Breaking down the question
The quoted claim links two ideas: globalisation and deterritorialization. Deterritorialization means the loosening of the tie between social life and physical, bounded territory — the sense that economy, culture, identity and power increasingly operate across, above and beyond fixed geographical borders. The instruction "Examine with reference to the nation-state" narrows the focus sharply: you must assess whether globalisation, by detaching activity from territory, undermines the nation-state, which is itself defined by sovereign control over a bounded territory.
The examiner is testing a live debate between "hyperglobalist" claims that the territorial nation-state is being hollowed out and "sceptical" or "transformationalist" positions that see the state persisting and adapting. A strong answer defines both concepts, examines the mechanisms of deterritorialization, weighs their impact on state sovereignty, and reaches a differentiated conclusion — noting reterritorialization alongside deterritorialization.
How to approach it
Begin by defining globalisation and deterritorialization, using Giddens's account of time-space distanciation and the compression of the world. Then examine deterritorialization across domains — economic (global capital and transnational corporations), cultural (Appadurai's global flows), and informational (Castells's space of flows) — showing in each case how it challenges the territorially bounded state.
Then supply the counter-argument: the state remains a decisive actor, borders are being reasserted, and globalisation is often reterritorialised. David Held's transformationalist position offers a balanced frame. Theoretical foundations are developed in our notes on theories of social change. Conclude that the state is transformed rather than abolished.
Model answer
Globalisation refers to the intensification of worldwide social relations that link distant localities so that events in one place are shaped by processes occurring far away. Anthony Giddens captures its spatial core through the concepts of time-space distanciation and the "stretching" of social relations across the globe, while David Harvey speaks of time-space compression, the shrinking of distance by rapid communication and transport. Deterritorialization is the sociological consequence of this: social, economic and cultural life is progressively detached from specific, bounded territory. The claim under examination is that this detachment erodes the nation-state, whose very definition rests on sovereign authority over a demarcated territory and population.
There is powerful evidence for deterritorialization across several domains. Economically, capital, finance and production have become transnational. Global financial markets move vast sums instantaneously across borders, transnational corporations organise production in globally dispersed chains, and states find their macroeconomic policy constrained by mobile capital and by international bodies such as the WTO and IMF. Territorial governments no longer fully command their own economies. Culturally, Arjun Appadurai describes global flows — ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes and ideoscapes — that circulate images, people and ideas across the world, generating identities and imaginations no longer contained within national boundaries. Migration and diaspora create communities whose loyalties and belonging straddle several territories. Informationally, Manuel Castells argues that the network society is organised around a "space of flows" that overrides the "space of places", so that power increasingly resides in global networks rather than in territorial jurisdictions. In each domain, activity is lifted out of local territorial control, and the state's regulatory grip is loosened.
These processes genuinely challenge the nation-state. Its economic sovereignty is compressed by global markets and supranational institutions; its cultural sovereignty is diluted by transnational media and hybrid identities; its political monopoly is qualified by international law, human rights regimes and global civil society. To hyperglobalist theorists this signals the decline, even the obsolescence, of the territorial state.
Yet the claim must be examined critically, and the evidence for the state's persistence is equally strong. States remain the principal makers and enforcers of law, the guardians of borders, the collectors of taxes and the providers of security and welfare. Indeed, globalisation is frequently accompanied by reterritorialization — the reassertion of borders, immigration controls, economic nationalism and revived sovereignty claims. The state is often the very agent of globalisation, negotiating trade agreements and creating the legal frameworks within which global capital operates. Sceptics point out that much economic activity remains regional and nationally rooted, and that the state's capacity varies enormously between the powerful and the weak. David Held's transformationalist position offers the most defensible reading: globalisation neither leaves the state untouched nor abolishes it, but reconstitutes its powers, functions and authority, embedding it in overlapping networks of governance while it retains crucial capacities.
On balance, the statement that globalisation involves deterritorialization is largely valid, but its implication that the nation-state is being dissolved is overstated. Globalisation does detach economy, culture and information from bounded territory, compressing the sovereignty of the state and generating identities and flows that transcend borders. But the state adapts, reasserts territory and often drives the process itself; deterritorialization is matched by reterritorialization. The nation-state is therefore transformed rather than transcended — a changed and constrained actor within a globalising world, not a casualty of it.
Examiner's perspective
This question rewards precise definition of deterritorialization and a disciplined focus on the nation-state, rather than a general essay on globalisation. Examiners look for the debate between hyperglobalist, sceptical and transformationalist positions, and for domain-by-domain analysis of economic, cultural and informational deterritorialization using Giddens, Appadurai, Castells and Held.
Weak scripts drift into listing the features of globalisation and forget the state, or assert its demise without counter-evidence. Strong scripts examine both deterritorialization and reterritorialization, note that the state often authors globalisation, and conclude that sovereignty is reconstituted rather than abolished. A balanced, evidence-based verdict on the state's transformation lifts the answer into the top band.