Losing Control?

The past decade has seen great changes in the way business is transacted across national borders. Because of unprecedented advances in telecommunication and computer networks, money is transferred in electronic space. U.S. firms such as Ford, IBM, and Exxon now employ well over fifty percent of their workers overseas, rankling both domestic workers who argue that jobs are being exported while unemployment soars at home and activists who contend that wealthy corporations are exploiting low-wage workers in Third World nations. And as immigration levels soar, the very concept of citizenship has moved to the top of political agendas around the world. What determines the flow of labor and capital in this new global information economy? Who has the capacity to coordinate this new system, to create a measure of order? And what happens to territoriality and sovereignty, two fundamental principles of the modern state? Losing Control? is a major addition to our understanding of these questions. von Sassen, Saskia