10.12.2021

Today we looked at the World Systems Theory, a conjecture of picturing the international system through Kondratiev waves. At first, I couldn't understand what it meant by waves, but knowing that they represent the popularity of new and cutting-edge technology, I thought they well represented the economic trends of the world. In this theory, each Kondratiev wave has an approximate duration of 70 yrs. Examples of such waves are the internet, nuclear energy, electricity, steam, and coal. Seeing the pattern of waves throughout the modern age was fascinating, and made me reach a conclusion that the world is living in an unconditional repetition of success and competition. This impression was clearly seen through understanding how economic class within countries heavily affects how the waves are created. In World Systems Theory, there are 3 categories of countries; core, semi-periphery, and periphery. When a new invention is produced, this theory states that the core countries obtain them first, then as it becomes outdated, the technology is passed down to the semi-periphery and finally to the periphery. In this process, core countries will inevitably always get the finest and modern equipment while the others don't. Thus, this cycle makes it difficult for semi-periphery countries to promote to core countries, as much as core countries are to degrade. 

With that in mind, Mr. Paterson argued that this model explains how countries work better than ideas such as realism and liberalism. Personally, I believe that the world systems theory is good at discussing how inequality occurs between countries and how the gap never seems to fill. However, realism and liberalism I feel are more general and apply to the relationships between other countries. They both discuss how countries cooperate (or stay individualized) to maintain their nations, which does connect to the idea of international relations. World Systems theory on the other hand shows the movement of country status relative to the rest, which is beneficial in understanding its histories. However, since the categories are based on materialistic and economic factors (eg. technology), they may not apply to cultural status. Though that doesn't mean that realism and liberalism don't have their disadvantages, such as assuming that countries are always concluding in a consensus (for liberalism), and not accounting that ideologies of countries can change (realism). In conclusion, I found it hard to choose the best theory that explains international relations, and this conveyed a message about distinguishing how countries will act in the future.