THE RELEVANCE OF THE WORLD‐SYSTEM APPROACH IN THE ERA OF GLOBALIZATION OF ECONOMIC FLOWS AND NETWORKS

Is world‐systems analysis of any relevance to present‐day economic flows? By using methods in line with the world‐system and dependence theories, we show that economic flows – trade and foreign direct investment – still deeply separate core and peripheries. On the one hand, through the analysis of the trade by products, we show that core countries hold on to a higher position in the international division of labour. On the other hand, by using network method, we highlight that core countries are still characterized by the intensity of their reciprocal relations while peripheral countries have few economic relations with a limited number of core countries. Moreover, the article demonstrates that this core–periphery division of the world has not lost its pertinence; it is as relevant as at the end of the sixties. In the current era of globalization, economic flows are still deeply structured by basic power relations between core and peripheries. However, the article also develops a theoretical framework to understand dynamics of the world‐system and insists on the emergence of Eastern Asia as a new core area, notably by showing the rising position of some East Asian countries in the international division of labour. We conclude by underlying the necessity to integrate world‐system and global network theoretical frameworks.     

中心-边缘:近代中国经济格局的转变

文章从国际尺度和国家尺度对近代中国的经济格局进行考察,认为1800年前中国是世界经济中心之一,近代中国则成为欧美制成品的销售地和原材料的来源地,中国由此转变为世界经济的边缘。这种世界经济格局又影响中国内部的经济格局,原来南北经济差距转变为东西差距,东部沿海成为中国经济的中心区,西部则成为中国经济的边缘。     

Global Incorporation and Local Conflict: Sierra Leonean Mining Regions

Abstract: This paper draws upon a world‐system core–periphery framework to examine the nature and causes of persistent low‐level conflict in Sierra Leonean mining regions. Conflict is endemic because of asymmetrical power relations between global core‐state corporations and peripheral weak‐state Sierra Leone, which are mirrored locally within its mining regions. Structural constraints inherent in these relationships generate and sustain socioeconomic, cultural and environmental inequities. The paper reveals the complex web of micropolitics in the mining locale core‐periphery microcosm involving a weak state, exploitative corporations and oppressive traditional social hierarchies. The findings are relevant to effective policy making and conflict resolution.     

The border floods,August 1956

The dominance of Mexico City over the remainder of the country appears to offer conclusive evidence that Mexico's space economy is characterised by core‐periphery relationships. Most measurable criteria indicate that the Yucatan peninsula is part of the periphery. Despite this, it is possible to argue that within the Yucatan peninsula* itself, the city of Merida acts as a core area and has been responsible for a considerable degree of autonomous economic growth, thus acting as a core within the periphery.     

ENVIRONMENTAL AND EVOLUTIONARY ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY: TIME FOR EEG2?

This article argues that recent proposals for environmental and evolutionary economic geographies (EEG 1 and EEG2) should be integrated; EEG² is used as “passing convenience” to make this case. EEG1's emphasis on environmental imperatives is loosely framed and needs a theoretical socio‐economic evolutionary base that is the central thrust of EEG2. Meanwhile EEG2 would be empowered by incorporating environmental concerns within its mandate. Moreover, both EEG1 and EEG2 share common roots in institutional methodologies, emphasize cumulative causation and path‐dependent behaviour, have strong interests at regional scales of analysis, and both are intimately tied to the causes and consequences of innovation. This article provides a rationale and suggests an integrative conceptual approach for developing EEG². In particular, the article outlines a conceptual framework that interprets EEG² in terms of co‐evolutionary socio‐ecological and multi‐scalar processes that are situated within a reasoned history interpretation of economic development. This framework further highlights the roles of path dependency, innovation, multinational corporations and value chains. How this multi‐scalar framework may be elaborated is then discussed around three themes: extending placed‐based analysis of localized clusters; broadening the scope of global value chain analysis; and re‐engaging the analysis of core–periphery relations. Ultimately the case for EEG² is to ensure that economic geographic perspectives are fully incorporated in debates over the co‐evolution of economy and environment, in research and policy terms one of, if not the, central challenges of development in the 21st century.     

