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Volume 3, Number 2 Book Reviews
George Modelski and William R. Thompson. LEADING SECTORS AND
WORLD POWERS: THE COEVOLUTION OF GLOBAL POLITICS AND ECONOMICS.
Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996. xv + 263pp.
ISBN 1-57003-054-5, $44.95 (cloth).
Reviewed by Robert Denemark, Political Science, University of
Delware.
LEADING SECTORS AND WORLD POWERS is the latest entry in a
growing literature on the social science of long term change. It
well illustrates the increasing quality and sophistication of
that effort. George Modelski and William R. Thompson address the
interaction of economic growth, political leadership and systemic
war. This is not a new question, and some 40 alternative
treatments are reviewed in a highly efficient manner.
Modelski and Thompson find order where others have not in
part by avoiding some a priori biases. While they look at
nation-states, they are not trapped by national level boundaries.
Some of the relevant variables come in nation-state packages, but
just as many are either sub- or supranational. Nation-states are
not reified, nor for that matter is the global system.
The authors also refuse to take the boundaries of
"capitalism" as their necessary limits. A central focus of their
model is innovation, which they wisely recognize in both its
commercial and its technological forms. Since innovations can
affect all market systems, not just those of 'capitalist' or
'industrial' periods, Modelski and Thompson are not constrained
by any of the dates variously associated with those eras. They
instead follow McNeill's (l982) suggestion that the modern market
system emerged in China around the l0th century, and extend their
analysis to that point.
Finally, Modelski and Thompson ignore the warnings of
scholars from Kondratieff and Schumpeter forward who complain
that the data necessary to establish longer term cycles or trends
is simply not available. They are successful in gathering an
impressive array of data for the post-l500 period, and in putting
together an informative narrative account of K-waves and system
leadership for the 500 years preceding that point as well. The
result is a global level treatment of broad processes over the
very long term. Modelski and Thompson prove that with some
effort, the historical record can be made to yield far more
specific information than most might imagine.
Political and economic cycles rest at the heart of their
model. Fifty to sixty year long Kondratieff (K-) waves are said
to be initiated by the bunching of innovations. Growth slows
when diffusion or competition reduces returns. One hundred to
one hundred twenty year long leadership cycles are also
identified. These include phases of agenda setting, coalition
building, macro decision, and global leadership.
These two sets of cycles are said to coevolve. Innovations
generate economic growth and wealth. Increasing wealth provides
the incentive to seek to structure the global system, along with
the resources needed to engage in agenda setting and coalition
building. With growth comes competition among great powers over
which will make the rules. This competition, or the fear of
falling behind, provides the impetus to war.
[Page 342]
War retards economic growth, in no small part by inhibiting
trade. It also determines which state will next lead the system.
As a result the downturn is relatively short. With key
competitors out of the picture, markets reopening, and the
conversion of war-time innovations to new purposes, we find the
start of a new K-wave. This second wave is likely to be founded
in part upon the fundamental innovations of the first.
Global leadership declines as the second K-wave abates. The
global order breaks down. We enter new eras of agenda setting
and coalition building. Though it is possible for the lead
economy to reproduce itself, this is unusual. Older technology
and older solutions become standard fare in the lead economy.
Sunk costs retard the use of newer innovations. New problems,
new markets and new resources are likely to form the foundation
for the next innovation driven K-wave.
Modelski and Thompson identify four attributes that
facilitate the rise of a new lead state. It must be one of the
existing major economies, as some participation in previous K-wave
upswings provide necessary levels of wealth. It must have a
strong military with the ability to extend its power. This is
defined in terms of naval strength, which continues to be a vital
asset even in the age of air power. It is likely to have a
relatively open society, which Modelski and Thompson argue will
aid in the creation and adoption of innovations, in the setting
of global agendas, and in coalition building. A general sense of
responsiveness to global problems is identified as the fourth
important attribute.
The finished model includes two K-waves which animate one
long cycle of political leadership. The first wave provides the
resources necessary for successful agenda setting and coalition
building, and peaks before a major war. The war decides the
question of system leadership, and slows the economy. The new
leader emerges with a preponderance (50% plus) of global naval
capacity. A second K-wave follows the war. As it slows,
political leadership is contested, disorder increases, and new
innovations emerge to provide one of the major economies with the
resources necessary to prevail.
Empirical analyses of each of these predictions are
undertaken. More formal data are used for the post l500 period,
about which information is more available and comparable. The
hypothesized temporal ordering among innovation based economic
upswings, war, and naval supremacy, is well supported. Equally
supportive are the narrative chapters on Sung China and the
northern Italian city-states of the Renaissance. Both the K-wave
and leadership cycles are well illustrated.
[Page 343]
Renaissance Italy is linked to Asian markets and technology,
and serves to translate the K-wave and political cycle phenomena
from China to Europe. It is good to have a picture of how the
K-wave and long political leadership cycle came to Europe, which
shortly after grew to prominence. Nonetheless it seems that
"global" leadership never really rested in northern Italy in
anything like the manner that it belonged to the Chinese or even
the Dutch. There may be more to be found in Asia, at least about
K-waves, and that would make Modelski and Thompson's transition
to a Eurocentered analysis in the early l400s a bit premature.
By the end of the two empirical sections little doubt
remains as to the existence of both K-waves and long leadership
cycles prior to the onset of capitalism. Relevant data are
available and supportive, and Modelski and Thompson use them in a
clear and efficient manner.
