362
sophisticatedversionof the same thing:
'Regimesare legitimatewhen people be-
lieve they are legitimate because they
believethey accordwith the valuesthey
believetheyhold.'
WhereasWeber locates legitimacyin
the authorityof governments,Beetham
locatesit in the approvalof subjects.He
argues,moreover,that there is a kindof
liberaldemocraticratchet,whichmakesit
difficult for states to regress once they
havearrivedat the levelof popularsover-
eignty. The irony is that the principal
difference between the book's account
and Weber's is not the one Beetham
suggests, between simplistic opinion
countingand a moreactiveconceptionof
humanaction,butbetweenWeber'sscep-
tical elitism, and Beetham'srigorously
optimisticliberaldemocracy.
RodneyBarker
LondonSchoolof Econamics
UnthinkingSocial Science: The Limits
of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms
Immanuel WallersteinCambridgePolity
Press1991£39.50 (£12.50paper)
Anyone interested in macro-sociology
shouldfrom time to time dip into 'world
systems theory' as an antidote to the
nationaland specializedparochialisms to
whichwe all fall prey.Whobetterto read
than the founder of the school,its most
creative,imaginativeand elegantwriter?
These twenty essays have all been pre-
viouslypublished,butin sucha varietyof
journals and collectionsbetween 1982
and 1991 that probablyno-one has al-
readyreadmorethana handfulof them.
They make stimulatingreading,though
none is a realblock-buster.Wallersteinis
always readable, often persuasiveand
occasionallyprofound. He is a genuine
scholar,with far fewer affectationsthan
academicsof his distinctionusuallyac-
quire,and he neverpatronizesus.
By now we do not expect (nor should
we wish)himto 'recant'histheory.There
are few surprises. He sticks with the
theorywhichis presumablyby now fam-
iliar to most readersof thisjournal. In-
deed, by applyingworld-systemstheory
so broadly,to so manytopics,theseessays
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Bookreviews
add considerablyto its power and its
plausibility.
The eighteenthessay,'Callfor a debate
aboutthe paradigm',explainsthe book's
title(itshouldobviouslybe the firstessay).
We must unthink a number of nine-
teenth-century assumptions: that the
socialsciencesconstituteseparate,intel-
lectuallycoherent 'disciplines',that the
idiographicnomotheticdistinctiongives
us the distinctrealmsof historyandsocial
science,thathumanbeingslive in single,
bounded societies which are implicitly
nation-states,thatcapitalismis grounded
on free competition,that the end of the
eighteenth century saw a fundamental
bourgeoiscapitalistrevolutionand that
history cs)ntainsdevelopmentand pro-
gress. These assumptionsare then at-
tackedin the otheressays.
We all love to attack,often to carica-
ture, supposed 'orthodoxy'.Doubtless
manyreaderswillprotest'Ihavealready
unthoughtmuchof this'.YetWallerstein
does not spend muchtime on wholesale
demolition of 'orthodoxy'.Instead he
illustratestheirinadequacieson empirical
cases.He coversmoregroundand enters
morecontroversiesthan I can here even
mention,let alone review.Naturallythe
capitalist world-systemis his master-
concept,his 'society'and his 'revolution',
generatinghis 'laws'.He arguesit is our
only Gesellschczft,
and that it has created
our principalbutmultipleGemetnschoften.
The significanceof the IndustrialRevol-
ution is that during it (not becauseof it)
Britain became the hegemonic Power
within the world system. The French
Revolution was not as significantfor
Franceor Europeas it wasfor peripheral
partsof the world-system likeHaiti.Butit
did generatethe firstof the 'anti-systemic'
movementsand ideologies which have
periodicallyconvulsedworld capitalism
and which are now growing stronger.
Through the medium of a critiqueof
Myrdal'sstudiesof racismand develop-
ment he argues that class and ethnic
stratificationare alwaysand necessarily
entwinedin the modernworld- because
this is functionalfor the capitalistworld
system. National developmentis an il-
lusion:once capitalistmarketsfill up the
world,for somenationsto gaingroundin
Bookreviews
the world system, others must lose.
