World-Systems Theory (from the 1970s)

World-systems theory developed in the 1970s, emerging from the period's debate on Marx and from the historical theories of the Annales School; it was also a product of the critique of methods applied in the social sciences.

This approach examines the worldwide dimensions and systematic interrelatedness of the (under-)development of societies under capitalism. Immanuel Wallerstein is considered one of the founders of this current; he has expounded the theory's basic principles in his four-volume book The Modern World-System. The works of US sociologist Beverly Silver and her Italian colleague Giovanni Arrighi also number among the major works of world-systems theory, which is also sometimes called world-systems analysis.