Social Science and Contemporary Society in Immanuel Wallerstein’s World-System Theory

Rade Pantić

The text addresses the problem of social sciences’ system and its structure. It summarizes this
issue in the work of Immanuel Wallerstein1, American sociologist, one of the founders of
"world-systems analysis" school of thought. World-systems analysis originated in early
1970s. Its emergence is embedded in the history of the modern world-system and the
structures of knowledge that grew as part of that system and which sustain it. According to
the theory, the modern world-system came into existence in the 16th century as a capitalist
world-economy. The system’s main feature is an unending accumulation of capital which
generates the need for constant technical innovations and constant widening of geographical,
psychological, intellectual and scientific borders. Thus, the need arises to rethink both
knowledge and methods on which that knowledge is based, as well as for the constant
improvement of knowledge.

At first, philosophers attacked theology by insisting that human beings can arrive to truth
through their own rational capacities instead of truth being revealed to them by religious
institutions and scripts. Thus philosophy replaced theology and human rationality replaced
God as the source of knowledge. However, scholars followed who critiqued both theologians
and philosophers claiming that the only way to arrive to truth was by means of empirical
analysis of reality. They were named scientists and science came to be defined as the search
for universal laws of nature that are true in all of time and space. Philosophy was denounced
as a merely deductive speculation and scientific form of knowledge was deemed the only
rational procedure. The definite divorce between science and philosophy did not occur until
the late 18th century. For example, Immanuel Kant still found it appropriate to lecture on
astronomy, poetry, as well as metaphysics, while writing a book on interstate relations.
Knowledge was still considered a unitary field and was not yet divided in “two cultures”,
natural sciences and humanities. Scientists insisted on divorcing philosophy by asserting that
the only way to truth is by means of empirical induction and hypothesis testing. The
humanities' emphasis was on empathetic insight, or what later was named hermeneutic
understanding. Modern university is the result of this divorce, characterized by the split of
Faculty of Philosophy in two separate Faculties: one covering the "sciences"; and the other
covering other subjects, which are called the "humanities;" or "arts" or "letters" (or both), or
under the old name of "philosophy." In the nineteenth century the faculties of science divided
into multiple fields called disciplines: physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy, zoology,
mathematics, and others. The faculties of humanities divided into fields such as: philosophy,
classics (Greek and Latin, the writings of Antiquity), art history, musicology, national
language and literature, and languages and literatures of other linguistic zones.

According to Wallerstein, the need for sciences which will explain the social reality comes
from the French Revolution of 1789 and the cultural upheaval it caused in the modern world-

1
Wallerstein adresses the problem of social science in following books: Immanuel Wallerstein, Unthinking
Social Sciences: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2001;
Immanuel Wallerstein et al., Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the
Restructuring of the Social Sciences, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1996; Immanuel Wallerstein, The End
of the World as We Know It: Social Sciences for the Twenty-First Century, University of Minnesota Press,
Minneapolis-London, 1999; Immanuel Wallerstein, The Uncertainties of Knowledge, Temple University Press,
Philadelphia, 2004.
system.2 The French Revolution propagated two quite revolutionary ideas: first, that political
change is now considered as something normal and inevitable, and, second, that sovereignty
was to reside in „the people“ rather than in the ruler or in a hereditary aristocracy. Also, the
French Revolution made possible organized antisystemic movements. Thus entered the need
for explaining the nature and course of change as well as for the explanation of decisions and
choices made by „the people“. The aim of dominant classes was so to contain antisystemic
movements, to discipline human behavior and to slow down and control pace of change.
Liberal ideology became the dominant one, its function to manage the change under control
of experts “who would rationally analyze the pace and engineering necessary to ensure that
change was gradual and did not displace governing families and groups”3. This represents the
social and political origin of social sciences. These sciences were positioned in the
institutional field between scientific, empirical disciplines and humanistic, hermeneutic
disciplines, as well between their specific methodologies.

History, the oldest of social sciences, experienced a revolution in the 19th century, associated
with Leopold Ranke’s slogan that history should be written „as it really did happen“. Ranke
was proposing a specific method by which such history might be written, namely by
searching for documents that were written simultaneously with the events they described.
Nonetheless, despite the more "scientific” approach, historians did not choose to be placed
within the faculty of science, but preferred the faculty of humanities. Although they were
empiricists, they avoided formulations of general scientific laws and often insisted that each
particular "event" had to be analyzed in terms of its own specific particular history. That is
the reason why Wallerstein calls history an idiographic discipline, or, a discipline predicated
on the uniqueness of social phenomena.

