Journal of World-Systems Research: Volume 1, Number 18, 1995
http://jwsr.ucr.edu/
ISSN 1076-156X
INVIGORATING WORLD SYSTEM THEORY as CRITICAL THEORY:
Exploring Philosophical Foundations and Postpositivist
Contributions <*>
Kurt Burch
Department of Political Science and International Relations
University of Delaware
Newark, Delaware 19716-2574 USA
302 831 1936
kurt@bach.udel.edu
Copyright (c) 1995 Kurt Burch
V. 9/26/95
<*> A version of this paper was presented at the ISA annual
convention, Acapulco, Mexico, March 1993. I heartily thank Bob
Denemark for his careful readings and helpful comments. I also
thank the reviewers and editors of JWSR.
ABSTRACT
World system theory comprises two distinct lines of inquiry:
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macro-social studies of historical world-systems and ideological
critique. World system theorists often shun ideological critique,
but for two reasons I argue it must be foremost. First, without
explicit attention to its philosophical foundations, world system
theory rests upon several unexamined, uncomplementary, liberal
premises. These premises pose conceptual puzzles. World system
theorists frequently cast such puzzles as methodological,
empirical, or theoretical problems, rather than as symptoms of
ideological confusions requiring critique. Second, through
explicit critique, theorists may transform implicit philosophical
foundations into explicit ontological and epistemological
groundings. Such groundings will enable world system theorists to
better realize their critical, emancipatory goals and to resolve
theoretical puzzles. One such puzzle -- the conceptual
distinction between politics and economics -- recurs often, arising
in the debates on the relation(s) between the state system and
capitalism and thwarting efforts to demonstrate the unity of the
world system.
I suggest that world system theorists engage in explicit
ideological critique to lay equally explicit ideological
foundations for their histories. I suggest a critical,
conceptually historicist, "constructivist" approach that builds
upon postpositivist critiques and introduces constitutive
principles. I illustrate the virtue of this approach by
demonstrating the unity of the modern world system.
[Page 2] Journal of World-Systems Research
INVIGORATING WORLD SYSTEM THEORY as CRITICAL THEORY:
Exploring Philosophical Foundations and Postpositivist
Contributions
The basic premises of their [world-systems] work remain relatively
unexamined.
--Janet Abu-Lughod (1990:273)
I. INTRODUCTION
For over 20 years world-system theorists have crafted compelling
analytic frameworks, descriptive and comparative historical
investigations, and theories. Studies contesting "the modern
world-system", "the world system", and historical "world-systems"
testify to the fertility of their work. These studies also raise
methodological, empirical, conceptual, and theoretical challenges
(Chase-Dunn, 1992:313-314). To confront these challenges world
system theorists conduct additional historical studies in order to
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draw comparisons among world systems and demonstrate their
characteristics (Chase-Dunn and Hall, 1992). However, world system
theorists might also regard the several challenges as emblematic of
deeper controversies. Theorists might move from
theory-construction to the meta-theoretical groundings that secure
theories and frameworks. Thus, world system theorists confront
complementary research programs: history and critique.
I recommend a philosophical critique of world system theory (WST)
in order to make its ideological groundings explicit. The critical
premise and social promise of WST remains unfulfilled because a
telling ideological critique is lacking. Without it, WS theories
and historical studies rest upon unexamined liberal, positivist
foundations which do not well support WST's critical, emancipatory
aspirations. WS theorists criticize and reject these foundations,
but do not critique them: "[i]n the rejection of nineteenth
century social science, world-systems analysis necessarily rejects
its reigning faith" (Wallerstein, 1990:291). The consequent
tension among goals, theories, and foundations produces conceptual
puzzles. Current controversies include the character, logics, and
boundaries of world-systems, their relationships to modes of
production and modes of accumulation, and the nature of systemic
transformation (e.g., Chase-Dunn and Hall, 1992). Leading world
system theorists recognize that conceptual controversies currently
focus research (Wallerstein, 1990:291-293), yet they also often
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reduce such conceptual controversies to matters of empirical
research and methodology. However, conceptual puzzles signal
philosophical incongruities that demand ideological critique.
I comment not as a WS theorist, but as a meta-theorist trained in
International Relations, working in International Political
Economy, consequently drawn to WST, and partial to postpositivist
critiques. I seek to participate in WST's energizing scholarly
conversations by illustrating that the goals WS theorists establish
for themselves can be met in general via postpositivist
contributions and, more specifically, through the specific merits
of critique, conceptual histories, and constructivism. This
approach assaults neither WST nor social science. I argue not for
"marauding irrational warriors" (Wallerstein, 1992:4).
Postpositivism shares a prefix with postmodernism and
poststructuralism, but is distinct from these schools;
postpositivism possesses no destructive bent (cf. Peterson, 1990,
1992; Rosenau, 1992a:66-68 and 84, 1992b:10). Rather,
postpositivism provides an initial critique of positivism,
liberalism and science, questions categories and concepts, and
complements much existing WS work. By focusing upon concepts and
foundations as much as on systems and structures, one might regard
several problems confronting WST as actually borne of inadequate
critique and incongruent foundations.
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In this paper I try too much. The first half is an extended
ideological and theoretical critique of WST. The second half then
offers a reconstruction. My simple claim is that WST sits atop
liberal ideological foundations mixed with marxian normative
condemnations of capitalism. The result leaves WS theorists with
uncertain and inconsistent groundings that cause incompatibilities
among the ideology, theory, and practice of WST. To make the
point, I necessarily explain the philosophical character of
liberalism itself. Thus, the first half of the paper makes a
philosophical argument about the ideological character of WST and
about the need to explore that character -- in the terms set by WS
theorists -- as a necessary feature of the development of WST. The
second half of the essay reconstructs WST along the lines sketched,
focusing primarily upon the conceptual-ideological division between
politics (states) and economics (capitalism). I illustrate a means
for considering them a unity.
More specifically, the essay proceeds in several sections. Section
II specifies WST's twin research agendas to argue that critique
defines and motivates WST, but theorists' privilege historical
studies instead. Incongruities between theory and practice create
conceptual puzzles, which arise when critical theory is forsaken.
I fix the necessity of critique by triangulation. In three passes
through world system theory I demonstrate the presumed and deduced
need for ideological critique in statements of purpose (Section
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IIA), statements of theory (IIB), and the practice of theorists
(III). Section III argues that a definitive puzzle -- Chase-Dunn's
"one logic or two?" question about the character of the modern
world-system -- illustrates a broader concern: do politics and
economics represent a unity or interdependent realms? These
questions pose philosophically rather than conceptually the
definitive concern of world system theory (e.g., Wallerstein,
1990:292). In short, are politics and economics distinct but
interdependent social systems (as world system theorists suggest in
their practice) or do they comprise a unified social or world
system (as world system theorists assert in their theory)?
The second half of this essay seeks to resolve critically such
conceptual puzzles. Section IV defends and specifies the
recommendation to engage in postpositivist critical theory. The
approach maintains the key features of world system theory without
privileging or disparaging any contestants in current theoretical
controversies. Section V confronts the "unity or interdependence?"
question to demonstrate the unity of the modern world-system. The
demonstration fulfills world system purposes, illustrates critique,
addresses a definitive historical-theoretical case, joins WST's
twin logics, resolves a plaguing categorical distinction, and opens
new research options. Section VI briefly concludes with lessons
learned, WST's reciprocal contributions to critical theory, and
issues for future attention.
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II. THE LOGICS of WORLD-SYSTEM THEORY
A. Ideological Critique and Macro-Historical Social Theory
WST entails simultaneous research agendas in ideological critique
and macro social-historical studies. We recognize these twin logics
as critiques of liberalism, capitalism, and/or modernity, and as
investigations into their historical origins. Their entwined
character reveals WST's goal of ideological critique; the
preponderant attention to histories illustrates needed ideological
underpinnings. In a Figure below I outline these twin logics as a
feedback loop or, in a different vocabulary, as mutually
constituted inquiries. My point is to demonstrate that in the
terms set by WS theorists, ideological critique is essential.
Indeed, it must ground and frame the macro histories. The
sustained attention to historical studies precipitates conceptual
puzzles arising from inadequate critique and consequently
incongruent groundings.
Let me begin with an example. WS theorists assert as doctrine that
the flux of global relations are reducible to a unified world
system comprising persistent systemic dynamics, enduring
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structures, and the mechanics of long term social change
(Wallerstein, 1990:288-289; Frank and Gills, 1992:5-14; Gills and
Frank, 1992:623; and Chase-Dunn, 1992). The hallmark of WST is
that the state system and global capitalism are not aptly conceived
as distinct social sytems. Rather, politics and economics jointly
comprise a unity, a single indivisible global social system called
"the world system". Wallerstein (1983a: 305) is adamant:
[I]t makes no epistemological sense whatsoever to distinguish a
"logic" of the world-economy from a "logic" of the interstate
system. Indeed, it is barely possible to talk about one even
provisionally without talking about the other. To try to do so is
simply to return to the premises against which world-systems
analysis was a protest.
Yet WS theorists in their analyses routinely refer to the
"interdependence" of politics and economics (e.g., Chase-Dunn,
1989:4), not to unity. From the perspective of social critique,
conceptual histories, and postpositivism, this conceptual conundrum
creates an intriquing puzzle. WS theorists invoke the vocabulary
of political and economic systems (and other innovative concpets)
to challenge the liberal, positivist reckonings of modern global
conditions and to offer the alternative of the MWS and historical
world systems. Yet the conceptual masonry of "politics" and
"economics" reinforces and reconstructs the modern, liberal,
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positivist edifice which divides global social relations into
"national" and "international" levels and "political" and
"economic" categories. Hence, WS theorists reproduce a 2 cell x 2
cell conceptual architecture anchored by "the state":
_______________________________________________________
"Ideological Architecture"
POL ECON
INTL 1.state conflict 1.conflicts over global distrib of
wealth
2.balance of power 2.global expansion of capitalist
relations
3.hegemony 3.commodification and
proletarianization
NATL the state national wealth and class
relations
Figure 2: The 2 x 2 Liberal Ideological Architecture
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WS theorists then struggle mightily to demonstrate the unity of the
assemblage and to confront accusations that WST actually privileges
politics over economics, or vice-versa. In short, to challenge the
liberal worldview, WS theorists employ marxian and critical
concepts, but do so within the distinctly liberal architecture
which is at issue. Conceptual puzzles result. Such puzzles and
incongruities promote competing schools (e.g., Chase-Dunn, 1992),
hamper mutual understanding, and thwart cumulated knowledge. I
focus on Wallerstein and Chase-Dunn throughout because they are
exemplars of WST and because they are unusually self-conscious
about the historical and ideological character of their work.
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_________________________________________________________________
"The Twin Logics"
WORLD SYSTEM THEORY as IDEOLOGICAL CRITIQUE
:
:
v
:
Critique of Liberal ideology
:
and foundations
:
:
:
v
What are economic-
political relations?
^ :
:
v
What are capitalist-
competitive state system relations?
^
:
:
v
What are the origins of capitalism
and the competitive state system?
^
:
:
:
Investigation of constitution :
and organizing principles :
of the modern global system :
^
:
:
v
WORLD SYSTEM THEORY as MACRO HISTORICAL
SOCIAL THEORY
Figure 2. The Twin Logics of WST
_________________________________________________________________
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The Twin Logics of WST
The twin logics represent simultaneous ideological critique and
historical studies. Among WS theorists, ideological critiques more
closely resemble "criticisms", but they include attacks on norms,
theory-building, ontology, epistemology, and method. Normative
criticisms include condemnations of material conditions and global
inequities. Criticisms of theory-building include comments on
liberal social science, categories, and concepts. Ontological
challenges include attacks against the presumed, modern
distinctiveness of (capitalist) economics and (state-centered)
power politics. Epistemological challenges, blending with
methodological ones, appear in the recurring dissatisfaction with
disciplinary disputes.
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Along the other front, macro socio-historical studies include
unique and comparative studies of world-systems and the world
system, systemic transformation and continuity, and systemic
structures. In recent years, as WST and its concepts enter wider
circulation, WS research has become more overtly comparative.
