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JOURNAL OF WORLD-SYSTEMS RESEARCH
Editors’ Introduction
Jackie Smith
Jennifer Bair
Patrick Manning
David Ruvolo
The study of social change and contention for power are important themes in world-systems
research, as is the work of understanding such struggles within their world-historical context.
Today we face a particularly significant and challenging political moment, one characterized by
right-wing xenophobic and exclusionary nationalist struggles as well as by growing and
unprecedented levels of world-wide anti-austerity and pro-democracy protests defending and
demanding equality, freedom, and—in the words of many activists—dignity.1 Many world-
systems analysts characterize this as a time of systemic crisis, and thus our editorial team chose to
focus this issue on the theme of counter-hegemonic challenges. Contributions to this volume focus
largely on the contemporary period, but in keeping with world-systems practices, authors situate
their analyses in the longue durée. They will help readers better understand how global level forces
are shaping the articulation of both exclusionary right-wing and emancipatory struggles.
Perhaps among the most notable developments on the international politics scene is the rise
of populist movements. In a 2016 address to the United Nations, U.S. President Barack Obama
expressed concern about the worrying rise of a wave of “crude populist” politics breaking across
1 See, "World Protests 2006-2013." by Ortiz, Isabel, Sara Burke, Mohamed Berrada and Hernán Cortés (2013),
published by the Initiative for Policy Dialogue and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung New York Working Paper Series. At:
http://www.fes-globalization.org/new_york/new-publication-world-protests-2006-2013/.
ISSN: 1076-156X | Vol. 24 Issue 2 | DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2018.869 | jwsr.pitt.edu
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rich and poor countries. While the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president and the Brexit vote
in the UK are the most notable manifestations of this trend in the global North, what is perhaps
most striking about the surge of exclusionary populist politics is its breadth across the structure of
the world-system, with countries in the semi-periphery (e.g. Turkey) and periphery (e.g.
Philippines) also proving fertile sites for populism.
Our objective in compiling this symposium on “Populisms in the World-System” was to
situate the “populist moment” in a historical and world-systemic perspective, and the project had
its origins in a Political Economy of the World System session at the 2017 American Sociological
Association meeting. Authors responded to our invitation in a variety of ways. Leslie Gates
embraces the charge head-on, calling for an incorporated comparison of populist movements as
both a reaction to and manifestation of world-systemic dynamics across time as well as space.
Such an analytical approach is more attentive to the differences in the origins and social bases
among movements that conventional accounts tend to lump together under an overly broad
populist label. Colin Arnold also raises questions about how the term populism is deployed. In an
interesting counterpoint to Gates’ essay, he argues for the value of a neo-Gramscian “political
articulation” approach to populism as one that can help analysts identify shared structural roots of
heterogeneous mobilizations. In her contribution, Val Moghadam underscores the gendered
dimension of populism on the right—both its gendered implications, but also its appeal to
women. She also stresses the resonances between right-wing populist nationalism and populist
strains within Islamist movements.
Several of the essays in the collection explore populism on the left. Peter Wilkin argues that
the distinction between right- and left-wing movements in the current wave of populist politics is
simply the most recent manifestation of a long-standing conflict, dating from the Enlightenment,
between universalism and nationalism. Timothy Gill and Gabriel Hetland review both the
accomplishments and the challenges confronting Venezuela. Hetland notes that many of the
achievements made in Venezuela have been undermined in the last few years, largely because of
two fundamental weaknesses of the Chavista model: its dependence on oil and its inability to
overcome a statist dependence. These themes are echoed by Gill, who emphasizes the challenges
confronting the Maduro administration in the context not only of sustained opposition from the
United States and an increasingly polarized domestic political scene, but also of declining oil
prices; Gill underscores the importance of the Venezuelan government developing much-needed
approaches for confronting these multiple challenges.
Collectively, the contributors to our symposium identify the degree to which populisms on
both the left and the right can be understood as very different responses to the dislocations wrought
by neoliberalism, and thus as a dramatic indication of the need for alternative visions.
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jwsr.pitt.edu | DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2018.869
Fortuitously—but not surprisingly given the political moment—there has been a spate of recent
books responding to this need. Thus, we decided to pair our discussion of populism with a book
review symposium featuring titles exploring “Counter-Hegemony in the Current Conjuncture.”
The reviews in this section offer pointed and substantive engagements with nine books that outline
alternative visions for what a more just and equitable world-system might look like, and how to
get there.
In our research article section, Robert A. Denemark reviews world-systems scholars’
expectations about how world-historical dynamics such as hegemonic decline, economic cycles,
and systemic contradictions would be likely to shape prospects for nuclear war today, in a period
he refers to as “systemic rivalry.” His application of world-systems analysis to the contemporary
context shows that decades-old predictions about the timing of nuclear escalation have borne out
in many ways, and that the factors that had mitigated against conflict in the past have been reduced,
while those making escalation more likely have increased. World-systemic logics and the logics
of nuclear deterrence, in other words, have brought humanity to a very dangerous situation.
