XIX ISA World Congress of Sociology (July 15-21, 2018)

66

Kondratieff Waves and the World-System Development

RC02 Economy and Society (host committee)

Language: English

This session calls for papers that address issues related to the scientific study of the World-System processes, Kondratieff Waves (K-waves), and especially K-wave manifestations in the World-System processes. Cycles of various lengths (from a few years to a few hundred) are found not only in economic but social life. Large-scale wave-like perturbations of the global socioeconomic realm with a characteristic length of about half a century appear to be among the most important among different cycles. These periodic fluctuations were named ‘Kondratieff waves’ after the famous Russian scientist Nikolay Kondratieff. Many researchers find such cycles in social and political life from ancient times. Kondratieff waves constitute a sort of mystery that has been haunting economic and social researchers for almost a century. Why in certain periods do we observe prolonged upswings, whereas in other periods – notwithstanding all the enormous efforts of interested macroeconomic actors – socioeconomic development is accompanied by prolonged depressions? What gets out of order in social and economic mechanisms? The analysis of K-waves allows to understand the long-term dynamics of the World-System development, as well as to propose future scenarios of global development. K-waves are considered as one of the most important components of the World System dynamics. In its turn the World System processes turn out to be very important for the understanding of the K-wave dynamics. The session is open to various theoretical frameworks, perspectives and methodologies. Format: Paper presentation session.