While emphasis has shifted from "origins" to (comparative)
"transformation", social change remains the focus. Indeed,
theorists regard social change as both a systemic dynamic and a
normative goal.
These two logics -- socio-historical studies and ideological
critique -- comprise inextricable, mutually reinforcing lines of
inquiry. Socio-historical studies explore the origin, evolution,
and transformation of systems and structures. Ideological critique
challenges our values, conceptions, and explanations of systems,
structures, and transformations. Historical concern for the
origins of capitalism and the competitive state system presupposes
some basis for conceptually establishing their distinctiveness.
Yet to identify conceptually distinct or unified political and
economic realms begs the question of their identities and
historical origins. Hence the two fronts: one socio-historical
and empirical, the other conceptual and ideological. Hopkins and
Wallerstein (1982:7) write that:
[o]ur efforts have taken two very different but related tacks. The
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first has been the rewriting of modern history...The second has
been the elaboration, first of ways of heuristic theorizing..., and
second of methods of inquiry...This latter...may be the more
difficult of the two.
The issues depicted in Figure 2 are related, the lines entwined,
the logics mutually reinforcing. History is wed to theory, but the
critical impetus often remains implicit, decelerating into
methodological challenges. Wallerstein (1990:292) writes that
"[t]here is hard work to do at three levels: theoretical,
methodological, and organizational". Ideological critique beckons
as well.
While theory and method are important, critique is central to WST.
The difficulties of building theories, compiling histories,
specifying concepts, erecting frameworks, refining methods, and
collecting empirical data are palpable, but they are compounded by
inadequate critique. Historical "rewrites" provide less in the way
of new information than they inform WS concepts and taxonomies.
The latter comprise "heuristic theorizing". They erect new
frameworks for understanding history. Attention focused upon
models and methods misses the need for prior foundations upon which
to build theories. Said simply, critique drives WST.
First, WS theorists initiate research in the name of critique and
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condemnation. Criticisms of capitalist excresence, highly
inequitable modern material conditions, and liberal categories,
concepts, and practices including social science, motivate macro
social studies of historical ruptures and continuities. In turn,
historical studies reinforce the criticisms and inform theories of
social change necessary to alleviate social ills (Hopkins and
Wallerstein, 1982:8; Chase-Dunn, 1992:331; Chase-Dunn and Hall,
1992:108; and Wallerstein, 1992c:616). Friedman (1992:369)
resounds:
The importance of understanding the continuity and invariability of
the global system is of more than academic import. It points to an
issue more serious and perilous than any particular mode of
production or civilization or social system. The capacity to even
conceive of consciously changing the world for the better lies,
perhaps, in changing the system as a whole, a system whose most
general properties have eluded the storms both of innumerable
revolutions and cataclysms.
Second, ideological critique is a necessary features of WST since
alternative histories require alternative frameworks. Theory
building demands critique or refinement of such frameworks. As WST
is no reformist enterprise, its historical studies must be framed
as alternatives to existing understandings (Hopkins, 1982:190).
The effort stakes the contested terrain. As WST's alternative
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reckonings require alternative concepts and/or conceptual
clarification (Wallerstein, 1974b:268, 1974c:2), Chase-Dunn and
Hall's (1992:88, 89) specific comment is more generally applicable:
"the conceptualizations being used are often confused and
confusing" (also Chase-Dunn, 1992:326). So, again, critique is
necessary. Without explicit critique the theoretical and
conceptual innovations of WST rest atop the very liberal, modern,
capitalist, Eurocentric philosophical assumptions it criticizes
because these are the assumptions that currently prevail and shape
(our impressions of) the world.
B. Liberalism, Positivism, and Social Theory: The Subjects of
Ideological Critique
Liberalism
Allow me to clarify this contentious point about WST's implicitly
liberal foundations. Emerging in the 17th century, coming to
fruition in the 18th century, and achieving global proportions in
the 20th century, liberalism is a distinctive intellectual
tradition (or worldview or ideology) of diverse strands concerned
foremost with individual freedoms, the reduction of state power,
the right to consent to and participate in political institutions,
and a commitment to pluralist politics and society (e.g., Berlin,
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1969; Seidman, 1983; Arblaster, 1984, Gray, 1986, Rapaczynski,
1987, Hoffmann, 1995). As an intellectual tradition, liberalism is
the political theory of modernity. The modern world is the liberal
world. "[L]iberalism has been, in the last four centuries, the
outstanding doctrine of Western civilization" (Laski, 1962:5).
Liberalism is "a general style of thinking" (Rapaczynski, 1987:6);
it is "a way of seeing the social world and a set of assumptions
about it" that are "so deeply ingrained that they are hardly ever
made explicit" (Arblaster, 1984:6). Consequently, liberalism is
"an ensemble of [social] practices" (Onuf, 1989:164). Gray
(1986:x) notes four basic principles and defining concepts that
frame this body of thought and practice. The liberal tradition
asserts the moral, political, and ontological primacy of
INDIVIDUALS, their basic EQUALITY, the UNIVERSAL moral unity of
humans as beings, and an AFFIRMATIVE attitude toward improving
social institutions and conditions. C.B. Macpherson (1963:3)
elegantly describes liberalism and its components:
The individual is free inasmuch as he is proprietor of his person
and capacities. The human essence is freedom from dependence on
the wills of others, and freedom is a function of possession.
Society becomes a lot of free equal individuals related to each
other as proprietors of their own capacities and of what they have
acquired by their exercise. Society consists of relations of
exchange between proprietors. Political society becomes a
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calculated device for the protection of this property and for the
maintenance of an orderly relation of exchange.
Beginning with Locke, private property was declared an
indispensable condition of individual freedom. Private property
also serves to conceptually divide social relations and highlight
the embedded (2 x 2) liberal architecture or ontology. Individuals
bearing property rights comprise "society". The exchange of
property rights comprises the realm of "economics". Over time,
society came to be regarded as nearly synonymous with the realm of
economic exchange. The protection of rights, notably property
rights, from state usurpation or other infringement is the domain
of "politics". Indeed, possession of (property) rights is the
means by which individuals may better resist the state. These
elements comprise the "national" sphere of social relations.
Liberal "culture" embodies these principles and their configuration
into this worldview. The principles may be shared with others in
different countries, but the conflicts among these countries and
among their citizens comprise "interntional" life. In this light,
private property rights are not merely tools for the crafting of
individual FREEDOM. Instead, private property rights constitute
INDIVIDUALS as actors, recognizable to each other by the material
properties and intangible rights they possess.
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Thus:
In order to explain the relation between the individual and
society, one had to begin with the concept of human individuality.
Consequently, one had to be able to specify the latter's
constitutive elements without reference to the social interaction
that was going to be derived from them. Man's humanity, far from
being derivative with respect to social and political
relationships, became their foundation (Rapaczynski, 1987:8).
Individuality is then reducible to the rights and obligations of a
citizen. In Macpherson's (1963) memorable phrase, liberalism is
rooted in "possessive individualism". Notably, individuals possess
property rights. They possess a property in themselves as humans
and in the material goods they acquire by applying their labors and
exchanging the fruits. The realization of individual freedom
requires property rights and socio-political pluralism, which in
turn generate conflict and competition (Seidman, 1983:15). Thus,
liberalism hails the primacy of individuals over state and society
and asserts the primacy of competition over cooperation. As
defining factors of social life, differences eclipse commonalities
and interests overshadow passions (Hirschman, 1977). Conflict,
insecurity, and the need to produce and trade follow as
corollaries. As Rapaczynski (1987:9) notes, the premises of
radical individualism and social competition "prepared the ground
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for the marriage of liberal politics with classical economics". As
liberalism has become less a national political doctrine and more
a global ideology, its inextricable connections with global
capitalism and market exchange have become undeniable (Hoffmann,
1995).
Positivism
Yet, as is true for all worldviews, these normative claims,
theoretical premises, and subsequent practices rest atop deeply
embedded ideological assumptions. Liberalism is built upon the
same philosophical foundations that ground "the mechanistic science
of nature" (Rapaczynski, 1987:7). That is, liberalism is conceived
literally as a social SCIENCE. "[T]he growth of modern science and
the emergence of liberalism are overlapping developments"
(Arblaster, 1984:26). Both science and liberalism are based upon
scientific procedures and methods, the distinction between facts
and values, confidence in individual experience and empiricism,
rationality, comparative testing and experiment, concerns for
control, knowledge as a tool, and the analytic reduction of wholes
into component elements, whether atoms or individuals. These
premises "serve to align liberal individualism with the outlook and
principles of modern science...Indeed, liberalism embodies the
scientific approach and extends it to the realm of politics"
(Arblaster, 1984:26). Individuals are the atoms of social science,
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as Hobbes so clearly conveys in his mechanistic depiction of social
relations.
This orientation is positivist. Most clearly, positivism is an
ontology, identifying for us what is real. Positivism looks at
"things" -- that is, it looks at discrete, identifiable units or
positivities, whether actors, events, attributes, acts, or
whatever. Every concept is a "thing". The world is understandable
because it is unproblematically composed of identifiable things.
We know this to be "true", to be a "fact", because we can touch,
experience, count, and test features of the world. For liberals,
individuals are the central "things", the central "fact" of social
life. Social wholes, collectivities, or structures such as the
state, community, or society are merely aggregates of individuals.
While liberals may not regard them as "real", they are treated as
positivities. Such claims make the external world a certainty. We
know the world positively. It has positive substance. We are
positive what is out there. From these positivist claims derives
an equally positivist epistemology called "rational empiricism".
We know it better simply as "science" and as the defining element
of the Enlightenment. As Rapaczynski (1987:65) concludes:
by grounding political philosophy in arguably the greatest
intellectual achievement of modernity -- mechanistic natural
science -- [early liberal thinkers] provided a strong foundation
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and an extremely powerful argumentative strategy for...much of
liberal thought.
Indeed:
the emergence of moral and political individualism has been tied
logically and historically to the development of an analytical
individualism which was used to interpret the natural physical
world as well as the world of man. All the characteristics of the
abstract individual...are carried over into liberal social,
economic, and political thought (Arblaster, 1984:53).
Social Theory
WST's structural ontology appears to challenge liberalism's
individualism. It harkens in many ways to the universalist
worldviews of Aristotle and medieval Christianity, especially in
its teleological and final-causation strands: individuals and
societies are driven by larger external forces, and no individual
alone can achieve salvation or satisfaction. Such must be attained
socially, whether within the polis, the Church, or a socialist
movement (Rapaczynski, 1987:62). WST claims not that individuals
constitute social structures, but that structures constitute
individuals and pattern their behavior. Wallerstein's structural
and historicist premises stand farthest from liberalism and echo
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the revolutionary and critical voices in European social-political
theory and its classical, counter-Enlightenment strands. Yet
Chase-Dunn's decided structural positivism places him much nearer
the liberal camp. As framed, this is an unresolvable social theory
dilemma: individuals versus structures as the explanatory
variables in social relations? However, for WS theorists, the
identification of the key structures as political (state-centered
power politics) and economic (production and trade) actually
reinforce a liberal-positivist framework. After all, for WS
theorists, these specific structures exist positively and they set
the context of social relations. Thus, WST's structural challenge
to individualism requires a complementary critique of positivist
epistemology. Rather than a critique of liberalism, WS theorists
acquiesce to a liberal framework.
Even the argument that the "political" component of WST mirrors
liberalism while the "economic" elements draw from marxism rings
hollow. Gramsci and Habermas, among others, have decried the
"excessively bourgeois character of Marxian social theory" with its
"latent positivism", utilitarianism, and economism (Seidman,
1983:11; Rapaczynski, 1987:7). More pointedly, the marxian
elements of WST offer insufficient critique (more below). While
marxism attempts to unify science and critique, the unity is
suspect. The same is true of WST. Indeed, the synthesis of
science and critique represents an attempted synthesis of
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liberalism and revolution. The foundations of marxism are set in
liberalism. The revolutionary strand of marxism sought "to
preserve the ideological core of liberalism, namely the doctrine of
autonomy and democracy" (Seidman, 1983:12). Marx posed less an
antithetical challenge to liberalism than he tried to transcend the
limitations of liberalism (Kiss, 1982).
