Albert J. Bergesen

International terrorism and the world‐system

Theories of international terrorism are reviewed. It then is noted that waves of terrorism appear in semiperipheral zones of the world-system during pulsations of globalization when the dominant state is in decline. Finally, how these and other factors might combine to suggest a model of terrorisms role in the cyclical undulations of the world-system is suggested.

New Directions for Terrorism Research

We propose two new directions for terrorism research. One is to adopt a comparative framework, as we note that there was another wave of terrorism between 1878 and 1914 that strongly resembles today’s 1968-present wave of international terrorism. The two should be compared, and at different levels of analysis from the individual terrorist incident through global spirals of terrorist waves. Second, we suggest that international terrorism is not an essentialist entity that can simply be contrasted with domestic terrorism. There is variation in degree of internationality. We propose a simple technique for measuring the different states of internationalness that transnational terrorism might take. In this regard, we analyze data on terrorist incidents between 1975 and 2004 to closely examine the unfolding of the proposed four stages in which terrorism internationalizes.

Chomsky Versus Mead

G. H. Meads model of language and mind, while perhaps understandable at the time it was written, now seems inadequate. First, the research evidence strongly suggests that mental operations exist prior to language onset, conversation of gestures, or social interaction. Second, language is not just significant symbols; it requires syntax. Third, syntax seems to be part of our bioinheritance, that is, part of our presocial mind/brain—what Noam Chomsky has called our language faculty. Fourth, this means syntax probably is not learned nor a social construction that is internalized as a cultural template. Fifth, this suggests a basic reversal of the prevailing model of symbolic interaction, mind, language, and perhaps the self as well, although there has not been the time or space to engage that topic here. Therefore, symbolic interaction may turn out to be a more Chomskyan than Meadian process. Given the bioinheritance of our mind/brain we are able to engage in symbolic interaction; it does not appear that symbolic interaction creates our mind or the basic computational algorithms of language.

The Semantic Equation: A Theory of the Social Origins of Art Styles

and Realistic Codes In general, the more restricted the artistic style, the narrower the range of vocabulary and the more simple and rigid the syntactical rules. For example, consider color as a basic unit of artistic 191 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.112 on Wed, 07 Sep 2016 04:53:27 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 192 Sociological Theory vocabulary. A painting in a more restricted style would be composed of a narrower range of colors, with less variation in hue and intensity and less mixing of colors. In effect, all the options of using color would be restrained, limited, or restricted. Similarly, the application of paint, itself a syntactical device, would be simplified. Brushstrokes as a means of expressive communication would be reduced or removed, and in extreme cases the human hand could be eliminated altogether, being replaced by mechanical techniques such as silk-screening or by collage, in which found objects replace images drawn by the artist. In general, the more vocabulary is reduced and the more syntax is simplified, the more abstract the art. This is almost of necessity. A narrower range of artistic materials makes it difficult to accurately replicate a realistic image. Thus abstract art tends to be a more restricted code, and conversely realism tends to be a more elaborated code. By definition, realism spells things out in full, and it therefore requires a full range of color, shape, form, line, and so on to realistically reproduce an image. It is simply difficult to paint anything very realistically with just a few abstract gestures. Linguistically, realism contains more of its meaning within its own internal structure than does abstraction, which is a more context-dependent form of communication. For instance, a realist painting of a bowl of fruit is just what it appears to be, as opposed to, say, an abstract expressionist painting, which in principle could be mistaken for spilled paint or a childs scribbles. Without mastering the skills of drawing and painting-that is, without utilizing the vocabulary and syntax of art-one could not paint a realist portrait or seascape. But one could drip paint on a canvas a laJackson Pollock or dabble pigment in expressive gestures like any other abstract expressionist. I am not speaking of esthetic quality but simply of whether some paint is defined as art or as a mistake or childs play. As a general rule, the more minimal and abstract the painting, the more alternative interpretations become possible. Is a drip of paint a drip of paint or art? This may seem trivial, but it must be remembered that much of the minimal and conceptual art of the 1960s involved art objects that were stacks of railroad ties, mounds of dirt, pieces of cloth, piles of scrap metal, or assorted found objects stacked, piled, or flung on museum floors. These art objects readily lent themselves to being defined as something other This content downloaded from 157.55.39.112 on Wed, 07 Sep 2016 04:53:27 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Semantic Equation than art, if they were not encased in supplemental art theorizing that gave them their distinctly artistic significance. The important theoretical point is that in and of itself a drip of paint cannot signify its appropriate classification. It does not contain enough internal meaning to denote its status, as it does not employ enough variation in vocabulary and syntax to internally generate context-free meaning the way, say, the painted vase of flowers can. At least that is a painting. Whether it is good or bad is a moral evaluation, which is secondary to its factual classification as art. This importance of context, not only for interpreting art but, more fundamentally, for the very definition of art, suggests a theoretical connection between restricted codes and more solidary groups. Art, like all languages, not only appears in a social context but is a part of that very context. A restricted code is filled in and decoded by the commonly held assumptions of the group. More important, an intelligible restricted code, in speech or art, could not appear without assumptions provided by the broader group

