---
id: terms/world-system-science-wss
about:
  label: World System Science
  description: >-
    A proposed social-science counterpart to Earth System Science, set out in
    The Anthropocene Crisis (Cambridge University Press), edited by Mathias
    Albert and Barry Buzan.
  tags:
    - social science
    - earth system
    - anthropocene
    - tipping points
    - multispecies justice
term:
  aka:
    - WSS
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: The Anthropocene Crisis
      url: 'https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009863995'
  created: '2026-10-17'
  reviewed: '2026-10-17'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: draft
import:
  source: openai-linkedin-scrape 2026-10-17
  id: DT069
  kind: research_agenda
  family: governance_and_concepts
  priority: supporting
  verified: false
  posts:
    - P057
  posters:
    - Joana Castro Pereira
domains:
  - people
  - climate
  - ecology
---
World System Science is the name proposed in The Anthropocene Crisis: A World System Science Approach, a Cambridge University Press volume edited by Mathias Albert (Universität Bielefeld) and Barry Buzan (London School of Economics). The argument is that Earth System Science, built by natural scientists to understand the planet's limits, lacks a counterpart that analyses how social and natural systems interact and which social forces drive change in the anthroposphere. The book asks social scientists and historians, in particular International Relations scholars drawing on history, economics and sociology, to build that field, and looks for common ground with Earth System Science on planetary stewardship and tipping-point risk.

The chapters include Buzan's response to the Global Tipping Points Report 2023, Iver B. Neumann on world system collapse, Heikki Patomäki on world system futures and (with Rubén Vezzoni) on growthism, Inanna Hamati-Ataya on culture, and Joana Castro Pereira's "One Planet, Many Species: Towards a Multispecies Justice Framework for World System Science Research on Earth's Tipping Points".

Status: a research programme and a book (DOI 10.1017/9781009863995, 270 pages, digital, hardback and paperback). The publisher's page read gives no publication date and no open-access statement.