In the US and Britain, the fields of sociology, social and
political theory, and political philosophy developed in tandem with
the successes of liberal civilization. However, continental
European social theory emerged from liberalism's failures and was
advanced as its critique. Thus, Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and WS
theorists evince a deep-seated ambivalence toward liberalism.
Liberalism expresses the notion of individual freedom and provides
for its realization, yet it is also strikingly deficient since its
realization is only partial: distributive issues are largely
silenced and communitarian concerns are devalued. The concepts of
alienation, anomie, and reification convey the critical posture
toward liberalism conveyed by these theoretical giants.
Wallerstein's attention to "proletarianization" shares an identical
concern. However, as Seidman (1983:14) argues:
the critique of liberalism and bourgeois society by Marxism and
sociology...was founded upon liberal values and modernist
presuppositions...to preserve the progressive heritage of
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liberalism while reconstructing it.
As I demonstrate below, the same is true of WS theorists. Their
potential critical contributions require explicit attention. This
attention must be directed to ideological foundations and will be
assisted by postpositivist insights. WST's embedded liberal
ontology and its epistemological groundings require critique. I
recommend a "constructivist" approach because it seeks to connect
individual agents and social structures into a coherent,
comprehensive social theory grounded in an ontology that balances
actors, structures, and concepts. Constructivism is a form of
ideological critique.
Critique and Foundations
Critique penetrates to philosophical foundations. By "critique" I
refer to the self-conscious effort to make problematic what is
typically presumed. Problem-solving theory accepts the world as is
and seeks to resolve problems on the basis of those presumptions.
Critical theory "stands apart from the prevailing order of the
world and asks how that order came about [as it focuses on] the
social and political complex as a whole rather than on the separate
parts" (Cox, 1981). Cox (1981) adds that critical theory is
directed:
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toward an appraisal of the very framework for action, or
problematic [problematique], which problem-solving theory accepts
as its parameters... [T]he critical approach leads toward the
construction of a larger picture of the whole of which the
initially contemplated part is just one component, and seeks to
understand the processes of change in which both parts and whole
are involved.
Such critique is linked to "liberation" in the effort to assist
humans to consciously and actively determine their "own way of
life" (Horkheimer, 1972, in Bernstein, 1978:181). To this end,
critical theorists attempt "to construct a systematic,
comprehensive social theory" (Kellner, 1989:1) by which to provide
criticisms and pose alternatives to traditional worldviews,
ideologies, philosophies, theories, and sciences. Such modes arose
with the developments that define the modern era: the rise of
industrial capitalism and the concomitant prominence of
rationalization, secularization, and political inequalities
(Rosenau, 1992a:49-51). Critical theorists critique "modernity" in
an effort to promote new social behaviors -- praxis -- that will
promote liberation while revitalizing reason. In this regard, many
critical theorists are postpositivist in their challenge to modern,
positivist science, language, and categories. They are postmodern
in terms of their cultural critique of modernity. They are not
(necessarily) postmodern in the poststructural sense of critiquing
[Page 27]
and deconstructing all structural relations and practices,
including reason and the Enlightenment (cf. Habermas, 1981;
McCarthy, 1981:xvi-xix; Rosenau, 1992) <1>. Thus, critical
theorists critique (elements of) the modern worldview.
A "worldview" is an "ideology". In this philosophic rather than
theoretical or political sense an ideology comprises three
features: coherent philosophical foundations (ontology and
epistemology), theory construction and therefore (social) science
and method, and normative judgments. Ideology provides and/or
informs the categories, frameworks, and concepts by which we
apprehend and understand the world. Through ideologies we
conceive, hence "see" the world. As such, ideology becomes a
central subject of critique.
An "ideological critique", then, challenges the normative,
philosophic, and theoretical presumptions of our "worldviews".
Normative critiques are many, including those from feminists,
"greens", religious sources, and animal rights advocates.
Ontological challenges to liberal modernity's (individual,
atomistic) positivism include structuralism (shared by most WS
theorists) and historicism (shared by many, especially
Wallerstein). Structuralism entails no complementary challenges to
epistemological positivism. Indeed, Chase-Dunn offers his 1989
volume as an express effort at positivist "theory construction" and
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a "defense of theory" (Chase-Dunn, 1989:1, 298). He specifically
defends "structural theory against the attacks made by
historicists" (Chase-Dunn, 1989:5). By contrast, Wallerstein's
historicism is encompassing, unifying, and tends toward more
idiographic than nomothetic analyses. Wallerstein (1992a) also
addresses epistemological issues, distinguishing positivist
"scientism" and unruly "postmodernism" from the "historical social
science" he encourages.
Avowedly epistemological challenges include the many
interpretive-subjective approaches uncomfortably enveloped by the
phrase "postpositivism", which, in its specific uses, means the
rejection of positivism's word-object correspondence, categorical
distinctions, and rigid, "colonizing" conceptual dichotomies. More
generally, postpositivism levels a critique at the narrow
conception of "science" that currently prevails, arguing that its
preoccuption with the analytic realm of postulates, hypotheses,
models, theories, categories, taxonomies, explanations, empirical
statements, and logical rules overemphasizes ontology and method.
This view of science demeans the ideological realm of
"reality-defining assumptions and epistemological presuppositions"
that drive and frame scientific inquiry (Seidman, 1983:296).
Postpositivism seeks a rapprochement between positivism and
classical theory.
[Page 29]
Ideological Critique and Postpositivism:
Postpositivism regards identifying "things" as very problematic.
Thus, analyzing such things is also problematic. In short,
postpositivism critiques science and asks epistemological
questions. We are thwarted from knowing by an image of language as
merely the labeling of the external world. A contrary view holds
that we make the world through language. One must critique
prevailing social practices, including science, and prevailing
frameworks of understanding, such as theories, ideologies, and even
the Enlightenment Project itself. Thus, a critique offers a
comprehensive evaluation of the theories and practices that
characterize a society. Emancipation may follow since critique may
free individuals from "certitudes" which are no longer certain.
Such failed certainties include specific theories, of course, but
also ideological foundations such as positivism, objectivism,
individualism, structuralism, and the like. In this sense,
critique represents a unity of theory and practice to create
understanding. Critique need not entail a repudiation of the
Enlightenment or involve a massive overhaul or reorganization of
society. Poststructuralists more often draw nihilistic
conclusions; postpositivists and postmodernists do not.
Postpositivists engage in an ontological revolution.
Postmodernists pursue a deeper epistemological revolution.
[Page 30] Journal of World-Systems Research
To challenge positivism and empiricism is to challenge the premise
that individuals are the basic elements of social reality. It also
challenges the historical-conceptual character of "individuals".
It is well-known, for example, that not all individuals (women,
children, elderly, refugees, immigrants, etc) have always been
regarded as politically- or conceptually-significant "individuals".
Simultaneously, structures themselves are inapt as basic social
elements. Indeed, it is now commonplace to claim that individuals
and structures mutually constitute each other: individual choices
and behaviors create and reproduce social structures, yet such
structures create the conditions in which certain kinds of
individuals and roles exist. Thus, as social theorists, we require
a social theory with ideological foundations which will allow us to
explore such co-constitution or mutual construction. This is
especially so for WS theorists since they want to be ontologically
holistic and structural, yet normatively emancipatory. Clearly the
relationship between individuals and structures is at issue,
otherwise who or what is being liberated, and from what?
Thus, WST potentially represents an odd irony. It claims to be
structural -- even to the extent its theorists regard individuals
as epiphenomenal -- yet it reproduces in whole a positivist
philosophical architecture with liberal details and marxian
ornaments. WS theorists try to replace individuals with
[Page 31]
structures, but the structures implicitly introduce liberalism's
defining premises. As noted, Wallerstein's historicism taps a
stream of continental European critiques of liberalism, while
Chase-Dunn's positivism draws from Anglo-American affirmations.
WST will advance when it confronts not only liberalism -- which it
inadvertently reinforces -- but also when it confronts the
positivist groundings of liberalism and modernity. WS theorists
must confront ideology and ideological critique. Postpositivism
has charted the course for many such critiques.
Postpositivism entails at least three distinct strands: the
history and philosophy of science, interpretive theories, and
critical theory (Bernstein, 1976; Seidman, 1983) <2>. In general,
postpositivism often entails the "linguistic turn" toward concepts
and language, understood as the conveyors of historically-situated,
socially-constructed meanings. Postpositivism's ontology
recognizes the primacy of words and language rather than "objects"
or "individuals". The corollary subjective epistemology avers that
the "objects" and "relations" we "see" in the world are
socially-constructed through language and concepts. By this view,
what we regard as external "reality" is created by our shared
understandings about the world. In this regard "the world" is more
akin to a text we interpret than to a known commodity we identify
and manipulate. Thus, we should be wary of stipulating definitions
or operationalizing terms divorced from socio-historical context.
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In contrast, postmodernism and poststructuralism entail different
motives and analyses. Postmodernism acknowledges the linguistic
turn, but may also proceed to a cultural critique of liberal,
capitalist modernity, including critiques of social practices and
structures such as capitalism or industrialization, and cultural
forms such as literature, architecture, and scholarship.
Poststructuralism, the most extreme of the three "post-" moves,
decries "structures" (or structured social practices) as forms of
oppression because they impose meanings and understandings, hence
also social behaviors, from which some will disproportionately
benefit and others will disproportionately suffer.
Critique or Condemnation?
WS theorists do not level critiques as outlined above. Of the
three fundamental features of an ideology or worldview --
philosophical foundations (epistemology and ontology), theoretical
constructions, and normative judgments -- WS theorists are, in my
opinion, initially sparked by normative concerns. Their specific
criticisms, the core of the implied critiques, are normative
condemnations initiating their twin inquiries.
Both Wallerstein and Chase-Dunn passionately believe that the MWS,
particularly the capitalist world-economy, produces reprehensible
social inequalities. In this sense Wallerstein (1987:309) refers
[Page 33]
to WST as "moral, and in its broadest sense, political, protest".
The condemnations of poverty, inequality, and exploitation,
appearing often in early writings, indict the modern world (system)
as a whole <3>. These inequalities affront justice and gravely
challenge political order (e.g., Wallerstein, 1974b:4, 1974c:4,
1982:14, 1991:chaps 8 and 11). Wallerstein (1979:vii) declares
that "I am politically committed and active, and regard open
polemics as a necessary part of my scholarly activity" (cf.
Wallerstein, 1974b:4, 10). The purpose of WST becomes clear:
social change and human liberation. "[W]ith a view to shaping
future outcomes...the intellectual task of interpreting modern
social change [is] to affect its course" (Hopkins and Wallerstein,
1982:7). Chase-Dunn (1989:12), echoing Marx and others, writes
that the "ultimate goal is to help us understand the world in order
to change it" <4>.
Wallerstein is comfortable in this vein. He sees WST as a
scholarly, polemical, practical, and political means of fostering
social change. In this regard his attention is cast more ardently
toward future changes -- that is, the "future demise of the world
capitalist system" -- than to its "rise" (Wallerstein, 1974a,
1990:291, 1991). Conversely, Chase-Dunn has preferred of late to
look back through history to ancient world-systems. Historical
analyses, especially of the unity of global capitalism and the
competitive interstate system, indirectly substantiate the current
[Page 34] Journal of World-Systems Research
system's exploitative, unjust, unequal, and discriminatory
character by illustrating that these characteristics inhere in the
system. Such analyses provide a "call to action" (e.g.,
Chase-Dunn, 1989:307). Ideological critique would represent an
irrelevant dalliance, "semantic juggling", or arid abstraction
(e.g., Wallerstein, 1983a:307). The MWS must be changed and the
majority must demand it:
For that majority, the real question is not which nation is
hegemonic in the present world-system, but whether and how that
world-system will be transformed (Wallerstein, 1980b:131).
From this perspective, Wallerstein and Chase-Dunn fervently wish to
direct us. We anticipate an emphatic ideological critique, but WS
theorists posit rather than conduct it. We hear condemnation,
exhortation, and claims for problem-solving in the grandest sense:
and what is the transition to socialism if not a monumental problem
to resolve? It matters less whether the theorists' concepts are
embedded in complementary ideological foundations than that the
justice of the cause prevails.
