PEWSers:
I am concerned that in its sessions at ASA that PEWS continue to
appeal to people interested in issues of international "development" but who
do not think of themselves as "worldsystemites." How might we do that?
Right now one of our most useful contributions may be to clarify and
try to reach a consensus particularly on how world[-]system(s) theory can
inform international and local activism in confronting the "globalization"
of production and communications. I am speaking of the importance and
strategies of labor, environmental, consumer, and other movements [and even
states] in attempting to control the flight of capital from regulation.
This issue directly ties to the world party issue which is being discussed here.
However I would like to see session(s) on 1. how local and global
struggles are linked, and 2. on [actually] emerging global governance
structures. An example of the latter are the new international environmental
standards and treaties, on which I am working on some research, and wrote
some in the PEWS'95 conference volume _Latin America in the World Economy_
coming out soon edited by Korzeniewicz and Smith.
I am pleased that the PEWS'97 conference will be about the
environment and hope we can keep "greening PEWS" in the next years. World
systems theory has long ignored the issue, taking what Morrison and Dunlap
called the "human exemptionalist" approach common among sociologists.
Shouldn't ASA sessions (or at least papers) carry that "green" momentum
forward in 1997 and 1998?
Timmons Roberts
Assistant Professor
Tulane University
timmons@mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu