Rethinking "world wars" through a world-systems lens: a relational and contextual approach

What are the key characteristics of the current instabilities of the capitalist world-system, and how does it compare to previous periods that led to world wars? What factors are driving the similarities and differences between the present systemic chaos and earlier transitions in the world-system? What potential trajectories might the unfolding period of systemic instabilities take, and what balance of forces could emerge as dominant in shaping the world-system? Focusing on the foundational works of Wallerstein, Chase-Dunn, Goldstein, and Arrighi, this article critically re-evaluates the contemporary relevance and explanatory power of world-systems analysis. Its key contribution to world-systems literature lies in moving beyond the predominantly cyclical interpretations of world wars by integrating analytical tools, such as conceptual schemas and statistical evidence, with narrative approaches highlighting historical contingencies. Overall, contemporary systemic instabilities within the capitalist world-system are marked by the intensification of economic competition, geopolitical rivalries, and social discontent, reflecting historical patterns of systemic chaos during prior hegemonic transitions, yet distinguished by the unanticipated disruption of economic expansion since the 2010s, China’s unexpected rise alongside the fading influence Germany and Japan, the U.S.-China decoupling, the pivotal role of frontier technologies, and the fragmented character of heightened popular mobilization

On the Development of China's Environmental Policies Towards an Ecological Civilization

What environmental issues occupy China's main development agenda? How does China address these crucial issues? In what direction are China's environmental policies evolving? The present article uses process tracing to answer these questions and argue that China has already developed a firm understanding of its environmental problems and their severity to the extent that it now frames them as a "matter of survival" and has brought these issues to the centre of its revised national security strategy. China's strategy is predicated on an alternative proposal for "ecological civilization", which may potentially lead to the reversal of "ecological imperialism". China is in the early stages of building an ecological civilization and requires a lot of work to reach a high level of ecological development. China's key achievements on the path towards ecological civilization involve a series of three unfolding and mutually conditioning revolutionary processes that also lead the way in international environmental cooperation, as embodied in China's role in ASEAN, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the Green Silk Road. They include a clean energy revolution, a sustainable agricultural revolution, and a green urban revolution. China has already become a global leader in green finance. It leads the eco-city movement, with over 43% of the world's eco-cities being Chinese, and is the second leader in sustainable architecture, next to Canada. Many Chinese cities have dropped down or out of the list of the most polluted cities, leaving India and Pakistan at the top. China's cities have also joined the ranks of those with the strongest sewage treatment capacity in the world. In addition, China has the most electric vehicles, bikes, and efficient public transportation. China is considered to be not only the world's centre of electric bus production and consumption but also as having cities with the world's longest subway systems. From 2013 onwards, the share of coal in China's total energy consumption has seen a noticeable decline, accompanied by the increasing share of renewable resources in total energy consumption as a result of conscious efforts at a clean energy revolution. Key to this revolution in the making is China's strong reputation as the world’s top investor in clean energy. As such, it has succeeded in creating the world's largest wind, solar, and hydroelectric systems for power generation. Finally, concerning China's unfolding revolution in sustainable agriculture, one should acknowledge, not only its adoption of green food standards and the expansion of its agricultural area under certified organic farming but especially the fact that, as a world leader in green agriculture, it now ranks third in the list of countries with the largest agricultural area under organic farming

Food Crisis and Beyond: Locating Food- Sovereign Alternatives in a Post-Neoliberal Context

The second half of the last decade has been profoundly marked by a major food crisis with a global reach, qualified by Holt-Giménez, Patel and Shattuck (2009) as a “silent tsunami,” which has driven about 75 million people to  undernourishment and another 125 million people to extreme poverty (Bello 2009b). In light of such a devastating phenomenon, the recent years have witnessed a veritable outpouring of scholarly works on the effects of the food crisis on developing countries, on the critique of the neoliberal food regime, and the emergence of food countermovements confronting neoliberalism. In this review article, I address the global food problem in today’s context from the perspective of “food fovereignty,” arguing that it is essential to break with mainstream perspectives that prioritize  the economic aspects of the global food problem and overestimate the role of high politics and policy experts instead of exploring the ways in which genuine grassroots participation could transform the existing neoliberal food system

