Innovation and the World-System Hierarchy: British Subjugation of the Irish Cotton Industry, 1780-1830

Analyses of innovation generally assume that it is a local or national process. This article uses world-system concepts and the case of the Irish and English cotton industries to argue that innovations are not intrinsically local but must be localized. Irish and English customs data and historical analysis are used to demonstrate how the localization of innovation around Manchester involved the peripheralization of the Irish industry by Britain. This peripheralization involved, first, the destruction of Irish spinning and the subjugation of Irish weaving and, eventually, the transformation of Irish textile activity into linen. It is further argued that innovation (Schumpeter's innovative response) is the defining characteristic of coreactivities, while adaptive response characterizes semiperipheral industry.