In contrast to the science of history whose task was to explain past events, social sciences
were utilized to explain society of the time. Formation of social science was crucially
influenced by 19th century’s liberal ideology which insisted that modernity was defined by
the differentiation of three social spheres: market, state and civil society. Thus liberals
designated three separate sciences which would study these fields: economics, political
science and sociology. Social scientists thought that these spheres were governed by general
laws so they became nomothetic disciplines, or, disciplines in search of timeless scientific
laws. They tried to establish social science using the methodology of natural science, that is,
Newton mechanics, and emphasized parallels between human processes and behaviors and all
other material and natural processes. The basic unit of analysis of all social sciences,
including history, was the national state. Social science became embedded within national
university system and their function was to create and regulate production of knowledge
about national history, national economy, national society and national political community.

Both history and these three social sciences thus took as their object of analysis the leading
contemporary western national states: France, Great Britain, United States of America,
Germany and Italy, a small portion of the world. As these hegemonic western states
colonially expanded, a new question arose - how to study other countries, inappropriate as an
object of analysis for the West-oriented disciplines? Two additional disciplines were initiated:
anthropology and oriental studies. Early anthropologists studied peoples who were under
colonial rule and conducted research under the assumption that these people had not had

2
See Immanuel Wallerstein, „The French Revolution as a World-Historical Event“, Unthinking Social Sciences:
The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2001, pp. 7-22
3
Immanuel Wallerstein, Utopics or Historical Choices of the Twenty-first Century, The New Press, New York,
1998, p. 16
’history’, that they were primitive people who had lived in closed and static societies, tribes,
which had had unchangeable customs from immemorial times. Their history thus began with
the colonial rule. Oriental studies investigated the so-called „high civilizations“, different
non-Western cultures: China, India, Persia, and the Arab world. These empires were not
strong technically and militarily as European were, so they were treated as not Modern. But
their inhabitants clearly did not meet the description of "primitive" peoples. The question
then became how they could be studied. The answer was that there was something in the
culture of these civilizations which had "arrested" their history, and had made it impossible
for them to move forward to "modernity" like Western civilization did. It followed that these
countries thus required guidance by the European world if they were to move forward. Both
anthropology and oriental studies emphasized the particularity of cultures and social groups
they studied as opposed to analyzing generic human characteristics. Therefore they were
more prone to the idiographic rather than the nomothetic, seeing themselves in the
humanistic, hermeneutic camp.

Between 1850 and 1945 these six disciplines defined the field of social science.4 This was
accomplished by university’s establishment of first chairs and then departments which
offered courses leading to degrees. European “19th century paradigm of social science”
spread all over the world. Liberal ideology of inevitability of progress based on rational
capacity of humanity became the ruling ideology which cemented all social sciences in a
single structure of knowledge which sustained the capitalist world economy and hegemonic
role of core Western states within the world-system. Thus, according to Wallerstein, the
separation of disciplines was not based on epistemological premises which aimed at an
improved knowledge of the world but on ideological premises which supported the capitalist
world system. The structure was based on clear lines of demarcation between the study of
modern/civilized world (history and three nomothetic social sciences) and the study of non-
modern world (anthropology and Oriental studies). Within the study of the modern world the
demarcation line was between the past (history) and present (three social sciences); within
nomothetic sciences the clear dividing lines could be found between the study of market
(economics), the state (political sciences), and civil society (sociology). 5 First line of
demarcation supported the domination of core western states over all other countries which
allegedly did not have history and were not modern so they needed patronage of “civilised”
western states in order to reach modernity. Second line of demarcation instituted sovereign
nation states as a basic unit of analysis of social science and blocked the analysis of
exploitative nature of the capitalist world economy as well as analysis of class antagonism
inherent to the modern world system. Third line of demarcation blocked analysis of
interconnectedness of economic, political and cultural spheres in assuring hegemony of the
ruling classes. All of the lines of demarcation were blurred after 1945.

