This thesis is an application of the theory and method of the comparative world-systems approach to West Polynesia. This study examines the interactions between the archipelagos of Tonga, Fiji, and Samoa during the period between 1770 and 1870, that include the exchange in prestige valuables, military/political interactions, and marriages. Using the nested interaction net model of Chase-Dunn and Hall, this thesis analyzes the interactions in order to determine whether the interactions display systemic properties, that is to say whether the interactions are important in the social reproduction in each of the particular societal units of the region. The archival evidence shows that the region was an indigenous world-system, whereby interactions served to maintain the stability of the system, which then as a result of European involvement in the region resulted in an increase of Tongan political domination, before the entire system was broken up and governed by different colonial powers. / Graduate

Prostitution has recently received increased attention in historical archaeology, but studies pertaining to this topic have been driven by artifacts instead of theory and therefore have been unable to address broader social and economic issues, as is the goal of the field. The approach developed here moves significantly toward this goal in the study of prostitution in the 19th-century mining West.World-systems theory is established as an organizing framework for the study of prostitution in the mining West, a vital internal periphery of the United States and a site of sudden, intense cultural collision due to the expansion of the capitalist world-economy. Prostitution is situated within the context of women's informal labor in peripheries to demonstrate how prostitutes supported formal labor in the mining West and therefore contributed to the maintenance and reproduction of capitalism.The archaeological approach attends to the cultural collision by recognizing gender, ethnicity, and class as active, interacting, and shifting constructions emphasized to assign oneself or others as appropriate to spaces, activities, or interactions and seeking to identify processes of identity formation through manipulated behaviors and symbols. It additionally calls for archaeologists to look at how each construction organized society through the other two.The approach concludes with the development of relevant research questions under the headings of negotiating with and navigating around Victorianism. The former attempt to understand the range of experiences of prostitutes in a way that listens to the "voices" of both prostitutes and Victorians, i.e., through a negotiation, to better realize the personal agency of prostitutes. The latter relate to the labor and economic contributions of prostitutes to the capitalist world-economy, to better recognize and understand their historical agency.Implementation of the approach occurs through its application to recently excavated data from a red-light district in late 19th-century Prescott, Arizona. The results demonstrate that the historical-archaeological study of mining-West prostitution, with the benefit of organizing theory, has excellent potential for providing information on economic processes surrounding an important form of women's labor in a periphery and on social processes that characterized an intercultural-frontier periphery associated with a hegemonic Victorian core.

It is within the realm of the international civil society that religions play out their important public roles as charities and advocacy organizations in globalization. World governance models in the post-Cold War era stress the important role that civil society plays in building and sustaining democracy. Indeed, the participation of the Catholic Church in the "third wave of democratization" confirms this. Yet, twenty-five years after the collapse of international socialism, problems with American-led models of development have come to the fore in glaring ways. Growing wealth inequality and what Gayatri Spivak calls "sustainable underdevelopment" are the norm, and these problems highlight the dangers and instability of liberal economic policies. Religious organizations, and proponents of the Catholic social tradition in particular, have been the strongest voices for advocating social justice and advancing policies that pursue "the common good." Both working to alleviate poverty as charities ([i]NGOs and FBOs) and using their voices as a "public religion" (José Casanova) in civil society, Catholic institutions navigate the historically constructed and contingent boundaries among the three spheres of the state, the market, and civil society. Studying this interplay has provided fruitful theories deconstructing the religious/secular binary. In light of these theories, this thesis applies the critique of liberalism supplied by world-systems analysis to the development of Catholic social thought, in the process highlighting a complex history of complicity and dissent with U.S. liberalism's unfolding hegemony. In circulating Catholic social thought through the economic focused paradigm of world-systems analysis, I explore the possibilities of seeing religion and globalization outside a culturally focused framework. How the social magisterium is responding to the problems of economic globalization in an increasingly unstable world will affect its future legitimacy. I explore where the Church has been and its capacity to be a continuingly proactive force for "social justice" and "the common good."