The review of the relevant literature, the building of the
model, and the sections on verification are all well and
precisely written. Definitions are clear, chosen measures are
well conceived, and the book is written with precision. If
anything it is perhaps a bit too sparing. For example, more
information on how innovation was defined and the manner in which
data on innovation were gathered would have been helpful. It is
clear that Modelski and Thompson do not fall into the trap of
simply identifying the times and places where we might expect
innovations to emerge and searching for them only then and there.
But they fail to tell us enough about their search. Innovation
emerges as a central dynamic, and the work would have been
stronger if we were told us more about it.
Chapter 8 of the book, nestled between the end of the data
based chapters and the beginning of the more narrative accounts,
has two parts. Its methodological half is designed to deal with
criticisms of structural analysis and introduce the concept of
social evolution. Its other half seeks to place this study of
roughly l000 years into an even broader picture of human history.
Macro level analyses are more and more subject to the
criticism that they are illegitimate because they lack a
microfoundational base. Most of these criticisms, based on the
arguments of methodological individualists, are devoid of merit.
But more subtle criticisms exist that warrant consideration.
How, for example, does one decide among competing structural
level theories when they are indeterminate, that is when they
fail to make unique predictions? In such a case, a resort to
individual level or microfoundational analysis would provide an
additional layer of analysis by which to judge. There is also
the unfortunate tendency for older structural and cyclical
analyses to adopt a deterministic air. Microfoundational
groundings can help guard against this as well. Modelski and
Thompson do an excellent job of avoiding both of these problems,
in part by leaving the door open to micro-level considerations.
They trace the impetus to innovate to the individual level, and
are quick to acknowledge the ability of individuals to recognize
and perhaps even ameliorate tendencies toward systemic war that
their model predicts for the years around 2030. While
methodological individualists might still call them bad names, no
sophisticated student of social science methodology will miss the
quality of their arguments in this regard.
[Page 344]
A sense of social evolution provides this work's guiding
methodology. The authors show that social evolution need not be
teleological or directional. Instead, and contrary to rational
choice methods, social evolution stresses changeable preferences
and constraints, trial and error, a focus on institutions,
transitions, and the long term. This is well illustrated by K-wave dynamics:
. . . each K-wave builds on the conditions created by
earlier innovations, and in its turn, gives rise to problems that
future innovations will have to resolve . . . K-waves are both
path-dependent and future oriented and they are best understood
if viewed in clusters (p. l30).
The result is a superior method of understanding social processes
that is historically sensitive, avoids the fallacy of
determinism, and allows for a holistic apprehension of its
subject. My main concern is that the few pages devoted to the
discussion of social evolution are once again too few. It is an
important methodology about which more ought be said. Modelski's
recent work on evolutionary paradigms in the social sciences,
(Modelski and Poznanski (l996) and Modelski (l996) would be well
considered prior to reading this longer volume.
Chapter 8 also introduces a longer term historical-evolutionary
perspective. Four K-waves may be grouped into a
"period" with innovations that share a common thematic
underpinning and with their own structure of base building,
networking, breakthrough and payoff. Four "periods" make up an
even longer "global economy process." These global economy
processes are also paired, the first laying the foundation for
the full development of the second. The whole evolutionary
schema is suggested to extend in roughly l000 year increments
from the 3,500 BCE onset of the Bronze Age through the latest,
which began about l850.
This broader perspective is boldly conceived. It faces two
problems. The first is familiar. Too few pages are devoted to
it. The second is more problematic. The division of human
history into neatly packaged 50/60, l00/l20, 200/240, and
approximately l000 year increments seems all too handy. What
explains this temporal uniformity across so long a sweep of human
history? Is it something inherent in the dynamics of innovation,
which then provide a more or less stable 50 to 60 year K-wave
foundation for the longer periods and eras? Could it be
something else? Nowhere in this work, to its great credit, is
there much hint of teleology or determinism. What then drives
such apparently uniform cycles with their provocatively round
numbers? It is a paradox the authors must eventually address.
The final chapter concerns the future, where information
technology not surprisingly emerges as the next lead sector, and
the U.S. and Japan struggle for lead state status. It is
alternately possible, according to the authors, that
globalization may make national leadership obsolete.
[Page 345]
Of far greater concern is the coming macro-decision phase.
The dual K-waves of the U.S. political leadership cycle have
passed, and a new wave began in l973. We ought be experiencing
upheaval and dislocations of various sorts, then new periods of
agenda setting and coalition building. The macro-decision phase,
traditionally associated with global war, ought be upon us about
2030. Such a war would be tremendously destructive. The authors
are quick to remind us that within their framework nothing is
inevitable. Modelski and Thompson consider the arguments against
such a war: weapons systems are increasingly lethal, leadership
denationalization may obviate war as an instrument of transition,
larger international organizations may prove better tension
managers, or the diffusion of democracy might enlarge the "zone
of peace." Anything remains possible.
This is an excellent work. It is provocative, well
conceived, carefully executed, and precisely written. It raises
fascinating questions and provides interesting tools with which
to address them. Both its substance and its methods will be of
interest to social scientists from a variety of fields. This
work has a lot to say to all of us.
References
McNeill, W. (l982) The Pursuit of Power, Chicago IL: University
of Chicago Press.
Modelski, G. (l996) 'Evolutionary Paradigm for Global Politics',
Iternational Studies Quarterly 40: 32l-42.
Modelski, G. and Poznanski, K. (l996) 'Evolutionary Paradigms in
the Social Sciences', International Studies Quarterly 40: 3l5-l9.
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