The World System According to Andre Gunder Frank: Hegemony and Domination

• In Event: 082 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session I
  In Refereed Roundtable: A. Table 03. Economic Sociology

Abstract

Andre Gunder Frank is still recognized world-wide for his research and activism, including the dependency conundrum in the 1970s, world-system perspectives in the 1980s, and ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age in the 1990s. And now in his latest contribution The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand, Frank explores more of the perspective that the contemporary world system is part of a continuous five-thousand-year-old history, and provides more evidence that challenges conventional theories that continue to place Europe at the center of economic development. He explicates the process and posits that the rise of Western societies is a historical blip in an otherwise Asian-centered economy. As Frank’s research challenges, for example, the Marxist and Weberian theories on the rise of capitalism as well as Wallerstein’s world-systems analyses, there is no doubt that his work, at least, continues to intrigue, provoke and excite scholars who conduct global research, world history and political economy. Frank’s research also impacts world-systems scholars by suggesting that they examine the world as one world system, rather than several world-systems as well as challenging theories of Eurocentrism and even the concept of capitalism.

Author

• Pat L. Lauderdale, Arizona State University