Immanuel Wallerstein 's World Systems Theory

Stearns, Peter N. et al. World Civilizations: The Global Experience, Third Edition. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, Inc., Longman, 2003.

Sociology is the study the different aspects of humanity and society. It encompasses a very broad and varying range of topics. It can be studied on a large world-wide scale spanning across several countries, which is called Macrosociology. It can also be studied on a small scale looking at only individual families or neighborhoods, which is called Microsociology. Not only does it peer into humans’ interactions with each other but examines why they act the way they do. It considers the environment, as well as how access to different luxuries can contribute to the people that we become. In this fascinating field there are three primary views on exactly what the fundamental driving force behind society is. Symbolic Interactionalism, the belief that symbols and the meaning that they are given, define how we will perceive life, in this philosophy these meanings are influenced by society and the events of individual lives. Functional Analysis, views society as any other organism, in this theory all parts of the whole must work together cohesively to function. Conflict theory takes a somewhat opposite view than Functionalism, this perspective suggests that rather than wanting to work in unison, society’s underlying motive is a power struggle for resources. Over the course of this paper the reader will explore these different perspectives.

Bentley first talked about cross-cultural interactions as a way to categorize the World’s history. He in addition wrote about the importance of understanding events from a global perspective, not just one country’s point of view. Because of these two fundamental elements to his argument, we can assess events differently than before hand, finding out ways to take a step back and look at actions as they affect multiple nations simultaneously. Of these international events from 1870-1945, the Age of Imperialism, World War I, and the Great Depression had worldwide impacts on economic and social issues.

Three of the most widely used theoretical approaches used by sociologists are the functionalist, conflict, and interactionists perspectives. Functionalists highlight the contributions made by society that lead to social stability. Talcott Parsons, a key figure in the development of functionalist theory, viewed society as of a vast network of connected parts, each of which helps to maintain the system as a whole (Schaefer 2015). Conflict theorists take the approach that social behavior is understood in terms of tension between competing groups over power or the allocation of resources. Interactionist explain society by generalizing about the everyday forms of social interaction in places such as work, parks, or in public places. Functionalist and conflict approaches to the study of society focus on large scale phenomena or entire civilizations, or macrosociology, while the interactionist approach focuses on microsociology which stresses the study of small groups (Schaefer 2015). Functionalists reason that individuals are socialized to perform certain societal functions. However, conflict theorists consider that individuals are socialized by power of authoritative groups. In the interactionist view, individuals are shaped by their everyday interaction within small groups. Social order is maintained through cooperation and overall consensus in the functionalist’s perspective; laws are created to reinforce social order. Similarly, interactionists believe social order is

Jared Diamond is a world renowned scientist, author, Pulitzer Prize winner, and currently a geography professor at UCLA. Of his six books published, we will be looking at the last chapter of his fourth book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. In this book Diamond utilizes the comparative method to find resemblance in past societal collapses with our current society. In the chapter entitled, "The World as Polder: What Does it Mean to Us Today," Diamond points out that there are indeed many parallels between past and present societies and that our modern day society is currently on a path of self destruction , through examples such as globalization and the interdependency of each country.

The standpoint theory is an approach that seeks to demystify subjects concerning human relationships. Such relations occur within diverse environments that influence though processes and the subsequent perception of life. Further, this body of knowledge regards the manner in which authority is vested in individuals within various forms of social systems. The standpoint theory provides that individual perspectives are molded by their experiences. Additionally, this touches on the aspects of people’s political environments as they strive to exist within their habitat sustainably. Individual environments affect the manner in which people interact with each other (Hägerstraand, 1970). Various determinants come into play when social structures are established. Ethnicity has been found to be a substantial factor that affects the establishment of connections between people from various backgrounds. Social classes create the distinction between people’s perspective of the world (Marton, 1980). Critically, people with privilege have particular attributes that place them above the persons they oppress.

