Revisiting World-Systems Theory in the Age of Dual-Core Competition
Technological Disruption, Institutional Shifts, and the Repositioning of the Periphery
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2026.1352Keywords:
World-Systems Theory, U.S.–China Rivalry, Decentralization, Global Inequality, Technological RestructuringAbstract
This study revisits Wallerstein’s world-systems theory to assess its explanatory leverage under dual-core U.S.–China competition, accelerating technological change, and institutional reordering. We argue that core–semi-periphery–periphery hierarchies persist but are increasingly mediated by (1) dual-core bargaining spaces, (2) institutional chokepoints in trade, finance, and standards, and (3) politically mediated technological infrastructures, including digital-currency and platform-based payment systems. Using a structured secondary-analysis design, we first synthesize contemporary debates to derive observable implications for semi-peripheral and peripheral mobility. We then map evidence from systematically selected policy documents, institutional reports, and peer-reviewed studies to evaluate whether reported autonomy gains reflect durable structural shifts or contingent responses to shocks (e.g., sanctions, inflation, payment disruptions). The findings indicate heightened boundary fluidity and new modalities of contestation, yet continued asymmetries in rule-setting, liquidity provision, and standards dependence. We conclude by specifying boundary conditions and measurement priorities for future cross-national tests.
References
Adhikari, A. (2023). Immanuel Wallerstein's world-system theory and disaster relief action: A mixed-method empirical study of the 2015 earthquake in Nepal. Artha Journal of Social Sciences, 22(4), 47–73.
Arnaud, L. (2024). From NAFTA to USMCA: Revisiting the market access–policy space trade-off. New Political Economy, 29(3), 356–369.
Arner, D. W., Barberis, J. N., & Buckley, R. P. (2017). FinTech, RegTech, and the reconceptualization of financial regulation. Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business, 37(3), 371–413.
Arrighi, G. (1994). The long twentieth century: Money, power, and the origins of our times. Verso.
Babic, M. (2023). State capital in a geoeconomic world: Mapping state-led foreign investment in the global political economy. Review of International Political Economy, 30(1), 201–228
Baily, M. N., & Bosworth, B. P. (2014). US manufacturing: Understanding its past and its potential future. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 28(1), 3–26.
Beeson, M., & Crawford, C. (2023). Putting the BRI in perspective: History, hegemony and geoeconomics. Chinese Political Science Review, 8(1), 45–62.
Blanchette, J., & Medeiros, E. S. (2022). Xi Jinping’s third term. Survival, 64(5), 61–90. Available at https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2022.2126179
Bloom, D. E., Canning, D., & Fink, G. (2010). Implications of population ageing for economic growth. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 26(4), 583–612.
Buzan, B., & Lawson, G. (2015). The global transformation: History, modernity and the making of international relations. International Studies Quarterly, 59(1), 1–15.
Callahan, W. A. (2016). China’s “Asia dream”: The Belt and Road Initiative and the new regional order. Asian Journal of Comparative Politics, 1(3), 226–243.
Carlson, E., & Wheeler, C. (2024). Ten likely changes to immigration policy under Trump 2.0. Journal on Migration and Human Security, 12(4), 335–349.
Caria, S. (2022). Cooperation regimes and hegemonic struggle: Opportunities and challenges for developing countries. Politics and Governance, 10(2), 71–81.
Chen, K., Meng, Q., Sun, Y., & Wan, Q. (2024). How does industrial policy experimentation influence innovation performance? A case of Made in China 2025. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11, Article 40. Available at https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02497-x
Epstein, G. A. (2019). “America First” monetary policy and its costs. In What’s wrong with modern money theory? A policy critique (pp. 57–64). Springer International Publishing.
Falkner, R. (2005). American hegemony and the global environment. International Studies Review, 7(4), 585–599.
Farias, D. B. L. (2022). Trade, conflict, and opportunity: Taking advantage of others' protectionism and isolationism—the case of MERCOSUL. In Trade and conflict (pp. 41–56). Routledge.
Gedikli, A., & Erdogan, S. (2025). Can BRICS currency dethrone the dollar? Myth or reality? In Changing the global political economy: BRICS countries and alternative relations strategies (pp. 275–306). IGI Global Scientific Publishing.
Gray, K., & Gills, B. K. (2016). South–South cooperation and the rise of the Global South. Third World Quarterly, 37(4), 557–574.
Grinin, L., & Korotayev, A. (2021). Seven weaknesses of the US, Donald Trump, and the future of American hegemony. World Futures, 77(1), 23–54.
Gürcan, E. C. (2022). The construction of “post-hegemonic multipolarity” in Eurasia: A comparative perspective. In International economic governance in a multipolar world (pp. 33–57). Routledge.
Haug, S., Braveboy-Wagner, J., & Maihold, G. (2021). The “Global South” in the study of world politics: Examining a meta category. Third World Quarterly, 42(9), 1923–1944.
