Immanuel Wallerstein » Articles

The contradictions of the Arab Spring

olibroman — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 05:00:12 +0000

The turmoil in Arab countries that is called the Arab Spring is conventionally said to have been sparked by the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in a small village of Tunisia on December 17, 2010. The massive sympathy this act aroused led, in a relatively short time, to the destitution of Tunisia’s president and then to that of Egypt’s president. In very quick order thereafter, the turmoil spread to virtually every Arab state and is still continuing.

Most of the analyses we read in the media or on the internet neglect the fundamental contradiction of this phenomenon – that the so-called Arab Spring is composed of two quite different currents, going in radically different directions. One current is the heir of the world-revolution of 1968. The “1968 current” might better be called the “second Arab revolt”.

Its objective is to achieve the global autonomy of the Arab world that the “first Arab revolt” had sought to achieve. The first revolt failed primarily because of successful Franco-British measures to contain it, co-opt it, and repress it.

The second current is the attempt by all important geopolitical actors to control the first current, each acting to divert collective activity in the Arab world in ways that would redound to the relative advantage of each of these actors separately. The actors here regard the “1968 current” as highly dangerous to their interests. They have done everything possible to turn attention and energy away from the objectives of the “1968 current”, in what I think of as the great distraction.

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What Cold War in Asia? An Interpretive Essay

olibroman — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:00:05 +0000

The phrase “the Cold War” refers to a narrative that was intended to and is supposed to summarize how we are to understand a geopolitical reality over the period of time running approximately from 1945 to 1991. This narrative is today very widely accepted. It originated with political leaders. It was adopted by scholars. And it was intended to influence the thinking of everyone else. It has been the dominant narrative, although there have been some dissenters.

In this essay I would like to review this narrative and what it is supposed to tell us. It tells us that the Second World War was a war that was started by Germany and Japan as aggressor nations that sought to conquer other nations. They did fairly well at first, but then resistance to them grew stronger. In 1941, both the Soviet Union and the United States entered the war against Germany, and the coalition took on the name of the United Nations. The three countries in this alliance that were most signify cant militarily were the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. They were called the “Big Three,” and together they won the Second World War.

Immanuel Wallerstein on World-Systems, The Imminent End of Capitalism and Unifying Social Sciences

olibroman — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:00:55 +0000

Theory Talks proudly presents a Talk with historical sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein. Wallerstein is duly known for his world-system theory, with which he offers a critical alternative to realist systemic approaches to International Relations. One could say that where Realists part from the system to analyze and predict history, world-system theory parts from history to analyze and predict the system. In this comprehensive Talk, Wallerstein – amongst others – explains why capitalism is worn out, why ’68 was more important then ’45 or ’89, and why we need to overcome artificial divorces between different arenas in social sciences and, more generally, between philosophy and science.

Remembering Andre Gunder Frank While Thinking about the Future

olibroman — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:00:11 +0000

Andre Gunder Frank’s very long itinerary as a critical social scientist was marked by one unbudgeable constant. He was always committed to a left political agenda, and he was always analyzing the evolving current world situation as a left scholar-activist. I believe that the best tribute I can offer him is to do the same. Gunder’s father, Leonhard Frank, a distinguished novelist and man of letters, wrote toward the end of his life a novel based on his own life. Its title was Links, wo das Herz ist (“My Heart Is on the Left”). This would have been the most appropriate title for Gunder’s own never-written autobiography.

Precipitate Decline: The Advent of Multipolarity

olibroman — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 16:00:08 +0000

As recently as 2003, it was considered absurd to talk of the decline of the United States. Now, however, such a belief has become common currency among theorists, policymakers, and the media. what significantly raised the awareness of this concept was, of course, the fiasco of the United States’ preemptive invasion of Iraq. What is not yet sufficiently appreciated is the precise nature of this decline and when it specifically began.

