The Coupling Effects of World-System Position and National Institutions on Relative Economic Growth

We theorize about and test the effects of the military and education expansion as strategies of economic growth for developing countries, emphasizing these capital effects are conditioned by more global, or world-system processes. Early sociological theory neglects global forces but offers foundational themes that link social capital such as militarization and schooling to economic advance. These themes are refined in more modern treatments. Theory and research in sociology has engaged in sharp contention more recently, particularly on whether global forces have favorable impacts on national capital and economic growth in developing countries, and the degree to which these impacts flow from economiccentered or cultural dynamics. We use prior theory to build a perspective which argues that different “couplings” of national military and educations processes with the positions of relative power or dependency in the world hierarchy produce variations in national economic growth in the developing world. We use regression results to show, for example, the comparatively favorable economic consequences of semiperipheral position of nations to peripheral location in the system when coupled with capital expansion in education, and with one component of the military capital, the population’s participation in the military. Theory and results suggest a need for deeper theorization in the sociology of national development. This should focus on global and national economic and non-economic forces, their couplings with national capitals in the developing world in producing economic growth, and the importance of focusing on semiperipheral and peripheral countries in a non-isomorphic way. 1We immediately acknowledge Firebaugh’s (1999) disclaimers to such generalizations, as they relate to selected countries such as China.