International Relations. A self-Study Guide to Theory

long-lasting structures. 
For Wallerstein, historical systems are both systemic and historical: “They 
remain the same over time yet are never the same from one minute to the next. 
This is a paradox, but not a contradiction.” (Wallerstein 2004: 22). The catego-
ries of time and space (referred to by Wallerstein as “TimeSpace”; Wallerstein 
2004: 22) are important for an understanding of the systemic-historical argu-
ment. “TimeSpaces” are constantly evolving, socially constructed realities. 
Their construction is part of the social reality to be analyzed. The specific ap-
proach to time in Wallerstein’s work is inspired by the concept of “social 
times” developed by Fernand Braudel (the Annales School), which originated 
both as a critique of the “event-dominated” or “episodic” history writing (the 
idiographic approach), and the positivist search for “timeless truths” (nomothet-
ic social science). In his works, Braudel identified a multiplicity of social times 
such as “structural times”, or what he called the “longue durée”. The concept of 
structural time (the longue durée) has since been integrated into world-systems 
analysis and is the concept of grasping the duration of a particular historical 
system. The longue durée has a crucial function within world-systems analysis 
in that it reflects the self-evidence that world-systems analysis does not have to 

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search for “timeless truths” and is also a critique of the concept of timeless 
structures. For Wallerstein, time-bound structures do exist (Wallerstein 2004: 
21): a world-system has a lifespan, i.e. a beginning, a period of development 
and an end/a final transition (Wallerstein 2004: 18). “Structural time”, or the 
longue durée, relates to the long-lasting fundamental structures underlying his-
torical systems and to the cyclical processes within those structures. These will 
be discussed in more detail in Step 3. 
In sum, by Wallerstein’s standards, social science must be historical and 
the focus of social scientific study must be on the core phenomena of long 
periods and large spaces.
2.3. Conclusion 
The particular mode of analysis provided by world-systems analysis is the 
simultaneous historical and systemic description and explanation of the so-
cial phenomena of the real world. 
World-systems analysis overcomes the traditional boundaries in social 
sciences; it is the analysis of “total social systems over the longue durée” 
(Wallerstein 2004: 19). The world-systems analysis scholar is an historical 
social scientist: s/he analyzes both the general laws of particular historical 
systems and the