Globalisation as reterritorialisation: The re-scaling of urban governance in the European union

In the rapidly growing literatures on globalisation, many authors have emph asised the apparent disembedding of social relations from their local-terri torial pre-conditions. However, such arguments neglect the relatively fixed and immobile forms of territorial organisation upon which the current roun d of globalisation is premised, such as urban-regional agglomerations and t erritorial states, This article argues that processes of reterritorialisati on-the reconfiguration and re-scaling of forms of territorial organisation such as cities and states-constitute an intrinsic moment of the current rou nd of globalisation. Globalisation is conceived here as a reterritorialisat ion of both socioeconomic and political-institutional spaces that unfolds s imultaneously upon multiple, superimposed geographical scales. The territor ial organisation of contemporary urban spaces and state institutions must b e viewed at once as a presupposition, a medium and an outcome of this highl y conflictual dynamic of global spatial restructuring. On this basis, vario us dimensions of urban governance in contemporary Europe are analysed as ex pressions of a politics of scale that is emerging at the geographical inter face between processes of urban restructuring and state territorial restruc turing.