We reasonably expect that WS theorists will directly address values
and norms. They express clearly ideological criticisms, so why not
pursue the normative implications of their own condemnations to a
critique that frames and focuses the criticisms against the express
[Page 35]
target? By pointedly formalizing a critique, WS theorists better
meet their own (scholarly, personal, and social) goals.
Wallerstein understands the difficulty:
[A] theoretical formulation is only understandable and usable in
relation to the alternative formulation it is explicitly or
implicitly attacking; and that it is entirely irrelevant vis-a-vis
formulations about other problems based on other premisses
(Wallerstein, 1983b:9)
The "alternative formulation" is always at issue, and it is
liberalism: "Liberal ideology prevailed in the world of social
science" (Wallerstein, 1974c:2). Explicit critique makes
comparison, contrast, and controversy productively manageable.
Made explicit, "other premisses" become subjects in their own
right. Since philosophical premises set theoretical foundations,
all theories are shaped by the underlying ideological structure,
whether acknowledged or not. Without drafting alternative
ideological blueprints, we simply renovate the prevailing
architecture. Thus Frank (1994:260), employing a different
metaphor, writes that "[i]deology still blinds too many
historians". Hopkins (1982:190), in a book dedicated to
methodological and theoretical issues in WST, strikingly makes the
point:
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[T]here is no way, short of kidding ourselves -- or, much more
seriously, schizophrenia -- that we can convert this subjective
tension [introduced by normative concerns and social transformation
goals] into observer-object distance. We have no place to stand
except on such ground as we make. And the very making of that
ground is a part-process of our subject matter.
The macro histories also require groundings. Hence the two logics
and their mutual constitution.
C. Macro Social-Histories
WS theorists turned to macro historical studies to account for
troubling systemic conditions identified in the normative protests.
Historical studies now dominate WST. In the last fifteen years,
and especially in the last five years, a welter of system-histories
have appeared <5>. These studies extend the WS framework; address
the logics, structures, and processes of world systems; refine
basic concepts; promote comparative studies; and address the means,
motives, and manifestations of social change. WS theorists have
built a rich historico-empirical base, but little knowledge
cumulation or theoretical coherence has followed, and the
critical-ideological foundations of the histories are
[Page 37]
underspecified. Conceptual problems follow, yet WS theorists
consistently address these problems as empirical, methodological,
and descriptive concerns (e.g., Chase-Dunn, 1982:182; 1992:319),
rather than as ideological and critical issues. Nonetheless, the
histories can not avoid them. Early studies of the MWS make the
point.
The Modern World System as a (Critical-Ideological-Conceptual)
Problem
WST requires critique; WS theorists claim to offer it, but do not.
To address the problems WS theorists identify, they must conduct
critique. As Wallerstein (1990:292) proclaims: "It is time we
seriously tackled the question".
In an early volume Wallerstein (1979:160) writes that "the
explanation of [the] genesis" of the modern world-system is the
foremost issue challenging WS theorists (on "genetic" concerns, see
also Wallerstein 1974b:134, footnote 8; 1979:161; 1984:14, 30; and
1992c:590). Chase-Dunn (1989:14) likens his 1989 book to a "search
for a social 'genetic code'". The MWS remains a benchmark critical
(theory), ideological, and conceptual problem. Thus, WS theorists
encourage(d) us to examine "the determining elements of the modern
world system", particularly "the issue of the relationship between
economic and political processes in the capitalist mode of
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production" (e.g., Wallerstein, 1974b:10; Chase-Dunn, 1981:20).
The relationship between political and economic processes raises
obvious ontological (what are the "determining elements"?) and
epistemological (how do we know?) queries. The conceptual matter
-- what is the defining relationship of the MWS? -- is inextricable
from the critique and the philosophical implications.
The remainder of this Section and the next illustrate the
inextricable character of these problems and the necessity of an
ideological critique. I cover familiar ground, but, like a mobius
strip, the argument is (con)dense and looped. With each iteration
the sequence of connections differs. I begin and end with the twin
logics.
Deducing the Two Fronts
Sympathizers and critics alike recognize that the core of WST is to
inform us of the way(s) that global capitalism and the state system
are related. With a concern for "determining elements" and the
logic of development, we encounter one of the inextricable lines of
inquiry. The other follows logically, but not in practice. To
question separate or unified logics is to question ontology and
raise issues with philosophical implications that beg critique. We
confront the MWS, an ontological depiction that implicitly
criticizes prevailing premises that distinct political and economic
[Page 39]
realms exist. Yet if a single unified WS exists, what are its
characteristics? Wallerstein and Chase-Dunn stipulate an
ontological unity. However, rather than demonstrate that global
capitalism and the interstate system comprise a unity (e.g.,
Wallerstein, 1974b:162, 391, 1983a:305; Chase-Dunn, 1981:19-21ff,
1983; 1989) WS theorists presume it . Chase-Dunn (1981:19)
declares quite specifically that "the interstate system is the
political side of capitalism, not an analytically autonomous
system", and that "political and economic processes can be
understood to have a single, integrated logic". Wallerstein (e.g.,
1974b:357; 1982:12, 15) concurs. To say "can be understood" is to
make a crucial theoretical promise upon an ontological claim. Yet
efforts to maintain or dismantle ontological claims are distinctly
epistemological problems.
How might we attempt to conceive capitalism and states as a unity?
Hence the epistemological question: are the categories of
"economics" and "politics" apt, especially for claiming systemic
unity (Wallerstein, 1990:292)? In the wake of this question bob
queries about theory and method, leading us to philosophy and
critique (Giddens, 1984:xx; Cohen, 1987:276). Herein sits WST's
challenge to paradigmatic liberal categories and understandings.
By stipulating but not demonstrating an alternative ontological
claim about what the world is, what remains are epistemological
groundings by which we know the world. Such groundings are related
to theory and method, but not reducible to them.
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Yet for WS theorists epistemological issues dissolve into
methodological ones (Hopkins and Wallerstein, eds., 1982).
Wallerstein (1974b:11; 1983b, 1990:292. 1992) promotes a
"unidisciplinary" social science by which to understand the world
system and macro social changes; Chase-Dunn (1989:viii) writes of
a "cumulative" social science. Both write of "historical social
science". The purpose in each instance is to apprehend systemic
logic(s) broadly and comprehensively. These calls translate
normative criticisms of liberalism into ontological claims implying
epistemological critique (e.g., Wallerstein, 1983a:300; 1987),
which in turn become a methodological matter (e.g., Hopkins,
1982:190). Commenting on the theoretical implications of these
claims, Wallerstein (1983a:306) writes that: "[a]n alternative
mode of theorizing" -- based upon the ontological claim of a single
global logic -- "thus has inexorably led us to an alternative
methodology". This method involves a "more scientific history of
a more historical social science" (Hopkins and Wallerstein,
1982:7). Such issues ask about WST's research orientation:
history or critique? We return to the twin logics. We can not
escape them.
[Page 41]
Description, Explanation, and Critical Resistance
The twin logics additionally confine us since WS theorists intend
their macro histories to explain how the modern world arose
(Wallerstein, 1974b:3) and how "the logics of social development"
transform (Chase-Dunn and Hall, 1992:82). However, their claims
describe rather than explain (e.g., Mouzelis, 1992:250) since WS
concepts have roots in descriptive modern categories. Such
categories provide theorists with standing from which to describe
social reality. Wallerstein, in straddling liberalism and marxism,
is set in neither. Thus, he can only stipulate categories and
concepts rather than use them to justify his descriptions <6>. Yet
even as outspoken a critic as Chirot (!) can proclaim that WST
provides "a good guide to social reality", an "admirable" map that
"clarifies" macro social terrain (Chirot, 1980:539, 540, 541).
Little explanation of the contours appears, however . As a
"descriptive model" WST:
specifies the relationships in time, between the various cycles and
trends which are features of the larger world-economy itself. This
can be done without saying much about the causal [explanatory]
relations (Chase-Dunn, 1982:182).
WS theorists might also critique prevailing categories and
frameworks in order to illustrate the superiority of WS
alternatives, to distinguish "wholes" from "parts" in "specifying
causal relations" (e.g., Goldfrank, 1990:252), and to
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conceptualize "the main motors and tendencies of capitalist
development" (Chase-Dunn, 1982:182; 1989). In this light Chirot
(1980:542) hails WST as "a successful ideological assault against
capitalism". To illustrate that WST offers better explanations
than other schools of thought, theorists might tell us why existing
understandings are inadequate. Read as a philosophical matter, WS
theorists become critical theorists. Read otherwise, WS theorists
become historians engaged in conceptual duels marked by
"distortions" (Cameron, 1976:143), "confusions" (Chirot, 1980:539;
Chase-Dunn and Hall. 1992:88), and "false models" (Wallerstein,
1990:292). WS theorists echo themes which resonate throughout
critical theory. Why aren't they critical theorists? Why do
Wallerstein and Chase-Dunn resist and denigrate critical theory
(e.g., Hopkins and Wallerstein, eds., 1982; Chase-Dunn,
1989:306-307; Wallerstein, 1992:4; Frank, 1993:423)?
Such resistance is discouraging and perplexing. WS theorists'
statements of purpose demand critique. Success requires a pointed
critique. Even if one concedes the prominence but not the priority
of the historical studies, one cannot escape the entanglements of
critique. We discern, indeed feel, unabashed ideological revulsion
motivating the historical studies. However, the emphasis upon
normative claims provides little analytical leverage or
philosophical foundation. WS theorists contest norms and values,
but concede at the outset the philosophical ground. Yet this
[Page 43]
ground is the contested terrain. And the contests are ugly. Since
unique WS foundations remain unspecified, WS theorists suffer
simultaneous accusations of "vulgar marxism" (Zolberg, 1981:275),
"neo-Smithian[ism]" (Brenner, 1977; Skocpol, 1977:1079; cf.,
Denemark and Thomas, 1988; Denemark, 1992), and Third World
totalitarian worship (Chirot, 1980:539). Conceptual confusion
follows the uncertainty over ideological groundings <7>. Both
critics and advocates are confused since liberal and marxian
categories endure, securely nesting WS concepts and informing WST
in unexpected ways. At best, the macro histories represent
alternative "organizing myths" or comparative "inventorying". At
worst, they represent the abandonment of WST for other objectives
<8>. To quote Hopkins (1982:190) again: "We have no place to
stand except on such ground as we make." A look at the animating
question "one logic or two?" further illustrates the difficulties
by placing the MWS case study in a starkly philosophical light.
III. THE GIVEN WORLD(VIEW) and CONCEPTUAL PUZZLES
A. Politics and Economics: Unity or Interdependence?
While WS theorists wrestle with several conceptual uncertainties,
no conceptual issue has been more central than the relationship of
[Page 44] Journal of World-Systems Research
politics to economics. Overcoming this dichotomy remains a goal of
WST (e.g., Wallerstein, 1990:292), but its enduring presence
confounds claims to systemic unity and theoretical coherence. In
an article addressing state-centered International Relations (IR)
scholars, Chase-Dunn (1981) poses the problem of unity or
interdependence with rhetorical flair and majestic brevity: "one
logic or two?" I explore the conceptual and logical dichotomy to
place the debates on the MWS in a clearly philosophical context, to
convey the philosophical character of conceptual problems
generally, and to illustrate that critical inattention to this
dichotomy causes a recurring theoretical problem. WS theorists
typically suggest empirical studies or conceptual refinement as
solutions. Neither will suffice without critique.
Chase-Dunn 's 1981 article spurred work in IR seeking to protect a
privileged state-centered realm from the predations of
"economistic" and/or structural thinking (Ashley, 1983). Yet in
WST, little work followed. Two reasons explain the lack of
progress. First, claims about a single unified system (logic)
represent an unexamined analytical premise -- not the subject of
inquiry, but the starting point for it. Second, the dichotomy
profoundly colors our conceptions of the world. We recognize the
effects in vocabulary, hence conceptual puzzles. A practical
vocabulary of separate spheres and logics irreconcilably clashes
with theoretical claims to unity. Consequently, distinct realms
[Page 45]
and logics are bridged by conceptual fiat: two logics become one.
