ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the concept of the semi-periphery, in the context of the evolution of global capitalism over the last thirty years or so. Since the semiperiphery became a particular focus of world-systems theory in the 1980s, the chapter looks at how this concept fits into the development of development theory, starting from the well-known conflicting paradigms of modernisation and dependency, moving on to the more specific relationship between the latter and the world-systems approach, and from there to the concept of semiperiphery itself. The chapter examines the concept in detail, focusing on the work of Arrighi, Chase-Dunn and the contributors to Martin; here it is argued that the world-systems approach had considerable difficulty in adapting to the rise of neoliberalism and the political economy of globalisation. The chapter outlines an alternative approach which deploys different understanding of capital, class and the state in making sense of recent changes in the regions and countries chiefly seen as being semiperipheral.
