Introduction:

As we all know that the world system is an interdependent system of several countries linked by economic and political competition. The world region emphasize on the interdependence of places and regions around the world where in the regions are further categorized as core, semi peripheral and peripheral regions.

Immanuel Wallerstein, the founder of the intellectual school of world-systems theory, characterizes the world system as a set of mechanisms which redistributes resources from theperipheryto thecore. In his terminology, thecoreis the developed,industrializedpart of the world, and theperipheryis the “underdeveloped”, typically raw materials-exporting, poor part of the world; themarketbeing the means by which thecoreexploits theperiphery.

The above figure depicts the hierarchy of national societies divided into 3 world-system zones. The core countries are in dark black, the semi peripheral countries in the middle of the global hierarchy are in cross-hatch and the peripheral countries are gray.

Further we would study more about these regions which would help us understand their role and some of their characteristics.

Core region and their characteristics:

The core regions of the world system are the most economically diversified, wealthy and powerful (both economically and militarily) nations of the world. These nations are very high on industrialization and they tend to specialize in information, finance and service industries. Often they produce manufactured good rather than exporting raw materials to other nations which would not yield them high incomes. More often they are the front runners in high-technology electronics and biotechnology industries. They have sufficient tax base so that the government can provide better infrastructures and facilities for a strong economy internally and externally. Due to these factors, the core nations have more influence over noncore nations as a result of which they enjoy relatively high per capita incomes.

The trading hubs of England and Holland were the first core regions of the world system and they were later joined by other manufacturing and exporting regions in other parts of Western Europe and in North America. Japan too became a part of the core region as they were and are the market leaders in electronic science and technology.

The history of modern world system shows that the core nations has been competing with one another in order to access world’s resources, economic dominance and have control over peripheral nations. Accordingly to Immanuel Wallerstein, a core nation can be dominant over all if they lead in three most of important factors.

1) Productivity dominance which will allow them to produce goods and services of high quality at a cheap price as compared to any other country.

2) Productivity dominance will also lead to trade dominance which means that there is a favorable balance of trade since there is more of export trade than import trade.

3) This in turn leads to financial dominance which means that the inflow of the currency will be more than the outflow and this will lead to more control of world’s financial resources.

Semi periphery region and their characteristics:

Semi Periphery regions can be defined as a geographic area that lies just outside and area of key economic activity. They are considered as the mediocre regions which means they lay between the core and the periphery regions. For better understanding, they can also be called as developing nations. They are the nations moving towards industrialization and more diversified economy. They are neither as developed as the core society nor they are underdeveloped as the peripheral regions. “While they are weaker than core societies, they are trying to overcome this weakness and are not as subject to outside manipulation as peripheral societies.”

Semi-periphery regions play an important role in arbitrating political, social and economic activities that link core and peripheral regions. The possibility of reforms in social and organizational structure, innovative technology and dominance over peripheral nations is led through these regions. Hence, through these changes, a semi-periphery country is promoted to a core nation. Moreover, Semi-periphery serves as a position within the world hierarchy in which economic and social change can be interpreted.

As described by the World-systems theory, the semi-periphery region plays an important role in the world economy. The semi-periphery plays much important role than what the Spain and Portugal played in the 17th and the 18th centuries as intermediate trading groups within the European colonial empire.