Wallerstein poses that after 1945, and especially after the 1960s, this structure of social
science entered a crisis. Its main cause was the strengthening of the anticolonial struggle in
the so-called Third World and their geopolitical self-assertion. Because of this visibility of
4
According to Wallerstein, between 1750 and 1850 a multiplicity of names was used for social science
disciplines. Between 1850 and 1945 this multiplicity was reduced to a small group of social sciences which
clearly separated their fields of study and methodologies and became part of the academic system and
professional organisations. Starting in 1945 names proliferated and clear demarcations between disciplines
started to crumble. See Immanuel Wallerstein, „The Structures of Knowledge, or How Many Ways May We
Know?“, The End of the World as We Know It: Social Sciences for the Twenty-First Century, University of
Minnesota Press, Minneapolis-London, 1999, pp. 185-186
5
Immanuel Wallerstein et al., Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the
Restructuring of the Social Sciences, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1996, p. 36
non-Western countries, history and nomothetic social sciences had been applied for the first
time to all areas of the world and not only to Europe and North America, that is, to what was
considered as the modern world. The new hegemonic power, United States of America,
needed scholars who would investigate the new historical and social processes and try to
contain them. So, “area studies” were born with scholars from various disciplines and their
different epistemologies. Since “area studies” needed to respect specificity of the local area
which was the object of study, they needed to mix idiographic epistemology with nomothetic
one. The compromise formation was found in the so-called modernization theory or
developmentalism. This theory argued that all societies go through specific stages of
evolution which end in modernity. So nomothetic epistemological requirements (all states go
through identical stages of development) were reconciled with idiographic demands (not all
countries are at the same stage of development) and new dominant ideology of social
sciences presumed a general law of social development which was presumed to be
progressive. The individual state remained the basic unit of study which sustained the
premise that each country’s development is unaffected by other countries or factors that are
external to it. With the help of this ideology the so-called underdeveloped countries were
forced to follow the model of advanced countries which would supposedly lead them into
modernity and prosperity and towards a more liberal political governmental structure.

Along with area studies, interdisciplinarity or multidisciplinarity came in to vogue. The

expansion of the world university system further complicated nineteenth century’s paradigms
of social sciences and spurred mixing of disciplines. Expansion of the university system
considered more candidates for the PhD degree and that meant more doctoral dissertations,
or, more “original” contributions to the world of knowledge. This caused scholars from one
discipline to make subspecialties in subjects that formerly belonged to other disciplines.
Disciplines began to overlap, clear boundaries between them eroded. This led to
discrepancies between intellectual and theoretical practices of scholars on one side, and their
occupational position within institutional organization of social science.6 The rise of cultural
studies further undermined social sciences’ eurocentrism and their pretense on universalism.
Cultural studies approached every claim of universalism as a particular struggle for power,
relativizing the rational theology of progress in the Western educational system. Additionally,
the rise of East Asian economic powers threatened the western national state as a basic unit of
analysis of social science. World relations and constellations of powers became too complex
to be handled by traditional structure of social science and their institutional support.

Wallerstein is suspicious about the effects of those challenges. According to him, stressing
particularism can lead to a neglect of broader interrelations in historical structures. The main
question for today’s social science is thus - how to take into consideration a plurality of
worldviews without losing pretension to universalistic knowledge, implying one pluralist
universal prospect for social sciences which is able to create a new epistemology and conduct
holistic analysis? Wallerstein also criticizes the project of interdisciplinarity: „ (...) I would

6
According to the Slovenian theorist Rastko Močnik, the gap between mode of scientific and theoretical
production of social sciences on one side, and their institutional existence as autonomous disciplines on the
other, is not of recent origin but has been present from the beginning. Močnik poses that “paradigms of
nineteenth-century” was only the founding myth of social science's institutions and that the myth cannot account
for actual scientific production which always presumed articulations of procedures of different disciplines.
“Paradigms of nineteeth-century” as the founding myth regulates relations of dominance and subordination
within social science's institutions and has a function of reproduction of this status hierarchies and blocks
scientific production. In Močnik’s opinion, these paradigms represent the ideology of scientific practices but not
the condition for their production. See, Rastko Močnik, „Sistem družboslovlja in njegovi učinki“, Spisi iz
Humanistike, Založba/*cf. , Ljubljana, 2009, pp. 441-510
argue that interdisciplinarity is itself a lure, representing the greatest support posible to the
current list of disciplines, by implying that each has some special knowledge that it might be
useful to combine with some other special konowledges in order to solve some practical
problem.“7 Wallerstein thinks that we need new conceptual categories which will be able to
create new disciplines and a new system of social sciences. Proliferation of disciplines is not
the solution, since it creates “quasi-disciplinary categories defined by social constituencies”8,
but integration of disciplines in what he calls “historical social science” which will be able to
disintegrate the separation between disciplines and build new ones which will study the
complexity of the contemporary world. Thus, Wallerstain asserts the idea of social science
which can simultaneously produce systematized knowledge and take into consideration
pluralism and differences.

The concept of historical social science is based on methodology of world-system analysis.

