WORLD SYSTEM THEORY

(IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN)

SUBMITTED BY: SARAH

JANE DEFENSOR
IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN
(BACKGROUND)

• Immanuel Wallerstein was born in New York in 1930

• Where he grew up and did his all studies
He entered Columbia University.
Where he obtained his BS, MA, and PhD degrees.
He remained a faculty member in Columbia’s Department
of Sociology from 1958-1971.
He aimed at
achieving “a clear
conceptual break
with theories of
‘modernization’ and
thus provide a new
theoretical paradigm
to guide our
investigations of the
emergence and
development of
capitalism
industrialization and
national states”.
The World System Theory , developed by
sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein, is an
approach to world history and social change
that suggest there is a world economic system
in which some countries benefit while others are
exploited.
GLOBAL DIVISIONS OF WORLD
ECONOMY
• Core: countries engaged in banking, manufacturing,
technologically advance agriculture and shipbuilding.
Democratic governments high wages, import raw materials
and export manufactures, high investment, welfare services.
• Periphery: provided raw materials such as minerals and timber
to fuel the core’s economic expansion. Unskilled labor is
repressed and the peripheral countries are denied advanced
technology that might make them more competitive. Non,
democratic governments, export raw materials, import
manufacture, very low wages, no welfare services.
• Semi-periphery: involved in a mix of production activities some
associated with core areas and others with peripheral areas.
Authoritarian governments, export raw materials and
manufactures, import manufactures and raw materials, low
wages and low welfare services.
THE CORE

• The core is the place where resources and

wealth masses. The Core has high
technological development and it creates
complex technological products.
• Core countries focus on higher skill, capital-
intensive production
SEMI-PERIPHERY

• Semi-periphery countries fall in the middle of

the economic spectrum.
• These countries share characteristics of both
core and periphery countries.
• These are core regions in decline or
periphery regions attempting to improve
their economic position.
• These countries are sometimes exploited by
core countries, but they also may exploited
by core periphery countries themselves.
LIST OF CURRENT SEMI-PERIPHERY
COUNTRIES
The following are semi-periphery countries according to Dunn,
Kawana, Brewer (2000)

Argentina
Brazil
China
Hong Kong
India
Indonesia
Iran
Israel
Mexico
Singapore
South Korea
South Africa
Taiwan
PERIPHERY

• Periphery countries fall on the other end of

the economic scale.
• Periphery countries are commonly also
referred to as third-world countries.
• These countries lack a strong central
government and may be controlled by
other styates.
THANK YOU!