World‐System and Social Movements

Abstract

Proponents of the world‐system perspective have argued that the modern world‐system first took shape in Western Europe and the Americas between 1450 and 1650, the “long sixteenth century” (Wallerstein 1974, 1980, 1989). Although social conflict was endemic during the early modern period, “antisystemic” movements emerged only in 1848 (Arrighi, Hopkins, & Wallerstein 1989). Class and status‐based movements subsequently seized state power as a means of changing the inequalities associated with the capitalist world‐system during the next century. However, they found it much more difficult to reduce structural inequality or transform the system than they had imagined, which led to a new round of global protest in 1968. This time movements directed their anger not only at powerful capitalist states in the core but also against states where antisystemic movements had taken power and antisystemic movements that had organized labor unions and political parties. To appreciate these developments, it is useful to recount the history of struggles by social movements in the modern world‐system.

Re-Reading Sociology via the Emotions: Karl Marx's Theory of Human Nature and Estrangement

“…By combining Brook's (2009) elaboration of Hochschild's theory in Marxian terms for the labor process, with my argument here and with Hochschild's subsequent work on the link between emotions, ideologies, and action strategies thus seems a fruitful line of inquiry. The fact that "social movement" scholarship represents one area where "emotions" have had a decisive impact may reflect this (e.g., Flam and King 2005;Goodwin, Jasper, and Polletta 2001;Schaeffer and Weyher Forthcoming). As Hochschild (1990:129) notes, "emotional management" is not necessarily estranging for, in the course of any struggle, "we try to change 'how we feel' to fit 'how we must feel' in order to pursue a given course of action."…”

Challenging power and creating alternatives: Integrationist, anti-systemic and non-hegemonic approaches in Australian social movements

“…One reason for the increasing popularity of this movement strategy is that, in a globalising, neoliberal world, movements realised that ‘state power was more limited than they had thought’ (Wallerstein, 2002: 32). Moreover, they were disenchanted by earlier anti-systemic activism which did successfully gain state power, but then focused more on retaining that power than enacting the intended social reforms (Schaefer and Weyher, 2013: 3; Wallerstein, 2014: 161). Similar critiques have been made of overly bureaucratised social movements even when they do not gain state power.…”