2020, Vol.10, No.2

Asia Review 2023 KCI Impact Factor : 0.86

pISSN : 2234-0386
https://journal.kci.go.kr/asiareview

The recently continuous spread of infectious diseases including COVID-19 raises the issue of the possible collapse of the so-called ‘Anthropocene’ . On the other hand, global capitalism has increasingly widened gaps between the small number of the haves and the majority of the have-nots leading to the crisis of democracy. In this time of the civilizational crisis, we pay attention to the works and insights of Immanuel Wallerstein, who is considered to have been the founder of the world-system analysis. First, in his scholarly works and discussions, he tried to construct an integrated discipline of ‘historical social science’ overcoming the divorce of history and other social-science disciplines. Second, he suggested the worldsystem as the whole to be the proper unit of analysis in research, instead of individual countries or societies. Third, his world-system analysis, which had been influenced by the dependency school, focused on the capitalist world-economy since the 16th century, the modern world-system, which is the historical system composed of the axial division of labor among core, periphery and semi-periphey, the inter-state system of multipolar political and cultural centers, and systemic adjustments as well as hegemonic shifts in the long-term cycles. Antisystemic movements such as the labor-socialist and nationalist movements have arisen since the French Revolution, but they have been unable to overcome the capitalist world-economy. He was even doubtful of the inevitability of historical progress and instead emphasized people’s choices to construct the alternatives in the current chaos. Wallerstein’s discussions have some biases and mistakes. However, his discussions still seem to be very important for seeking alternatives in order to meet today’s civilizational crisis.

This paper focuses on the establishment of the new world order of the interstate system precipitated by East Asian geopolitical dynamics just after World War II. First, world hegemonic transition from the UK hegemony to US hegemony after World War II was overdetermined by East Asian geopolitics and the establishment of socialist regimes. To understand the complicated historical process in this region, the Eurasian continental viewpoint is necessary to encompass a space for continuous socialist revolutions from Russia to China, and an incorporated comparison is needed to explain this process as comparative-historical research. Second, Japan was exceptional in the region as a model that was regarded to be emulated as well as to be overcome. ‘Becoming the same category’ became a significant strategy to catch up with modernity in the region. Third, China, as a typical model of ‘becoming the same category’, displayed contradictory aspects of emulation of modernity in the region: at first trying to copy Japanese history as its model, but later after the May 4th movement, changing its model for modernity by emulating Soviet experiences. The USSR became an internal main factor for the spiral process of the Chinese revolution, which in turn gave rise to unanticipated impacts on the Cold War trajectory. The Yalta regime and path-breaking Stalin-Roosevelt cooperation went through with the encounter of multiple historical events in the region and paved the way for the unique path for the East Asian Cold War after the death of Roosevelt and the victory of Chinese Communists.

The world-systems perspective has a great theoretical and empirical impact on various fields in the social sciences. The sociology of food and agriculture is one such area. The food regime perspective has been greatly influenced by the world-system perspective, especially its discourse on hegemonic cycles. This paper introduces the food regime perspective, which has been advanced by Philip McMichael and Harriet Friedmann, to explain the trajectory of food provision on a global level. Building upon theoretical and methodological implications of the food regime perspective, I use the term agri-food system to explain the paths of Korean food provision structures and dynamics since the mid-20th century. This will be followed by a discussion of what needs to be accomplished in order to challenge a third food regime, which is characterized by corporate domination. The issue of food sovereignty and alternative movements are examined to seek a more sustainable food system against the corporate food regime.