I am a comparative-historical sociologist studying labor and labor movements, the political economy of war-making, and the dynamics of global capitalism.

I am currently a Research Fellow at the Arrighi Center for Global Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

My primary research project investigates the causes and consequences of the changing social relations—especially labor relations—of the U.S. military-industrial complex since the mid-twentieth century.

I am co-editor of the book World-Systems Analysis at a Critical Juncture (2022, Routledge). My work has appeared in International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Political Power and Social Theory, Journal of Labor and Society, Journal of World-Systems Research, and several edited volumes. My publications have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

A paper which I co-authored won the 2020 Distinguished Article Award from the Political Economy of the World-System Section of the American Sociological Association.

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Selected Recent Publications

Corey R. Payne. (2023). “From Mass Mobilization to Neoliberal War-Making: Labor Strikes and Military-Industrial Transformation in the United States,” International Journal of Comparative Sociology.

Corey R. Payne & Beverly J. Silver. (2022). “Domination Without Hegemony and the Limits of US World Power,” Political Power and Social Theory. Vol. 39: 159-177.

Corey Payne. (2022). “Financialization Feeds Endless War,” Convergence Magazine.

Beverly J. Silver & Corey R. Payne. (2020). “Crises of World Hegemony and the Speeding Up of Social History” in Hegemony and World Order: Reimagining Power in Global Politics, P. Dutkiewicz, T. Casier, & J.A. Scholte, eds. Routledge.

Research Areas

My research currently falls into three related areas:

  • The changing social relations of the U.S. military-industrial complex in the neoliberal era, and how such changes are intertwined with twenty-first century phenomena such as war, inequality, and climate change.
  • The social foundations of global governance, with collaborative work geared towards understanding the role of social and labor movements in shaping geopolitics.
  • Inequality and the historical dynamics of global capitalism, investigating the longue durée relationship between wealth and power among states and individual elites