Garcia, Zacarias E.

1-A BS Criminology

Global Interstate System: A Critical Analysis

(Essay)

This essay discusses conceptual issues that arise from the study of human social
change. The comparative and evolutionary world-systems perspective is explained
as a theoretical research program for studying long-term social change. This
approach employs an anthropological framework of comparison for studying
world-systems, including those of hunter-gatherers. Problems of spatially bounding
whole human interaction networks are addressed and the utility of a comparative
approach to the study of hierarchical relations among human polities
(core/periphery relations) is examined. The hypothesis of semi peripheral
development is explained and criteria for empirically identifying semi peripheral
regions are specified. World history and global history are the most important
evidential bases, along with prehistoric archaeology, for the comparative study of
world-systems. Getting the grounds of comparison right by correctly
conceptualizing the spatial units of analysis and paying careful attention to
core/periphery relations are crucial issues in the effort to comprehend and explain
the development of world-systems. The sociology of development, broadly
construed, is the study and explanation of human social change in general,
including the emergence of social complexity and hierarchy during, and since, the
Stone Age. Most of the social science literature has focused on the transition from
“tradition” to “modernity,” which are usually understood as characteristics of
national societies such as urbanization, industrialization, and the demographic
transition.