The Capitalist World-System in Interregnum
Rising Semi-Core Powers as Hegemonic Contenders and Their Impact on the Semi-Periphery and the Wider Global South
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5195/jwsr.2026.1381Keywords:
world-system, systemic crisis, hierarchy, semi-core, interregnum, multipolarityAbstract
This article interrogates the post-2008 configuration of the capitalist world-system through the dual lens of World-Systems Analysis and Gramsci’s notion of interregnum. It contends that the world-system appears to be entering a non-hegemonic configuration rather than a cyclical transition toward a new hegemon. The 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis deepened the structural contradictions of U.S.-led capitalism, exposing mounting difficulties in the management of global accumulation and governance despite temporary stabilizing mechanisms (e.g., monetary interventions and the G20). In light of multiple dimensions of power, the study argues that the established hierarchy of the world-system—both its stratification and its underlying power relations—is undergoing a reconfiguration, accompanied by the rise of semi-core powers (China and Russia). The rise of these actors reflects an uneven redistribution of power that increasingly complicates the liberal order without yet consolidating a new systemic equilibrium. Furthermore, semi-peripheral countries increasingly pursue pragmatic alignments that enhance autonomy without transcending global asymmetries. This study argues that the world-system now operates in a fragmented, multipolar landscape marked by competing projects of order, intensified South–South linkages, and proliferating morbid symptoms of crisis. Therefore, the contemporary moment constitutes not a renewal of hegemony but an interregnum—an unsettled phase in which the old order decays and no new historical bloc has yet emerged.
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