Talk:World-systems theory

message: Guys...! This article is rather long and messy. I think what happened is, everyone was only working on the part touching his personal interests.
I haven't even bothered to read all, but I think it's fair to say, the article talks about at least 4 different and sometimes mutually exclusive theories (and more can be created any time). So it's obvious to me, those main theories should get main articles (copy and paste, linked from this article here), this page should get trimmed down to a usable size and the first paragraph should name the different approaches at least.
Anyone in (dis-)agreement with me?Hirsch.im.wald (talk) 10:52, 21 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unusable format 

message: The entry "world-systems theory" is a gross error.  Wallerstein has written more than one article on why world-systems analysis is not a "theory" (singular) nor is "theory" (i.e. nomothetic abstraction).  Ironically the writer of the current entry, to which I've made only a minor edit to replace the term "theory" with "analysis," even refers to one of Wallerstein's works titled, World-Systems Analysis.  I don't know how to do it yet, but the entry should be changed to World-Systems Analysis, and an explanation as to why it's not theory ought to be included.  Better yet, just buy Wallerstein's Introduction to World-Systems Analysis.
Elson E. Boles
Saginaw Valley State University
I have to disagree with this decision.  Wallerstein notwithstanding, most of us actually practicing in the world-systems world refer to it as "world-systems theory" or WST.  Whether or not it is a theory, it is called world-systems theory.  I won't unilaterally make the edit, however.
Salvatore Babones
The University of Sydney
(Secretary of the Political Economy of the World-System section of the ASA)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.210.169.195 (talk) 06:35, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  World-Systems Theory? 

message: Oops. I meant it should be changed FROM "World-Systems Theory TO "World-Systems Analysis."
Elson
:: It may even be World-system analysis. See also Talk:World_System_Theory
--Henri 19:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  World-Systems Theory? 

message: (Franz weber)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Franz weber (talk • contribs) 12:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger now having been performed 

message: Mainly the last para. of this section, e.g. "...We agree with Arrighi ... Following Arrighi, we postulate that...". Not clear if this is quoting Kalecki or what?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Helvetius (talk • contribs) 11:55, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  POV-check-section on Second section 

message: The literature-"selection" is far too detailed. It should be reduced to the BEST 5-10 books and structured into primary literature (e.g. Wallerstein) and secundary literature about the theory. Maybe the German version could be an example, though the secondary literature part is not complete yet.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.176.166.156 (talk) 09:03, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Literature

message: The text under "Wallerstein's formulation of the world-system approach" appears to be an essay on the subject. It is interesting but makes a few grosse claims: "Human history is progressive and inevitably so." It lacks references, and the formatting is also confusing; I am not sure when a quote begins or ends. Fijnlijn (talk) 11:44, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think that this section is ORish; it does seem to (claims to...) describe Wallenstein's views. Rather, its problem is same as most of the article - it lacks citations. Thus I think that we don't need the OR template; the current article-wide template about lack of citations seems to cover it. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  12:38, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible Original Research or Synthesis

message: According to Google Books search:
* "World-systems theory" -> 19,5k hits
* "World-systems analysis" - 8k hits
* "World-systems approach" -> 2,5k hits
Thus I'd suggest to move this article back to "world-systems theory"; I don't believe that the 2008 move to "world-systems approach" was ever discussed. Thoughts? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  11:52, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name: theory, analysis, approach...? 

message: I've taken a closer look at the Core-periphery article, and it is - at this point - a totally unreferenced fork of the "Characteristics of the modern world-system" section of the world-systems theory article (it explains the terms core, periphery, etc.). I suggest we merge it here (or, merge the few small part that appear salvageable). I am not sure if we need a core-periphery article at all, as we have a relatively well developed articles on the concepts of core countries, semi-periphery countries and periphery countries. Thoughts? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk  15:26, 11 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merge from [[Core-periphery]] 

message: This is by no means an area of expertise for me--I'm just refreshing my memory for a lecture I have to give, but I was pretty disappointed by the criticisms section.  Drawing your information on the criticisms from the primary proponent of the theory, only citing his descriptions of the criticisms, and then highlighting a quotation from him rebutting the critics doesn't seem to provide a real presentation of the other arguments.
Like I said, not my field, but the article comes off as unbalanced because of this section.
Numenetics (talk) 22:38, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criticisms section seems very one-sided 

