Brenner - Globalisation as Reterritorialization

7/27/2019 Brenner - Globalisation as Reterritorialization

1/22

Urban Studies, Vol. 36, No. 3, 431451, 1999

Globalisation as Reterritorialisation: The

Re-scaling of Urban Governance in the EuropeanUnion

Neil Brenner

[Paper rst received, October 1997; in nal form, May 1998]

Summary. In the rapidly growing literatures on globalisation, many authors have emphasise

the apparent disembedding of social relations from their local-territorial pre-conditions. How

ever, such arguments neglect the relatively xed and immobile forms of territorial organisation

upon which the current round of globalisation is premised, such as urban-regional agglomera

tions and territorial states. This article argues that processes of reterritorialisation the re

co n gu rat io n a nd re- sc al in g o f fo rm s of t er rit ori al o rg an isat io n su ch a s citi es a n

statesconstitute an intrinsic moment of the current round of globalisation. Globalisation i

conceived here as a reterritorialisation of both socioeconomic and political-institutional space

that u nfolds simultaneously upon multiple, superimpo sed geographical scales. The territoria

organisation of contemporary urban spaces and state institutions must be viewed at once as

presupposition, a medium and an outcome of this highly conictual dynamic of global spatia

restructuring. On this basis, various dimensions of urban governance in contemporary Europ

are analysed as expressions of a politics of scale that is emerging at the geographical interfac

between processes of urban restructuring and state territorial restructuring.

1. Introduction

The Donald Robertson Memorial Prizewinner 1999

In the rapidly growing literatures on globali-

sation, many authors have emphasised theapparent disembedding of social, economic

and political relations from their local-terri-

torial precondition s. It is argued, for instance,

that the `spac e of ow s is superseding the

`space of places (Castells, 1989, 1996); that

terr itoriality and even geography itself are

being dissolved (Ruggie, 1993; OBrien,

1992); that national borders have become

irrelevant, redundant or obsolete (Ohmae,1995); that nationally organised politico-cul-

spaces based upon `distanceless, borderles

interactions (Scholte, 1996) are decentrinthe role of ter ri torial and place-based socio

institutional forms. Whatever their differ

ences of emphasis, research object an

interpretation, common to these divers

analyses of globalisation is a focus on th

accelerated circulation of people, commodi

ties, cap ital, money, identities and image

thro ugh global space. These accele rated, glo

bally circulating ows are said to embodpr oce sses of deterr itorialisat ion thro ug


2/22

NEIL BRENNER432

and territories on sub-global geographical

scales.

Two signicant deciencies characterise

interpretations of globalisation that focus

one-sidedly upon ows, circulation and pro-

cesses of deterritorialisation. First, such

an aly ses tend t o neglect the f orm s of relatively xed and immobile territorial

organisationin particular, urban-regional

agglomerations and state regulatory institu-

tionsthat enab le such accelerated move-

ment. Secondly, and most crucially, such

analyses neglect the ways in which the cur-

rent round of neo-liberal globalisation has

been intrinsically dependent upon, inter-

tw ined with and expressed throu gh majortransforma tions of ter ritori al org anisation on

multiple geographical scales. Building upon

these criti cism s, the cen tral thesis of this

article is that processes of reterritorialisa-

tionthe recon guration and re-scaling of

forms of territorial organisation such as cities

and statesmust be viewed as an intrinsic

moment of the current round of globalisation.

Drawing upon the work of David Harvey

(1982) and Henri Lefebvre (1977, 1978,

1991), this argument is elaborated through a

discussion of various ways in which contem-

por ary cities and states are currently bein g

reterritorialised and re-scaled. Globalisation

is conceived here as a reterritorialisation of

both socioeconomic and political-institu-

tional spaces that unf olds simultaneously

upon multiple, superimposed geographical

scales. The territorial organisation of con-

temporary ur ban spaces and stat e institutions

must be viewed at once as a presupposition,

a medium and an outcome of this highly

conictual dy namic of global spatial restruc-

turing. On this basis, various dimensions of

urban governance in contemporary Europe

are analysed as expressions of a `politics of

scale (Smith, 1993) that is emerging at the

geographical interface between processes ofurban restructuring and state territorial re-

2. Cities, States and the Historical

Geography of Capitalism

Fern and Br audels famous historical study o

early modern Europe, The Perspective of th

World (1984), outlines the essential role o

cities and states within capitalisms long-ru

historical geog raph y. Br audels work tracethe epochal shift fr om the `city-centred eco n

omies (Stadtw irtschaft) of Genoa, Venice

Antwerp and Amsterdam to the Britis

`territorial economy (Territorialwirtschaft)

based upon an integrated national marke

clustered around London, during the 18t

century. Following the early modern period

the terr itorial eco nomies of nation-state

largely subsumed the geographies of citieand urbanisation. As cities were subordinate

to the po litical pow er of states, they wer

integrated ever more tightly into n ationall

scaled regimes of accumulation (Arrigh

1994; Tilly, 1990). In the wake of the secon

industrial revolution of the late 19th century

the cities of the older industrialised wor l

became engines of Fordist mass production

the urban infr astructu re of a global systemcompartmentalised into distinct territoria

states under the geopolitical and geoeco

nomic hegemon y of the US (Altvater, 1992

Scott and Storper, 1992). Though transna

tio nal inter-urban linkag es were crucial t

North Atlantic Fordism, a relatively tight

was established between urban dynamism

and national economic growth (Sassen

1991).It is this state-centric conguration o

world capitalism, premised upon a spatiall

isomorphic relationship between capital ac

cumulation, urbanisation and state regu

lation, that has been unravelling since th

global economic crises of the early 1970

Un der these cir cumstances, as Taylor (1 995

argues, the historically entrenched relation

ship of `mutuality between cities and territorial states is bein g signican tly eroded