Thomas Piketty's Global Tax on Wealth

Thomas Piketty's concern with growing economic inequality leads him to propose a global tax on wealth. While he recognizes that the efforts of individual nations to tax wealth will prove ineffective since wealth is mobile, he does not seriously confront the collective action problems that will impede national efforts to cooperate in more effectively taxing global wealth. To what degree are more radical forms of political integration required to overcome these collective action dilemmas? Piketty provides partial and inadequate answers for these questions with regard to European integration. To be persuasive the economic analysis of Capital in the Twenty-First Century would have to be supplemented with a political economy comparable in depth and sophistication to that provided by The Federalist Papers regarding the political and economic integration of American states at the time of the American Founding. Piketty's failure to address questions of political economy makes his project vulnerable to the charge that nothing less than a world state would suffice to impose a global tax on wealth, and thus that his project is hopelessly visionary and susceptible to misappropriation for tyrannical purposes.     

Capitalism and the emergent world order

The two‐centuries‐old hegemony of the West is coming to an end. The ‘revolutions of modernity’ that fuelled the rise of the West are now accessible to all states. As a consequence, the power gap that developed during the nineteenth century and which served as the foundation for a core–periphery international order is closing. The result is a shift from a world of ‘centred globalism’ to one of ‘decentred globalism’. At the same time, as power is becoming more diffuse, the degree of ideological difference among the leading powers is shrinking. Indeed, because all Great Powers in the contemporary world are in some form capitalist, the ideological bandwidth of the emerging international order is narrower than it has been for a century. The question is whether this relative ideological homogeneity will generate geo‐economic or geopolitical competition among the four main modes of capitalist governance: liberal democratic, social democratic, competitive authoritarian and state bureaucratic. This article assesses the strengths and weaknesses of these four modes of capitalist governance, and probes the main contours of inter‐capitalist competition. Will the political differences between democratic and authoritarian capitalists override their shared interests or be mediated by them? Will there be conflicting capitalisms as there were in the early part of the twentieth century? Or will the contemporary world see the development of some kind of concert of capitalist powers? A world of politically differentiated capitalisms is likely to be with us for some time. As such, a central task facing policy‐makers is to ensure that geo‐economic competition takes place without generating geopolitical conflict.     

UBI SUNT MACELLA? THE CONTRIBUTION OF NON‐INVASIVE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY TO THE IDENTIFICATION AND STUDY OF ROMAN FOOD MARKETS

While the remains of the well‐preserved and excavated towns of Pompeii, Ostia and Herculaneum provide us with a fascinating impression of their once bustling economic life, the study of urban economic space requires a more extensive geographical and methodological framework. This paper investigates whether the systematic use of non‐invasive techniques at other, often neglected, urban sites can deliver a meaningful contribution to the study of Roman urbanism, especially by revealing previously unknown foci of commercial activity in the Roman city. To illustrate the effectiveness of certain non‐destructive strategies, including geophysical prospection and aerial survey, we focus on a specific type of market building that was quite common in the Roman world, the macellum. The case studies presented here demonstrate how non‐invasive archaeological investigation, often in combination with other topographic operations, can facilitate the identification of macella and enhance studies of economic architecture and space in Roman towns in Italy and the provinces.     

Comecon and the South in the years of détente: a study on East–South economic relations

The article deals with the economic relations of the socialist bloc with less-developed countries in the 1960s and 1970s. It focuses on the economic policies envisaged by technocrats and policy-makers in the Comecon's Commission for technical assistance. It argues that the original formula based on autarky, whereby socialist aid aimed at building a clear alternative to the West and less-developed countries were advised to introduce Soviet-style planning, nationalisation and industrialisation, was progressively abandoned during détente. Doubts on the appropriateness of the Soviet model emerged, especially in Eastern European governments. Trade became increasingly crucial and the strategy of promoting an international division of labour based on mutual advantage turned into an obsession with importing strategic raw materials. In the mid-1970s, despite the official socialist view, the East pursued ‘realist’ policies that made sense in terms of economics rather than ideology. The myth of socialist modernity as a variant of industrial modernity had definitely collapsed, and socialist countries' participation in the Western-dominated world economy became a necessity. Eventually, the developing world became the place where a joint East–West co-operation could take place, often in the framework of the so-called trilateral co-operation, where Western Europe had a special role.     