Nation-statesare the creatures of the
world-system - in a shortessayhe argues
that India was 'invented'by the world
system.There is alsoa fine essayarguing
thatMarxdid not focuson directproduc-
tion relationsto the neglect of market
relations (responding implicitly to all
those earlier Althusserian attacks on
world-systems theory);nordid Marxcon-
fine himself to classescontainedwithin
single nation-states.There are also two
(not over-generous)essays on Braudel
and the Annalesschool,his own intellec-
tualprecursors.
Facedwith such ubiquitouslyvigorous
argument,the reader is likely to some-
times agree, often pause to think, but
then sometimesdemur. Different read-
ers will probablyraise different objec-
tions. My own can be summed up by a
numberof scepticalquestions.Is 'India'
not ratherolderthanthe capitalistworld-
system,being at least partially,perhaps
substantially,createdby the Hindu and
Buddhistreligions?Is racismso narrowly
attributable to capitalist needs? Do
nation-statesstructure so little of the
worldand nothingof capitalism?Willthe
world systemstagnatesimplybecauseit
has filled the world, or when (and if) it
fails to develop new technologieswhich
createnewmarkets?Allof thesepotential
oyections turn on the same point:capi-
talism,even world system capitalism,is
notthe only'society'occupyingthe world.
The nation-state,the civilization,the
Church,the ethnic community,gender
etc. are also human communitiescon-
tributing their own logics of develop-
ment, alongsidemarketcapitalism,each
helpingstructureall others.SinceI tend
to stressseveralof theseas wellas capital-
ism, I naturallydisagree with much of
world-systems theory.
In one respectWallersteinis writingat
a timeseeminglyrelativelypropitiousfor
'world-systemtheory'.With the collapse
of statesocialism,capitalismis nowmore-
than-everglobal. It should also require
less and less militaryprotectionby its
Great Powers,at least in the short-run.
Since nation-statesfirstarose for funda-
mentally militaryreasons, a decline in
militarismmight be expected to reduce
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363
the salienceof the nation-state.We will
see. But world systemstheory is also a
(somewhatunorthodox)form of Marxist
socialism. Thus Wallersteinwishes to
argue,not thatglobalcapitalismhascon-
quered for eternity,but that it may/will
fall to 'anti-systemic'movements and
ideologies, which the collapse of state
socialismcan onlystrengthen.This argu-
ment runs counter to contemporary
Westernideologyand requiresmorede-
fence than he has given it. That is the
bookI hope for nextfromhim.
MichaelA{ann
Universityof California,LosAngeles
Surveillance, Power and Modernity
ChristopherDandekerPolity 1990 243pp.
£29.50
This bookis a workof some significance.
In common with a number of recent
contributionsin sociology,it buildsupon
the Machiavellianstreamof thought in
contemporarywriterssuch as Foucault,
and criticallyengageswith this and with
the 'industrialsocieties'and Marxistap-
proaches.It does thisin orderto broaden
the basisfor approachesto distinctsub-
stantive phenomena such as organiz-
ations, policing, the state and military
sociology.It is by no means a standard
text preciselybecause it cross-cutsthe
'normal'definitions of the substantive
field. It does so to good effect. Hence-
forth, for those who are teaching in
specialistareasbut have found the sub-
stantivedefinitionsof the fieldas theyare
normallyproducedtoo constraining,be-
cause they ignore paralleldebates else-
where or neglect the historicalconsti-
tution of the substantivephenomenain
question, Dandeker's book will be a
breathof freshair.
Take the field of organizationtheory,
for instance.On the one hand there is a
standarddefinitionof the field given by
cross-sectional comparative studies
around key topic areas. On the other
hand,at leastin the Britishcontext,there
has been a lively'labourprocessdebate'
whichhasoccasionallyinteractedwiththe
more conventionalorganizationtheory
field, but not very often or too much.