Deciphering the Chinese Economic Miracle: Lessons for the Developing World

Despite enormous historical, demographic, geographical, and geopolitical adversities, China has enjoyed unprecedented economic success in world history. This article aims to decipher the formula behind China's historic economic success and distill policy lessons for developing countries in their endeavors to reach an advanced stage of economic development. Based on descriptive case study and statistics, the article suggests that the Chinese economic miracle can be explained by a four-fold formula: a) devising an autocentric economic model aspiring to improve national autonomy and cushion the impact of foreign interference, b) insisting on socialism and the leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), which allows for strategic coherence and long-term planning to overcome free-market anarchy, c) creating a state-driven industrial base fueled by national science and technology policies, and d) adopting a balanced approach to development centered on attaining a higher sociocultural and ecological quality of life. The findings also help to debunk the myths surrounding the Chinese miracle, particularly the "cheap labor thesis", the "technology theft thesis", the "foreign investment and capitalist integration theses", the "imperialism thesis", and the "Mao-the-monster thesis"

A Neo-Mahanian Reading of Turkey and China's Changing Maritime Geopolitics

An eroding perception of maritime peace worldwide and radical questioning of global sea hegemony have emerged as a rapidly growing trend in global politics amidst the demise of Pax Americana and the rise of multipolarity. With US global hegemony in decline, China has developed into a leading actor to reignite international cooperation based on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In this environment, there arises a strong need for a closer reading of the changing character of maritime geopolitics within the context of BRI. To address this need, the present article aims to offer a comparative study of recently escalating tensions in the South China Sea and the Eastern Mediterranean. Drawing on a neo-Mahanian conception of maritime geopolitics, this article seeks to answer the following questions: How are South China Sea and Eastern Mediterranean geopolitics shaped by the multipolarization of world politics? What are the key dynamics leading to these changes? How do such changes in one region condition those in another? In what respects are Turkey and China's geostrategic imperatives affected in this situation? The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) represents the maritime route of BRI, whose starting point is located in the South China Sea and whose final destination is the Eastern Mediterranean, conceived of as a strategic bridge between China and Europe. It follows that BRI’s maritime economic potential primarily relies on South China Sea and Eastern Mediterranean security, i.e. both ends of MSR, whose prospects are intertwined together. One could observe that both Turkey and China suffer from increasing US interventionism at first hand and they have developed similar geostrategic doctrines embodied in the Turkish "Blue Homeland" doctrine and the Chinese "Blue National Soil" doctrine. China and Turkey's shared geopolitical imperatives and geostrategic conformity are to be better grasped by policy-makers for the future success of BRI

Food Security, Inequality and the Neoliberal Diet in Emerging Economies

Gerardo Otero homepage: http://www.sfu.ca/~otero Gabriela Pechlaner homepage: http://www.ufv.ca/scms/faculty-and-staff/faculty-members/faculty-members/faculty-and-staffpechlaner/ Giselle Liberman homepage: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/giselle-liberman/10/247/978 Efe Can Gürcan homepage: http://www.socanth.sfu.ca/people/efe_can_gurcan

Konjonktür dalgalanmaları, tasarruf ve kâr oranları arasındaki ilişki : teori ve uygulama

Tez (doktora) - Anadolu ÜniversitesiAnadolu Üniversitesi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, İktisat Anabilim DalıKayıt no: 1349İktisat teorisi, A. Smith'in yaşadığı dönemden bu yana ekonomide konjonktür dalgalanmalarının kaynakları ile ilgili görüş birliğine varabilmiş değildir. Konjonktür dalgalanmalarının nedenleri, ekonominin herhangi bir müdahale olmaksızın dengeye gelip-gelmemesine göre açıklanmaktadır. Ana akım iktisat düşüncesinin öncülük ettiği yaklaşıma göre, genişleme ve daralma dönemlerinin ortaya çıkmasında dışsal şoklar (teknoloji ve arz şokları gibi) etkilidir. Keynesyen çizgideki iktisat düşüncesine göre ekonomide görülen dalgalanmaların içsel (toplam talep, yatırım, bölüşüm vb.) nedenleri vardır. Bu tez çalışmasında, OECD ekonomilerinde, 1990-2013 dönemi için, konjonktür dalgalanmalarının ortaya çıkmasında büyük rol oynayan özel sektörün tasarruf ve kâr oranlarının etkileri panel veri yöntemleri kullanılarak araştırılmaktadır. Bulgular; kâr ve bir yıl gecikmesi alınmış tasarruf oranlarının konjonktür dalgalanmaları üzerinde pozitif etkiye sahip olduğunu göstermektedir. Bir başka ifadeyle, tasarruf ve kâr oranlarındaki artış trend düzeyinden yukarı doğru sapmalara neden olmaktadır. Diğer taraftan analizlerde kullanılan; ticari ve finansal açıklık, toplam faktör verimliliği, ileri teknoloji ihracatı, yurt içi kredi hacmi, M2 para arzı, reel döviz kuru ve hükümet harcamaları değişkenlerindeki artışlar trend düzeyinden yukarı (canlanma eğilimi), faiz, enflasyon ve işsizlik oranları ise trend düzeyinden aşağıya doğru (resesyon eğilimi) sapmalara yol açmaktadır. Panel ARDL sonuçları ise tasarruf ve kar oranlarının konjonktür yönlü olduğunu göstermektedir