Geographies of Scale in International Rugby Union

Argentina has emerged as one of the top ten rugby teams in the world and became the first country from outside of the eight foundation unions to compete in the semi‐final of a world cup competition in 2007. This paper assesses the geographies of scale in international rugby and considers Argentina's place within the contemporary game. It puts forward an analysis of the above within a framework shaped by the professionalisation, postmodernisation, and globalisation of the sport. The notion of scale, initially complemented by an outline of core and periphery, attempts to tease out the spatial isolations surrounding professional rugby since 1995. The work concludes by assessing what the proposed inclusion of Argentina in an extended Tri‐Nations competition will mean to the wider international rugby setting.     

Recent Trends in Theorizing Prehispanic Mesoamerican Economies

Theoretical frames for modeling prehispanic Mesoamerican economies have been informed mostly by political economy or agency approaches. Political economy models examine the ways in which power is constructed and exercised through the manipulation of material transfers, mainly production and distribution. Research along these lines emphasizes regional redistribution, wealth and staple finance, debt and reciprocity, and regional integration through core/periphery relations. Agency models, on the other hand, explore the social aspects of manufacture, circulation, and consumption to infer the processes by which power is negotiated and contested. Work using this framework focuses on the manner by which meaning and value are assigned to, and become fixed in, social valuables, as well as the moral and emotional dimensions of allocation and consumption. Political economy and agency approaches are converging in Mesoamerican research to forge a new, hybrid theoretical construct, “ritual economy,” which strikes a balance between formalist and substantivist views by considering the ways that belief systems articulate with economic systems in the management of meanings and the shaping of interpretations.     

Beyond the Washington Consensus? Asia and Latin America in search of more autonomous development

International economic power (the ability to shape rules of global economic conduct) needs to be understood in terms of the interactions between rule‐makers and rule‐takers in the global economy. Attempts to reshape development paradigms through interventions during financial crisis have been highly significant for the domestic political economy of the developing world. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the primary question was how much countries would liberalize in response to financial crisis. Reactions to the crises of the late 1990s in Asia and Latin America were more varied. This article explores domestic political responses to crises in both regions in the 1980s and late 1990s. It argues that countries are finding it increasingly difficult to trump domestic political pressure for change with arguments about technocratic necessity. Popular pressure is pushing governments into new experiments in economic nationalism, not a radical rejection of global economic integration, but a reshaping of relationships in an attempt to secure national interests and, in some cases, to devote more resources to welfare. Experiments to date are modest, but could presage more significant change in the future.     

Can Institutional Reforms Reduce Corruption? Economic Theory and Patron–Client Politics in Developing Countries

The ‘anti‐corruption consensus’ of the dominant development paradigm sees corruption as a governance failure and maintains that graft can be reduced or eradicated through appropriate institutional reforms, such as strengthening the judiciary, designing corruption‐proof regulatory regimes, and establishing anti‐corruption agencies. This article aims to cast doubt on the theoretical rationale of this family of anti‐corruption interventions. The neo‐classical paradigm that informs the consensus is based on a set of unsatisfactory idealizations, which undermine the explanatory power of mainstream economic models of corruption. Drawing on insights from economic sociology and anthropology, the article develops an account of the relationship between corruption, cultural norms and patron–client politics in developing countries. This account shows that corruption is embedded in socio‐cultural structures that are endemic to the process of transition to industrial capitalism — a transition that all developing countries are arguably undergoing, however haltingly. This insight clarifies the theoretical limitations of mainstream corruption economics and provides a framework for constructing more empirically adequate explanations of corruption levels in specific countries. It also suggests that substantially reducing, let alone eradicating, corruption in the developing world may not be possible without fundamentally rethinking the existing set of anti‐corruption strategies and techniques.     

The Identity of Capitalists and the Legitimacy of Capitalism: Sri Lanka since Independence

In many Asian countries, the early decades of independence after World War II were marked by tension between ‘indigenous’ political elites and business elites that were in large part alien, or from minority ethnic groups. This tension was one reason for the preference that most governments showed for statist and nationalist economic policies. It has abated in most cases; political and business elites now tend to pursue more co-operative strategies. Much of the explanation for this lies in changes in the international political economy that made market-oriented economic policies more attractive to political elites. There are in addition internal political reasons for this rapprochement. These vary from case to case, and have been explored in most detail by scholars in relation to the Southeast Asian countries where Overseas Chinese have dominated larger scale business. This article extends this literature by examining the causes of the gradual rapprochement between ‘majority’ politics and ‘minority’ business in Sri Lanka.     