message: I thought you might like to know that Wallerstein does state in World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction that his approach is neither "multidisciplinary" nor "transdisciplinary". These concepts refer to a form of research that moves from discipline to discipline, unable to make up its mind whether it is sociology, history, economics, politics, etc. Such researchers tend to come across as leaving their field and they lose credibility when they migrate from sociology to politics or economics, etc. Wallerstein disagrees with that whole structure of the disciplines as separate narrow-minded domains, and uses the word "Unidisciplinary" for World-Systems Analysis and his own field of research. Unfortunately, this not a widely recognised word. The word Unidisciplinarity could be considered as the title of a whole new article on Wikipedia if anyone is willing to research further. Wallerstein considers all societies to be one, all economies to be one, and all disciplines to be one, with the idea of exclusion being erroneous. This article should reflect that.
Earthprophet (talk) 20:37, 9 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unidisciplinary 

message: In reference to Human Geography the term Core-Periphery Model has been used exchangeably with the term World System's Theory  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.7.6.5 (talk) 01:36, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  In reference to Human Geography  

message: According to the article, Wallerstein rejects the term "theory" attributed to his world-systems analysis/project ("Wallerstein's project is frequently misunderstood as world-systems "theory," a term that he consistently rejects")
but elsewhere in the article, the term theory is used ("The most well-known version of the world-systems approach has been developed by Immanuel Wallerstein, who is seen as one of the founders of the intellectual school of world-systems theory") —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.84.68.252 (talk) 00:58, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, apparently most scholars disagree with Wallerstein, and the term theory is widely used in this context. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 15:56, 14 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  theory or not? 

message: Semi-periphery countries and Core countries have long history sections which stray from the topics of those subarticles.  These would be better presented as a single, unified history, either in this article or a subarticle titled something like World-systems theory interpretation of history.  There may or may not be enough left over after this consolidation to keep these subarticles at all. -- Beland (talk) 19:51, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Having just discovered the Core countries article, I have to agree. Considering core countries independently from WST is not useful. Mracidglee (talk) 22:29, 15 October 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed mergers of history sections 

message: There are three quotes mentioned as definitions of the world-system provided by Wallerstein, and the paragraph that follows right after the last quote also provides another definition by Wallerstein. Overall, this seems mostly like a simple copy-paste of different excerpts, which is problematic because it lacks conciseness and organization. This seems to be a contributing factor to the excessive lengthiness of this article, which is also the first problem mentioned regarding this article.
--116.32.27.10 (talk) 01:54, 5 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definitions of world-system in section 2.3 

message: File:World_trade_map.PNG|Old map
File:Core,_periphery,_and_semiperiphery,_1975_-_2002._.png|New map
The map showing which countries are considered core, periphery, etc. appears incomplete. Upon inspection, I learned that it looks this way because only countries that have consistently been classified the same way are shown. As a consequence though, nearly all of eastern Europe and much of Africa is gray. Perhaps it would be better simply to put the most recent attempt at classifying different countries. I'd nominate this image from the "semi-periphery countries" page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_trade_map.PNG -- Levlitichev (talk) 19:15, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The new image (:File:Core, periphery, and semiperiphery, 1975 - 2002. .png) is, well, newer, so probably more up to date, which is good - I've been hoping to see an updated version for years. Unfortunately I consider both to be highly problematic. The 2002 one classifies some important countries as periphery: Poland and most of East Europe, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, several others that seem logically to be semi-perhiphery. Seriously, any analysis that claims Russia and China as peripheries is to me naive to say the least. The new map has the virtue of not classifying most countries, through I am curious why India and China were demoted from semi-periphery to periphery (and classified lower then a semi-periphery Iran. Or Brazil... methinks BRIC here. They are, from a logical perspective, very clearly semi-peripheries). Also, it seems that Indonesia and Malaysia's status was changed - the old map listed Malyasia as periphery, and Indonesia as semi-periphery, and the new one reversed it (again, both seem semi-peripheries). Both maps also show South Korea as semi-periphery, where it is an OECD country with major companies (Samsung, LG) and should likely be seen as a core; again, common sense and economic indicators suggest it as at least as developed and important to world's economy as let's say Portugal or Iceland (whose only virtue is that they have been core a bit longer). Last but not least, given that modern China is a major power in world economy, and certainly has regional influence in Asia and Africa, to classify it as a periphery is another folly, as it should be seen as a semi-perhiphery level. Since you looked at the sources, Levlitichev, could  you comment on those issues? Is there any justification for those glaring (IMHO) errors (classifications defying common sense)? I'll also ping the author of the article, as he occasionally stops on wiki: User:Sbabones, and the authors of both maps (the original articles, for some strange reason, contained no maps, only datasets - maps have been created by Wikipedians: User:Jared.mckay.walker, User:Lou Coban). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:36, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

