From: Jack Owens <owenjack@isu.edu>
Continuing comments on the 25 January posting of Nikolai Rozov,
"Constructive Typology of Societal Systems." [part 3]
Now I will present some concepts which have "Pickwick's
meaning," i.e. they pretend only to demonstrate the very logic
of constructive approach. Probably you will find some blanks
and defects and I will be grateful for any comments. At the
same time I ask to focus mainly on the general principle and
possibilities of the constructive approach.
LOCI - inhabited geographical places which can be
considered as homogenous relatively to connections with other
places.
It is possible if necessary to differ:
i) mini-locus, f.e. small village of group of family farms
using the same trade, social, transport and other networks,
ii) midi-locus (a small province, a "nom" in Shumer, a
"police" in Greece, a "uezd" or a "rayon" in Russia, a county
in US) usually including a town with its countryside,
iii) mega-locus (large province, "gubernia" or "oblast" in
Russia, land in Germany, state in US) including large city
(directly connected to other large cities) with its partly
urban and partly rural surrounding.
Jack: I suspect that in most cases of empirical research, item iii
will not fit your definition of locus. In the period 1500-1700 in
Castile, it would be the traditional "reino" (like Murcia or Toledo)
that would belong here -- or many of the audiencia districts in
Castilian America -- and these were much more diversified entities
than you appear to have in mind. Perhaps you will want to say more
about this in order to make clearer your understanding of the basic
building block of your typology.
***********
(Interloci) CONNECTIONS - any kinds of regular
economical, political, demographical, social, cultural,
technological and other relations between loci.
I suggest to differ four main types of CONNECTIONS:
MATERIAL and INFORMATIONAL TORRENTS: movement of
goods and raw materials, texts and other cultural patterns,
finances;
Jack: Here you appear to lump together elements that should probably
be kept separate for any analysis of human action. It strikes me
that the material product of some system of division of labor (and
that system itself) is quite different from a cultural system of
sacralization, for example. Sociologists, I realize that I have
dropped into the use of the conceptual vocabulary of Jeffrey Alexander;
his theoretical perspective strikes me as an appropriate one from which
to evaluate the utility of an interpretive typology.
******************
INTERACTIONS: military, economic, political,
sociocultural, and MIGRATIONS,
COMMUNITY OF CULTURAL GENESIS including common
features and elements in language, morals, religion, art, also
in technological, economic, political, legal patterns, etc.
Jack: What you mean by "patterns" here and in the TORRENTS
connection above is not clear. Again, you are lumping together
aspects of the social and cultural environments (Alexander's terms),
institutions reflecting the division of labor and the exercise of
political authority with frameworks of thought and assumptions about
the world, deity and human beings. These are not the same sorts of
"thing" and the failure to recognize that in the construction of a
typology will hinder comparative study.
COMMUNITY OF POLITICAL AND LEGAL ORDER
subordination to common power agents and set of laws and rules.
Jack: The concept of subordination is not clear. It may make some
sense in those 19th and 20th century political regimes where the
concept of the impersonal State is used, but the issue is a messy one
in, for example, the Kingdom of Castile in the 16th and 17th
centuries, not to mention the Hispanic Monarchy of the same period.
**************
Connections as a rule are not equal but oriented
according to active or passive role of each locus in
organizing, realizing, supporting this connection. It is the
main way for constructing core-periphery relations. This
aspect is well known and I will not explicate it in the
following concepts.
Jack: Without perfect coercion, people in no locus will be
completely passive or completely active in any relationship with
another locus, although the range of action in some loci may be
particularly constrained. Overlooking this aspect of dynamic
interaction has brought a certain amount of grief to a number of
"cores" :-)
Any inhabited place (locus or stable group of
interconnected loci) whose interior connections have essential
difference from exterior connections can be considered as
SOCIETAL SYSTEM (S-SYSTEM).
As you can see s-system is also an elastic concept which
depends directly from our current criteria of "essential
difference." "Basic logic" of system (I.Wallerstein) is very
fruitful but probably not unique criterion for "essential
difference."
Jack: It is not clear what you mean by this last sentence.
*************
The sorts of interior connections are the basis for setting the types of
s-systems. We will use the idealization that within one
s-system its loci are connected only with one sort of
connections. Such (surely non-existing) s-systems are ideal
types. Identification and research of definite real s-system
consist of comparing it with correspondent ideal types.
Jack: And comparing them with each other? Is it significant that
these different types of s-systems will overlap?
******************
Ideal types of S-SYSTEMS:
NETWORK OF TORRENTS - s-system whose loci are connected
by material and informational torrents.
OICUMENA (MILITARY/POLITICAL O., TRADE O., ECONOMIC O.,
CULTURAL O.) - s-system whose loci are connected with
correspondent interactions.
Jack: Is the degree of significance for the loci involved of these torrents
or interactions important for establishing where cases fit in the
typology? This was a central issue in a discussion on this list at
the end of last year.
***********
CIVILIZATION - s-system whose loci have community of
cultural genesis.
SOCIETY - s-system whose loci have community of political
and legal order.
What are the relations between these types?
NETWORKS OF TORRENTS always encompass OICUMENE.
OICUMENA frequently includes parts of different
CIVILIZATIONS.
The spread of CIVILIZATION can lead to several new
OICUMENE.
OICUMENE and CIVILIZATIONS usually encompass SOCIETIES.
Some SOCIETIES can include parts of different
CIVILIZATIONS and take part in different OICUMENE.
Jack: Perhaps at this point a few examples would help. Historians
don't like to drift too far away from specific cases. Can you offer
us some specific examples of these relations?
************
Well, but where is our goal concept - world-system?