Most analysts contend that the United States was at its hegemonic apex in the post-1991 era when the world was marked by unipolarity, as contrasted with the bipolar structure that existed during the Cold war. But this notion has reality absolutely backwards. the United States was the sole hegemonic power from 1945 to approximately 1970. Its hegemony has been in decline ever since. the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major blow to US power in the world. And the invasion of Iraq in 2003 transformed the situation from one of slow decline into one of precipitous collapse. By 2007, the United States had lost its credibility not only as the economic and political leader of the world-system, but also as the dominant military power. Since I am aware that this is not the standard picture either in the media or in scholarly literature, let me spell this out in some detail. I shall divide this ac-count into three periods: 1945-1970, 1970-2001, and 2001 to the present. they correspond to the period of US hegemony, that of slow US decline giving rise to a creeping multipolarity, and that of the precipitate decline and effective multipolarity of the era inaugurated by US President George W. Bush.

The Curve of American Power

olibroman — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 16:00:10 +0000

Since the end of the Second World War, the geopolitics of the world-system has traversed three different phases. From 1945 till ca. 1970 the us hegemony exercised unquestioned hegemony in the world-system. The period from 1970 to 2001 was a time in which American hegemony began to decline, but the extent of its decline was limited by the strategy that the us evolved to delay and minimize the effects of its loss of ascendancy. In the period since 2001, the us has sought to recuperate its standing by more unilateralist policies, which have, however, boomeranged—indeed actually accelerating the speed and depth of its decline.

Social Science and Social Policy: From National Dilemmas to Global Opportunities

olibroman — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 16:00:45 +0000

Social science has had an ambiguous relationship with social policy through-out its history. When the term and concept of social science ﬁrst began to be used in the middle of the nineteenth century, the initial organizations that emerged to promote social science were not located in the universities but in the public sphere. They brought together not only scholars but persons active in the political arena, clergymen, and business people, and the primary objective of these associations was to promote reform, that is, what they considered to be more adequate social policies to ameliorate what they designated as social problems. The social problems of which they spoke were for the most part those associated with the expanding urban centers and the newly-emerging manufacturing sector of the economy. These associations felt that accumulating various kinds of data on these issues, usually statistical data, would illuminate the directions in which the State might proceed, by means of various new policies/reforms, to alleviate the ills that these associations perceived.

Cultures in Conflict? Who are We? Who are the Others?

olibroman — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 16:00:21 +0000

This essay is an attempt to dissect the multiple universalisms and the multiple particularisms with which we are faced in trying to analyze our work and especially when we attempt to speak of culture.

After Developmentalism and Globalization, What?

olibroman — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 16:00:02 +0000

In 1900, in preparation for the Exposition Universelle in Paris, the French Ministry of Colonies asked Camille Guy, the head of its geographical service, to produce a book entitled Les colonies françaises: la mise en valeur de notre domaine coloniale. A literal translation of mise en valeur is “making into value.” The dictionary, however, translates “mise en valeur” as “development.” At the time, this expression was preferred, when talking about economic phenomena in the colonies, to the perfectly acceptable French word, “développement.” If one then goes to Les Usuels de Robert: Dictionnaire des Expressions et Locutions figurées (1979) to learn more about the meaning of the expression “mettre en valeur,” one finds the -explanation that it is used as a metaphor meaning “to exploit, draw profit from.”

The Dilemmas of Open Space: the Future of the WSF

olibroman — Thu, 01 Jan 2004 16:00:13 +0000

The World Social Forum (WSF) seeks to bring together, in its own words, all those who oppose ‘‘neo-liberal globalisation’’ and ‘‘imperialism in all its forms’’. It hopes to serve as their common meeting-ground. It has adopted as its principal mode of operation the concept of the ‘‘open space’’. This concept is highly original; it is also quite controversial among the participants of the WSF itself.

We need to explore the origins of this concept of the ‘‘open space’’ and the reasons why it arouses so much fervour – both of those who are favourable to it and of those who are quite uneasy about it. And we need to explore the dilemmas the concept poses to the viability of the WSF itself.