text: Good find. I will ping again the authors of the previous maps: User:Jared.mckay.walker, User:Lou Coban. Anyone willing to make a new version? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:02, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map of the world is weak 

message: The article, although quite lengthy, does provide all the related information on the world systems theory. I liked how there is a section on the origins and the links to the dependency theory. I also appreciate in the Wallerstein section, there were direct quotes from him and not just paraphrasing. I also liked how research questions were in a easy list format to show what the world systems theory sought to explain or solve. Overall, the article is well written, with its information being backed by reliable sources. Mchang20 (talk) 21:52, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Peer Review 

message: Evaluation of Articles and Sources
This article is well written and provides thorough information. However, it is important to note that while the references are reliable a majority of them draw upon Wallerstein's work. 
In fact, over half the sources are from Wallerstein's books. The problem with this is that his viewpoint is over-represented and gets clumped together under the "world systems theory" heading. He in fact quoted concepts from all his books, prior too and after the world systems "analysis". 
In addition, the information does not provide adequate enough critique because of lack of recent data. While it states that it is used widely today- it doesn't discuss data past 2006 and the last edit was 2015. 
Cloudcalonje (talk) 05:23, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clumped Concepts & Data Problems 

message: I rewrote this article in 2010 (see my notes above at #Rewrite), but never finished. There is still plenty of unreferenced claims. Logic needs to be more fleshed out. The origins mentions four predecessor theories - dependency, modernization, Marxism and the Annales school, but confusingly it has the sentence that lists just three of those. Comparing my old revision to the current, one, I see that the reference to Carlos A. Martínez-Vela's paper () has been removed by an anon few years ago (); granted, it does not seem to have been peer reviewed, but Martínez-Vela is still a respectable scholar (). Also, removing a ref and not replacing it or rewriting the content is close to vandalism - it is pure information loss (I cited my sources, now some are hidden). I would recommend that one of the first steps in fixing this article is to restore this reference, then add citations to missing content, then see what needs to be rewritten/added. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 08:22, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comment from 2010 writer - need to restore Martínez-Vela reference 

message: The information presented under Background, particularly on Wallerstein, has been repeated under a separate heading with his name. This could be condensed into one section. 
Also, the Interpretation of World History could be more concise. 
Shawna-Kay (talk) 07:13, 27 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Repetition and Lengthy Presentation 

message: The golden age of the west have between 300 and 200 years, not even dishonest concept of "Europe" existed before that. 2000 years ago most part of "Europe" was land of primitive tribes that suffered racial discrimination of their neighbors, only the Mediterranean was civilized but this civilization was not exclusive of "europe".
Then again, based on what they say that "europe" is historically core and other places are peripheral? Why were Westerners going to the East to learn technologies, philosophies, and buy products and not the inverse?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheBr0s (talk • contribs) 05:27, 11 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  What do you mean by historically? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: I'm cleaning up the Further Reading section by condensing it. But just in case people disagree here's the version before I did it. Contrawwftw (talk) 06:17, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Clean up of Further Reading 

message: The world system theory how do theory react to the reality of African development? 41.75.222.166 (talk) 04:55, 21 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ds 

message: The map in the lead uses data which is over 2 decades out-of-date from an equally dated source. Much has changed since 2000 in terms of the global economy and international trade/relations; it seems unlikely that the status of every country remains unchanged. Does anyone know of a more up-to-date source for data which can be used to update the map? Perhaps a more recent publication by the same authors? – Scyrme (talk) 06:21, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  More up-to-date map?