3/22

GLOBALISATION AS RETERRITORIALISATION 43

capital accumulation have been consolidating

as Fordist-Keynesian national economies are

superseded by a conguration of the world

economy dominated by the super-regional

blocs of Europe, North America and East

Asia (Altvater and Mahnkopf, 1996). On

sub-national spatial scales, interspatial com-peti tion has inten sied among urban regions

struggling to attract both capital investment

and state subsidies (Leitner and Sheppard,

1998; Kratke, 1991; Mayer, 1992; Swynge-

douw, 1989). Meanwhile, new worldwide ur-

ban hierarchies have also begun to

crystallise, dominated by global cities such

as New York, London and Tokyo, in which

the majo r head quarter fu nctions of transna-tional cap ital have been increasingly cen -

tralised (H itz et al. 1995; Knox and Taylor,

1995; Sassen, 1991). Finally, particularly

since the 1980s, states throughout the world

economy have been struggling to restructure

themselves at once to adjust to intensied

global economic interdependencies and to

promote capital investm ent and renewed ac-

cumulation within their territorial boundaries

(Cerny, 1995; Hirsch, 1995; Jessop, 1993,

199 4; Rottger, 1997 ).

Braudels studies of early modern Europe

focus more directly on the historical tran-

sition from a city-centric to a state-centric

conguration of world capitalism than on the

changing relations between cities and states

as intertwined modes of socioeconomic, pol-

itical and geographical organisation. How-

ever, the preceding considerations indicate

that contempo rary cities and states oper ate

not as mutually exclusi ve or competing geo -

graphical congurations for capitalist devel-

opment, but rather as densely superimposed,

interdependent forms of territorial organis-

at ion. Cities and states are being re-

congured, reterritorialised and re-scaled in

conjunction with the most recent round of

capitalist globalisation, but both remain es-sential forms of territorial organisation upon

restructuring. To this end, the next sectio

examines more closely the role of cities an

ter ritorial states as geographical fr amewor k

within, upon and through which capitalis

development unfolds.

3. Cities and States as F orms of Territoria

Organisation

The starting-point for this analysis is th

endemic p roblem of territorial organisatio

under capitalism, as theorised by David Har

vey (1982) and Henri Lefebvre (1978, 1991)

As Harvey has argued at length, capital i

inherently oriented towards the eliminatio

of spatial barriers to its circulation processthe annihilation of space thro ugh time i

Marxs (1973 [1857], p. 539) famous formu

lation in the Grundrisse. Harveys crucia

insight is that this drive towards the continua

tem poral acceleration of cap ital circulation

or ` time-space compression, has bee

pr emised upo n the pr oduction of space an

spatial conguration. It is only through th

construction of relatively xed and immobil

transpo rt, commun ications and regu lator y

institutional infrastructuresa `secon

nature of socially produ ced conguration

of territorial organisationthat this acceler

ated physical movement of commoditie

thro ugh space can be ach iev ed. Therefore, a

Harvey (1985, p. 145) notes, spatial organ

zation is necessary to overcome space

Harvey introduces the notion of the `spatia

x to theorise these complex matrices o

socially produced spatial conguration an

their cor responding tem poral dimension, em

bodied in the socially average turnover tim

of capital at a given historical conjuncture. A

spatial x, Harvey (1982, p. 416) argues, i

secured through the construction of immobil

socio-territorial congurations within whic

expanded capital accumulation can be gener

ated; it entails the conversion of temporainto spatial restraints to accumulation.


4/22

NEIL BRENNER434

systems, energy supplies, communications

netw orks and other exter nalities that

underpin historically specic forms of pro-

duction, exchange, distribution and con-

sumption (Gottdiener, 1985; Harvey, 1982,

1989b; Kratke, 1995; Scott, 1988a; Storper

and Walker, 1989). The role of territorialstates as forms of territorialisation for capital

has been analy sed less fr equently. How ever,

as Lefebvre has argued at length in his ne-

glected four-volume work De lEtat (1976

78), states have likewise operated as crucial

geographical infrastructures through which

the cir culation of cap ital has been continually

terr itorialised, deterr itorialised and reterr ito-

rialised, above all since the second industrialrevolution of the late 19th century. Accord-

ing to Lefebvre, the territorial xity of state

institutions provides a stabilised geographi-

cal scaffolding for the circulation of labour-

pow er, commodities and capital on multiple

scales. States achieve this provisional territo-

rialisation of capital in various waysfor

example, through the regulation of money,

legal codes, social welfare provisions and,

most crucially, by producing large-scale spa-

tial congu rations that serv e as ter ritorial ly

specic forces of production. As Lefebvre

(1978, p. 298) notes, Only the state can take

on the task of managing space `on a grand

scale. Lefebvres (19 78, pp. 278280, 307,

388) more general claim in his writings on

state theory is that territorial states play cru-

cial roles in moulding the social relations of

capitalism into relatively stable geographi-

cal-organisational congurations associated

with distinct historical patterns o f capital ac-

cumulation and urbanisation.1

Lefebvres work suggests that each ur-

banised spatial x for capital necessarily pre-

supposes a broader scalar x (Smith, 1995)

composed of distinctive forms of territorial

organisationincluding urban-regional ag-

glomerations, state institutions and theworld economythat encompass yet tran-

reterritorialised during the course of capital

ist development (Brenner, 1998b). This con

ceptualisation of the scalar x also ha

substantial implications for the analysis o

the changing relat ions among citie s an

states in contemporary capitalism. On th

one hand, it can be argued that the contradictory dy nam ic of de- and reterr ito rialisation i

