Hi Brendan,

Quote Originally Posted by brendan View Post
John, I'm trying to heed your words on intellectual fads. That's why I put globalization in quotes. Its dubious term that doesn't really take in account the historical evolution of the world-system.
I think you might want to be a touch careful about using world systems theory as well, speaking of fads... . You might think about extending it with Manuel Castels work on the Network Society, but there is still the problem that it is a fairly clunky model all told. I would suggest you take a look at Mafesoli's work for a good corrective.

Quote Originally Posted by brendan View Post
So with all that said, what do you all make of this three part framework I am playing with?
Well, it certainly fits with the current neo-Marxist and Post-Modernist teleologies.... I just happen to think they are incomplete (at best) . You might find it instructive to take a look at Roman operations from, say, the 1st to 4th century ce. I would argue that you certainly see an almost exact parallel with your model.

Quote Originally Posted by brendan View Post
Being a good student of sociology, I think of these three trends as ideal-types in the way I think Max Weber originally intended them. That is not as normative standards to which to strive but as generalized trends that can help organize a historical narrative. In other words, I see these three stages as conceptual tools and not as hard and fast truth claims. In any of three stages, elements of the other are visible, not simply as successive elaborations, but as a diverse field where future strategies are prefigured in older forms.
It would certainly be interesting to see a Weberian style analysis done on them and I would agree that they make fairly decent ideal types.

Quote Originally Posted by brendan View Post
For my paper, I am trying to find a good case to test this stages. I'm trying to focus on the shift form the liberal reformist approach to netwar.
You could certainly do worse that comparing the Barracks Emperors period with the period from, say the end of WW II to the present. That would give you some really good historical depth.

Cheers,

Marc