Re: your mail

Hey ya'll.  Remember me?  The lurking waitress who loves Wal-Mart?  Anyway,
I just wanted to tell you how thrilled I was to read these comments, cause
I didn't know that other people thought we were heading for war.  I always
say ten to twenty years, but events, at least in the economy, always take
longer than I expect, and I'm starting to accept that as a given.

I don't see how these kinds of predictions could be anything but what you
call indeterminate.  I see several possibilities leading to war with a
"real" country, but of course they all flow from my view of the US as a 900
lb gorilla determined to get it's way, willing to jump off a cliff if
necessary.

Fer instance, what will happen if Europe simply cannot compete, and retain
the remnants, at least, of the welfare state?  Or if Japan cannot recover
economically without forming an Asian block?  Or Russia cannot survive
without forming a self-contained economic federation?(pretty much a given,
eh?)

Small events(relatively), like the EU and intro of the Euro, are moving
toward a challenge to US hegemony(I hate that word, pundit too),  I cannot
see the US gracefully accepting this trend, can you?

Anyway, I feel less like a conspiracy monger now.

smooches, 
Paula

YES CHILD.  CONSPIRACY THEORIES REALLY DO COME TRUE. (tuck, tuck)  Now say
you prayers, and turn off the light. 

At 06:43 PM 2/26/99 -0500, you wrote:
>one way would be to wait to see what happens around 2030 and to evaluate 
>which of the predictors events  confirm. my guess is that none of the
>above. maybe by then cyberspace will include St. Peter's purly gates, so 
>you can inform me and others there.
>g/On Fri, 26 Feb 1999, Robert Allen
>Denemark wrote:
>
>> Date: Fri, 26 Feb 1999 12:26:22 -0500 (EST)
>> From: Robert Allen Denemark <denemark@UDel.Edu>
>> To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Dear Colleagues;  
>> 
>>      I am currently working of a 'revise and resubmit' of a paper that
>> contrasts traditional international politics with world system (broadly
>> defined, both with and without the hyphen) treatments.  I trash
>> traditional studies in favor of those that are historically informed, non
>> State-centric, non-Eurocentric, and transdisciplinary.  I then turn to the
>> question of criticisms of world system work, which include charges of
>> determinism and indeterminance.  I find little support for charges of
>> determinism, but real concern over indeterminance.
>> 
>>      Indeterminance exists when different theories predict the same
>> outcome for different reasons.  I highlight predictions of war-pronness
>> during the period from 2030 to 2050 by Modelski and Thompson, Arrighi,
>> Wallerstein, and Joshua Goldstein.  Each has different reasons for making
>> this prediction, and some of them are contradictory.
>> 
>>      The editor wants me to address ways in which to solve this problem.
>> More traditional social science treatments that would have us search for
>> microfoundations are not particularly helpful.  First, they counsel that
>> we start from individual preferences and incentives when I argue we want
>> to start from system level attributes. Second, in that these are complex
>> phonemona they contain some of the attributes of chaos - making it quite
>> difficult to trace outcomes back to individual incentives or events.
>> 
>>      I have a few ideas, but none are particularly satisfying.  How might
>> we go about designing studies to decide which of a set of different
>> analyses that come to the same conclusion is best?
>> 
>>      Any and all help will be appreciated.
>> 
>>       Best,  Bob Denemark  
>>              Political Science
>>              University of Delaware  
>> 
>> 
>
>
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>                   ANDRE GUNDER FRANK
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