Terry Boswell

Dependency, Disarticulation, and Denominator Effects: Another Look at Foreign Capital Penetration

Less developed countries desparately need capital to develop, but countries dependent on foreign capital face slower economic growth, higher income inequality, and possibly impaired domestic capital formation. These conclusions emerge from a reassessment of Glenn Firebaughs broad critique of capital dependency research, which exposed an important error in earlier studies. The solution charts new theoreticall ground by factoring dependency effects into the differential productivity of foreign and domestic investment and the negative externalities from foreign capital penetration. The revised formulation is applied to cross-national analyses of economic growth, decapitalization, and income inequality. The findings consistently support capital dependency theory.

Dependency and Rebellion: A Cross-National Analysis

Cross-national research has focused on the domestic causes of rebellion. We investigate whether international dependency incites rebellious political violence directly by mobilizing anti-imperialist and xenophobic movements, and indirectly by increasing relative deprivation and repression of nonviolent protest. Using a four-equation model, we examine the effects of dependency on rebellion independent of domestic causes, and then on three primary domestic determinants income inequality, economic growth, and regime repressiveness. Our model includes economic dependence and military dependence, the latter measured by arms supply concentration, and controls for the legacy of colonialism. The findings indicate that both forms of dependency promote rebellion through their effects on the domestic class and state structure.

Foreign capital dependence and development: A new direction

Scholars have long debated the impact of foreign investment on the economies of less developed countries. Many argue that foreign investment is beneficial for the host economy; others argue, just as forcefully, that dependence on foreign capital is detrimental. This study offers a new conceptualization of foreign capital dependence that may resolve this debate: foreign investment concentration, which is the proportion of a host countrys foreign direct investment stocks owned by the single largest investing country. The theory is that high investment concentration limits the autonomy of state and business elites to act in the long-term interests of domestic growth. In a series of cross-national panel regression models of 39 less developed countries estimated at five-year intervals from 1970 to 1995, the often cited negative effects of foreign capital penetration on growth in GNP per capita are dramatically reduced or entirely replaced when investment concentration, and the related concepts of export commodity and trade partner concentrations, are included in the analyses. Foreign investment concentration has a significant, long-term negative effect on growth that is strongest over the initial five-year period and decreases over the next 15 years. A similar effect is also found for the 1990-1997 period. This structural aspect of capital dependence has a greater impact on development than does the overall level of foreign capital penetration.

Strikebreaking or solidarity in the great steel strike of 1919: a split labor market, game-theoretic, and QCA analysis

Split labor market theory provides insight into the development of ethnic and racial antagonism but has failed to address interracial solidarity and has tended to ignore the role of the state. The authors modify Heckathorns formal model of collective action to derive predictions concerning the possibility of interracial solidarity or strikebreaking given split labor market conditions. Predictions are then examined using qualitative comparative analysis for 16 northern cities that participated in the 1919 steel strike. Results show that interracial solidarity developed in cities that had strong local union organizations and nonrepressive governments, while black strikebreaking emerged in cities with higher proportions of recent black migrants and either repressive local governments or weak unions.

Realizing Solidarity Sources of Interracial Unionism During the Great Depression

In a time of economic depression and racism more overt than anything we now experience, the unions of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) during the 1930s and 1940s forged a lasting interracial solidarity within the industrial working class. The authors tell the stories of how three CIO organizing drives achieved interracial solidarity. In 1933, the United Mine Workers (UMW) adopted the “UMW formula” for placing Black workers in positions as union officers and organizers. Adopted from more radical unions, the formula institutionalized racial inclusion, which proved to be a major tactical innovation in realizing class solidarity across racial lines. Faced with similar conditions, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee in 1937 and the United Auto Workers in 1940 adopted variants of the UMW formula to overcome racial barriers to organizing. The authors analyze narratives of these three drives using the following two qualitative methods: event-structure analysis (ESA), a diachronic method, and qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), a synchronic method. Both approaches reveal the importance of three main factors: tactical innovations, political context, and labor market conditions. The first two factors are explained by political process theory, and the third is predicted by split labor market theory. Among these findings, ESA highlights path dependence of tactical innovations and QCA emphasizes structural conditions in the labor market.