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In 1959 the popular Revolution of national liberation and independence triumphed in Cuba, extended a few years later into a Marxist-Leninist strategy for building socialism and communism on the island. In this radical social and political context, conditions were ripe for a radical alternative approach to secondary school education. This research confirms and extends existing evidence and analyses, showing that the model of secondary schooling established in revolutionary Cuba shared fundamental aspects of dominant models throughout the world. In particular, Cuba’s revolutionary schools are shown to have adopted a similar approach to mass education, as an investment in human capital and citizen formation. In the analysis of this historical phenomenon, a world-systems geocultural approach is used to describe and explain the non-exceptional form and character of Cuba’s secondary schools. The approach synthesises world-system level economic and cultural aspects, within the concept of a world-systems ‘geoculture’ of development, describing how these interrelated influences historically conditioned secondary school education policy and practice in Cuba. This process is traced through the impact of the world-economy, and related world-systems geocultural assumptions and objectives, over the political economy of Cuba’s socialist project, with direct implications for secondary school education. The world-system level conditioning influence on school policy and practice is shown to have been mediated by the particular national conditions, such that features specific to Cuba’s secondary schools are identified within the broad framework and constraints of the world-system level influence. The world-systems geocultural approach provides a viable, historical account of secondary school policy and practice in revolutionary Cuba. General continuity is identified, in accordance with the broad, world-system level influence. The historical analysis demonstrates the need for a world-system level approach, and supports the need to include world economic and cultural factors, under the geocultural framework.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In 1959 the popular Revolution of national liberation and independence triumphed in Cuba, extended a few years later into a Marxist-Leninist strategy for building socialism and communism on the island. In this radical social and political context, conditions were ripe for a radical alternative approach to secondary school education. This research confirms and extends existing evidence and analyses, showing that the model of secondary schooling established in revolutionary Cuba shared fundamental aspects of dominant models throughout the world. In particular, Cuba’s revolutionary schools are shown to have adopted a similar approach to mass education, as an investment in human capital and citizen formation. In the analysis of this historical phenomenon, a world-systems geocultural approach is used to describe and explain the non-exceptional form and character of Cuba’s secondary schools. The approach synthesises world-system level economic and cultural aspects, within the concept of a world-systems ‘geoculture’ of development, describing how these interrelated influences historically conditioned secondary school education policy and practice in Cuba. This process is traced through the impact of the world-economy, and related world-systems geocultural assumptions and objectives, over the political economy of Cuba’s socialist project, with direct implications for secondary school education. The world-system level conditioning influence on school policy and practice is shown to have been mediated by the particular national conditions, such that features specific to Cuba’s secondary schools are identified within the broad framework and constraints of the world-system level influence. The world-systems geocultural approach provides a viable, historical account of secondary school policy and practice in revolutionary Cuba. General continuity is identified, in accordance with the broad, world-system level influence. The historical analysis demonstrates the need for a world-system level approach, and supports the need to include world economic and cultural factors, under the geocultural framework.

