1GEOG 4712: Political GeographyLecture 18: Critiques of World-Systems Analysisoutline1) Modelskiʼs Model2) Wallersteinʼs World3) Food + Famine4) Wattsʼ World5) Nigerian Nightmares6) Migration + Mobility7) States + Security2Naval Power HypothesisThesis: naval power grants hegemon ʻglobal reach’ to maintain international order.Arguments:– Air power has taken on many duties of global policing, but large numbers oftroops and hardware is still moved by navy.– Coasts, national waters, chokepoints still policed by navies. (Somalia?!?)– Navy as platform for air power > aircraft carriersNuclear Weapons as a Challenge to Naval Power1) As an essential guarantor of international status and security: otherstates must respect the sovereignty of a nuclear-state2) As a security blanket for a stateʼs conventional forces3) As a deterrent, not a practical tool of police activity: nuclear weaponsare weapon of last resort; limited means to project power abroadModelski: the critiqueParticular Flaws in the Naval Thesis1) Naval power is an attribute of a hegemonʼs overall power2) It is descriptive, not explanatory: what explains a stateʼs great naval power?3) What explains the social and political influence of states that lack navalpower? (Egypt 1954-70, Cold War India, Japan 1980s, Saudi Arabia today)4) Naval power narrow index of hegemony; economic/social metrics excluded5) Indicators do not provide theory of causation: what is mechanism of change?General Critiques of Modelskiʼs Model1) Does not provide sufficient mechanism of change in global system.2) Root of this failure lies in distinction between political and economicprocesses.3) Overlooking economic processes that underlie political cycles, heinvokes a systemic need for order to explain rise + fall of hegemons.3Wallersteinʼs World-Systems: under attack?1) Marxists: Capitalism is not about exchange andtrade but concerns class + production relations.2) Historians: His model is too over-arching and hegets his history wrong.3) Geographers: Characterizes states as semi-peripheral and oversimplifies reality.4) PSCI: State policies cannot be reduced to beinga matter of responses depending on the stateʼsposition in the world-economy.5) Anthropologists: He leaves out cultural, ethnic,and certain economic factors from his analysis.Territorial Trap or Monstrous HybridThe state-centered critique of Wallerstein• Wallerstein: the world-system is composed of multiple states thatprotect both wealthy and poor and help maintain a semblance of order• Critiques:– States remain relevant because they can re-appropriate economic flows,leading to protectionism/mercantilism.– States remain relevant actors because their actions cannot be predictedfrom position in the world- system as ʻscale of ideologyʼ• Challenges:1) End of Westphalian model and ʻembedded statismʼ?2) Functions of the state (accumulation + legitimation3) Territoriality in the state system4) Legitimating state sovereignty5) Quasi-states and de facto vs. de jure sovereignty6) Borders + migrations in the post-Cold War world7) Nationalism8) Regionalism4Food: Forces + FamineFamine (Sen): Definition: short-term event characterized b acute deprivation of staplefoodstuffs (Sen)La Conjuncture (Watts):Definition: perfect storm of global and national market forces shiftingaccess to subsistence and determining who starves--say, craftsmen asopposed to peasants--and why (Watts).Attributes: 1) fiscal austerity 2) debt burden 3) low commodity prices4) restructured state roleGlobal to Local: Enter Geography1) Colonial order exploit resources for export to core processing (e.g.cacao from Ghana to UK; oil in Nigeria2) Indigenous agriculture drought coping -mix of crops (sorghum, millet,cowpeas, some grazing, etc)3) Neo-colonial foreign commercial agricultural interests enter newlyindependent states: Bribery and corruption of state elites;Inducements (high prices initially) and pressure to switch tocommercial cash crop (e.g. cotton); ʻpostwar international food orderʼ4) If world prices high, use export revenues (state) and crop income(farmers) for food purchases5) Farmers (even if they have resources) cannot buy local food foranimals since farmers producing for export6) Common Property Resources (CPRs) under pressure fromconversion to commodity production7) Diet changes: wheat imports for white bread ( ʻBig Macsʼ of Nigeria)8) ʻWheat trapʼ (commodity) exports for food imports dumped by US9) Cheap food imports undercut local farmers who leave land for cities10) End result food dependency and desertification: traditional copingmechanisms for drought destroyed: Famine effects get worse.5Nigerian NightmareConsequences of Switching in the Sahel1. More intensive land use and irrigation (for rice)2. Encouraging more animals unsustainable when drought returns3. Sahelian rangelands destroyed wind erosion worsened4. Traditional cropping regimes severely damaged, esp. polyvarietalstrategies (interplanting of drought resistant crops such as millet)5. Mixed herds less common so drought damage more lasting6. Rising food prices forces farmers to sell herdsMobility + Security, I6Mobility + Security, IITesfahuney: “International migrations interface with past and presenteconomic and geopolitical orders of colonialism, global inequality and Westernhegemony at several levels, but are not thus contextualized. The authors [Agnew +Corbridge] ignore the impact of Third World debt, aid-politics, and military-industrialestablishments in inducing refugee and other migrations in the South. Consequentlythe authors do not study the role of migrants as geopolitical actors, the impact ofmigrations in the evolution of the ʻnew world order’ and the conduct of geopolitics atlocal, regional, and global
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