endemic to capitalism as an historical

geographical system, and that it has under

pinned each wave of crisis-induced restruc

turing that has un fo lded since the rs

industrial revolution of the mid 19th centur

(Mandel, 1975; Soja, 1985). In each case

capitals restlessly transformative dynami

renders its own historically specic geographical preconditions obsolete, inducing

wave of restructuring to reterritorialise an

thereby reactivate the circulation pro cess

On the other hand, this recurrent dynamic o

de- and reterritorialisation has been organ

ised through a wide range of scalar con

gurations, each produced through th

intermeshing of urban networks and stat

ter ritorial structures that together con stitute relatively xed geographical infrastructur

for each historical round of capitalist expan

sion. Therefore, as capital is restructured dur

ing periods of sustained economic crisis

the scale- congurations up on which it i

grounded are likewise reorganised to create

new geog raph ical scaffo lding for a new wav

of capitalist growth.

Until the ear ly 1970s, these pr ocesses ode- and reterritorialisation occurred primaril

within the geographical scaffolding of stat

ter ritoriality. Desp ite the explosive ten sion

and conicts induced by both interstate an

intercapitalist competition, the modern inter

state system has provided capital with a rela

tiv ely stab ilised ter ritorial fr amew ork fo

economic growth and geographical expan

sion since the 17th century (Arrighi, 1994Taylor, 19 93 ). In this sense, state ter rito rial


5/22


nati onal scal e as a con tainer for bo th cap ital

accumulation and urbanisation was in-

tensied to such a deg ree that its historicity

as a scale-level was frequently naturalised or

misrecognised (Taylor, 1996). However, it

will be argued here that one of the most

important geographical consequences of thepost-1 970s ro und of cap italist globalisation

has been to decentre the nation al scale of

accumulation, urbanisation and state regu-

lation in favour of new sub- and suprana-

tional ter ritorial con gurations.

4. `Glocalisation: The Denationalisation

of Territoriality

For pr esen t purposes, the term globalisation

refers to a double-edged, dialectical process

throu gh wh ich: the movement of commodi-

ties, capital, money, peo ple and info rmati on

throu gh geograp hical space is con tinually ex-

panded and accelerated; and, relativ ely xed

and immobile spatial infrastructures are pro-

duced, recongured and/or transformed to

enable such expanded, accelerated move-

ment. From this perspective, globalisation

entails a dialectical interplay between the

endemic drive towards timespace com-

pression under cap italism (the moment of

deterritorialisation) and the continual pro-

duction and reconguration of relatively

xed spatial congurationsfor example,

the ter ritori al infr astructures of urb an-

regional agglomerations and states (the mo-

ment of reterritorialisation) (Harvey, 1989a,

1996; Lefebvre, 1977, 1978, 1991). Thus

dened, globalisation does not occur merely

throu gh the geogra phical ext ension of cap i-

talism to encompass pro gr essiv ely larger

zones of the globe, but emerges only when

the expansion and acceleration of cap ital ac-

cumulation becomes intrinsically premised

upon the construction of large-scale terri-

torial infr astructures, a `second nature ofsocially produced spatial congurations such

this epochal transfo rmation from the pr o

duction of things in space to the productio

of space during the late 19th century i

which `neo-capitalism and the `state mod

of production (le mode de production eta

tique) were rst consolidated on a worl

scale. Lash and Urry (1987) have describethis state-centric congu ration of wo rld capi

talist development as `o rganised cap italism

andalong with many other researcher

(see, for example, Arrighi, 1994; Lipietz

1987; Jessop, 1994; Scott and Storpe

1992)interpreted the global economi

crises of the early 1970s at o nce as a medium

and a consequence of its unravelling. I view

the most recen t, po st-1970s ro und of worldscale capitalist restructuring as a second ma

jor wave of cap itali st globalisati on thro ug

which global socioeconomic interdependen

cies are being simultaneously intensied

deepened and expanded in close conjunctio

with the production, reconguration an

transfo rmati on of ter ritori al organisation a

once on urban-regional, national and supra

national spatial scales. Whereas the lat

19th century wave of capitalist globalisation

occurred largely within the framework o

nationally or ganised state territorialities, th

post-1 970s wave of globalisation has signi

cantly decentred the role of the nationa

scale as a self-enclosed container of socio

economic relations while simultaneousl

intensifying the importance of both sub- an

supranational forms of territorial organis

ation. This ongoing re-scaling of territorialit

can be viewed as the differentia specica o

the cur re ntly unf olding reconguration o

world capitalism (Brenner, 1998c).

Thus conceived, the moment of ter rito rial

isation remains as fundamental as ever to t h

pr oce ss of cap ital cir culation in the contem

porary era. How ever, the scales on which thi

ter ritorialisation pro cess occurs are no longe

spatially co-extensive with the nationally organised matrices of state territoriality tha


6/22

NEIL BRENNER436

torialisation, tr iggering what Jessop (1 99 8,

p. 90) has aptly termed a relativisati on of

scale:

[I]n contrast to the privileging of the na-

tional eco nomy and the nat ional state in

the peri od of Atlantic Fo rd ism, no spatial

scale is currently privileged

The concep t of `gloca lisation, introd uced by

Swyngedouw (1997, 1992, p. 61) to indicate

the combined process of globalization and

local-territorial reconguration, likewise

usefully highlights this ongoing, highly

conictual restructuring, interweaving and

redifferentiation of spatial scales. The re-

mainder of this paper concretises this con-ception of globalisation/reterritorialisation b y

examining various ways in which cities and

terr itorial states are curr ently being re-scal ed

in relation to capitals increasingly `glocal

geographies.