Globalization and International Labor Organizing A World-System Perspective

Globalization, the rapid increase in the pace of world market and social integration, is producing a ripening global awareness among all nations and a plethora of international organizations to coordinate and promote its further development. Huge transnational corporations have led the way, followed by neoliberal states, but also included are all kinds of social, scientific, sports, and other international organizations. Missing among the major players are labor unions. Why is globalization not producing transnational labor organization? A world-system perspective is employed to explain that the sources of increased market integration are also culprits in the weakening of unions and the associated decline of the welfare state. The authors overview the current state of international labor politics and examine the prospects of the leading organizations, focusing on North America. The research agenda that is advocated emphasizes a long-term perspective and a new look at the past repertoire of international organizing.

Hegemony, Long Waves, and Major Wars: A Time Series Analysis of Systemic Dynamics, 1496-1967

In both systemic and realist theories, hegemons are expected to deter major intra-core wars that would upset their favored position in the status quo. Yet the conceptions, measures, and units of analysis for hegemony differ within and between the theoretical perspectives. We compare three conceptions of hegemony: economic efficiency in the world economy, global reach via sea power, and relative total power of states. Extrapolating from power transition theory, we also include the effects of rapid transitions in hegemony. In addition, we examine a central thesis in world system theories that long expansion periods produce the resources necessary for fielding large armies and sustaining long conflicts. We employ time series regression analyses for the entire period of 1496–1967 and for periods before and after the industrial revolution to explain the intensity of major wars between great powers. All hegemony measures have negative effects after the industrial revolution except hegemonic transition, which is rejected in all models. In preindustrial times, the Dutch failed and the Hapsburgs succeeded in functioning as hegemons with regard to major war. This suggests deficiencies in world economy theory and calls into question its generality across the history of the system. We find consistent positive effects of long-wave economic expansions on war intensity, and we reject Marxist crises theories. A novel finding is that imperial expansion, in the form of colonial conquest, lessens intra-core war by displacing internal pressures hierarchically onto the periphery.

The Scope of General Theory Methods for Linking Deductive and Inductive Comparative History

A “holy war” is being fought within comparative historical sociology between deductivists and inductivists over the scope of general theory. The issues include broad versus narrow scope conditions, explicit versus contingent theorizing, and theory testing versus theory building. The irony of the conflict is that each side makes ample use of the others product, despite condemning its progenitor. The authors offer a hierarchical approach to qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) as a method for linking deductive and inductive approaches, and link QCA to game theory as a way to design more dynamic comparative studies. The authors illustrate this method through a split labor market analysis of interracial conflict and cooperation in nine U.S. labor organizing drives.

The Marx-Weber debate

Introduction - Norbert Wiley PART ONE: THEORETICAL OVERVIEW Theoretical Space and Space for Theory in World-Historical Social Science - Giovanni Arrighi and Terence K Hopkins Class Closure and the Historical/Structural Limits of the Marx-Weber Convergence - Morton Wenger PART TWO: CLASS CONFLICT AND THE STATE The Neo-Marxist Synthesis of Marx and Weber on Class - Val Burris A Dynamic Simulation of Marxs Model of Capitalism - Robert Hanneman and Randall Collins Labor Segmentation and Gender Divisions - Amy S Wharton Marxist Versus Weberian Approaches PART THREE: CULTURE AND IDEOLOGY Marx, Weber and Masculine Theorizing - Roslyn Wallach Bologh A Feminist Analysis Marx, Weber and the Coherence of Capitalism - Bryan S Turner The Problem of Ideology

State Socialism and the Industrial Divide in the World-Economy: A Comparative Essay on the Rebellions in Poland and China

This paper uses a world-economy approach to explain the historical context and background causes of revolts in the socialist states, focusing on Poland and China. During the last 20 years, low-skill mass production has been moving out of the core and into the periphery of the world-economy. Although initially successful as mass producers, the socialist states concentrated entirely on what is now an antiquated system. They must rapidly adopt flexible production or else join the periphery. Economic crisis and failed reforms led workers and intellectuals to revolt against a backward economy and structurally inept political system.