Re: formal definition of world-system

All of that is straight out of Wallerstein, and has long been open to
question, even by Chase-Dunn and Hall.

The issue of whether a network of trade/production should be defined as
long-distance or luxury or part of an integrated axial division of labor
hinges on whether those ties have strong explanatory power for developments
among the people who are connected in the network.  That has to be
demonstrated empirically.

There are two other issues: one, other criteria that significantly connects
people, and two, how to describe any of these ties without reifying them.
Example: even an axial division of labor is not an "economic" tie, but
cultural, political, gendered, sexualized, etc.  Any criteria is complex and
thus not singular.  To describe it as "multi-dimensional" merely continues
to reify, as if any of the "dimensions" (political, economic, cultural,
etc.) are discrete phenomena, the conceptual "combination" of which
clarifies what is happening.  But ultimately what counts is showing how
developments are explained by interactions and relations among people --
i.e. by significant mutual causality.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: wsn-owner@csf.colorado.edu [mailto:wsn-owner@csf.colorado.edu]On
> Behalf Of g kohler
> Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2002 12:37 PM
> To: wsn@csf.colorado.edu
> Subject: formal definition of world-system
>
>
> here is a formal definition from Chase-Dunn's glossary --
>
> Reference:
> Christopher Chase-Dunn,
> Global Formation: Structures of the World-Economy. Updated Edition.
> Oxford, England: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998, pages 347-348
>
> p. 348 "World-system: a whole social system (not necessarily global)
> composed of cultural, normative, economic, political, and military
> relations which is bounded by a territorial network of regularized
> exchange of material goods. Regarding the problem of spatial boundaries
> of world-systems, see chapter 15, "Spatio-temporal mapping"."
>
> . . .  and just to confuse you a bit, he has three more formal
> definitions, which are:
>
> p. 347 (with hyphen) "World-economy: a type of world-system in which the
> territorial network of economic exchange is politically structured as an
> interstate system."
>
> p. 347 (without hyphen) "World economy: the total sum of economic
> relationships contained in a world-system, including intranational,
> transnational, and international production and exchange."
>
> p. 347-348  "World-empire: a type of world-system in which the
> territorial economic network is largely contained within a single state
> apparatus."
>
> . . . and to irritate some other members of the world(-)system(s) club,
> he did not even give a formal definition of "world system" (without
> hyphen) or of "Weltsystem" (no hypen and no space), as in the German
> edition of Lenin's introduction to "Imperialism" of 1922.
>
> with greetings to Russia from Canada,
> Gernot Kohler
>
>
> in response to:
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A question       by Evgeni Nikolaev           17 March 2002
>
> Dear Sirs,
>
> I cannot find an answer to a very simple, and therefore stupid question:
>
> What is (are) the formal definition(s) of the term “world-system” as
> viewed
> from the world-systems perspective? I am now writing a report on the
> world-systems analysis in Russian, and the most important thing that I
> cannot find is precisely the above definition. I will highly appreciate
> your
> help, and apologize for the trouble.
>
> Evgeni Nikolaev.
>
>
>
>
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