Designing Research on the World-System

World-system analysis can bring several benefits to the study of international and comparative politics, including an increased appreciation of the important relationship between large-scale comparative analyses and the study of single cases, as well as the basis for vigorous, healthy debate between scholars with a radical perspective and their critics in the academic community. But it is not clear to this writer that Chase-Dunn et al.'s discussion of research designs constitutes a valuable contribution. The categories of designs they have devised are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive. The suggestions based on categories of designs with blurred or nonexistent lines of demarcation create confusion. One suggestion made by Chase-Dunn et al. that does seem useful focuses on an alternative technique of data management rather than an innovative research design. The global modeling strategy developed by Jay Forrester, as well as analysis of the variation in dependent variables of interest across space and over time in a manner analogous to that used by Donald Stokes in the study of election results, might provide helpful guidance toward design for future research on the world-system.