Editors' Introduction

Abstract

We are pleased to offer this especially rich and timely issue of the Journal of World-Systems Research. Readers will find not only a special symposium on Race in the Capitalist World-System, compiled by William I. Robinson, but also a special collection of papers on Ireland in the WorldSystem edited by Aidan Beatty, Maurice Coakley, and Sharae Deckard. The juxtaposition of these sections highlight the ways Ireland has served as a "testing ground" for techniques of capitalist exploitation of people and the natural environment, shaping the development of racist ideologies and practices in the world-system. As the media headlines feature daily reports of racial tensions and protests in numerous countries, and as xenophobic, Islamophobic, and racist discourses permeate electoral campaigns in the United States and other core countries, it is critical for us all to reflect on how the organization and operation of the global political economy contributes to these trends. In addition, as political leaders grapple with how to manage the deepening global financial and ecological crises, it is very instructive, as our special issue editors point out, to offer a "radical reappraisal" of Ireland's economic development.Contributors to the symposium and to our special issue on Ireland add a great deal to efforts to better understand the processes that reproduce all forms of racism and other exclusions, and their work points in the direction of much-needed strategies for re-structuring human relations and the world-system more broadly. Moreover, the articles in our special issue on Ireland in the WorldSystem demonstrate how focused attention on a particular world region can illuminate broader