ABSTRACT
In this chapter we suggest a new approach to world-systems studies of hegemony that links a number of different literatures and concepts. Current analytical approaches do not consider the complexities of global political-economic structures or spatial variations in processes that give rise to hierarchy in the world-economy. As a result, conflict, contradiction, and war across scales have, under certain circumstances, been misrepresented. We argue that the interests of global and core elites as well as the spatial organization of urban networks culminating in hegemonic territorial integration give rise to specific types of conflict at specific times over the course of the cyclical development of global hegemony. We propose an analytical approach that is both spatial 122and temporal and permits the evaluation and assessment of the timing of conflicts of similar types across at least two hegemonic cycles (in Britain and USA). The goal of this work is to explain conflict as a consequence of structured economic activity in the arena of the world-economy and the timing and type of war as a consequence of hegemonic processes.