The theoretical claim "resolves" or dissolves the conceptual
division. I begin with the sources of the problem in liberal
thought to illustrate their persistent recurrence in WST, appearing
as inconsistencies between theory and practice. I end with a
pointed critique of "the unity move", the common methodological
resolution to the chronic problem. I make this third pass through
WST to reassert the necessity of philosophically-attentive critique
and to widen the earlier argument beyond the MWS. I argue here
that conceptual puzzles recur throughout the whole of WST. The
rift dividing politics from economics is the most prominent,
vexing, and emblematic, recurring in debates on modes of
production, accumulation, and systemic boundaries.
Philosophical Givens
The liberal worldview asserts distinct political and economic
realms as givens (e.g., Walzer, 1984) <9>. This distinction echoes
throughout social science, including WST, to Wallerstein's (1990)
dismay. Among most social theorists, especially those in IR and
International Political Economy (IPE), the concepts of "capitalism"
and "states" specify the economic and political realms,
respectively, and to a significant degree organize one's
understanding of "the modern world". This distinction is a
hallmark of both liberalism and marxism; liberals posit the
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distinction, marxians perpetuate it, WS theorists imply it <10>.
These distinctions raise the striking conceptual problems that
define both IPE and WST: the cleavage separating politics and
economics that thwarts efforts to apprehend the seemingly separate
realms as a comprehensive whole. WS theorists make the
constitutive theoretical claim that the MWS comprises a unified
logic. Yet Wallerstein and Chase-Dunn inconsistently argue whether
the economic and political realms represent a unity (e.g.,
Wallerstein, 1974b:162, 391, 1983a:305; Chase-Dunn, 1981:19-21ff,
1983, 1989), distinct "interdependent" social spheres (e.g.,
Chase-Dunn, 1989:4), or a causal connection <11>.
To conceive conceptually discrete realms as a whole raises a
profound problem. What is the whole? Wallerstein (1990:288)
regards "the so-called macro-micro problem...[as] a totally false
problem". Still, since wholes always comprise parts, perhaps a
better question asks how the parts are related? Are they combined,
joined, or united? If combined, then two or more parts are added
to form an aggregated whole, as with ham-and-eggs. The "and" and
hyphens become important because they maintain the distinct
identities of the parts of the whole. Similarly, joined parts
retain their distinctiveness, but their particular arrangement or
relation becomes central, creating a novel composite of
constitutive parts. For example, we analytically and
physiologically regard the human skeletal, circulatory, and
[Page 47]
respiratory systems as separate, but one can not exist absent the
others. They are joined in a particular manner and configuration.
Similarly, the brick and lumber in a home represent distinct parts,
but they are joined via architecture and construction in unique
arrangements to form a discrete whole. Last, parts may form a
unity. Copper and tin form bronze, but no distinct identities
endure. Bronze is composed of copper, but it has no copper parts.
Marriages evince all three characteristics. The partners combine
personalities and resources and join in matrimony to form a
marriage union.
Asked differently, does our conception of a "whole" involve
external relationships (aggregated combinations), a composite
arrangement of parts into a (conjoined) whole, or internal
relationships (a holistic unity)? Such issues also ask whether our
conception of the whole looks at units or relationships among
units? Combined and united wholes draw our attention to units.
Combined wholes comprise units; unities are units. Yet joined
wholes are discernible by the relationships among the parts.
Such issues become significant as we ask "what is
political-economy?" Is it politics plus economics, politics joined
to economics, or politics united with economics? Similarly, is the
MWS simply states plus capitalism, their interdependent
integration, or their unity? If not a unity, then we are left with
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combinations and conjoint arrangements. WS theorists highlight
both. Structural analyses examine social arrangements and
relationships (conjointness). However, claims that the capitalist
world-economy "created" (e.g., Wallerstein, 1984:14) states
identify a causal combination.
Consequent Inconsistencies and Displaced Critique
Such inconsistencies illustrate the divide that separates
statements of WS theory and practice. WS theorists see in their
theory an indivisible social whole; in practice WS theorists, and
neorealists in IR, see distinct, independent parts interacting in
complicated, mutually dependent ways. The former is the single
logic of the MWS; the latter is "complex interdependence".
Nevertheless, Wallerstein and Chase-Dunn generally stress unity,
not interdependence. Wallerstein and Chase-Dunn intend to lay new
foundations and erect new conceptual and theoretical frameworks.
Yet by acknowledging a distinct, divisible, integrated social
reality, the theoretical framework of WST falls away revealing a
liberal philosophical architecture. Acceptance of these premises
represents acceptance of the problems that brought WST to the fore
in the first place (e.g., Wallerstein, 1983a:304-305). Wallerstein
and Chase-Dunn deny the liberal identification of distinct
political and economic realms, yet then employ a liberal vocabulary
that requires theorists to work to integrate or conjoin the realms.
[Page 49]
Wallerstein (1990:292) appreciates the linguisitic problem: "we
are pursuing false models and undermining our own argumentation by
continuing to use such language".
Normative, ontological, and epistemological critiques of liberalism
and of language have circulated throughout the century, yet WS
theorists appear disinterested in recent attacks by linguistic
analysts, poststructuralists, and other postpositivists upon the
philosophical assumptions of liberalism. Despite Wallerstein's
acumen (e.g., 1992b), he admits to philosophical inadequacies
(1983a:306). Chase-Dunn (e.g., 1989:1, 21) disdains philosophical
issues as mere "literary trends", preferring instead his
"Victorian", "old fashioned predilections". What should remain, in
his judgment, is positivism. Such philosophical reluctance is
surprising given, for example, Wallerstein's avowed purposes and
self-conscious awareness of the problems he confronts:
The centrality of state boundaries in the conceptual frameworks of
the disciplines, the sharp distinction between matters that were
"political" and matters that were "economic", the use of "social"
and/or "cultural" to categorize all concerns that did not deal
directly with the decisions of governmental structures or of
firms...all derived from the premises of the liberal ideology
(Wallerstein, 1983a:304).
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These premises provide the "logical basis for a cultural
imperialism that has dressed itself in scientism and categorical
imperatives" (Wallerstein, 1982:29) <12>. Yet they endure. Frank
and Gills (1992:62), for example, compare their theoretical
formulations to a "three legged stool" <13>. "The theoretical
question is whether this trinity of arenas...is at all useful, or
whether it is in fact pernicious" (Wallerstein, 1990:292).
The dimensions of "capitalism" (economic realm) and "the state"
(political realm) so thoroughly pervade our thinking and our
understanding of global social relations -- whether liberal or
marxian, realist or world system -- that it becomes difficult to
move beyond them to see other (aspects of) social phenomena. As we
press the limits and definitions of these concepts, subjects emerge
about which it is difficult to speak and areas of conflict or
contradiction arise in the use of these terms. We confront
conceptual puzzles. Our vocabulary troubles us. Concepts
themselves become problems, signalling deeper philosophical
uncertainties.
Three Conceptual Puzzles
WST's twin logics raise at least three conceptual puzzles centered
upon the ontological question "one logic or two?" The first issue
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involves conceiving the "modern global system". This is an
ideological and conceptual problem. The expression is evocative
but imprecise since one can apprehend it only through"contested"
concepts (MacIntyre, 1973; Gray, 1977) such as feudalism,
capitalism, transition, markets, exchange, wage labor, property
relations, the state, and so on. Both "capitalism" and "the state"
are highly contested concepts embracing a wide range of meanings
(cf. Bottomore, ed., 1983:64-67; Bottomore, 1985; Benjamin and
Duvall, 1986). Intriguingly, one term often comprises the context
by which the other is understood. Thus, to use "capitalism" and
"the state" to conceive the "MWS" is to replace two contested
concepts for one. To introduce a "single logic" or "unifying
relationship" does little better to reconcile the conceptual
uncertainties. Consequently, we understand the phrase "MWS" and
its component terms by the way they are embedded by theorists into
models. We understand the models as a constellation of concepts
rendered sensible by their relative positions and orientations. We
become textual analysts attending to specific uses and contexts so
as to appreciate various meanings of the terms. Thus Chase-Dunn
and Hall (1992:82) seek to "defend [their] approach [and their
"typology", "constructs", "theory", and conceptual specifications]
against competing formulations".
Second, the problem of conceptually embracing both the political
and economic realms restates the "one logic or two?" question as a
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substantive or theoretical claim. To characterize systemic logics
is to address ontological issues tantamount to articulating one's
conception of broad social relations. Hence the first conceptual
puzzle. It also immediately raises inextricable questions about
epistemology. Hence the third conceptual problem.
Speaking to this third issue, Chase-Dunn (1989:295) writes that:
[t]he shift to a world-system frame of reference necessarily raises
questions of epistemology and the philosophy of science. Is there
a stance vis-a-vis these problems which is most appropriate for
understanding world-systems? Are certain methodologies ruled out?
What difficulties do we encounter as we attempt to build theories
about world-systems and to subject those theories to evidence, and
how can these be overcome?
Thus, we encounter a chain of conceptual issues. To ask "what is
the MWS?" leads us to ask both "what are states and capitalism?"
and "how are they related?" These lead us to inquire "what is apt
theory and method for answering such questions?" Thus, we return
to the two logics and we return to ideology and worldview -- that
is, to the coherent packaging of ontological and epistemological
judgments. From these we generate constellations of related
concepts, as well as conceptual frameworks, taxonomies, methods,
and explanations. We return to preferred and privileged concepts.
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We return to the issue of how we "see" the world.
This is a pointedly ideological matter, yet Wallerstein treats it
as a methodological concern when arguing that we should "see" it
through a "unidisciplinary" social science. With this suggestion
he resolves conceptual distinctions by ignoring them, by observing
self-evidently the merit of bridging the divides. Conceptual
distinctions dissolve into a single perspective, but in conceptual
terms the original disciplinary distinctions endure, now merely
combined or joined rather than unified. Difference dissolves into
unity. I call this the "unity move", a case of trying to resolve
conceptual problems conceptually. It reappears in claims to the
existence of a single MWS, its "unified" logic, and to Frank and
Gills' claims to a single global system logic embracing 5000 years.
B. The Unity Move
Order and sense arise when a unity is formed. Order arises when we
see differences as arbitrary and essentially burdensome, and when
we embrace such differences collectively and comprehensively.
Although Wallerstein envisions a unidisciplinary approach as a plan
of action, it represents a normative claim. He offers no
foundation or procedure for fostering a unified perspective. In
this vein Wallerstein (1990:292) remarks:
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We have said from the outset that our perspective is
unidisciplinary. But we have merely paid lip service to this
view...No one believes us when we say there is but a single arena
with a single logic. Do we believe it ourselves?
The many become the one. Wallerstein intends for this single logic
to supercede the many, but it succeeds in merely subsuming them.
Wallerstein employes precisely the same rhetorical move in the
macro histories. Chase-Dunn and Hall (1992:101) refer to
Wallerstein's "totality assumption". The MWS is the stipulated
unity of apparently distinct economic (global capitalism) and
political (competitive state system) realms. Again, the many
become the one. Wallerstein (1974b:5-7) arrives at the concept of
the "modern world system" by exactly the same strategy. He embeds
or subsumes his conception of "social conflict" in ever-broader
contexts. Conceptual distinctions dissolve into larger packages or
patterns while preserving their original character. The many
become the one. The largest singularity is the world system,
stretching back into the Bronze Age (Frank, 1993).
"Conceptual Morass"
A similar difficulty explains the "one logic or two?" question,
thereby minimizing (double meaning) its subjects. The query is
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ultimately nebulous and therefore distracting. Without explaining
what the single logic entails or how we might come to comprehend a
single logic, we are left without leads to pursue the
"relationship". We have no doubts that capitalism and the state
system are related, but we remain curious, even frustrated, about
the way(s) in which they are related to one another. Critical
theory remains implicit and unfulfilled. WS theorists identify
several important conceptual problems, but often transform them
into methodological matters whereby differences dissolve. Rather
than address the "genesis" or "deep structural logic" of conceptual
issues, they forsake critique to dismiss the basic conceptual
distinctions as arbitrary and insignificant. They again forsake
critique to then undertake historical studies based on the
contested concepts and unifying methods.
