Marxism, Dependency, and the World Systems Approach: Are They Making a Comeback?

Abstract

Marxist ideology was greatly discredited by the collapse of the Soviet Union, its utility as a basis for economic and political systems seemingly disproved as Western liberal democracy and capitalism emerged triumphant from the Cold War and the United States assumed the mantle of sole superpower. Geopolitical trends since the Soviet Union’s dissolution have further marginalized Marxism—many former Soviet satellite states have experimented with democracy; China, the only remaining communist powerhouse, has successfully endeavored to transform its economy to a capitalist free-market model; and the few staunch bastions of communism, namely North Korea and Cuba, are impoverished and isolated states. The theoretical focus of comparative politics has reflected these empirical phenomena as new or more salient theories have largely eclipsed Marxian thought in the last two decades. Constructivism seeks to understand interests, values, and norms, and their role in international interaction; institutionalism examines the development, persistence, and influence of institutions at the multiple levels of analysis that have flourished in the wake of the Cold War (despite all realist predictions to the contrary); and numerous interdisciplinary approaches are attempting to bridge the gap between comparative politics and environmental determinism, neurobiology, and neurochemistry, and even quantum physics. It would appear as though Marxian class analysis is obsolete both empirically and theoretically.