Rise, Fall, and Semiperipheral Development in the Andean World-System

Authors

  • Darrell LaLone Depauw University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2000.231

Abstract

This paper examines how different power strategies have been playedover the course of the three-thousand year Andean civilization. In broad terms, the power strategies center on ideological, economic, and military power (Mann 1986; Earle 1997). The case materials show that what we call ?states? are formations that succeed, albeit temporarily, in combining strat-egies of ideological, economic, and military power. Nonetheless, following Randall Collins (1981:71), I would argue that coercive power is the sine qua non for state development. If we start from the power to coerce as a foun-dation, varying strategies of manipulating economic, ideological, and military power will produce a number of different pathways to varying forms of organization. Some may be more centralized than others, some may be less steeply strati?ed than others, some may have more specialized institutions than others, some may look more like environmental management systems, and others may look more like well-organized predatory protection rackets. Those which were less successful in manipulating these strategies were more vulnerable to collapse, opening the way for new formations to emerge. As world-systems approaches would predict, this has often happened on the peripheries of former core formations.

Downloads

Published

2000-02-26

How to Cite

LaLone, D. (2000). Rise, Fall, and Semiperipheral Development in the Andean World-System. Journal of World-Systems Research, 6(1), 67–98. https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2000.231

Issue

Section

General Section