Remarks Wallerstein made insightfully twenty years ago I repeat
critically now: "This was far more a conceptual than an empirical
problem...This seemed to be a vast conceptual morass" (Wallerstein,
1974b:4,6). The problem is wonderfully described by James Baldwin
(1955:14):
Our passion for categorization, life neatly fitted onto pegs, has
led to an unforeseen, paradoxical distress; confusion, a breakdown
of meaning. Those categories which were meant to define and control
the world for us have boomeranged us into chaos; in which limbo we
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whirl, clutching the straws of our definitions.
"Such language" thwarts us, revealing a lack of groundings
(Wallerstein, 1990:292). "Conceptual clarification is the most
constant need", writes Wallerstein (1974c:268), but the issue
remains "how?" We seek firm ground. We need to look critically
into history and into our use of language.
No wonder historical case studies have proliferated. No wonder
comparison is now the watchword. Prevailing categories and
concepts raise more questions than provide answers. By inducing
categories from cases WS theorists seek to enliven the concepts
with which they craft their theories. Theoretical
(dis)confirmation becomes congruent with conceptual clarification
and data collection <14>. Thus, Chase-Dunn and Hall (1992:91)
offer "thinking about empirical studies" as a research strategy for
investigating central concepts. They acknowledge the need for
critical theory when they declare the concepts should be
problematic, not axiomatic claims (Chase-Dunn and Hall, 1992:106).
The liberal categories, concepts, and institutions of
"capitalism/market/economics" and "state/politics" illuminate many
aspects of social reality, but occlude and confound others. The
view of the world that these concepts afford us is too fragmented
(cf. Walzer, 1984). We can neither conjoin them nor accept them
separately. We are puzzled, perhaps plagued. We need a critique.
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Summary
At the risk of taxing patient readers, I have now offered three
arguments for ideological critique in terms set by WS theorists.
I have critiqued (i) statements of purpose (the war along two
fronts), (ii) statements of theory concerning a benchmark example
(the MWS), and (iii) the practice of WS theorists (unity versus
interdependence) to derive the role of critique in WST. Having
sought to demonstrate the place of critique, I have also addressed
its character, virtue, and necessity. Chronic conceptual puzzles
-- arising in macro theory, historical studies, and philosophical
musings -- signal the need. With the need clear, I address a pair
of anticipated reservations and offer three research suggestions in
the next section.
IV. CRITICAL APPREHENSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS
A. Anticipating Trouble
The suggestion to advance an explicit ideological critique against
liberalism meets with two standard objections. One holds that such
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an effort diverts WS theorists from important concerns. A second
reaction suspiciously regards critical theorists as sinister
assailants rather than allies. I think such concerns are
misplaced.
Political Usefulness
Several theorists argue that extensive critique misplaces effort
since a "politically useful" WS alternative, not some desirable
critique, is the social and scholarly goal. Yet if political
usefulness is the standard, then current WST also falls short
because it weakly accounts for social change. Critical conceptual
histories account for social change quite well and, when
investigating constitutive principles, well account for structural
change.
The view that critique misplaces effort rests on the false
presumption that condemnations represent sufficient critique, or
that the merit of a goal is sufficient to motivate and justify it.
First, normative and theoretical criticisms strike at the
consequences of liberal-capitalism, not the edifice, which I regard
as the actual target of WST. More importantly, normative outrage
misses the point of theorists' ontological and epistemological
concerns. An explicit critique offers advantages. Levelling a
critique is akin to drafting a blueprint for (re)construction. The
effort organizes future work and provides the necessary foundation
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upon which to build. Moreover, the detritus from the critique may
provide materiel for the actual (re)construction effort (e.g.,
Wallerstein, 1974a, 1974b:4-7; Frank, 1993:383-384). As every
"alternative" implicitly critiques prevailing ideas, its rationale
is lost if not made explicit.
Wallerstein might remind us, however, that the purpose of WST is to
"arrive at utilizable concrete complex descriptions of historical
structures" (Wallerstein, 1983a:307). He encourages us to begin
with what is clear and troublesome: we should begin our
ruminations and revolutions with the social structures that
confront us. Conceptual fine-tuning, much less a pointed
ideological critique, is an unaffordable luxury, if not a deceptive
trap:
I say, therefore, away with semantic juggling and let's get on with
the very hard work of describing complex reality in politically
useful ways (Wallerstein, 1983a:307; see also Chase-Dunn, 1992:315,
326).
The comment strikes decisively. How do concrete macro historical
studies foster social change in ways that apparently "useless"
ideological critique does not?
Oddly, the answer matters little since WST's descriptive analyses
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do not well account for social change. Prior efforts "foundered";
current attempts are "tentative" (Chase-Dunn and Hall, 1992:106).
So long as WS analyses investigate structures descriptively rather
than generatively, theories of structural and systemic
transformation will remain elusive since no individuals inhabit the
structural analyses to conduct social changes. Said bluntly, no
expressly logical, conceptual, or analytical connection exists
between descriptions of structures and motivations to social
change. The connection is presumed, although Wallerstein's
historicism better accounts for change than positivist reckonings.
Chase-Dunn tires of the criticism that WS theorists ignore
individuals. He holds that WS theorists consider the structural
contexts in which individuals behave. Others argue that
individuals create structured social contexts by their behaviors;
the WS response holds that socially structured contexts mold
individuals. This is an old debate with no resolution in these
terms.
While the descriptive macro histories do not promote social change,
the structural character of these studies offers great advantage if
theorists can render structures in generative and explanatory
terms. That is, can WS theorists generate and explain durable
social structures? In explaining the generation of structures and
the social behaviors they generate, the structures become subjects
of study rather than stipulated premises. Individuals' behavior
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provides the necessary explanations, and thereby also explains
social change. This turn requires a critical eye, but encounters
a second criticism
Construction, Deconstruction, or Destruction?
Critical theory and postpositivism -- specifically theoretical
interpretation, conceptual histories, generative theory, and
attention to agent-structure concerns -- offer leverage against the
intractability of addressing social change via descriptive
structural analyses. Unfortunately, several scholars regard
critical theory as a challenge to WST because they mistakenly
believe that extreme poststructuralist critiques represent all
critical theorists and postpositivists (e.g., Rosenau, 1992a,
1992b). As structural theorists, WS theorists are appropriately
concerned about poststructural critiques. Many social scientists,
not just WS theorists, decry poststructuralism's perceived radical
(individualist) relativism and decentered subjectivity as anathema
to social science, or, via methodological individualism, as
stimulating an indirect renaissance in neoclassical economic
studies. However, I suggest postpositivist critiques, not the kind
of caricatured devastations attributed to poststructuralists.
I argue for "critical modernism" or "late-modern postpositivism"
(Burch, 1994:41). Modernism, the cultural label for liberal,
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positivist modernity, privileges the theorist, whose unique ability
is to perceive (conceive?) the world as it is, rather than as it
appears. A modern worldview avers that a structured, orderly,
lawlike "reality" exists independent of the knower. In the course
of their investigations, scientists come to know in greater degree
the structured order of reality. Alternatively, postmodernism
declares that individuals (re)create and (re)produce the world in
unique, socially-conditioned ways. Thus, reality is not
independent of the observer. One can accept this postpositivist
(i.e., no positive reality) view of socially-constructed meanings
without adopting postmodernism's rejection of philosophical and
structural foundations. I argue that we must "see" and "know" the
world from some vantage point. This is a foundation. With
foundations, postmodernism in not postmodern. Instead, it is
postpositive; it is critical modernism.
Still, fears merit attention. To be clear, critical theorists
aspire to precisely the goal of human liberation that motivates WS
theorists. They pursue their goal by means consonant with WST --
that is, by making questions of the deep premises that other
analyses regard as "givens" (e.g., Horkheimer, 1972:270 in
Bernstein, 1976:180). Critical theorists decry claims to
universalism and underscore the "historicity" of concepts and
meanings, just as WS theorists do (e.g., Wallerstein, 1979:ix-xii,
1992b:6). Appreciation of the historicity of concepts and meanings
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is central to the "linguistic turn", an epistemological turn toward
postpositivism and away from the objective finitude of positivism.
Wallerstein encourages us in this direction, but does not take the
final explicit step (e.g., Wallerstein, 1979:ix-xii).
In suggesting postpositivist ideological critique and conceptual
histories, I seek to address questions raised by WS theorists and
to pursue them with advice they outline, especially the advice to
avoid making key concepts "a matter of assumption rather [than] of
investigation" (Chase-Dunn and Hall, 1992:89) The central thrust
of my argument crystallizes in Chase-Dunn and Hall's (1992:89)
conclusion, typical of WS theorists, that the "point is to
conceptualize [key concepts] as an empirical issue, not an
axiomatic one". Yes, the key is to investigate axiomatic premises.
Yes, the point is to address central concepts because they are the
components of theoretical models and reflect underlying
philosophical foundations. Yet to render the investigations as
solely empirical, historical studies is to avoid the fundamental
ideological character of the difficulties.
I suggest critique and postpositivism because they will help WS
theorists address the questions that they raise. They do so by
confronting axiomatic presumptions at an expressly conceptual level
without invoking methodological individualism at the expense of
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structural analyses. It will also attract new scholars -- fresh
graduates trained in postpositivism -- to WS issues. In short, the
criticisms anticipated from WS theorists are distorted or
misplaced. I do not claim to know better WST or the minds of its
foremost contributors, but in approaching contentious issues from
outside the circle, I strive to bring a fresh and useful
perspective. I hope to avoid the "stratospheric" or "trendy"
irrelevance or the "irrational marauding" often attributed to
postpositivism (e.g., Frank, 1993:423; Chase-Dunn, 1989:1;
Wallerstein, 1992:4).
Offerings Illustrated
In brief ontological and epistemological examples I illustrate what
postpositivism and ideological critique offer. First, an explicit
critique of liberalism's ontological foundation challenges the
larger categorical distinction between politics and economics upon
which Chase-Dunn's "one logic or two?" question rests and by which
the states/capitalism distinction cleaves. A successful critique
illustrates that such divisions are social creations, not natural
facts of life. Logical alternatives exist if we care to consider
them. Such a critique places prevailing understandings in a
socio-historical context, the very context that WS theorists labor
to reconstruct. This critical claim alone provides a rationale for
conducting historical studies. It also grounds alternative
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ontological claims, whether presumed or concluded by the historical
studies, as equally plausible. Thus, the critique invites,
grounds, and informs the studies. Wallerstein (1984:1)
acknowledges that a "set of categories" can itself pose a
theoretical problem; Friedman agrees (1993:409). "Social
science would... make a great leap forward if it dispensed entirely
with [contested categories]", writes Wallerstein (1984:1). Such
banishment, if possible, is best achieved through critique.
Second, the same critical insight into socially-constructed
understandings justifies and substantiates the epistemological goal
of "historical social science". When we understand
socio-historical context, we understand social "understandings".
We need not presume the effort since theorists can conclude the
necessity. Both Wallerstein and Chase-Dunn agree. Explicit
critique helps theorists answer the questions they pose for
themselves by illuminating conceptual difficulties. Postpositivism
addresses such difficulties by attending to socio-historical
meanings and the changes they experience and foster.
B. Suggestions
The purpose and conduct of critical theory remain issues. I
comment on only three characteristics: critique, conceptual
historicism, and constructivism.
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Critique and Critical Theory
As social scientists we investigate a world produced by human ideas
and initiative. However, liberal problem-solving theory
characterizes the world in ahistorical and categorical terms,
rather than as the consequence of history and human effort.
Critical theory refuses to accept prevailing ideas, behaviors,
understandings, and circumstances as beyond human influence. In
order to foster forms of reasoning that privilege the quality of
human life rather than economic rationality, political privilege,
or the scientific method, critical theory also refuses to accept as
"natural" the rules, boundaries, and divisions that denote social
life. Thus, critical theorists strive not to reproduce
descriptively society's concrete realities, but to understand and
change them. In this sense, engaging in critical theory is a
socio-political act. Explicit critique identifies a non-issue or
unexplored premise, seeks its philosophical implications or causes,
connects the issues to ideological worldviews and derived concepts,
and links the issues to social change: how did prevailing
understandings and concrete realities emerge, and what alternatives
exist?