5. Re-scaling Cities

One way to interpret the proliferation of

research on world city formation since the

pub licati on of Fr iedm ann and Wolffs (1982)

classic paper is as a sustained effort to ana-

lyse the ways in which the recent consolida-

tion of a new inter national division of lab our

has been inter twined with a con comitant

reterritorialisation of urbanisation on differ-

ential spatial scales (Hitz et al., 1995; Knox

and Taylor, 1995). Whereas some world cit-

ies researchers have conceived w orld cities

as a distinctive class of cities at the apex of

world-scale central place hierarchies, I view

the analy tical fr amework of wo rld city theory

more broadly, as a means of investigating

the ways in which the curr ent round of

capitalist globalisation has entailed a terri-

torial reorgani sation of the urbanisation

pro cess simultaneously on global, nationaland urban-regional scales (see also Kratke,

(Friedmann, 1986, p. 69), it is centrally fo

cused on the problematic of geographica

scale, its politico-economic organisation an

its role in the articulation of socio-politica

conicts. Yet in practice this methodologica

challenge of analysing the changing histori

cal linkages between differential spatiascales has not been systematically con

fronted. Much of world cities research ha

been composed of studies that focus largel

upon a single scale, generally either the ur

ban or the global. Whereas research on th

socioeconomic geography of world cities ha

focused predominantly on the urban scale

studies of changing urban hierarchies hav

focused largely on the global scale. Thscales of state territorial power have bee

neglected alm ost ent irely by wo rld cities re

searchers (Brenner, 1998a) and efforts to in

teg rate diff erential spatial scales within

single analytical framework are still rela

tiv ely rare wi thin the paramete rs of wor l

city theory. Nevertheless I suggest that worl

city theory contains various methodologica

insights that may be readily deployed to thi

end.

Perhaps more systematically than an

other world cities researcher, Sassen (1991

1993) has emphasised the inherent place

dependency of the globalisation process

World cities are conceived as the territoriall

specic urban places within which variou

pr oduction processes that are crucial t

globalisation occur, above all those associ

ated with the producer and nancial service

industries upon which transnational capital i

heavily dependentfor example, banking

accounting, advertising, nancial and man

agement consulting, business law, insuranc

and the like. From the point of view of th

pr esen t discussion, Sassens analy sis ca

be viewed as an empirical application o

Harveys theorisation of capitals spatio

tem poral dy nam ics. The consolid ation oglobal cities is understood as an historicall


7/22


trial organisation and the development of new

informational technologies have signicantly

enhanced capitals ability to co-ordinate ows

of value on a world scale. On the other hand,

the strateg ies through which cap ital attem pts

at once to command and annihilate space are

necessar ily dependent upon investm ent inand control over the specic places within

which the territorialised technological, insti-

tutional and social infr astructu re of globalisa-

tion is secu red. These plac es, Sa ssen argu es,

are the built environments, agglomeration

economies, technological-institutional in-

frastructures and local labour markets of glo-

bal cities. The consolidation of a worldwide

hier archy of competing yet interd ependentworld cities since the 1980s can thus be

viewed as the territorial embodiment of this

latest round of spacetime compression.

A second, equally crucial, dimension of

this reter rit orialisation of the urbanisation

pro cess has been a major recom position of

urban form. Through their role in articulating

local, regional, national and global econom-

ies, cities have today become massive,

polycentric ur ban regions that are better de-

scribed in terms of Jean Gottmanns (1961)

notion of megalo polis than thro ugh the len s

of traditional Chicago School or central place

models of concentric land-use patterns sur-

rounding centralised metropolitan cores. The

concept of the urban eld, already deployed

by both Lefebvre (1995/1968) and Fried-

mann (1973; Friedmann and Miller, 1965)

three decades ago, was an ear ly attempt to

grasp this emergent multi-centred, patchwork

patt ern of supr alocal ur banisation du ring the

period of high For dism. Sudjic (1 993) has

more recently described the massive, sprawl-

ing mosaics of post-Fordist urbanisation as

`100-mile cities. Relatedly, Soja (1992) has

coined the suggestive term `exopolis to cap-

ture the transform ed geom etr ical patterns of

urbanisation that have crystallised in thetechn opoles of southern California. The exo -

form appears to be occurring in city-region

as diverse as Los Angeles, Amsterdam/Rand

stad, Frankfurt/Rhein-Main, the Zurich re

gion, Tokyo/Yokohama/Nagoya and Hon

Kong/Guandong, among many o thers. As th

scale of the urbanisation process encom

passes pro gressi vel y lar ger geog raphical arenas, urb an systems articulate new

increasingly polycentric geometries that blu

inherited models of urban centrality whil

simultaneously reconstituting the patterns o

coreperiphery polarisation through whic

capital asserts its power over space, territor

and place (Keil, 1994).

