Review: Sociology of the Global System, the End of Sovereignty
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209304800410 |
| Published date | 01 December 1993 |
| Date | 01 December 1993 |
| Author | R.B.J. Walker |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
781
SOCIOLOGY
OF
THE
GLOBAL SYSTEM
Leslie
Sklair
Baltimore
MD:
Johns
Hopkins
University Press,
1991,
xii,
269pp,
US$
4
2.oo
cloth,
US$1
3.9 5
paper
THE
END
OF
SOVEREIGNTY
The
politics
of
a
shrinking
and
fragmenting
world
Joseph
A.
Camilleri
&
Jim
Falk
Aldershot
UK:
Edward Elgar,
1992,
312pp,
US$62.
9 5
cloth,
US$21.
9 5
paper
These
two
books
mark
an instructive
contrast
between
accounts
of
what
it
means
to
take
a
'global'
perspective
on
human
affairs.
Both are
well
written
and
offer
good
introductions
to
very
extensive
literatures. Their
starting
points,
theoretical
commitments,
and
substantive
concerns
are
significantly
different,
although
there
are
occasional
convergences.
Ironically
perhaps,
it
is
the
one
that
focuses
on
the
old
notion of
sov-
ereignty
that
captures
some
of
the
unprecedented
dynamics
of
contem-
porary
globalization
with
greater
conviction.
Leslie
Sklair
is
resolutely
sociological,
and
his
diagnosis
of
causali-
ties
and
practices
is
rooted
in
an
account
of
the
structures
of
a
glob-
alizing
capitalism.
As
he
understands
it,
the
global
system
can
be
analysed in
terms
of
three
distinguishable
spheres,
each
with
a
central
institution:
the
transnational
corporation
in
the economic sphere,
the
transnationalist
capitalist
class
in
the
political
sphere, and
consumerism
in
the
cultural-ideological
sphere.
This somewhat
mechanical
analysis
of
capitalism
is
combined
with a
further
tripartite
division
between
First,
Second,
and
Third
Worlds,
a
set
of
categories
that
was
always
problematic
but
which
now
seems
entirely
misleading.
Together,
these
categories provide
the
basis
for
a
useful
synthesis
of
readings
of
global
trends
that
have
emerged
over
the
past
two
decades
or
so
from
world
system
theory,
theories
of
(mal)development, and
so
on.
Nevertheless,
the
very simplicity
of
these
categories
only
serves
to
underline
the
inherent
limitations
of
most
sociological
perspectives
in this
context.
Sociology,
after
all,
has
invariably
assumed
the presence
of
a
more
or
less
organized
community.
Despite many radical associations,
it
has
remained
rather
conservative
towards
its
own
conditions
of
possibility
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