Abstract
The article starts with an overview of four core mechanisms in the formation of world society: Communication, migration, observation, and knowledge. The first three can be seen as dynamic factors bringing about and transferring variants in world society; (world) knowledge is a kind of storage for temporary results of these dynamic operations. In the second part, the argument looks at semantics, concepts and theories, and their accumulation over 2000 years which prepare the idea and structural realization of world society as the most extensive social system which includes all sociality into its purview. In the third part, we introduce the “Eigenstructures of world society,” self-reinforcing structures which prepare world society as they are the result of the emergence of this system. The argument presents six candidates for Eigenstructures: Functional differentiation, small world networks, formal organizations, epistemic communities, global interaction systems, and world events. They all demonstrate the unity of structure formation and self-description characteristic of world society.
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Notes
- 1.
Niklas Luhmann, Kommunikation und Handlung, in: Idem, Soziale Systeme: Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1984, pp. 191–240.
- 2.
Donald T. Campbell, Methodology and Epistemology for Social Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
- 3.
Rudolf Stichweh, Selbstbeschreibung der Weltgesellschaft, in: Jörg Baberowski/Hartmut Kaelble/Jürgen Schriewer (eds.), Selbstbilder und Fremdbilder. Repräsentationen sozialer Ordnung im Wandel, Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 2008, pp. 21–53.
- 4.
Manfred Koch, Weimaraner Weltbewohner. Zur Genese von Goethes Begriff ‚Weltliteraturʻ, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 2002.
- 5.
Albrecht Wirth, Der Weltverkehr, Frankfurt/Main: Rütten und Loening, 10906; Wilhelm Schwedler, Die Nachricht im Weltverkehr. Kritische Bemerkungen über das internationale Nachrichtenwesen vor und nach dem Weltkriege, Berlin: Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft für Politik und Geschichte, 1922.
- 6.
Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914. London: Penguin Books, 2013.
- 7.
This can be easily examined in looking for “World Society” in Google Ngram. There is a steep rise of usages around 1942; in German it is only in the 1960s that the word is used frequently, but there are some German usages around 1800.
- 8.
Laura Maples McMullen, Building the World Society. A Handbook of International Relations, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1931.
- 9.
Linden A. Mander, Foundations of Modern World Society, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1941.
- 10.
Interesting political documents in which you find the concept of world society are the Berlin Program of the German Social Democratic party (SPD) from 1989 and the revised version adopted in Leipzig 1998 which was valid until 2007. In the Hamburg Program from 2007 “world society” has completely been replaced by “Globalization.” In none of the programs of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU), the word “world society” occurs. For the Social Democratic programs, it is characteristic that they emphasize that world society is already a facticity. They demand a democratic character of world society, remind that world society is not yet a peace order, and highlight the interdependence of world society and ecology, perhaps the most programmatic statement. This, too, is a good indicator for a global turn. Ecological problems more than many other problems can only be dealt with as world problems.
- 11.
Peter Heintz, Die Weltgesellschaft im Spiegel von Ereignissen, Diessenhofen: Rüegger, 1982.
- 12.
John W. Burton, World Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
- 13.
Immanuel Wallerstein,The Modern World-System. Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century, New York: Academic Press, 1974.
- 14.
John W. Meyer, World Society: The Writings of John W. Meyer, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
- 15.
Niklas Luhmann, Die Weltgesellschaft, in: Idem., Soziologische Aufklärung 2. Aufsätze zur Theorie der Gesellschaft, Ppladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 2009, pp. 51–71. Other authors could be added, for example, the legal scholar and sociologist from Groningen, Bart Landheer, On the Sociology of International Law and International Society, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966.
- 16.
Rudolf Stichweh, Funktionale Differenzierung der Weltgesellschaft, in: Gert Albert/Steffen Sigmund (eds.), Soziologische Theorie kontrovers, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2010, pp. 299–306.
- 17.
David Easley/Jon Kleinberg, Networks, Crowds, and Markets. Reasoning about a Highly Connected World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
- 18.
Ronald S. Burt, Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992.
- 19.
Rudolf Stichweh, Wissensordnungen und Wissensproduktion im 21. Jahrhundert, in: Merkur 68. 4(2014), pp. 336–344.
- 20.
Émile Durkheim, De la division du travail social. Paris: P.U.F. 1973 (original edition 1893).
- 21.
Rudolf Stichweh, Zur Soziologie des Weltereignisses, Stefan Nacke/René Unkelbach/Tobias Werron (eds.), Weltereignisse: Theoretische und empirische Perspektiven, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008, pp. 17–40.
Literature
Burt, Ronald S., Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1992.
Burton, John W. World Society, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.
Campbell, Donald T. Methodology and Epistemology for Social Science, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
Clark, Christopher, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, London: Penguin Books, 2013.
Durkheim, Émile, De la division du travail social, Paris: P.U.F. 1973 (original edition 1893).
Easley, David/Kleinberg, Jon, Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning about a Highly Connected World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Heintz, Peter. Die Weltgesellschaft im Spiegel von Ereignissen, Diessenhofen: Rüegger, 1982.
Koch, Manfred, Weimaraner Weltbewohner. Zur Genese von Goethes Begriff ‚Weltliteraturʻ, Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. 2002.
Landheer, Bart, On the Sociology of International Law and International Society, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966.
Luhmann, Niklas, Die Weltgesellschaft, in: Idem., Soziologische Aufklärung 2. Aufsätze zur Theorie der Gesellschaft, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1971, pp. 51–71.
Luhmann, Niklas, Kommunikation und Handlung, in: Idem., Soziale Systeme: Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1984, pp. 191–240.
Mander, Linden A. Foundations of Modern World Society, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1941.
Maples McMullen, Laura, Building the World Society: A Handbook of International Relations, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1931.
Meyer, John W., World Society: The Writings of John W. Meyer, New York: Oxford Univerity Press, 2010.
Schwedler, Wilhelm, Die Nachricht im Weltverkehr. Kritische Bemerkungen über das internationale Nachrichtenwesen vor und nach dem Weltkriege, Berlin: Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft für Politik und Geschichte, 1922.
Stichweh, Rudolf, Selbstbeschreibung der Weltgesellschaft, in: Baberowski, Jörg/Kaelble, Hartmut/Schriewer, Jürgen (eds.), Selbstbilder und Fremdbilder: Repräsentationen sozialer Ordnung im Wandel, Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 2008a, pp. 21–53.
Stichweh, Rudolf, Zur Soziologie des Weltereignisses, in: Nacke, Stefan/Unkelbach, René/Werron, Tobias (eds.), Weltereignisse: Theoretische und empirische Perspektiven, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2008b, pp. 17–40.
Stichweh, Rudolf, Funktionale Differenzierung der Weltgesellschaft, in: Albert, Gert/Sigmund, Steffen (eds.), Soziologische Theorie kontrovers, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag, 2010, pp. 299–306.
Stichweh, Rudolf, Wissensordnungen und Wissensproduktion im 21. Jahrhundert, in: Merkur 68.4(2014), pp. 336–344.
Wallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century, New York: Academic Press, 1974.
Wirth, Albrecht, Der Weltverkehr, Frankfurt/Main: Rütten und Loening, 1906.
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Stichweh, R. (2019). World Society. In: Kühnhardt, L., Mayer, T. (eds) The Bonn Handbook of Globality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90377-4_44
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