In the prologue of “Collapse”, Jared Diamond claims that his previous book “Guns, Germs, and Steel” focused on the buildup of societies over the last 13,000 years and his present book ‘Collapse” focuses on the factors that cause failure and survival in civilizations all across the world2.” Diamond analyzes the breakdown of all societies through a unique scale called the five-point framework. This framework considers environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners, and most importantly society’s response to its environmental problems. Every society he studies he applies this framework to determine a possible flaw in the collapse of the society. The novel starts with Montana’s current environmental problems and evaluates societies as ancient as the Mayans and as recent as Modern China.

is seen by social scientists as a set of practices and organisations. The state is an

The social landscape of the U.S. may naturally be an organic development. Society develops as areas of influence rise and fall over time. Frequently these areas of influence are internal, but at times they also are external. This is especially true as society becomes more aware of international developments and an economy becomes increasingly global, or a society engages activities not originally held as part of the original society. However, there are other parts of society that may hold deeper influence, such as religion, political activities, and family structures. These areas also influence each other, and in different ways depending on the society and time in history. In other words, society can be defined by those that are part of it.

Key Concept 4.2.II.D; 5.2.III; 5.3.III.C Theme Theme 2: Development and Interaction of Cultures Theme 4: Creation, Expansion and Interaction of Economic Systems Theme 5: Development and Transfer of Social Structures Skills for Basic Core Points Argumentation; Comparison; Causation; Synthesis

The people of the New World are used to meet the needs of the state. Individuality seems unreachable because everybody has been trained and conditioned to think alike. The motto “Community, Identity, Stability” shows the lack of importance for individuals. The people

Mixing arguments for the influence of both structure and agency, sociological liberalism investigates interstate communication and “culture homogeneity” while still maintaining a broad level of analysis (p.132). Sociological liberalism highlights the possibility of interstate relationships formed by blending cultures and an increase in social exchange. By constructing the conversation of international society through a sociological lens, this strand “[concerns itself] with the impact of nongovernmental aspects” (p.132). In considering the fundamental laws of social relation, sociological liberalism forms an argument for the stronger presence of structure in people’s lives but by discussing communication and culture, acknowledges individual’s

Lastly, religions play an important role too by gathering people scattered across the globe under an identical cosmology, thus creating imagined communities (Anderson, 1983). Globalization, by connecting people through the media, also creates such a community: inhabitants of the world share the idea of a global community and an international identity. This is why we could define globalization as the compression of time and space (Harvey, 1983). Communications as well as people can travel at an ever increasing speed, thereby giving the impression that every corner of the world is at hand. The main thesis about globalization argues that it leads to a phenomenon of homogenization. My hypothesis however is that some cultures are so different and so deeply rooted in their environment that they can't simply be erased. They will be modified, influenced but not standardized under one unique model. This will lead to hybrid products, thereby proving the hypothesis of glocalization, introduced by

In these cases, transplanetary connectivity is said to have arisen because of the way that people have mentally constructed the social world with symbols, language, interpretation, and so on. From ideational perspectives, globalization has resulted from particular forms and dynamics of consciousness. For methodological idealists, patterns of production and governance are second-order structures that derive from deeper cultural and socio-psychological forces. Such accounts of globalization have come especially from the fields of Anthropology, Humanities, Media Studies, and Sociology, although idealist arguments have also influenced some researchers in Geography, Politics and even Business Studies. One type of ideational explanation is constructivism, an approach that has been popular particularly since the 1990s among International Studies scholars in North America and Western Europe who wish to develop an alternative perspective to liberalism and political realism. As the theory’s name suggests, constructivism concentrates on the ways that social actors ‘construct’ their world: both within their own minds and through inter-subjective communication with others. Particularly, constructivists examine how inter-subjective communication generates common understandings of reality, shared norms for social behaviour, and notions of group identity and solidarity. Conversation and

Immanuel Wallerstein (1930-) is a famous American historian, sociologist, and political scientist. His radicalism and his bold and pragmatic critique of capitalism have made him become the representative in social sciences field. (Wang Zhengyi. 2000) Owing to the obvious origins of his writing and Marxist theory, and the continuation of a large number of terms in Marxism, such as capital, relations of production, and class, Wallerstein is also regarded as the representative of the new Marxist school.