O presente trabalho debruça-se sobre os quatro volumes da obra The Modern World System, de Immanuel Wallerstein, visando a compreender o pensamento desse autor acerca do Estado moderno como instituição, de longa duração, essencial ao funcionamento da economia-mundo capitalista europeia, surgida no longo séc. XVI e que perdura até hoje. Para tanto, percorreu-se o seguinte itinerário: (1) no capítulo primeiro, a obra de Wallerstein foi contextualizada, expondo-se as suas influências teóricas e as premissas fundamentais da análise dos sistemas-mundo, crítica metodológica por ele feita em oposição ao método tradicional das ciências sociais; (2) no capítulo segundo, apresentaram-se o contexto social e econômico no qual surgiu e se consolidou o Estado moderno, tais como a desagregação do sistema feudal; as causas da formação de uma economia-mundo capitalista europeia no longo séc. XVI; as características da divisão única do trabalho e da estrutura centro-periferia; a dimensão espacial da economia-mundo no séc. XVI; as opiniões complementares de Fernand Braudel e Giovanni Arrighi acerca do surgimento do capitalismo como sistema mundial; e a raison d\'être do capitalismo histórico ou sistema-mundo moderno; (3) no capítulo terceiro, foram analisados as estruturas e mecanismos de funcionamento do Estado moderno na primeira fase do seu desenvolvimento histórico, nos séculos XV-XVIII, evidenciando as vinculações íntimas entre o objetivo da acumulação capitalista que dirigiu a vida econômica europeia a partir dessa época, e a conformação peculiar que o Estado moderno assumiu, especialmente no que tange à dependência estatal da acumulação capitalista para a manutenção do poder soberano; a existência de um sistema interestatal que estabiliza a relação entre os aparatos estatais em prol da meta da acumulação; o relacionamento da classe capitalista com o Estado; e a diferenciação geográfica essencial entre os aparatos estatais, que se organizavam em uma hierarquia de poder diretamente relacionada à estrutura centro-periferia; (4) no capítulo quarto, tratou-se dos acontecimentos posteriores à Revolução Francesa e dos seus impactos cultural-ideológicos no sistema-mundo moderno, que promoveram a mudança da feição do Estado; o surgimento das ideologias políticas e dos movimentos antissistêmicos; a formação do Estado liberal, do Estado do bem-estar social e dos Estados socialistas; e os episódios derradeiros de crise e desarticulação do Estado e do capitalismo como realidades de longa duração; (5) no capítulo quinto, foi realizada uma síntese teórica das teses de Wallerstein acerca do Estado, demonstrando os desafios que os aparatos estatais enfrentam diante da tendência de democratização do mundo, com especial atenção ao atual momento de crise sistêmica e os possíveis desdobramentos para o séc. XXI. / The present work deals with the four volumes of Immanuel Wallerstein\'s The Modern World System, in order to understand the author\'s thinking about the modern state as a long-term institution essential to the functioning of the European capitalist world-economy, created in long sixteenth century and lasting until today. For this, the following itinerary was pursued: (1) in the first chapter, Wallerstein\'s work was contextualized, exposing its theoretical influences and the fundamental premises of the world-systems analysis, a methodological critique he made in opposition to the traditional method of social sciences; (2) the second chapter presented the social and economic context in which the modern state has emerged and consolidated itself, such as the breakdown of the feudal system; the causes of the formation of a European capitalist world-economy in the long sixteenth century; the characteristics of the single division of labor and the center-periphery structure; the spatial dimension of the world-economy in the sixteenth century; the complementary views of Fernand Braudel and Giovanni Arrighi on the emergence of capitalism as a world system; and the raison d\'être of the historical capitalism or the modern world-system; (3) the third chapter analyzed the structures and mechanisms of modern state functioning in the first phase of its historical development in the fifteenth-eighteenth centuries, highlighting the intimate connections between the objective of capitalist accumulation, which directed European economic life from this time on, and the peculiar conformation that the modern state has assumed, especially as regards the state\'s dependence on capitalist accumulation for the maintenance of sovereign power; the existence of an interstate system that stabilizes the relationship between state machineries in favor of the goal of accumulation; the relationship of the capitalist class with the state; and the essential geographical differentiation between the state machineries, which were organized in a hierarchy of power directly related to the center-periphery structure; (4) the fourth chapter dealt with events subsequent to the French Revolution and its cultural-ideological impacts on the modern world system, which promoted a change in the state\'s character; the emergence of political ideologies and antisystemic movements; the formation of the liberal state, the welfare state and socialist states; and the final episodes of crisis and disarticulation of the state and of capitalism as long-lasting realities; (5) in the fifth chapter, a theoretical synthesis of Wallerstein\'s theses on the state was carried out, demonstrating the challenges that state machineries face about the trend towards democratization of the world, with special attention to the actual moment of systemic crisis and the possible unfolding for the twenty-first century.

My aim in this study is to develop more theoretically informed praxis - and practically informed theory - about two seminal questions:

<p>This paper examines corporate responses to the voluntary UN initiative; the Global Compact and the legally binding UN Norms initiative that are attempts, at the urging of the international community, at different types of regulation of corporate activity in international socio-economic settings. This examination is done within the framework of the Modern World-Systems theory and both questions of the paper are therefore grounded in the MWS theory`s possibility to predict and explain the corporations` response to the two initiatives. The two hypotheses used in this paper are corresponding to the questions and they state that the MWS theory can answer the two questions. The paper therefore employs an overreaching congruence method that uses the MWS theory to predict and explain the outcome of the case study and a complementary descriptive argumentation analysis. This is conducted in order to attain the data needed and to elucidate what the differences and similarities are between the two initiatives and what aspect can be attributed most explanatory value to understand the possible differences in attitude by the corporations. The outcome of the case study shows that corporations are more in favor of the Global Compact then they are concerning the UN norms which they opposes vehemently. This difference in reaction is attributed to the latter’s legally binding principle and this is in accord with the logic of the MWS theory which is granted high predictable and explanatory value concerning the corporations` response to the Global Compact and the UN norms.</p>

