International Relations. A self-Study Guide to Theory

Self-study (2)
The modern world-system is stabilized by a geo-culture. Read Wallerstein 
2004, Chapter 4 (The creation of geoculture) and other relevant texts of 
your choice from the supplementary reading material. Reflect on „geo-
culture“ as part of the explanation offered by world-systems analysis. 
3.3. Crises and transition: towards a new world-system
As you learned in Step 2, a world-system has a lifespan. Therefore, all histor-
ical systems come to an end and are succeeded by another system. For Wal-
lerstein, the modern world-system is in a crisis, which has been brought about 
by secular trends (Wallerstein 1996: 103-105): capitalist development is un-
derstood to be a polarizing process and the gap between “winners” and “los-
ers” is expected to widen. South-North migration, in particular, will have a 
huge impact on the functioning of the world-system. In addition, the steady 
rise of marginalized populations will cause multiple conflicts. States’ fiscal 
crises and the decline of the welfare state will foster the state’s political cri-
sis. Wallerstein is also concerned about the ecological crisis and its massive 
destructive potential for the modern world-system. In addition, he feels there 
will be a strong ideological turn against the liberal geo-culture. Finally, Wal-
lerstein also observes the loss of faith in science. He predicts that the crisis 
will continue for the next 20-50 years and bring about a new alternative inter-
state system. He admits, however, that this process will be difficult to predict 
(Wallerstein 1987/2000: 147). 

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The crucial phase is the period of transition from one historical system to 
the next, which brings us back to the debate on structure/agency. In Waller-
stein’s view, the debate is one of determinism versus free will. From what we 
have learned so far, it is apparent that Wallerstein’s analysis is strongly de-
terministic: the process inherent in historical systems, i.e. the logic of the sys-
tem, is “translated” into self-reinforcing institutional structures that determine 
the long-term trajectory of the system. Agency, such as all forms of social 
struggle for change, can only be understood within the world-system as a 
whole. In world-systems analysis, actors and structures are the “products” of 
the inner logic of the system. They are not ontologically prior to but rather 
“part of a systemic mix out of which they emerged and upon which they act” 
(Wallerstein 2004: 21). For Wallerstein, “free will” occurs mainly during the 
process of “transition” to a new system. Historical choices and historical al-
ternatives only arise because the system’s structures break down in times of 
crisis. Here the strong normative commitment of world-systems analysis as a 
contribution to the transformation of the world becomes apparent: world-
systems analysis is both theory and praxis. The task of social sciences is “to 
present rationally the real historical alternatives that lie before us” (Waller-
stein 2000: 129). The aim is to provide plausible interpretations of social re-
ality, which are more useful for making political and moral decisions (Wal-
lerstein 2000: xviii): 
“But if reality is a constructed reality, the constructors are the actors in the real 
world, and not the scholars. The role of the scholars is not to construct reality but 
to figure out how it has been constructed, and to test the multiple social construc-
tions of reality against each other.” (Wallerstein 1997/2000: 200).
Wallerstein therefore attempts to formulate “temporarily useful structures/ 
categories that bear within them the processes by which they are transformed 
into other structures/categories.” (Wallerstein 2000: xxi). 

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Step 4: 
Check your understanding: key aspects and review questions 
Key aspects