The Rise of Semiotic Marxism

This paper identifies four distinct stages in the 20th century emergence of a new direction in Marxian theory. Called here “Semiotic Marxism,” its central assumption is a reversal of the classic base/superstructure logic of determinate relations between the economic base and the political and ideological superstructure. Each stage builds upon the theoretical reconstitutions of the previous stage. To illustrate this step-by-step transformation, the theoretical logic of a representative Marxist theorist is explicated. These four stages in the emergence of a Semiotic Marxism are: (1) the initial inversion of base/superstructure logic (Gramsci), (2) the expansion of the logic of the ideological downward to merge with the logic of the political (Althusser), (3) the further expansion downward of the logic of the now merged ideological/political sphere to absorb the logic of the economic sphere (Poulantzas), and finally, (4) the recasting of the once Marxian social formation comprised of social relations in production, into the new Semiotic Marxist “discursive formation” composed of linguistic relations between subject identities (Laclau and Mouffe).

Regime Change in the Semiperiphery: Democratization in Latin America and the Socialist Bloc

During the 1980s, a transition to democratic politics occurred in two very different parts of the world: state socialist Eastern Europe and dependent capitalist Latin America. This paper asks, “why‘? Why did regime change occur in the 1980s and why in the semiperipheral zone of the world system? Why, for instance, was there no regime instability on a similar scale in the core or the periphery? This paper proposes an answer that links convulsive political restructuring to the downturn phase of long Kondratieff-like economic cycles of the world-economy. Specifically, the generalized downturn that the world-economy entered in the 1970s is seen as the beginning of a Kondratieff B-Phase of economic difficulty, the political response to which is mediated by a states zonal position in the larger world system. More powerful core nations respond by acting outwardly, in an effort to control the external environment through mechanisms such as the formation of economic blocs, like moves toward Europe an economic cooperation in 1992, and North American free-trade negotiations. Semiperipheral nations, being more constrained and weaker, act inwardly, changing their regimes to better deal with economic hardships. Finally, peripheral nations, weakest and most constrained, take little or no political action.