The postpositivist attention to socially-constructed knowledge
directs our attention to categories, while the "linguistic turn" in
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philosophy draws us to consider concepts' linguistic use and the
meanings they communicate. As meanings change, context and
behavior changes too. We must conceive the world differently in
order to behave differently.
Conceptual Histories and Constitutive Principles
Once attentive to language and concepts, we encounter conceptual
histories. Although not the type of historical studies encouraged
by WS theorists, conceptual histories meet every criteria and
address the established purposes of WS investigations -- that is,
to understand prior social contexts and social change. The
simplest conceptual histories chronicle the changing meanings of
concepts key to scholars' theories or to actors' understandings and
motives. Since structures are identifiable by the principles by
which they are organized or ordered, conceptual histories of
"organizing principles" communicate changing meanings, contexts,
and structural forms. An alternative is to explore the principles
which constitute actors' understandings of their world and the
structures they confront. In contrast to organizing principles, I
call the latter "constitutive principles" (Burch, 1994:42-45).
Constitutive principles differ from organizing principles as atomic
particles differ from entries in the Table of Elements, as genetic
code differs from the taxonomy of the animal kingdom, as the
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architectural precept "form follows function" differs from brick
and mortar. Constitutive principles -- the axiomatic, originating,
and actuating qualities of "principles" and of "constitution" in
the essential sense -- generate and govern a social structure;
organizing principles describe it.
Thus linked to the structural foundations already firmly set by WS
theorists, conceptual histories of constitutive principles
chronicle how agents' behaviors, as driven by their motivating
conceptual frameworks, produce structures and, reciprocally,
transform structures into the social frameworks in which
individuals make choices. Social structures are thereby animated
and concepts historicized. We might call this a conceptually
historicist version of critique. By such critique structures
become generative features of social theory and material life.
Constructivism
Constructivism resolves the agent-structure problem, which
analytically separates structures from individuals, and draws our
attention to social rules conveyed through typologies of linguistic
expressions (Giddens, 1984; Onuf, 1989; Wendt, 1987, 1992). Recall
the fear of poststructuralism's radical individualism in contrast
to WST's structuralism. The agent-structure problem captures the
tension or "undecidable opposition" between individuals and
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structures as explanations of social phenomena. The "problem" is
to develop an effective social theory without privileging in
advance agents over structures, or vice-versa, as theoretical
explanators. Similarly, one must avoid privileging economic
structures over political ones, and vice-versa. Constructivism
attempts to resolve the agent-structure problem by ontologically
wedding both, without privileging either, into comprehensive social
theories that appreciate as well the tension between objective and
subjective epistemologies. WST's structural orientation opposes
actor-oriented explanations. Yet explanations of social change
must introduce agents to explain the patterned reproduction of the
social structures themselves and the changing social behaviors that
alter the patterns. As noted, without agents of change, the
structures can only describe. The critical and conceptually
historicist suggestions I make strengthen WST by moving it toward
constructivist social theory. By making agents' understandings and
behaviors central to WS analyses, theorists reclaim their normative
and theoretical focus, balance their structural inclinations, and
build upon the implicit ideological critique that anchors their
work.
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V. DEMONSTRATING THE UNITY OF THE MODERN WORLD SYSTEM
It is not that consensus has been reached about the post-sixteenth
century system. Controversies still abound.
--Janet Abu-Lughod (1990:273)
Were WS theorists to attend explicitly to ideological matters, they
would set foundations for their extensive research projects and
balance their two-pronged attack. By attending to ideological
matters via critique, conceptual historicism, and constructivism,
I believe they would position themselves securely to address and
answer the questions they pose for themselves, but can not ably
answer given current groundings. I use these suggestions to
demonstrate the unity of the MWS -- that is, to answer Chase-Dunn's
"one logic or two?" query. This question exemplifies two concerns:
conceptual puzzles in general and the specific, recurring puzzles
introduced by the conceptual divide between economics (E) and
politics (P), and their separation from culture (C). This puzzle
is not the issue currently sparking WS debate, but, first, I regard
this question as the early battlecry of WST research, the
rhetorical query which defines the scholarly effort. Second,
current debates mirror this type of conceptual problem and demand
similar resolutions (e.g., Frank, 1990; Wallerstein, 1990;
Chase-Dunn, 1992; Gills and Frank, 1992). The E + P + C model
undergirds WST, as illustrated by the analogy of a three legged
stool. Thus the concept "MWS" as Capitalism + State System
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specifies historically and conceptually the basic model. In the
following I draw from Burch (1994) and employ the outline used
above.
Critique
Critique involves three steps, beginning with a non-issue. WST
tackles such an issue -- the ideologically-definitive relationship
between P (states) and E (capitalism) -- to ask "what is
capitalism?" and "what is a state?" Current research asks what is
a "world-system"? WS theorists now critique "the MWS", unsure
whether it is a unique historical circumstance or an example of a
larger historical category. Gosden (1993:410), commenting on Frank
(1993), could as easily be commenting on the MWS: "[a]lthough the
existence of interconnections is clear, their nature is not".
Questions about historical world-systems and the MWS lead us to
philosophical issues, the second feature of critique.
Unfortunately, theorists often do not appreciate the inextricable
ontological and epistemological challenges raised by theoretical
questions. As seen, when WS theorists regard such matters, they
read them as ontological-methodological rather than
ontological-epistemological. When concerns about
theory-construction arise, ontological issues are typically easier
to grapple with than the concomitant epistemological ones. One
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ontological variant simply inverts the liberal privileging of P >
E such that E > P. Another version sees them as balanced, E = P;
and a last one sees them as a unity, E :: P. How can we
demonstrate and explain one of the claims? The question raises the
epistemological corollary to the ontological claim. To reduce the
questions to conceptual refinement and/or empirical "inventorying"
misses the underlying philosophical point. In questioning the
liberal categorical distinction between economics and politics, I
accept the WS claim to systemic unity. I now require a vocabulary
and conceptual framework for reckoning unities or social wholes.
I find it in the agent-structure debates and constructivist theory.
Thus, we come via critique and ideology to critical theory, the
third element of critique. In outlining my critique of WST and
identifying the philosophical implictions of non-issues, my goal is
to conceive structures as generative. This move requires that we
see structures as both social consequence and catalyst. Were
social theorists to embrace generative structures, descriptive
structures would fade, "constitutive principles" become
apprehensible, conceptual histories come to the fore, and social
change becomes a realizable focus. Yet ontological claims about
mutual-constitution must be wed to a critical theory
epistemological view. Thus, critical theory becomes both necessary
and central. Conceptual histories of constitutive principles
become analytical foci and the philosophical foundations of actors'
worldviews become central concerns.
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Conceptual Histories
Upon these specific premises I can now demonstrate systemic unity.
I propose to mediate the dualistic and structural oppositions
through constitutive principles. The principles capture patterned
activities to reveal actors' understandings of the world.
Conceptual histories of constitutive principles become histories of
social structures. Burch (1994) offers a conceptual history of
"property", a constitutive principle for both the state system and
global capitalism. The concept of property as "ownership" can not
be divorced from "rights to property". Property rights represent
social rules which coordinate social activity; property is the
resource at issue and, in turn, a resource to be wielded in
distributing material advantage. Property rights both contribute
to the politics/economics dichotomy and, when understood as social
rules, help dissolve the categorical barrier.
I do not argue that states and capitalism are related, linked,
joined, or described by any similar synonym. Instead, I refer to
a single, coherent, unified social reality. Prior to 1700 in
northwestern Europe, no social or conceptual distinction between
the state system and capitalism existed. Understandings of
"property" and "property rights" unified them. Historically
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contingent understandings of property mark the degree of separation
between allegedly distinct political and economic realms.
Historically, property possessed a single, socially definitive
understanding as a tangible and material object of ownership
(Pocock, 1985; Reeve, 1986; Ryan, 1984, 1987; Burch, 1994:44-55).
The best example is land. In this light one can understand the
state system as a system of territorially based, real, landed
property. Consider, for example, the relationship between "a
state" and "estate". In early modern European history "the state"
represented the territorial property rights of sovereign monarchs.
Ultimately these property rights to territory extended to the
institutional-legal structures for ruling and controlling the
individuals that lived on this landed property. The royal
propertied estate came to be a state endowed with sovereignty.
By approximately 1700 in northwestern Europe, prevailing
understandings of property and property rights -- as judged from
the texts of jurists, theorists, statesmen, and financiers -- had
bifurcated. Distinctly real and mobile forms of property had
emerged on a large, broad scale. Conceptions of mobile or
intangible property arose in dramatic political debate concerning
corruption, the transferability or political offices, and credit
(Pocock, 1985). Credit was immediately compared to other
intangible values and mobile instruments such as insurance, notes,
and bills of exchange. As landed property literally and
[Page 75]
figuratively grounded the political realm of states, mobile
property opened a realm of fluid exchange. We now regard this as
"the economy" and as distinct from the Greek "oikos", meaning
household. Shifts in property rights linked the state system to
capitalism. Mobile property rights fueled and lubricated the motor
of a burgeoning capitalist system. Thus global capitalism became
a system of production, exchange, investment, and accumulation
based on the fluid transfer of factor inputs, final products, and
capital (as opposed to tangible markers of wealth).
Thus, property denotes status and authority as it connotes power
and political privilege. Control over property and property rights
contributes to the constitution of the (allegedly distinct)
"political" world by establishing forms of privilege and by
reinforcing both material and social asymmetries. Property also
denotes the use and disposal of property, and thereby delimits
access to production and exchange. Property and property rights,
then, help generate the (allegedly distinct) "economic world" as
well. Such privileges and denotations contribute to control,
domination, exploitation, production, accumulation, and exchange,
all of which structure social relations.
Social understandings of property and property rights constitute
our world as relatively whole or divided. The modern, liberal
worldview sees a highly differentiated world. This is a social
[Page 76] Journal of World-Systems Research
adaptation. Property was a wedge that split the spheres of
society, yet it was also a tie that bound them. Separated
political and economic spheres -- with politics understood as the
relationship between authority and deference, and economics as
production and exchange -- outlines to a considerable extent the
modern, liberal view of the world. Thus, "politics" came to
comprise the relationship between authority and subjects.
"Economics" represents the relationship between individuals and
objects.
Constructivism
As an ontological matter I argue that economics and politics are
unified as structures sharing organizing and constitutive
principles. As a matter of epistemology I address these issues
using critical theory. As a matter of theory I use constitutive
principles and constructivism to explain the coherence of the
whole. I move from structuralism to constructivism when I invoke
actors' understandings, in the form of constitutive principles, and
depict their behaviors in terms of patterned activities. This view
combines actor-oriented and structure-oriented representations of
human conduct without privileging one over the other. It does so
by turning to history to explore the "historicity" of concepts and
meanings. Each of these steps is in keeping with the spirit, if
not the letter, of WST.
[Page 77]
VI. CONCLUSIONS
Among prominent social theories, WST comes closest to fulfilling
the promise of critical, constructivist theory. By pursuing their
statements of theory into the realm of postpositivism, WS theorists
may achieve their critical aspirations. An expressly ideological
critique secures philosophical foundations and apprehends
conceptual puzzles as symptoms of ideological troubles. In the
effort, WS theorists set a substantial ideological foundation.
Reinforced foundations improve conceptual frameworks, which in turn
improve all theories. Not only will a secure foundation better
describe and perhaps explain social conditions and transformations,
but it will also better inform normative condemnations,
philosophical alternatives, and differing explanations since it is
rooted in an explicit critique across all three dimensions of
ideology.
By considering the twin logics simultaneously, WS theorists specify
the philosophical and categorical referents around which
frameworks, models, and theories can cohere. Concepts become
embedded not only in theories and in the foundations that secure
the theories themselves, but also in the specific historical
[Page 78] Journal of World-Systems Research
contexts and the specific practices of individuals. From this
vantage, WS theorists can better conduct their macro
socio-historical studies because "what" they are studying will be
conceptually clearer, more consistent, and coherent. So too will
"it" be tinged with the sweat of human effort, the tides of human
emotion, and the stir of human choice. As a result, the histories
will become conceptually, theoretically, and practically richer,
and they may cumulate knowledge into and around better specified
models, rather than splinter existing frameworks. Chase-Dunn and
Hall's (1992) campaign to cohere comparative studies around
widening typologies advances indirectly against the problem of
establishing standards for comparison. The effort succeeds when
groundings are as secure as classifications.