I suggest to name as w-ss both oicumene and networks of
torrents. The very meaning of the term "w-s" tells that this
system is (or seems to its people) like the whole world.
Jack: Therefore, is the self-recognition of the w-s by the people
who are part of it necessary for the existence of a w-s as an
analytical entity? Do they have to define themselves, intellectually
or emotionally, as different from other human "worlds" of which they
may be aware? If this is a necessary criterion, then it becomes
particularly important to be careful in defining the cultural
environment of human action.
****************
So we can consider OICUMENA (inhabited land) as the
"visible" or "subjectively the whole world."
At the same time we can study by objective methods that
the torrents of goods, texts, other patterns were much wider
than the space of interactions (oicumena). So we can reveal
"objectively the whole world"- NETWORK OF TORRENTS.
Both have right to be named world-systems. The division
of labor in research practice maintains this position:
Macroeconomics, World Economics deal with NETWORKs OF
TORRENTS.
International Relations, Political History, Geopolitics,
(Macrosociology?), etc. deal with diverse OICUMENE.
Culturology and civilization approach deal with
CIVILIZATIONS.
Traditional sociology deals with SOCIETY.
Namely in two former cases World-System approach occurred to be
the most efficient.
Jack: What do you mean here by "efficient"?
**********
Nevertheless two last units of analysis
should not be neglected. The constructive typology suggests
the conceptual bridge between all these disciplinary
traditions.
Jack: Such a "conceptual bridge" is certainly an important goal,
both in general and, I suspect, for most members of this discussion
list.
************
The elastic concepts of LOCUS and S-SYSTEM allow in
principle to fulfill R2-3. I mean that the aerials of w-ss,
civilizations, societies are not absolute but depend of our
current research conventions of what criteria of "homogenous"
or "differences of interior/exterior connections" are
essential.
Jack: It is important for our research that we recognize that these
were/are not absolute for the people who were/are living parts of
these units either. They are conceptual schemes or analytic tools
with which we try to recognize and explain the failure of absolutes
to constrain completely human action.
**************
What about other well-known or discussed in wsn terms
(see R1)?
"WORLD ECONOMY" can be TRADE OICUMENA but it also can
occur ECONOMIC OICUMENA if the econ. connections are more
strong (investments, common projects, etc.).
"WORLD EMPIRE" usually is POLITICAL/ECONOMIC OICUMENA
with strong regular uni-center core-periphery connections.
Some world empires can occur or develop into SOCIETIES (China?
Russia?).
Jack: How will the typology assist us to understand this type of
transformation?
*************
"Interactive zones," "interaction networks," "political
military interactions" (R. Dunn, Wilkinson, C.C-D., T.Hall) can
be considered as MILITARY/POLITICAL OICUMENE.
Jack: only?
***********
"DISCOURSE-BASED W-SS" (Voll) seem to occur sometimes
CIVILIZATIONS, sometimes CULTURAL OICUMENE (the difference is
not trivial but it is a special topic). "Symbolic networks"
(E.Ermolaeva) can be considered, as I suppose, also as
cultural oicumene.
Jack: The lack of "fit" between what you are doing with your
typology and these theoretical perspectives may pinpoint an area
where your typology is weak.
*************
MINI-SYSTEMS (I.Wallerstein) and STATELESS W-SS
(C.Chase-Dann) can be isolated LOCI (as autonomous s-systems)
or pheripherical terminals of TRADE OICUMENE and encompassing
NETWORK OF TORRENTS.
"W-s" from China to Europe in 13 century (Abu-Lughod) can
be considered as a NETWORK OF TORRENTS of goods. This network
consisted of several overlapping TRADE OICUMENE (I support
here the position of I.Wallerstein in his resume to A-L's
book). "Prestige goods networks" I consider as the same type.
I don't think that we really can study the modern World
System (MWS) as one oicumena of interactions (even trade
oicumena). I suggest to take more modest task: to consider MWS
only as a NETWORK OF TORRENTS encompassing rather many
ECONOMIC/POLITICAL/CULTURAL OICUMENE, POLITICAL/MILITARY
OICUMENE and also CIVILIZATIONS which did not disappear and
don't go to die at all!
Surely informational (cultural, financial) torrents in
MWS are not less but maybe more significant than material
torrents.
What about R4 - the criteria and methods for empirical
verification? The basic logic of these criteria and methods is
very simple: empirically discovered presence/absence of signs
of torrents, interactions (of diverse sorts), common cultural
genesis and common political/legal order between definite
LOCI. The whole picture of these interloci connections allows
to make decision about type, composition, areal of the
s-system (group of s-systems).
For me the most interesting are the evolutionary trends
(patterns? laws?) of historical transformation of s-systems of
diverse types and application of this knowledge to the
problems of probable future transformations of MWS and its
parts.
Jack: For a historian, the big test of the utility of any conceptual
typology will be how well it generates research programs that will
help us to understand how human action has contributed to change in
the face of social and cultural (structural?) constraints. How does
your typology meet that test?
*****************
Sorry for too long posting and for my English,
I am looking forward for comments.
Nikolai S. Rozov <rozov@adm.nsu.nsk.su>
Jack: I wish that I could deal with Russian as well as you deal with
English. I realize that some of my comments/questions may have
touched on points where the translation (more cultural than
linguistic) may have gotten in the way. But the great thing about
the Internet is the way it permits us to discuss research interests
across disciplinary and institutional traditions. Thank you for all
your hard work to contribute in a language more members of the list
would understand even though that was difficult for you.
J. B. "Jack" Owens
Department of History
Idaho State University
Pocatello, ID 83209 USA
Voice: (208) 233-8589
e-mail: owenjack@isu.edu
www: http://isuux.isu.edu/~owenjack