The Foreign Policy Top 100 Global Thinkers

By Kedar Pavgi – November 28, 2011

Foreign Policy

Foreign Policy presents a unique portrait of 2011’s global marketplace of ideas and the thinkers who make them.

Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, and Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor, co-chairs of the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University were named to the 2011 Top 100 Global Thinkers list awarded by Foreign Policy magazine annually.

Sassen, is the 43rd Top Global Thinker in 2011, listed with Edward Glaeser, Professor of Economics at Harvard University, “for their passionate advocacy of an urban-based society.” Sassen’s theorization of the “global city” has been influential to the discussion of political uprisings and transitions taking root in urban centers worldwide in 2011. Recently coining the term “global street”, she captures the architecture of cities as places for protest and revolution, arguing that these social movements are shaped by the cities in which they occur. Sassen, with Glaeser, introduces a list of “16 Global Cities to Watch” that will shape the next century, included as a feature of the Foreign Policy list.

Stiglitz, ranked as the 33rd Top Global Thinker, was awarded the honor for “questioning global markets run amok – before it was cool.” Heralded for his long-standing critical views of unfettered globalization and free market ideology, Stiglitz has found new favor in mainstream audiences this year. His May 2011 article warning of the perils of the US’ increasing wealth gap, “Of the 1%, By the 1%, For the 1%”, published in Vanity Fair magazine, has been cited as influential to the conception of the slogan “We are the 99%” associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement. Stiglitz spoke to Occupy Wall Street protestors early in the campaign’s evolution in support of its denunciation of income inequality and high executive bonuses. Stiglitz was honored as the number 30 Top Global Thinker in 2010 “for his full-throated defense of fiscal stiumulus.”

Click here for the full listing.