The Changing Geopolitical Economy of Transcaucasia under Multipolarity

This article sheds light on the changing character of the Transcaucasian geopolitical economy based on the question of how the multipolarization of world politics has shaped the course of regional conflicts and the balance of forces in the region. In this framework, the article proposes transcending static labels such as Georgia / Azerbaijan as a “Western post,” Iran and Azerbaijan as “arch enemies,” and Armenia as a “traditional Russian ally” by reference to recent developments such as the peaceful rise of China in the region, Putin's Eurasianist geostrategic leanings, and the reorientation of Turkey's foreign policy since 2016. Georgian and Armenian color revolution dynamics are likely to be suppressed thanks to the recent foreign policy shift of Turkey as a strategic ally of Georgia, Georgia's inclusion in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the Russo-Turkish rapprochement. Amidst deteriorating relations with the US and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the 2010s, moreover, Azerbaijan's foreign policy gives increasingly greater weight to relations with Russia, which can be further deepened under the influence of Turkey's foreign policy. A similar situation goes for Azerbaijan's involvement in the Non-Aligned Movement and BRI, as well as Iranian acknowledgment of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity despite unresolved tensions in bilateral relations. </p

Comparison of the optical behaviour of five different multifocal diffractive intraocular lenses in a model eye

The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the optical performance of five trifocal intraocular lenses (IOLs) following the ISO 11979-2 standards, analysing the impact of tilt and decentration. Five different diffractive trifocal IOLs were evaluated in this experimental study: Acriva Trinova (VSY-Biotechnology) (AT), FineVision HP (PhysIOL) (FVHP), AT LISA tri 839 MP (Zeiss) (ATLT), PanOptix TFNT00 IOL (Alcon) (PO), and Tecnis Synergy (J&J Vision) (TS). In-vitro optical quality analysis of them was performed with the Lambda PMTF system that has an aberration neutral cornea model (Lambda-X Ophthalmics). Measurements were performed on-axis, with 5º of IOL tilt and with 0.5 mm of IOL decentration using 543-nm monochromatic light. Finally, IOL dimensions and diffractive disk profile inspection was performed using the VisIOLA system (Rotlex). On-axis measurements showed a far through-focus MTF > 0.3 at 3 mm aperture, except for TS. FVHP and PO showed better far MTFs for larger apertures (3.75 mm and 4.5 mm) while AT showed good intermediate and near vision for such apertures. With 5º of IOL tilt, the better optical performance at all distances was found with AT for medium-sized pupils (3 mm) and an important reduction of MTF was found for ATLT and PO, especially in the intermediate focus. The induction of 0.5 mm of IOL decentration especially affected the intermediate focus of ATLT and TS and the far focus of FVHP and PO. IOL dimensions and diffractive profile were consistent with those described by the manufacturer. In conclusion, there are differences in the optical performance according to the pupil aperture of the five trifocal IOLs evaluated and this should be considered in clinical practice when selecting the most appropriate implant in each specific case. IOL tilt and decentration can affect significantly in most of the designs evaluated the performance of the IOL at intermediate vision range. It should be noted that measurements were made with an aberration-free cornea, being necessary future studies analysing the impact of different levels of corneal aberrations.David P. Piñero received funding from VSY Biotechnology within the framework of the research project VSY1-22TPA in collaboration with the University of Alicante

