization/theories01.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130429010208/http://www.sociology.emory.edu/globalization/theories01.html |date=2013-04-29 }}</ref>}}
and second as
{{cquote|"…a social system, one that has boundaries, structures, member groups, rules of legitimation, and coherence."<ref>Immanuel Wallerstein (1974) ''the Modern World-System'', New York, Academic Press, pp. 347-57.</ref>}}
In 1987, he elaborated his definition:
{{cquote|"...not the system of the world, but a system that is a world and which can be, most often has been, located in an area less than the entire globe. World-systems analysis argues that the units of social reality within which we operate, whose rules constrain us, are for the most part such world-systems [...]. ...there have been thus far only two varieties of world-systems: world-economies and world empires. A world-empire (examples, the Roman Empire, Han China) are large bureaucratic structures with a single political center and an axial division of labor, but multiple cultures. A world-economy is a large axial division of labor with multiple political centers and multiple cultures."<ref name=IW/>}}
Thus, we can differentiate world-systems into politically unified (world-empires) and not unified (world-economies).<ref name=TB/> Small, non-state units such as tribes are micro-systems.<ref name=TB/>
==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.<ref name=TB/> Wallerstein stresses the importance of hyphen in the title:
{{cquote|"... In English, the hyphen is essential to indicate these concepts. "World system" without a hyphen suggests that there has been only one world-system in the history of the world."<ref name=IW/>}}
There is an ongoing debate among scholars whether we can talk about multiple world-systems. For those who support the multiple world-systems approach,<ref>E.g., Chase-Dunn Ch. K. and Hall Th. D. (1997), ‘Rise and Demise. Comparing World - Systems’ Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.</ref> 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- and the West-centered world-systems.<ref>Abu-Lughod, Janet (1989), "Before European Hegemony: The World System AD. 1250-1350"</ref> 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 and Africa).<ref>André Gunder Frank, Barry K. Gills, The world system: five hundred years or five thousand?, Routledge, 1996, {{ISBN|0-415-15089-2}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=LVAWQ1D8UJUC&dq=%22world-system+is%22&pg=PA3 Google Print, p. 3]</ref> From around 19th century onward, due to the process of globalization, many scholars agree that there has been only one world-system, that of capitalism.<ref name="RobertsHite2000">{{cite book|author1=J. Timmons Roberts|author2=Amy Hite|title=From modernization to globalization: perspectives on development and social change|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9H5XPQcCkyAC&pg=PA192|access-date=21 January 2011|date=4 January 2000|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|isbn=978-0-631-21097-9|pages=192–}}</ref><ref name="AsenBrouwer2001">{{cite book|author1=Robert Asen|author2=Daniel C. Brouwer|title=Counterpublics and the state|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3iIEQu_v5GgC&pg=PA235|access-date=21 January 2011|year=2001|publisher=SUNY Press|isbn=978-0-7914-5161-8|pages=235–}}</ref> There are, however, dissenting voices, as some scholars do not support the contention that there is only one world-system in the modern day;<ref name="Delanty1999">{{cite book|author=Gerard Delanty|author-link=Gerard Delanty|title=Social theory in a changing world: conceptions of modernity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YRTb4_oHHOkC&pg=PA70|access-date=21 January 2011|year=1999|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|isbn=978-0-7456-1918-7|pages=70–}}</ref> Janet Abu-Lughod states that multiple world-systems did exist in past epochs.<ref name="FrankGills1996">Janet Abu-Lughod. ''Discontinuities and persistence. One world system or a succession of systems?''. In {{cite book|author1=André Gunder Frank|author2=Barry K. Gills|title=The world system: five hundred years or five thousand?|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LVAWQ1D8UJUC&pg=PA278|access-date=21 January 2011|year=1996|publisher=Psychology Press|isbn=978-0-415-15089-7|pages=278–}}</ref>
The alternative approach insists that there was only one World System that originated in the Near East five<ref>André Gunder Frank, Barry K. Gills, The world system: five hundred years or five thousand?, Routledge, 1996, {{ISBN|0-415-15089-2}}</ref> or even ten<ref>[http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol11/number1/pdf/jwsr-v11n1-korotayev.pdf Korotayev A. A Compact Macromodel of World System Evolution // Journal of World-System Research 11 (2005): 79–93] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090706205516/http://jwsr.ucr.edu/archive/vol11/number1/pdf/jwsr-v11n1-korotayev.pdf |date=2009-07-06 }}; Korotayev A., Malkov A., Khaltourina D. (2006). [https://www.academia.edu/32757085/Introduction_to_Social_Macrodynamics._Models_of_the_World_System_Development._Moscow_KomKniga_URSS_2006 ''Introduction to Social Macrodynamics: Compact Macromodels of the World System Growth'']. Moscow: KomKniga. {{ISBN|5-484-00414-4}}; Korotayev A. [http://ssrn.com/abstract=1703534 The World System urbanization dynamics]. ''History & Mathematics: Historical Dynamics and Development of Complex Societies''. Edited by Peter Turchin, Leonid Grinin, Andrey Korotayev, and Victor C. de Munck. Moscow: KomKniga, 2006. {{ISBN|5-484-01002-0}}. P. 44-62</ref> thousand years ago, and gradually encompassed the whole world; thus, the present-day truly global World System can be regarded as its continuation.
==See also== {{portal|Economics|World}} * Scale (analytical tool) {{Clear right}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:World-System}} Category:Economic systems Category:Imperialism studies Category:Military globalization Category:Political systems Category:Sociological terminology Category:Systems theory Category:World systems theory