Denemark’s analysis highlights the reality that the “specter of nuclear weapons [is] re-emerging,
[and thus] it makes sense to invest additional intellectual effort to understand the dynamics of
contemporary conflict.” His discussion offers an important supplement to today’s pundritry around
nuclear proliferation and global conflicts.
In “Transnational Social Movement Organizations and Counter-Hegemonic Struggles
Today,” Smith and her co-authors2 report on a newly updated dataset on transnational organizing,
offering a macro-level look at changes in the population of transnational organizations advocating
for social change (TSMOs) over the last several decades. They test several propositions that
emerge from world-systems theory and that shape expectations of how counter-hegemonic
challenges are likely to be expressed, arguing that this organizational foundation provides
important evidence about the future potential of counter-hegemonic struggles. Recent decades
have seen a proliferation of transnational organizing that gives greater expression to populations
from outside the core, which contributes to a radicalization of movement frames. In addition, these
authors find growing regionalization in transnational activist organizations, which parallels trends
in the inter-state sector. This, coupled with declining TSMO links to inter-governmental
organizations, reflects what they call “counter-hegemonic deglobalization,” which is quite
different from right-wing expressions of nationalism reflected in Brexit and Trump’s trade wars.
What counterhegemonic deglobalization emphasizes is not national trade advantages but rather the
2 In order to ensure the integrity of the Journal of World-Systems Research review process, former JWSR editor
Christopher Chase-Dunn oversaw the external peer review process for this paper, and he consulted with our Book
Review Editor, Jennifer Bair. Chase-Dunn secured more than our usual three double-blind peer reviews, and we are
confident that this process upholds our journal’s rigorous review standards.
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ability of people and communities—rather than states and corporations—to shape local conditions
that affect their well-being and survival.
Finally, in “Classical World-Systems Analysis, the Historical Geography of British North
America, and the Regional Politics of Colonial/Revolutionary New York,” Jonathan Leitner offers
a world-systems interpretation of evidence on the historical geography of British North America
to explore why the New York region supported independence, despite the presence of a strong
metropolitan merchant class that was highly dependent on British imperial trade relations. His
analysis shows how different actors in the region were able to develop economic relations and
interests independent of British markets, subverting imperial influence and fostering greater
support for independence struggles. This analysis complements the other content of this issue by
showing how contemporary evidence about challenges to hegemonic leadership is paralleled in
the historical record.
The World-Historical Information section of this issue includes discussions of two innovative
interfaces for documenting and analyzing economic and social relationships. Karl Ryavec and
Mark Henderson introduce an online system for teaching regional systems theory with the
historical datasets of the late G. W. Skinner, including four online GIS exercises on nineteenth-
century China and France. They contrast the regional systems analysis of Skinner (their mentor,
famed for his regional analysis of China) with Wallerstein’s World-Systems analysis: they reveal
the different data and relationships arising from regional geographic and national economic
analysis. In a Dataset Review, Patrick Manning shows the strengths of Data-Planet, a for-profit
website with 16 categories of socio-economic data, transformed so that variables can be combined,
calculated and exported. The smooth design of the interface will be of interest to academics
creating their own data resources.
As we close this introduction to our summer/fall issue, we remind our readers that the Journal
of World-Systems Research remains one of the leading open access peer reviewed scholarly
journals, and we are entering a new milestone in the coming year as we expect—at long last—to
have our journal included in the Social Science Citation Index— a move that will help us continue
to attract contributions from leading and up-and-coming scholars. Our editorial team and the
American Sociological Association’s Political Economy of the World-System (PEWS) Section are
working to create a sustainable structure for the journal while supporting the Open Access
movement more broadly. We invite readers to support the journal with financial contributions (see
the “donate” link on our website) or by assisting with copyediting or translating (email
jwsr@pitt.edu to volunteer). We also remind you that Open Access Week 2018 is October 22-28th.
Please take some time to recognize the week (in October and beyond) by increasing your own
understanding of the importance of open access publishing, helping colleagues and students learn
mailto:jwsr@pitt.edu
http://www.openaccessweek.org/
Journal of World-Systems Research | Vol. 24 Issue 2 | Editors’ Introduction 276
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about this vital movement, contributing to and promoting the work of Open Access journals like
the Journal of World-Systems Research, or by attending or organizing an event on your campus.
In its current form, the information economy leads to the increased enclosure of the knowledge
commons, and scholars and readers play a critical role in helping keep access to information open
and free. As one of the very first open access scholarly journals, JWSR is committed to helping
our readers be part of the movement to keep scholarly research free and open to all readers
everywhere.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/jackie-smith/defending-global-knowledge-commons
Journal of World-Systems Research
Editors’ Introduction
Vol. 1 | DOI 10.5195/JWSR.1