Teotihuacan was the most influential city in the Classic Mesoamerican worldsystem. Like other influential cities in the ancient world, however, Teotihuacan did not homogenously affect the various cultural landscapes that thrived in Mesoamerica during the Classic period (300-900 CE). Even where strong central Mexican influences appear outside the Basin of Mexico, the nature, extent, and strength of these influences are discontinuous over time and space. Every place within the Classic Mesoamerican landscape has a unique Teotihuacan story. In the Tuxtla Mountains of southern Veracruz, Mexico, Matacapan, located in the Catemaco Valley, drew heavily upon ideas and symbols fostered at Teotihuacan, while Totocapan, a peer political capital located in the neighboring Tepango Valley, emphasized social institutions well-entrenched within Gulf Coast cultural traditions. Through a detailed comparison of these two river valleys, I demonstrate that each polity developed along different trajectories. By the Middle Classic (450-650 CE) each polity displayed different political, economic, and ritual institutions. While they shared an underlying material culture style, the data suggest that the regimes of both polities promoted a different ideology. These cultural divergences did not, however, cause hostilities between them. To the contrary, compositional sourcing of Coarse Orange jars indicates that they engaged in material exchanges with each other. Agents at each settlement within the study region made unique decisions with regard to their involvement in local, regional, and macroregional interaction networks, particularly with regard to the adoption or rejection of Teotihuacan cultural elements. As a result, the Classic period Tuxtlas comprised multiple overlapping, but disjoint, landscapes of interaction. Places of human settlement were nodes on the landscape where these disjoint landscapes intersected in space and time. By examining these disjunctures, world-system studies can reveal a trend of increasing cultural diversity that parallels the better-theorized trend of homogenization emphasized by core-periphery models. In this dissertation, I take the initial steps toward developing an archaeology of disjuncture that examines the cultural variability that develops where groups across the landscape employ different strategies of interaction within the world-system.

This thesis investigates the use of a reconceptualised social evolutionary theory for understanding and explaining how and why societies change, specifically looking at this question through the frame of nationalism. The thesis is split into three parts: in the first part I first examine older forms of social evolutionary theory (conceptions from Marx, Spencer and generalized evolutionary accounts) and critique them on the grounds that they are too ‘progressive’ in character, suffer from teleology and have a notion that all societies change linearly, i.e. pass through the same set of stages. After this I elaborate on a reconstructed version of social evolutionary theory, taking it along more Darwinian lines: that the process should be understood as contingent and non-linear, where cultural variants and social intuitions change in response to selective pressures brought about by environmental conditions. To reconstruct social evolution I draw mainly on accounts from Runciman (2009), Hodgson and Knudsen (2010), Sperber (1996), Hull (1988) and Richerson and Boyd (2006). In the second part of the thesis I look at four different theories of social change and utilize Darwinian social evolutionary theory to critique them. The four in question are: Immanuel Wallerstein (world-systems theory); Michael Hechter (rational-choice theory); Michael Mann (sources of social power); and Ernest Gellner (functionalism). These four theories were chosen as they either have, or represent, different theories of social change, and also because they are all concerned to some extent with the rise of the nation-state and nationalism. The main argument in this section is that Darwinian social evolutionary theory can incorporate elements of these theories whilst also going beyond them in explaining and understanding why societies undergo changes. In the case of Mann and Gellner I also note that they are, to a certain extent, implicitly relying on a social evolutionary account, and that drawing this out more explicitly helps provide greater theoretical solidity to their arguments. In the final part of the thesis I apply the theory to two case-studies, looking at the rise of nationalism in Britain (with a focus on England) and Japan. In both cases I examine each development of nationalism historically, using Darwinian social evolution to assess why nationalism emerged at the point that it did in each case, and not before. A final synthesis chapter then looks comparatively at the two cases and applies Darwinian social evolutionary theory to address the question of why nationalism generated in England/Britain, but did not in Japan and why the nationalist movements took the forms that they did. The chapter centres on three main themes, the role of war in forming identities, the role of variation in generating institutions, and the role of lineages in creating continuity in discontinuity. Finally it address the question of why nationalism became the dominant movement and not something else. Together this demonstrates demonstrate the usefulness of the framework for addressing questions concerning social change, in providing a different perspective and insights from other theories of social change. A final chapter summarizes and concludes the thesis, as well as pointing to new directions that research could develop.