Similarly, critical theorists and postpositivists can learn from WS
theorists. In the finest spirit of the critical theory tradition,
WS theorists propose to offer pronounced critiques of modernity,
liberalism, capitalism, and social science. WS theorists'
critiques and investigations of the social structures of
accumulation, the production of hegemony and ideology, and the
emergence of modern practices contributes to critical
investigations of the emergence of the modern world. Indeed, much
can be gained by building bridges between critical theory as an
ideological challenge to modernity and WST as a critical study of
modern civilization. Postpositivists and postmodernists provide
[Page 79]
comprehensive ontological and epistemological challenges; critical
theorists typically level critiques of frameworks of understanding.
WST uniquely provides more detailed ontological, material, and
normative challenges. These projects are more complementary than
antithetical. They might easily comprise an ensemble of critiques
of modernity, together challenging the modern, liberal, capitalist,
positivist world from its philosophical foundations and distinctive
practices to its historical emergence, material excresence, and
ideological transformation.
I have sought to illustrate not arid philosophical matters or
suffocatingly "stratospheric" metatheory, but conceptual problems
identified by WS theorists and arising from WS theories. I have
sought to approach these problems in world systemic terms. By
demonstrating the unity of the MWS I hope to demonstrate a critical
resolution to a pernicious conceptual problem. At the same time I
hope to illustrate how similar conceptual problems may be
addressed. Postpositivism provides a salutary and sanguine option.
By turning also to critical theory, constitutive principles, and
constructivism, I intend to illustrate an alternative approach to
social theory that draws our attention to rules and rule.
[Page 80] Journal of World-Systems Research
By looking at sovereignty, for example, as a form of property
rights (rules), I tell a history of unity in the development of
states, capitalism, and the modern world. By this view sovereignty
is not the defining element of the modern world or of the
international system. Sovereignty is a claim to rule. Sovereignty
is a set of property rights upon which the claim to rule rests.
Claims to rule generate rules. Some are formalized into laws;
others remain informal. "Culture" is the realm, if we choose to
call it such, which identifies the values enriched and ensconced in
rules. Thus, through rules, the prospect looms of uniting culture
with economics and politics -- that is, uniting all three legs of
the social science "stool". WS theorists appreciate both the
prominence of property rights and social rules -- the "rule-ridden"
character of the MWS (e.g., Wallerstein, 1979:162, 1984:2, 33,
1989:75; Chase-Dunn, 1989:21, 25, 37).
I seek to participate in WS debates. I also extend invitations to
those debaters to engage critical theory, postpositivism,
conceptual histories, constructivism, and rules-and-rule. The
invitations open research opportunities that hold bright promise in
pursuing the goals WS theorists identify for themselves. I extend
the invitations "constructively" and collegially.
[Page 81]
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ENDNOTES
1 Rosenau's (1992a, 1992b) depiction of "skeptical postmodernists"
corresponds with (extreme) poststructuralism. Her characterization
of "affirmative postmodernists" corresponds closely with
postpositivist critical theory.
2. Pioneer contributors to the first strand include Thomas Kuhn
(1970), Imre Lakatos (1970), and Paul Feyerabend (1975). These
scholars illustrate that the practice of science includes much
non-rational, non-empirical, and non-scientific activity. Second,
postpositivist critiques also appear in interpretive theories,
drawing from phenomenology, ethnomethodology, hermeneutics,
[Page 97]
ordinary language philosophy, analytic philosophy (i.e., the
"linguistic turn"), and postmodernism and poststructuralism. J.L.
Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein are monumental figures in the
tradition of linguistic analysis, which has profoundly influenced
the other examples. As Onuf (1989:43) notes: "Wittgenstein has
had an enormous influence on Philosophy and Social Theory,
precisely because he is seen at the juncture of the two. It would
be difficult to find any recent writer whose prestige is so high".
Wittgenstein's and Austin's explorations of language -- especially
"performative utterances", that is, language that conveys meaning
and action rather than merely serving as a descriptive label --
undermines the naive nominalist view of language and of the nature,
description, and explanation of social action. Others in this
tradition seek to interpret phenomena from the specific historical,
cultural, and contextual conditions. This view seeks no universal
or general or lawlike explanations. Last, among critical
theorists, Jurgen Habermas (1971, 1981) is probably best known.
Critical theorists, many influenced by Marx, offer critiques of
modern society and mainstream science, which reinforces modern
social relations. Habermas is also influenced by other late 20th
century critiques.
Other books of value to me, and perhaps to those interested in
introducing themselves to postpositivist thought, include: Ball,
ed. (1987), Ball, Farr, and Hanson, eds. (1989), Bernstein, (1983),
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Fay (1987), Harvey (1989), Kellner (1989), Norris (1983), Peterson
(1992b), Pitkin (1972), Poster (1989). In economics, see Sherman
(1987) and von Mises (1976), although the latter is not
postpositivist. In IPE, see Rosow et al., eds. (1994). In IR, see
the symposium on the "Third Debate" in International Studies
Quarterly 33(3) September, 1989. For many, this symposium may be
the perfect introduction since the contributions are brief, written
to appeal to a wide audience, presume no background, and include
criticisms from the un-persuaded.
The initial masters of postpositivist scholarship include L.
Wittgenstein, John Searle, Charles Taylor, Michel Foucault, Richard
Rorty, Jacques Derrida, and Roland Barthes among many others.
3 Over a decade ago Wallerstein (1983b:100-101) argued with fiery
passion:
It is...by no means self-evident that there is more liberty,
equality, and fraternity in the world today than there was one
thousand years ago. One might arguably suggest the opposite is
true...The argument is simple[:] the absolute immiseration of the
proletariat...
Similar claims appear in Wallerstein's (1982:14) comments on the
[Page 99]
"illogic" of the capitalist world-economy, in his (1992c:616)
discussion of the "irrational" and "untenable capitalist
world-system", and Chase-Dunn's (1989:339-340) conclusion about the
systemic "absurdity" of the capitalist world-economy.
4 Wallerstein (e.g., 1974b:10) seeks "a more egalitarian world and
a more libertarian one...[for] the larger and more oppressed parts
of the world's population". He seeks a social system "that
maximizes equality and equity, one that increases humanity's
control over its own life (democracy), and liberates the
imagination" (1983b: 109-110). Chase-Dunn (e.g., 1989:5) aspires
to a "more humane and peaceful world society". Note that these are
consummately liberal goals, but that they bleed into social
democracy and socialism.
Commenting on such motivations, Frank and Gills (1992:64) ask:
What was the ideological reason for Wallerstein's and Frank's
"scientific" construction of a sixteenth century transition to a
modern world capitalist economy and system? It was the belief in
a subsequent transition from capitalism to socialism.
5 Chase-Dunn (1992:314, note #1) lists twenty-three articles and
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three edited collections. We can also add Chase-Dunn's own edited
volume (Chase-Dunn and Hall, eds., 1991) and at least twenty
studies appearing in the journal Review since 1989. Such studies
are necessary because "[e]arlier efforts to understand evolutionary
change have foundered largely because the units of analysis were
wrong" (Chase-Dunn and Hall, 1992:106).
6 Critical "Comments" appended to Frank (1993) make the same point
about a purported Bronze Age world system. Edens (1993:408) asks
"whether Frank is describing a historical reality" or stipulating
an alternative? Similarly, Gosden (1993:410) writes that "[n]ow
there is a danger of the model helping to shape history in its own
image". Eden (1993: 408) concludes that Frank "insist[s] on" his
model, although it suffers a "logical circularity". Friedman
(1993:409), remarking on his affinity for Frank's work, comments on
"the foundation we stipulated". On the same page he notes that
conceptual innovation is key: "the emergence of...the crucial
concept of transcendence".
7 For example, Chase-Dunn and Hall (1992:93) define "a true state"
as "existing when a regionally organized society has specialized
regional institutions -- military and bureaucratic -- which perform
the tasks of control and management". By this definition several
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unusual cases will likely qualify as states: urban gangs such as
Los Angeles' Crips and Bloods, organized crime, protective
organizations such as New York's Guardian Angels or Nation of Islam
"security teams", and civil war combatants such as the Confederate
States of America and Rwandan Hutus.
8 The phrase "organizing myths" is Wallerstein's (1983a:301),
although he uses it to describe the pervasive categories and
concepts provided by liberal ideology. "Inventorying" arises as
Chase-Dunn and Hall (1992:106-107) encourage us in "the assembly of
a data set containing large numbers of world-systems" as one of
three recommended research strategies.
9 This is uncontroversial. The liberal, modern worldview-- from
Hobbes and Locke to the present -- presumes distinct, separate
political and economic realms of social life. Scholars of various
stripes make this point (e.g., Ashley, 1983; Walzer, 1984; Gilpin,
1987). In IR, Morgenthau (1948) and Waltz (1979) premise the
centrality and uniqueness of politics. Lenin (1917), for example,
argues conversely. Liberal theorists, hence realists in IR and
IPE, see little point in affirming the notion of distinct realms.
They do so indirectly, however, when they level criticisms such as
"economism" at other theorists. In this regard several critics of
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Wallerstein confirm the conceptual presumption of separate realms
(e.g., Skocpol, 1977; Modelski, 1978; Waltz, 1979; Zolberg, 1981,
and W.R. Thompson, 1983). Among most social theorists, either the
political or economic realm dominates, thus the crudest caricatures
of liberalism and marxism.
10 To repeat briefly, as Seidman (1983) argues, marxism is a
variety of liberalism distinguished by its normative premises, but
not its philosophical ones. Wallerstein and Chase-Dunn blend with
the liberal positivist-objectivist philosophical foundations a
marxian normative critique of the modern world system. Thus WS
theorists, like marxians, set liberal philosophical foundations.
11 Other connectives include "linked" (Wallerstein, 1982:15),
"interlinked" (Wallerstein, 1984:2), and "integrated". Nouns
include "imbrication" and "concatenation" (Wallerstein, 1992:561,
563) and "unicity" (Wallerstein, 1974c:3). More often Chase-Dunn
employs a structuralist vocabulary to describe a world-system's
essence, including: "deep structural logic" (Chase-Dunn, 1989:1,
48), "single systemic logic" (p. 8), "deep social structure" (p.
14), "basic underlying logic" (p. 15), and "deep structural
essence" (p. 48). WS theorists also invert liberal categorical
imperatives to argue that economics dominates politics, not
vice-versa: the capitalist world-economy "created" states (e.g.,
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Wallerstein, 1984:14, 29, 33). On these matters ideological
name-calling ensues (e.g., Cameron, 1974; Brenner, 1977; Skocpol,
1977; and Zolberg, 1981; cf. Denemark and Thomas, 1988; Denemark,
1992). However, recent WS theoretical work suggests that "true
states" can be identified in Lower Mesopotamia, Old Kingdom Egypt,
and Mesoamerica (e.g., Chase-Dunn and Hall, 1992:91-95).
12 Wallerstein's passion carries him further:
One of the profoundest holds an existing historical [ideological]
system has on the persons located within it consists of the set of
"self-evident" and virtually unexamined overall statements...which
give us our categories and our priorities for analysis. These
statements also dictate to us what we should and usually do ignore
as historically unimportant. It is essential, furthermore, to
underline the fact that even [critics] normally accept, even build
upon, these historical verities. Such statements are what we mean
by "organizing myths" (Wallerstein, 1983a:301)
13 Frank and Gills (1992:62) write that:
[l]ike our "world-systems" colleagues, we also subscribe to and
practice what we call the "three legged stool" approach: like that
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stool, our study of the social world system is supported equally by
three ecological/economic, political, and
cultural/ideological/ethical legs.
14 Edens's comments (1993:408) following Frank (1993) are equally
apt for WST generally and the MWS in particular:
Another difficulty is logical circularity: the test for
identifying a world system is the same as the analysis of its
contents...But until [WS theorists] expose the mechanisms that
endorse the world-system identification, [they are] assuming the
analysis before [they] undertake it.
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