Thirdly, and most crucially here, the reter

ritorialisation of transnational capital withimajor urban regions has been closely linke

to a broader re-scalin g of the urb anisat io

pr oce ss on supraregional scales. Whereas th

world urban hierarchy throughout the 19t

and 20th centuries corresponded roughly t

the geop olitical hier archy of states, today th

geoeconomic power of cities has been in

creasingly disarticulated from the territoria

matrices of the interstate system (Scot1998; Taylor, 1995). It is today widely ac

knowledged that contemporary cities are em

bedded in transnational ows of capita

commodities and labour-powerin Fried

manns (1995, p. 25) phrase, a space o

global accumulationthat no state can full

control, and that capital valorisation withi

global cities does not necessarily translat

into national economic growth. Cities artherefore no longer to be conceived as th

sub-national components of self-enclosed

autocentric and nationally scaled regimes o

accumulation, but rather as `neo-Marshallia

nodes within global netw orks (Amin an

Thrift, 1992), as the `r egional motors of th

global economy (Scott, 1996), and a

exibly specialised locational clusters withi

a `global mosaic of regions (Storper anScott, 1995). Under these circumstances, a

i h li d i d i l i


8/22

NEIL BRENNER438

Duncan and Goodwin, 1988; Peck and Tick-

ell, 1994, 1995; Smith, 1997).

These considerations sugg est that contem -

por ary urb an regions must be con cei ved as

pre-em inently `g local spaces in wh ich mul-

tiple geographical scales intersect in poten-

tially highly conictual ways. Here the localis embedded within and superimposed upon

the global, wh ile global processes sim ul-

taneo usly appear to perm eat e all aspects of

the local (Amin and Thrift, 1994; Prigg e,

1995). As Veltz (1997, p. 84) has recently

noted:

The tim e is ov er when it was po ssible to

show, as Braudel did, an economic world

organized into clear-cut layers, where bigurban centres linked, by themselves, adjac-

ent `slow economies with the much more

rapid rhythm of large-scale trade and

nance. Today, everything occurs as if

these superimposed lay ers were mixed and

interpenetrated in (almost) all places.

Short- and long-range interdependencies

can no longer be separated from one an-

other.

The boundary separating spatial scales is

thus beco ming so blurr ed that it may

be increasingly appropriate to conceive

the scalar org anisat ion of contemporary

capitalism as a continuum of glocalised inter-

actionas a hierarchical stratied morphol-

ogy, in Lefebvres terminology (see, for

example, Lefebvre 1976, pp. 6769)in and

throu gh wh ich cap itals latest rou nd of reter-

ritorialisation is unfolding.

6. Re-scaling States

This ongoing re- scaling of urbanisation has

been analysed in detail in contemporary ur-

ban studies, but concomitant processes of

state re-scaling have received far less atten-

tion. In particular, much urb an research onglobalisation has been based upon a zero-

Albrow, 1996; Appadurai 1996; Ohmae

1995; Ruggie, 1993; Strange, 1996), urban

ists have frequently assumed that intensie

economic globalisation is leading to an ero

sion of state territoriality. According to thi

globalist position, capitals purportedl

greater geographical mobility and increasinscales of operation weaken irreversibly th

states ability to regulate economic activitie

within its boundaries. On the other hand

among those authors who emphasise the con

tin ued importance of state institutions in th

current conguration of world capitalism

(see, for example, Hirst and Thompson

1995; Mann, 1997), territoriality is fre

quently understood as a relatively static anunchanging geographical container that is no

qualitatively modied by the globalisatio

pr oce ss. Fr om this point of view , the state i

said to react to intensied global economi

interdependence by constructing new form

of national socioeconomic policy, but is no

itself transformed qualitatively through thes

new globalnational interactions. Thes

statist positions reify state territoriality int

an unhistorical framework for socioeconomi

intervention that is not fundamentally trans

formed through its role in processes of globa

capitalist restructuring. They th ereby pro duc

a misleading sense of `business as usual i

the wor ld eco nomy in which nati onall

scaled state institutions retain sovereign reg

ulatory control over national economic sys

tem s.

In contrast to both of these positions,

pr opose that the states ro le as a form o

(re)territorialisation for capital is analyticall

distinct from the structural signicance of th

national spatial scale in circumscribing capi

tal ows, eco nomic transactio ns, urban hier

archies and social relations. From this poin

of view, the globalists are indeed correct t

emphasise the ongoing decentring of the na

tio nal scale of polit ical-econom ic regulationbut they err in interpreting this developmen


9/22


inextricably to nationally scaled state institu-

tions and po licies. In my view , both argu-

ments fail to appreciate various ongoing

transforma tions of state terr itori al org anis-

ation through which: qualitatively new insti-

tutions and regulatory fo rms are curr ently

being produced on both sub- and suprana-tional scal es; and, the ro le of the national

scale as a level of governance is itself being

radically redened in response to the current

round of capitalist globalisation. This re-

scaling of state territorial organisation must

be viewed as a constitutive, enabling moment

of the globalisation process.

Tho ugh the highly cen tralised , bureau cra-

tised states of the For dist-Keynesian era con -verged around the national scale as their

predominant or ganisational locus, since the

world economic crises of the early 1970s the

older industrial states of North America and

western Europe have been restructured sub-

stantially to provide capital with ever more

of its essential territorial preconditions and

collective goods on both sub- and suprana-

tional spatial scales (Cern y, 1995). This on-

going re-scaling of territoriality is

simultaneously transferring state power up-

wards to supranational agencies such as the

European Union (EU) and devolving it

downwards towards the states regional and

local levels, which are better positioned to

promote and regulate urban-regional restruc-

turing. As Jessop (1 994, p. 264) ar gues:

The nation al stat e is now subject to vari-

ous changes which result in its `hollowing

out. This involves two contradictory

trends, for, while the nati onal stat e still

remains politically important and even re-

tains much of its national sovereignty [ ]

its capacities to project its power even

within its national borders are decisively

weakened by the shift towards interna-

tionalized, exible (b ut also regionalize d)produ ctio n system s [] This loss of

international bod ies with a widening rang

of powers; others are devolved to restruc

tured local or regional lev els of gover

nance in the national state; and yet other

are being usurped by emerging horizonta

netw orks of powerloca l and regional

which by-pass central states and conneclocalities or regions in several nations.

