ABSTRACT
The resurgence of structuralism has had the happy effect of inducing them to consider more carefully the durable aspects of systems’ structures. The historians give salience to the very long-term evolution of the world system, to the rise and fall of successive international orders and the waves in economics and war at the heart of the world system. The entry onto the political stage of a considerable number of ‘third world’ states and the consequent placing of development issues high on the international agenda was instrumental in sparking an academic interest in the political and economic issues of development. Karl Marx argued that the superstructure of political and social ideas, institutions and, indeed, social consciousness, was a reflection of and derived from the substructure of economic and production relations. George Modelski has explained a linkage between political and economic factors, but he is noticeably unconvincing on incorporating cultural including ideological factors.
