World-system position, national political characteristics and economic development outcomes

Research in macro-comparative sociology commonly has focused on the world s ystem and national-level economic determinants of domestic political outcom es. We offer a line of inquiry that, by contrast, partially inverts the cau sal ordering and examines the effects of the world system and the contempor ary political characteristics of nations on their economic development. We present a modified world-system perspective that among other things highlig hts "global democracy" dynamics in the contemporary era, while linking the structural position of nations in the world system to their domestic politi cal characteristics and their resultant economic development. We test the p erspective with cross-national data and show that political processes, whil e contributing to economic development, do so in a differential manner, dep ending upon world-system position.