Thro ughout the EU and No rth Am erica, i

particular, this dynamic of state re-scalin

has emer ged as a major neo-liberal strategy

of industrial restructuring and crisis manage

ment, aiming at once to enhance the adminis

trati ve efcien cy of stat e institutions, t

enable new forms of capital mobility osupranational to promote the global compet

tiv eness of major sub-national grow th pole

and to enforce the de- and revalorisation o

capital within declining cities and regions.

Much like the place-based infrastructure

of global cities, these newly emergent, re

scaled state institutions can be viewed a

crucial forms of reterritorialisation for capi

tal. As noted above, rather than abandon th

concept of urbanisation in the face of emer

gent, polycentric forms of `global sprawl

(Keil, 1994), world cities researchers hav

pr oposed revised geometr ical models of ur

ban growth, urban form and u rban hierarchy

A formally identical methodological strateg

can be deployed to characterise the re

congured spatial form of territorial states i

the curr ent era. If the spatial form of wor l

city-regions today increasingly approache

that of the `exopo lis analy sed by Soj

(1992), it can be argued analogously that th

spatial form of territorial states in the age o

global capitalism is being `glocalised (se

also Swyngedouw, 1997). Like the exopolis

the urb an exp ression of post- Fordist fo rms o

capitalist industrialisation, the `glocal state

is a polymorphic geometrical conguratio

that is likewise bei ng turned sim ultane ouslinside-out and outside-ininside out insofa


10/22

NEIL BRENNER440

regulation and restructuring of its internal

terr itorial spaces. This on go ing `g localisa-

tion of the state is rearticulating inherited

polit ical geographies in wa ys that are sys-

tematically deprivil egi ng nati onally or-

ganised institutional arrangements and

regulatory forms. Thus understood, state ter-ritoriality currently retains a critical role as a

geographical precondition for contemporary

forms of capital accumulation, but this role is

no longer prem ised up on an isom or ph ic ter ri-

torial corr esponden ce between state institu-

tions, urban systems and circ uits of cap ital

accumulation centred around the national

scale.2

Cerny (1995, p. 618) has vividly referredto this simultaneous fragmentation and redif-

ferentiation of political space as a `whipsaw

effect through which each level of the state

attempts to react to a nearly overwhelming

variety of sub- and supranational pressures,

forces and constraints. In the present context,

one particularly crucial geographical conse-

quence of this `whipsaw effect has been the

intensied mobilisation of central, regional

and local state institutions to promote indus-

trial restructuring on the sub-national scales

of major urban-regional agglomerations. On

the one hand , state re-scalin g can be view ed

as a neoliberal strategy of `deregulation to

dismantle the nationally congured redis-

tributiv e operations of the Fordist-Key nesian

order, frequently by undermining the social-

welfare functions of municipal institutions.

On the other hand, just as crucially, state

re-scaling has served as a strategy of `reregu-

lation to construct new institutional capac-

ities for promoting capital investment within

major urban growth poles, often through lo-

cally or regionally organised workfare poli-

ci es, n on -elected q uan gos and o ther

entrepreneurial initiatives such as publicpri-

vate partnerships. Und er these circumstances,

the ro le of the local and regional levels of thestate is being signicantly redened. Con-

towards maintaining and enhancing the loca

tio nal advantag es of their delin eated terri

torial jurisdictions (G ottdiener, 199 0; Mayer

1994). Indeed, it is above all through thei

key role in the mobilisation of urban space a

a force of production that local and regiona

states, in particular, have acquired an increasing structural signicance within eac

ter ritorial states administrativ e hierarchy. A

major goal of these `glocally oriented stat

institutions is to enhance the locational ad

vantages and productive capacities of thei

ter ritorial jurisdictions as maxi mally compet

itive nodes in the world economy.

Throug hou t western Eur ope, this increas

ing internal fragmentation, redifferentiatioand polarisation of erstwhile national econ

omic spaces has been further intensie

since the early 1980s through: the deploy

ment of new forms of regional structura

policy oriented towards the `endogenous de

velopment o f m ajor urban regions (Albrecht

and Swyngedouw, 1989; Heeg, 1996); and

the constru ction of new fo rms and lev els o

state territorial organisation, n otably on ur

ban-regional or metropolitan scales (Evan

and Harding, 1997; Lefevre, 1998; Sharpe

1993; Voelzkow, 1996). In major urban re

gions throughout the EU, regionally scale

regulatory institutions are being planned

pr omoted and constr ucted as a mean s to se

cure place-specic locational advantage

against. These new state spaces for the regu

lation of urban growth are being justied no

as components of national socioeconomi

pr ogram mes or as fu nctional units with i

nationally hier archised administrative sys

tem s, bu t rath er as place-specic institutiona

pr erequisites for main taining the globa

structural competitiveness of a given urba

region. One major consequence of this emer

gent pattern of sub-national locational poli

tics has been a massive inten sicat ion o

uneven geographical development as isolatetem poral `b ursts of growth are promoted b


11/22


alisation of the national economy and urban

hier archies is not und erm ining the stat es

role as a form of territorialisation of capital,

but `denationalising its scalar structure to

privilege supra- and sub-n ational lev els of

regulatory intervention and capital valorisa-

tion. The resu ltant `g localised regu latory in-stitutions are reterritorialising state power

onto multiple spatial scales that do not con-

verge with one another on the national scale

or constitute an isomorphic, self-enclosed na-

tional total ity (Anderson, 1996; Cer ny ,

1995). However, just as world city-regions

remain urban agglomerations, the post-

Fordist, post-K eynesian states that have been

consolidated throughout the older industri-alised world since the early 1980s likewise

remain territorial states in signicant ways.

