Includes bibliographical references and index.

World networks and the politics of world-economy -- Patterns and prospectives of the capitalist world-economy -- 1. The states and the interstate system: The states in the institutional vortex of the capitalist world-economy -- The tree instances of hegemony in the history of capitalist world-economy -- The withering away of the states -- Friends as foes -- The USA in the world today -- The world-economy and the state-structures in peripheral and dependent countries (the so-called Third World) -- Socialist states: mercantilist strategies and revolutionary objectives -- 2. Antisystemic movements: The future of world-economy -- Eurocommunism: its roots in European working-class history -- Nationalism and the world transition to socialism: is there a crisis? -- Revolutionary movements in the era of US hegemony and after -- 3. The civilizational project: The quality of life in different social systems: the model and the reality -- Civilization and modes of production: conflicts and convergences -- The dialectics of civilizations in the modern world-system -- The development of the concept of development.