According to Wallerstein, world-system analysis presented itself as a critique of many of
premises of existing social science, as a mode of what he called “unthinking social science”.9
Historical condition for the rise of world-system analysis was the world revolution of 1968.
The event posed a big challenge to the ruling modernization theory and it shook the
foundations of social sciences’ system. These challenges were the rejection of the liberal
concept of inevitability of human progress and strong antistatism, that is, the rejection of two
ideological pillars of the modern world-system and social science’s system. According to
Wallerstein, world-system analysis methodology has four basic characteristics: globality,
historicity, unidisciplinarity and holism. Globality came from taking world-system as basic
unit of analysis rather than an individual state or society. This represented a strong attack on
modernization theory which was based on comparative analysis of individual states’
development. World-system analysis insists that all individual states are parts of world-
system global processes and these units cannot be analyzed separately. Based on these these
premises, world-system analysis blew away the ideology of developmentalism - poor states
of the Third World are not underdeveloped because of some of their individual and inherent
characteristics but because of their unequal position in the capitalist world-economy. Core
western states are developing because they are exploiting Third World Countries which are
heading towards “development of underdevelopment”10. Second characteristic is the focus on
historicity of world-systems and on their systemic processes, meaning that analysis cannot be
limited to contemporary data but longue durée structures and processes must considered.
Third and four characteristic of world-system analysis methodology are deeply
interconnected: holism and unidisciplinarity. In strong opposition to contemporary
postmodern epistemologies and cultural studies, world-system analysis insists on studying
“totalities”. As we saw, the fragmentation of social spheres into autonomous spheres of
economy, politics and culture was invented by the liberal ideology which thus tried to contain
dangerous social movements and consolidate hegemony of the ruling classes. In reality, none
of these spheres cannot function without assistance from others, so there is no need to have
separate disciplines for each sphere. World-system “must represent an integrated network of

7
Immanuel Wallerstein. „The Heritage of Sociology, the Promise of Social Sciences“, The End of the World as
We Know It: Social Sciences for the Twenty-First Century, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis-London,
1999, p. 246
8
Immanuel Wallerstein et al., Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the
Restructuring of the Social Sciences, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 1996, p. 88
9
Immanuel Wallerstein, „The Rise and Future Demise of World-System Analysis“, The End of the World as We
Know It: Social Sciences for the Twenty-First Century, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis-London,
1999, p. 192
10
See, Andre Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America: Historical Studies of Chile
and Brazil, Monthly Review Press, New York/London, 1967.
economic, political and cultural processes the sum of which hold the system together.“11
Hence, we need unidisciplinarity as the epistemological framework in the form of mentioned
historical social science which will “open social science” and conduct holistic analysis.
Wallerstein thinks that the structural crisis of social sciences is a reflection of the crisis of
capitalist world-system, a terminal crisis. Demise of the ruling liberal ideology is a symptom
of this crisis and, without liberalism, old system of social science lost its social foundation
and entered the age of “uncertainties of knowledge“. But this crisis opens the possibility for
the creation of a new world system. Thus, for Wallerstein, two tasks are urgent for social
science today: “reorienting the strategy of social science and reorienting the strategy of
antisystemic movements”12, that is, the main task is to build the alliance of science and
antisystemic politics and try to find realistic opportunities for the overturn of capitalist world
system and its power relations. New system of social science is required for this new task for
the world of knowledge.

Literature:

Andre Gunder Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America: Historical

Studies of Chile and Brazil, Monthly Review Press, New York/London, 1967.
Rastko Močnik, „Sistem družboslovlja in njegovi učinki“, Spisi iz Humanistike,
Založba/*cf., Ljubljana, 2009, pp. 441-510
Immanuel Wallerstein et al., Open the Social Sciences: Report of the Gulbenkian
Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences, Stanford University Press, Stanford,
1996.
Immanuel Wallerstein, Utopics or Historical Choices of the Twenty-first Century, The New
Press, New York, 1998.
Immanuel Wallerstein, The End of the World as We Know It: Social Sciences for the Twenty-
First Century, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis-London, 1999.
Immanuel Wallerstein, Unthinking Social Sciences: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century
Paradigms, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2001.
Immanuel Wallerstein, The Uncertainties of Knowledge, Temple University Press,
Philadelphia, 2004.

11
Immanuel Wallerstein, „Historical Systems as Complex Systems“, Unthinking Social Sciences: The Limits of
Nineteenth-Century Paradigms, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2001, p. 230
12
Immanuel Wallerstein, „Crises: The World-Economy, the Movements, and the Ideologies“, Unthinking Social
Sciences: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms, Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 2001, p. 37