Insofar as the scales of state territorial organ-

isation continue to circumscribe social, econ-

omic and political relations within delineated

geographical boundaries, state institutions

have main tained their essentially territor ial

character. The crucial point in the present

context is that state territoriality is today

increasingly being congured in `glocalised

rather than in nationalised scalar frame-

works.

As early as the mid 1970s, Henri Lefebvre

had begun to ou tline some of the bro ad con -

tours of this newly em er gen t, re-scaled fo rm

of state territorial power in which the econ-

omy and politics [are] fused (Lefebvre,

1977, 1986, p. 35), and its implications for

the states relation to its ter ritori al space . As

Lefebvre notes in the concluding chapter of

T he P rodu ction o f Spa ce (1991/1974,

p. 378):

That relationship [b etw een the state and

space] [] is becoming tighter: the spatial

role of the state [] is more patent. Ad-

ministrative and political state apparatuses

are no longer content (if they ever were)merely to intervene in an abstract manner

and through every agency of the economi

realm.

This ten dency towards a fu sion of state insti

tutions into the circuit of cap ital is cruciall

enabled through strategies of state re-scaling

which in turn translate into recongureforms of localregional regulation that en

able capital to extract and valorise the sur

plus. The resultant, re-scaled conguration

of state territorial power are tightly inter

twined with cap ital on differential spati a

scales, and therefore, increasingly sensitiv

to the rh ythms and con tradictions of eac

circuit of capital (see also Poulantzas, 1978

pp. 166179 ). As the state comes to operat

as an increasingly active moment in the mo

bilisation of each territorys productiv

forces, its scalar organisation in turn assume

a central role in mediating and circumscrib

ing capitalist growth.

7. New State Spaces: The Re-scaling o

Urban Governance in the EU

The implem entat ion of both urb an re-scalin

and state re-scaling is a highly contested

conictual process, mediated through a wid

range of socio-political struggles for hege

monic control over social space that are i

turn articulated upon multi ple spatial scales

On the one hand, as argued above, urba

re-scaling and state re-scaling can be under

stood as two distinctive forms of reterritorial

isation that have emerged in conjunctio

with the most recent round of crisis-induced

capitalist globalisation (as summarised i

Table 1). On the other hand, pr ocesses o

urban-regional restructuring and state terr

torial restructuring are clo sely intert wine

insofar as each form of reterritorialisatio

continually inuences and transforms th

conditions under which the other unfold

Fi rst, the pr ocesses of ur ban-regional restructuring induced by the global eco nomic crise


12/22

NEIL BRENNER442

Table 1. Globalisation as reterritorialisation: re-scaling cities and states

Spatial scale of capital accumulation

Form of (r e)terr ito ria lisation Global Nati onal Urban-regional

CitiesUrban re-scaling Formation of a Rearticulation of Fo rm ation of

World city formation world urban national city- `exopolis:hierarchy . system s into recom position ofIntensied global and supra- urban form :interspatial regional urban emergence of c om petition am ong hi era rchie s. p olyc entric u rb an c ities th ro ugho ut U nco upling o f r eg io ns and new

the wo rld economy world-city gr owth industr ial distr ictsfrom nationaleconomic growth

Stat esState territorial restructuring Territorial states `Denationalisation Territorial states

E mergen ce o f n eo lib eral tu rne d `outsid e-in : of th e n ation al tu rne d ` in sid e-o ut:`glocal states re-scaled upwards scale. re-scaled downwards

toward s supra- Central state towa rds sub-nationalnational lev els of tra nsf ers vario us levels.regulation as tasks upwards States promotein sti tu tio ns suc h a s to wards sup ra- in vestmen t b y

the EU , the IM F natio nal agencies transna tion aland the World Bank and devolves others corporations withinrestructure state downwards towards major urban regions.space regional and local Construction of `new

state institutions state spaces to

regulate `newindustrial spaces

tion in a wide range of urb an-regional con -

texts, fr om declining Fo rd ist manuf acturing

regions to new industrial districts and global

city-regions. State re-scaling can thus be

viewed as a crucial accumulation strategy

that is curr ently being deployed by neoliberal

polit ical regimes throughout Eur ope to

restructure urban and regional spaces.

Secondly, processes of state re-scaling have

in turn signicantly recongured the relation-

ship between capital, state institutions and

terr itorially cir cumscribed socio -p olitical

forces within major European urban regions.

Whereas capital constantly strives to enhance

its spatial mobility by diminishing its place-

dependency, contemporary `glocal states areattempting ever more directly to x capital

manner, through processes of state re

scaling, the scales of state territorial organis

ation have become central mediators o

capitalist industrial restructuring. It can b

argued, therefore, that the governance o

contemporary urbanisation patterns entail

not only the constru ction of `new industria

spaces for post-Fordist forms of indus

trial isation (S cott, 1988b) but, just a

crucially, the consolidation o f w hat m ight b

ter med new state spaces to enhance eac

states capacity to mobilise urban an

regional space as a productive force.

