Immanuel Wallerstein’s Lasting Legacies

Abstract

It is remarkable how Immanuel Wallerstein’s work resonates with certain students, whether undergraduate or graduate. In courses I teach, such as Senior Capstone in International Affairs and a graduate-level course on globalization, the concepts and framework that Wallerstein developed decades ago have an almost uncanny explanatory power for the economic and political trends that are examined. As an interdisciplinary macro-sociological analytical framework that also accounts for mesoand micro-level entities and processes, the world-systems perspective appeals to some of my more discerning students—including those exposed to neoclassical economics and to realism in political science—who go on to apply world-systems analysis to their final papers. In Valentine M. Moghadam is Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Northeastern University, Boston, which she joined in January 2012. Previously she directed women’s studies programs at Purdue University and Illinois State University, and she was a section chief at UNESCO and a senior researcher at UNU/WIDER. Born in Iran and the author of many publications, her areas of research include globalization, transnational social movements and feminist networks, and gender, politics, and development in the Middle East and North Africa. ISSN: 1076-156X | Vol. 29 Issue 2 | DOI 10.5195/JWSR.2023.1219 | jwsr.pitt.edu