Hou, J. W. (2011). Economic reform of China: Cause and effects. The Social Science Journal, 48(3), 419–434.
Jakupec, V. (2025). Russo-Ukraine war and the rise of populism. In The West’s response to the Ukraine war: Military struggles, NATO challenges, and the reimagining of global politics (pp. 147–163). Springer Nature Switzerland.
Jiang, L., Liu, S., & Zhang, G. (2024). The impact of Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank on OFDI: Evidence from China. Applied Economics, 56(29), 3517–3532.
Jiao, Y., Liu, Z., Tian, Z., & Wang, X. (2024). The impacts of the US trade war on Chinese exporters. Review of Economics and Statistics, 106(6), 1576–1587.
Jones, E. (2025). Trump, trade, and investment. Spanish and International Economic & Financial Outlook, 14, 5–12.
Lind, J. (2024). Back to bipolarity: How China’s rise transformed the balance of power. International Security, 49(2), 7–55.
Liu, G., Zhou, K., & Sun, X. (2024). The influence mechanism of real estate enterprises' status on debt default risk. Journal of Property Investment & Finance, 42(1), 28–49.
Liu, M., & Tsai, K. S. (2021). Structural power, hegemony, and state capitalism: Limits to China’s global economic power. Politics & Society, 49(2), 235–267.
Liu, S. (2024). Personalization of Trump and Xi in the US–China trade conflict news: Comparison between the US and China. International Communication Gazette, 86(8), 672–692.
Loke, B. (2021). The United States, China, and the politics of hegemonic ordering in East Asia. International Studies Review, 23(4), 1208–1229.
Madoka, F. (2022). The Xi Jinping regime’s maneuvering against Taiwan: Characteristics and prospects. Asia-Pacific Review, 29(2), 79–101.
Marginson, S., & Xu, X. (2023). Hegemony and inequality in global science: Problems of the center-periphery model. Comparative Education Review, 67(1), 31–52.
Msefula, G., Hou, T. C.-T., & Lemesi, T. (2024). Financial and market risks of bitcoin adoption as legal tender: Evidence from El Salvador. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 11, Article 1396. Available at https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03908-3
Persaud, R. B. (2022). Ideology, socialization and hegemony in disciplinary international relations. International Affairs, 98(1), 105–123.
Rappalini, J. J. R. (2024). Crear confianza en el bitcoin: El caso de la comunidad de El Zonte en El Salvador. Revue Française de Socio-Économie, 33(2), 85–103.
Rosales, A., van Roekel, E., Howson, P., & Kanters, C. (2024). Poor miners and empty e-wallets: Latin American experiences with cryptocurrencies in crisis. Human Geography, 17(1), 43–54. Available at https://doi.org/10.1177/19427786231193985
Shah, A. R. (2023). Revisiting China threat: The US’ securitization of the “Belt and Road Initiative.” Chinese Political Science Review, 8(1), 84–104.
Steger, M. B. (2023). Global studies meets world-systems theory. In Development, globalization, global values, and security: Essays in honor of Arno Tausch (pp. 67–76). Springer International Publishing.
Ulum, M. B. (2022). Sovereignty and legal personality: A lesson from European Union's evolution to supranationalism. Lampung Journal of International Law, 4(1), 25–38.
von Allwörden, L. (2025). When contestation legitimizes: The norm of climate change action and the US contesting the Paris Agreement. International Relations, 39(1), 52–75.
Wallerstein, I. (2015). The itinerary of world-systems analysis; Or, how to resist becoming a theory. In Uncertain worlds (pp. 195–217). Routledge.
Woon, C. Y., & Sidaway, J. D. (2025). Deglobalization and China’s visions for reconfiguring development space. Geopolitics, 30(2), 405–431. Available at https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2024.2352563
Wu, Y. (2000). Is China’s economic growth sustainable? A productivity analysis. China Economic Review, 11(3), 278–296.
Xu, J., & Yu, H. (2022). Regulating and governing China’s internet and digital media in the Xi Jinping era. Media International Australia, 185(1), 3–8.
Zou, L., Dresner, M. E., & Yu, C. (2025). The impact of the U.S.-China trade war on air and ocean shipments. Transport Policy, 160, 89–106. Available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2024.11.001
Zou, L., Shen, J. H., Zhang, J., & Lee, C. C. (2022). What is the rationale behind China’s infrastructure investment under the Belt and Road Initiative. Journal of Economic Surveys, 36(3), 605–633.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 JiaYing Lyu
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.
- Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.
- The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:
- Attribution—other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;
- The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a prepublication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work. Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.
- Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.
- The Author represents and warrants that:
- the Work is the Author’s original work;
- the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;
- the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;
- the Work has not previously been published;
- the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and
- the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.
- The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.
Revised 7/16/2018. Revision Description: Removed outdated link.
