Sassen: Globalization a Concern for Private Groups, Not Nation-States

On Wednesday, Saskia Sassen, author and Columbia University professor, spoke of the nation-state in relation to the rise of globalization. Sassen's lecture served as the third and final segment of the sociology department's Distinguished Visiting Scholar Series.
In her lecture, titled "The World's Third Spaces: Novel Assemblages of Territory, Authority, Rights," Sassen emphasized that the nation-state is not a power struggle between the global and national.

She said that the unsettling of the format of the nation state is not a power struggle between the globe and national. She said that, through this phenomenon, a "third space" is created in which the jurisdiction falls out of government hands and instead creates an opportunity for private groups to operate. It is, she said, "a proliferation of partial, often highly specialized, global assemblages of bits of territory, authority, and rights once firmly ensconced in national institutional frames. These assemblages cut across the national versus global divide – which the usual way of understanding what is really new. It produces a kind of third space for a growing range of operations."

Sassen's lecture covered issues such as the current financial crisis, the "boomerang effect" recurrent in past economic depressions, and the major land acquisitions of developing nations by foreign interests.

Sassen also offered words of encouragement to current sociology majors. "Don't be afraid to face the complexity of reality," she said. "This is a profoundly sociological era, and there is much to explore."

The Visiting Scholars program is dedicated to providing unique opportunities for members of the Boston College's sociology department to hear from leading scholars around the world. According to the sociology department Web site, "Each scholar delivers a major public lecture, teaches one session of an intensive faculty or graduate student seminar, and is available for informal conversation with students and faculty."