The changing system of European cities and regions

This paper analyses the current structure of the system of European cities and regions, relations within the system and how it is changing. Cluster analysis distinguished eight regional types: metropolitan, semi‐peripheral and peripheral service regions; central, semi‐peripheral, peripheral and collapsed industrial regions; and agricultural regions. The core of European industrial societies proves to be almost identical with the city belt that dominated economic development in pre‐industrial Europe. Two possible paths of change are discussed: delocalization of simpler, labour cost‐intensive activities towards the periphery (delocalization hypothesis), or structural changes in industrial core regions and persisting marginal status in the periphery (restructuring hypothesis). Neither hypothesis could be confirmed or rejected unequivocally: there were indicators for the continuing importance of urban service centres but no peripheral industrialization for the continuing dominance of industrial core regions while undergoing structural changes. It is concluded that there are hardly any signs of convergence between core and peripheral regions.     

Core and Periphery in the Evolving Russian Economy: Integration or Isolation of the Far East?

An American social scientist explores the relations between core and periphery in the post-Soviet economy, using the Russian Far East as a case study. His analysis draws on Western and Russian conceptual literature on economic peripheries, as well as on the Russian periodical press and recent interviews with officials in the Far East (conducted during research in Primorskiy Kray in January-February 1996). A concluding section outlines policy options for regional development, either in concert with Moscow or through an independent course of action. 52 references. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O10, P2, R58.     

The Geopolitics of Terrorism: A Commentary on Flint and Radil's Approach

An American political geographer and prominent specialist in electoral geography presents a measured and informative critique of the preceding paper by Colin Flint and Steven M. Radil (2009) on "Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: Situating al-Qaeda and the Global War on Terror within Geopolitical Trends and Structures." Among the issues explored are the extent to which the observed patterns of terrorism might differ depending on whether "international" or "domestic" incidents are the focus of attention, and whether fatalities associated with incidents might prove a better metric of terrorism's psychological impact than per capita incident frequency alone. A deeper issue debated in the critique involves the thorny question of whether a singular focus on relative economic deprivation (and on its variations between countries rather than also within countries) offers an adequate explanation for the incidence of terrorism given the complexity of cultural (including ethnicity and religion), social, economic, and political factors that motivate terrorist acts in diverse settings across the world. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: I390, O100, Y900. 32 references.     

Economic transformation in central and Eastern Europe: The role of regional development

The spatial impact of transition in Central and Eastern Europe is becoming an increasingly important question. Two main areas of regional disparity have emerged—core‐periphery contrasts and a West‐East gradient, with more positive development in core and Western areas respectively. A recent embryonic regional policy response is evident in the Visegrad Four countries, including the creation of a distinct Ministry in Hungary, the designation of assisted areas, and the provision of spatially focused instruments. The institutional infrastructure for regional development remains a central problem, including issues of coordination, strategy, implementation and territorial administrative structures. There is both an economic and political rationale for future development, with some potential for the transfer of western experience.     

AGGLOMERATION AND GROWTH WITH ENDOGENOUS EXPENDITURE SHARES*

ABSTRACT We develop a New Economic Geography and Growth model which, by using a CES utility function in the second‐stage optimization problem, allows for expenditure shares in industrial goods to be endogenously determined. The implications of our generalization are quite relevant. In particular, we obtain the following novel results: (1) two additional nonsymmetric interior steady states emerge for some intermediate values of trade costs. These steady‐states are stable if the industrial and the traditional goods are either good or very poor substitutes, while they are unstable for intermediate (yet lower than one) values of the intersectoral elasticity of substitution. In the latter case, the model displays three interior steady states—the symmetric and the core‐periphery allocations—which are stable at the same time; (2) agglomeration processes may always take place, whatever the degree of market integration, provided that the traditional and the industrial goods are sufficiently good substitutes; (3) the regional rate of growth is affected by the interregional allocation of economic activities even in the absence of localized spillovers, so that geography always matters for growth and (4) the regional rate of growth is affected by the degree of market openness: in particular, depending on whether the traditional and the industrial goods are good or poor substitutes, economic integration may be, respectively, growth‐enhancing or growth‐detrimental.