I have been looking for resources on the IB geography programme and ran in to this link:
http://www.geographypods.com/ after looking into the The Clark–Fisher model
The Clark-Fisher Model is part of the IB geography courseware on Globalisation:
Global core and periphery
The breakthrough of world-systems theory in the mid 1970s, popularised by Immanuel Wallerstein and others, was at least partly a response to the deficiencies of earlier approaches, such as those of W.W. Rostow (modernisation theory) and A.G. Frank (dependency theory).
The world-systems approach asserts that a capitalist world economy has been in existence since the 16th century. Before this, global interdependence did not exist. Instead the world was made up of a number of relatively independent mini-systems. From then on capitalism incorporated a growing number of previously more or less isolated and self-suffi cient societies into a complex system of functional relationships. A small number of core states transformed a much larger external area into a periphery. In between core and periphery, semi-peripheries existed which played a key role in the functioning of the global system. The semi-periphery is an economic condition to which parts of the periphery may rise or parts of the core may fall.
Within the system a division of labour operated, with the core countries as industrial producers and the peripheral areas as agricultural and other raw materials producers. The terms of trade were heavily skewed in favour of the core, particularly with regard to the periphery but also to a lesser extent in relation to the semi-periphery. The process of underdevelopment started with the incorporation of a particular external area into the world system. As the system expanded, fi rst Eastern Europe, then Latin America, Asia and Africa, in that order, were peripherised.
The semi-peripheral countries/regions form the most dynamic part of the system, characterised by an increase in the relative importance of industrial production. The rising semi-peripheries of the present, the NICs, are ambitious, competing to varying degrees for core status. Thus the world-systems approach has a degree of optimism lacking in dependency theory, recognising that some countries can break out of the state of underdevelopment. However, Wallerstein (1979) acknowledges that rapid change is not easy and that there are indeed ‘limited possibilities of transformation within the capitalist world economy’. The rise and fall of major economic powers forms part of the cyclical movements of the world system, movements that are basically infl uenced by economic long waves. Thus the world system has periods of expansion, contraction, crisis and structural change, paving the way to renewed expansion.
The criticisms of Wallerstein’s approach include:
• too high a level of eurocentricity by underrating the sophistication of other early trading systems, particularly with regard to China, Japan and elsewhere in Asia
• too great a degree of simplicity in assuming a universal one-way fl ow of resources from the periphery to the core
• failing to recognise the high level of competition between core nations by suggesting that they organise the world economy in order to maintain a clearly defi ned core club.
Exerpt from Paul Guiness (2011) Geography for the IB diploma, Global Interaction , Cambridge University Press
