Key note speech: 16.30 - 18:00
Speaker: Professor Saskia Sassen (Columbia University)
Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and Co-Chair of The Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University. Her recent books are Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (Princeton University Press 2008) and A Sociology of Globalization (W.W. Norton 2007). She is currently working on When Territory Exits Existing Frameworks (Under contract with Harvard University Press).
For UNESCO she organized a five-year project on sustainable human settlement with a network of researchers and activists in over 30 countries; it is published as one of the volumes of the Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (Oxford, UK: EOLSS Publishers). Her books are translated into twenty-one languages. She has received several honors and awards, most recently a doctor honoris causa from each Delft University (Netherlands), DePaul University (USA), and Universite de Poitiers (France).
She serves on several editorial boards and is an advisor to several international bodies. She is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Cities, and chaired the Information Technology and International Cooperation Committee of the Social Science Research Council (USA). She has written for The Guardian, The New York Times, Le Monde, Newsweek International, among others, and contributes regularly to www.OpenDemocracy.net and www.HufingtonPost.com.
In the last two decades a wide range of disciplines including economics, law, politics, history and sociology have examined the extent to which driving forces like globalisation and modern information technologies challenge the capacity of nation states to provide the fundamental goods of governance, such as security, social welfare, legal certainty or the democratic nature of decision-making. Both the prevailing financial crisis and the extensive disclosure of secret documents by Wikileaks present two further events that will inspire the ongoing debate about the state of the state. The aim of this conference is to bring together international scholars from these different disciplines to present their latest research on the state of the state, and to foster the exchange of ideas and further inter-disciplinary links.
We are looking forward to an intellectually stimulating discussion on the state of the state.
The Anglo-German State of the State Fellows
In the last two decades a wide range of disciplines including economics, law, politics, history and sociology have examined the extent to which driving forces like globalisation and modern information technologies challenge the capacity of nation states to provide the fundamental goods of governance, such as security, social welfare, legal certainty or the democratic nature of decision-making. Both the prevailing financial crisis and the extensive disclosure of secret documents by Wikileaks present two further events that will inspire the ongoing debate about the state of the state. The aim of this conference is to bring together international scholars from these different disciplines to present their latest research on the state of the state, and to foster the exchange of ideas and further inter-disciplinary links.
We are looking forward to an intellectually stimulating discussion on the state of the state.
The Anglo-German State of the State Fellows