Is there a world mode of production? A comment

I would like to discuss an emerging picture of world order I have called globology, which simply means the science of the global or world-system [1]. If sociology is the science of social systems, then globology is the science of the global or world-system. Today we are somewhere between sociology and globology. Although we are increasingly concerned with structure and process at the world level, we still conceive of these global realities in essentially societal terms. One of the clearest examples of this is the popular conception of the world economy as a core-per iphery division of labor [2]. Here the fundamental units are high wage, capital intensive, developed countries specializing in manufactures the core and low wage, labor intensive, underdeveloped countries usually, but not always, specializing in raw materials for export the periphery. From this point of view the substance of world economic order is thought to reside in the flow of these commodities between core and peripheral states, constituting an unequal exchange which is understood to be the principal mechanism creating and perpetuating unequal world development. At the level of the world economy as a whole, unequal exchange relations represent our present understanding of distinctly world social relations. This, though, is only a partial picture of the world economy, and most importantly leaves out the question of the distinctly world class relations which make this very division of labor physically possible. My point here is the same one sociology made about the utilitarian conception of the division of labor during the 19th century; namely, human interaction and a resultant division of labor does not create social order, rather social order precedes and creates the division of labor, whether that be Durkheims pre-contractural understandings, Webers cultural basis of economic motives, or Marxs class relations. In each case some a priori social reality is posited as preceding the division of labor and making its very existence possible. I wish to make the same point about our present idea of a world division of labor, for it too is preceded by a priori social relations which make it possible. These are social relations of production which exist on a world scale and have so far been largely absent from the writings of the major

Nation-Building and Constitutional Amendments: The Role of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments in the Legal Reconstitution of the American Polity following the Civil War

The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments acted to resolve two major problems of social integration following the Civil War. First, the Fourteenth Amendment transferred ultimate political sovereignty from local states to the national government. Second, slaves were redefined as national citizens and as such legally relocated from a position of property outside the moral universe of civil society, to the status of citizens, a position within civil society. The Fifteenth Amendment, providing the vote, not only provided a means for political participation, but also served ritually to establish membership in the national community. Finally, the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery, and actually all three of the Amendments together, provided the core of new political legitimations for a reconstituted and reunited nation.

How to Sociologically Read a Movie

Movies embody cultural values; those of class, gender, ethnicity, region, and nation come immediately to mind. They also reflect deeper civilizational assumptions such as Enlightenment values of moral redemption through human agency toward social progress that will be examined here by comparing the movies Avatar (2009) and District 9 (2009). The methodology is to identify backstage cultural assumptions that have to be assumed to make sense out of frontstage plot development. The idea of “species jumping” is introduced to illustrate the deteriorating idea that distinctly human agency is capable of producing a better social world and attaining secular moral redemption as the protagonists in both films reincarnate into alien species.

Evidence of Global Civil Society

That there is much talk about global norms and global civil society and yet little identification of such global agentic actors is a point well taken. That we should do more to identify such actors also makes sense. That such speculation is inherently conservative in content seems less obvious. Two other things can be said. First, readers should be made aware of a research tradition which has tried to identify and measure global institutional actors that might be transmitters of global cultural agendas. Therefore, it is not the case that all talk about global society, or an emerging global polity, is lax in identifying international structures which could reasonably be seen as transmission belts for trans-national moral sentiments. I refer here to the research tradition associated with the ideas of the Stanford sociologist John W. Meyer and his students (Meyer and Jepperson, 2000; Meyer, Boli et al., 1997; Meyer, Frank et al., 1997; Meyer et al., 1979; Boli and Thomas, 1999; Boli et al., 1985; Cha, 1991; Frank and Meyer, 2002; Frank et al., 2000; Jang, 2000; Ramirez and Boli, 1987; Schofer, 2004; Schofer et al., 2000; Thomas and Meyer, 1984). Second, the content of global discourse might include more than the ‘pluralist values of the global civil society project’ which could be seen as ideas emanating from the EuroWest. That is, it is not so much that there is no ‘global civil society’, but that these ‘communicative norms’ the author is worried about are really those of a particular subglobal region, that is, Euro-centric notions of multiculturality. These are fine, of course, but not necessarily all there is, nor even the most interesting set of ideas claiming global status. In this regard the notion of the global umma advanced by radical Islam calls for study as well as plural multiculturalism. Particularly since these two ideologies are something of opposites. Most see radical Islam as a reactionary response to modernity (Jihad vs. MacWorld) and/or Islamo-fascism. Maybe it is. But what if it is just the opposite? What if radical Islam is an extension, not a reversal of the rationalization project started in the West with Weber’s world demystifying Protestant Ethic and is now being now completed with today’s Islamic Reformation with