La souveraineté alimentaire dans le système-monde : une étude comparative des structures agraires cubaine et mexicaine

Suite à l‘éclatement de la bulle des « subprimes » en 2008, le tournant décisif de cette période de crise, toutes les attentions se sont focalisées sur la crise de la « finance mondialisée », masquant d‘autres conséquences de la crise aussi lourdes et perverses que l‘essor du chômage et le resserrement du crédit (Carfantan 2009). Ce travail se consacre ainsi aux autres aspects de la crise tels que vécus à la campagne, en particulier la crise alimentaire et la crise des sociétés paysannes. Le point central de cette recherche porte plus particulièrement sur la montée de « l‘alternative de la souveraineté alimentaire » en réponse à la crise agraire de manière à poser un véritable défi au modèle agroalimentaire du néolibéralisme (Desmarais 2008; Holt-Giménez 2009). La présente recherche étudie donc les déterminants sociopolitiques qui conduisent à l‘édification des politiques de souveraineté alimentaire malgré la pression du régime alimentaire néolibéral. Ce mémoire avance que les politiques de souveraineté alimentaire sont issues de contre-mouvements paysans qui parviennent, en premier lieu, à établir une structure domestique agraire de nature « populaire-démocratique » et « antisystémique », et en second lieu, à transnationaliser cette structure de manière à défier le régime alimentaire néolibéral en crise. En adaptant la théorie intermédiaire de « structures domestiques » à l‘étude critique des structures agraires autour de trois différentes variables (Risse-Kappen 1999), le mémoire soutient que l‘émergence des politiques de souveraineté alimentaire nécessite la décentralisation de la prise de décision et la collectivisation du secteur agricole à travers une transformation agraire radicale et agroécologique (variable de « structure politique »), de même que l‘émergence d‘une structure sociétale agraire robuste construite sur des réseaux politiques consensuels, en présence d‘un État puissant et d‘une société civile agraire mobilisée (variables de « structure sociétale » et de « réseaux politiques »). Au niveau conceptuel, la recherche repose sur la théorie du système-monde, et consiste en une étude comparative modelée sur une étude de cas contrastes; le cas de Cuba, caractérisé par une forte résistance aux défis agroalimentaires du système-monde contemporain, et celui du Mexique, marqué par l‘adoption des politiques alimentaires néolibérales.Following the bursting of the subprime bubble in 2008, which is considered to be the turning point of this period of crisis, much attention has been focused on the global economic meltdown, masking the other consequences of the crisis which are as heavy and perverse as the rise of unemployment and the credit crunch (Carfantan 2009). This research is dedicated to the study of other aspects of the crisis as it evolves in the countryside, mostly dealing with the socio-political consequences of the global food crisis and the crisis of peasant societies. The focal point of this study concerns in particular the rise of the "food sovereignty alternative" which mounts a serious challenge to the dominant agri-food model of neo-liberalism in crisis (Desmarais 2008; Holt-Giménez 2009). Therefore, the present study seeks to reveal the socio-political determinants leading to the establishment of food sovereignty policies despite the pressure of the neo-liberal food regime. This thesis maintains that food sovereignty policies originate from peasant counter-movements which engender, in the first place, the establishment of a new agrarian domestic structure of "popular-democratic" and "antisystemic" nature, and secondly, the transnationalization of this structure so as to challenge the neo-liberal food regime in crisis. By adapting the intermediary theory of "domestic structures" to the critical study of agrarian structures on the basis three different variables (Risse-Kappen 1999), the thesis argues that the emergence of food sovereignty policies requires the decentralization of the decision-making and the collectivization of the agricultural sector through a radical and agro-ecological agrarian transformation (the "political structure" variable), as well as the emergence of a potent agrarian societal structure which is built on consensual political networks, in presence of a strong state and a mobilized agrarian civil society (the "societal structure" and "policy networks" variables). At the conceptual level, the research draws on the world-systems theory, and consists of a comparative study modeled on a contrasted case study approach which includes the case of Cuba, characterized by a strong resistance to challenges posed by the neo-liberal food regime, and Mexico, marked by the adoption of neo-liberal food policies