WORLD-SYSTEMS ANALYSIS

This course is part of the Global Studies program. It contributes to the interdisciplinary aims of this Master's program, because, by proposing to overcome the separation between idiographic and nomothetic social sciences, it implies a confrontation with history (political and economic, social and cultural) and historiography, sociology and anthropology, as well as with the theory of politics, economics and international relations.

By the end of the course, students will have acquired the ability: to master the concepts, authors and theories of world-systems analysis; to analyze ongoing political, social, cultural and economic processes, paying attention to the long term and large spaces; to understand the historicity of the traditional scientific division of labor and, if necessary, to criticize it.

A good general background and minimal knowledge of modern and contemporary history.

The course first aims to "unlearn" the nineteenth-century social sciences in order to clarify the epistemology of world-systems analysis. It then intends to address the analysis of the capitalist economy-world, examining both the history of systemic cycles of capital accumulation and the geography of centers, peripheries and semi-peripheries. In a third moment, it will be necessary to address the articulation of the inter-state system, the history of world hegemonies and the geography of imperialisms. It will then be a matter of investigating the various ideologies of the modern world-system: sexist and racist, conservative, liberal, Marxist. The last part will be devoted to the investigation of anti-systemic movements, the identification of moments of crisis and the prospect of what we can expect in the twenty-first century.

The textbook is: Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction, Duke University Press, Durham (NC) 2004.
For the exam, you will also be required to study one of your choice from the following texts:
Samir Amin, Global History: A View from the South, Pambazuka Press, Cape Town 2010;
Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times , Verso, London-New York 1994 (2nd ed. 2009);
Giovanni Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century, Verso, London-New York 2007;
Giovanni Arrighi, Terence K. Hopkins, Immanuel Wallerstein, Antisystemic Movements, Verso, London-New York 1989;
Étienne Balibar, Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, Verso, London-New York 1991;
József Böröcz, The European Union and Global Social Change: A Critical Geopolitical-Economic Analysis, Routledge, Oxford 2009;
Andre Gunder Frank, ReORIENT: Global Economy in the Asian Age, University of California Press, Berkeley-Los Angeles 1998;
Boris Kagarlitsky, Empire of the Periphery: Russia and the World System, Pluto Press, London 2007;
Richard Lachmann, First-Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers, Verso, London-New York 2020;
Jason W. Moore, Raj Patel, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet, University of California Press, Oakland 2017;
Beverly J. Silver, Forces of Labor: Workers’ Movements and Globalization Since 1870, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003;
Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System, vol. IV: Centrist Liberalism Triumphant, 1789-1914, University of California Press, Berkeley 2011.

The examination will be oral. To pass the test, the student must demonstrate: to know the content of the texts explained in class; to be able to return them clearly, correctly mastering the specialized vocabulary used by the authors; to be able to identify the most relevant points and be able to discuss them critically; to be able to independently elaborate an argument related to the content covered in class.

The course will be conducted in the traditional mode, encouraging active student participation.

English