Insofar as today neither urbanisation

accumulation nor state regulation privilege

single, self-enclosed and circumscribespatial scale, the geographical boundaries o


13/22


polit ical stru ggle. How ever, many contem -

por ary discussions of urb an governance have

presupposed a relatively xed urban or re-

gional jurisdictional framework within which

the regulatory preconditions for cap italist ur-

banisation are secured (for a recent overview,

see Hall and Hubbard, 1996). In this sense,the scales of ur ban go vernance have been

viewed as the preconstituted platforms for

urban politics rather than as one of their

active, socially produced moments, dimen-

sions or objects. By contrast, the preceding

analysis indicates that new geographies of

urban governance are currently crystallising

at the multi-scalar interface between pro-

cesses of urban restructuring and state terri-torial restructuring. The contemporary

dilemmas and contradictions of urban gover-

nance must thus be analy sed on each of the

spatial scales on which these intertwined pro-

cesses of reterritorialisation intersect, from

the urban- regional to the nati onal and Eu-

ropean scales. Though it is not possible in the

present context to elabor ate a detailed analy -

sis of each of these scales and their complex

interconnections, some of the major socio-in-

stitutional mechanisms linking processes of

urban-regional restructuring and processes of

state re-scaling in the contemporary EU can

be briey identied.

World C ities and the Geopolitics of Eu-

ropean Integration

The locations of wo rld cit ies have play ed a

major role in the competition among Eu-

ropean states to acquire EU government

ofces within their territories. This form of

interspatial competition is mediated directly

throu gh world cities host states as they

negotiate the term s and pace of Euro pean

integration. Such locational decisions have

resulted in part from strategic compromises

among Europes hegemonic powers, as i llus-trated in the choice of Br ussels as the EUs

pull Europ es loca tional cen tre of gravit

towards their respect ive terr itories (Lo ndo

received only a meagre consolation prize, th

European Patent Ofce). The process of Eu

ropean monetary integration also has poten

tially major im plications for patterns o

interspatial competition among Europeanancial centres. London currently remain

the most important cen tre of nancial ser

vices within the EU. However, the introduc

tio n of the euro may pro vide new

opportunities to Frankfurt and Paris, whic

are currently developing new regulatory an

techno logical infr astructures for globa

nancial markets, and whose host states ar

immediately p articipating in the single currency (see The Economist, 9 May 1998, Fi

nancial Centres Su rv ey, p. 17). For thi

reason, the re-scaling of European territoria

states upwards towards the EU may favou

the eventual form atio n of an integr ate

Fr ankfurtP arisL ondon axis articu lating th

European super-region with the world econ

omy (Taylor, 1997).

World Cities and Intergovernmental Rela

tions

Since the early 1980s, centrallocal relation

have been radically tr ansformed throu ghou

western Europe. Insofar as states conceiv

their ter ri tor ial sub- un its as fun ctionall

equivalent administrative tiers rather than a

geographically distinctive nodes of urbanisa

tio n, pro cesses of wo rld city formation ar

rarely discussed in central state policy de

bates on intergovernmental relations (the de

bate on `city provinces in the Netherland

since the early 1990s is a signicant recen

exception). Nevertheless, recongurations o

in ter gov er nm en tal r elati ons ca n h av

signicant ramications for the governanc

of major urban regions to the extent that the

rearrange the local states administrative, organisational and nancial links to the centra


14/22

NEIL BRENNER444

of centrally imposed governance in the Lon-

don region (Duncan and Goodwin, 1988). At

the other extreme, state re structuring in the

FRG since the ear ly 198 0s has entailed an

increasingly decentralised role for both the

Lander and the municipalities in the formu-

lation and implementation of industrial pol-icy (Herrigel, 1996). Between these poles, in

the Netherlan ds debates on centrallocal re-

structuring have proliferated on all levels of

the Dutch state since the mid 1980s, leading

the central state, the provinces and the mu-

nici palities to converge upo n the goal of

world city formation in the western Randstad

megalopolis as a shared priority for national

soci oe con om ic p oli cy ( Dielem an an dMusterd, 1992). The nature of urban gover-

nance within world city-r egions is therefore

conditioned strongly by patterns of intergov-

ernmental relations within their host states.

As the local states linkages to the regional

an d central lev els of t he state are re-

congured, so too are its institutional and

nancial capacities to regulate the urban con-

tradictio ns of globalisation.

World Cities and Territorial Politics

The dynamics of local gro wth coalitions

have been analy sed in detail by urban regime

theorists (L ogan and Mo lotch, 198 7). How -

ever, the articulation of municipal political

dynamics within world cities with broader

regional and national political constellations

has not bee n extensi vely investi gated (b ut

see Logan and Swanstrom, 1990). However,

as Friedmann and Wolff (1982, p. 312) point

out,

Being essential to both transnational capi-

tal and nat ional political inter ests, world

cities may become bargaining counters in

the ensuing str uggles

The crucial qu estion, from this persp ective,is how the economic disjuncture between the

mid 1970s, the dynamism of England

South East as a global city-region has bee

based predominantly on an offshore econ

omy, derived from the Citys role as a globa

nancial centre, largely delinked from th

declining cities and regions located else

where within the UK. The rise of Thatcherism in the 1980s can be interpreted as

declaration of independence by the south o

England, the community dependent on Lon

don as a world city (Taylor, 1995, p. 59)

However, even in the N etherlands, where th

Amsterdam/Randstad region is widel

viewed as the urban engine of the nationa

economy, the mobilisation of central and lo

cal policies around the goal of world citformation during the late 1980s entailed th

construction of a `national urban growth co

alit io n to co nve rt cen tr al citi es f rom

pr oviders of welfare state services into th

new `spear heads of eco nom ic grow th (T er

horst and van de Ven, 1995). Thr ou gho ut th

EU, the political-economic geography o

world cities extends beyond the jurisdictiona

reach of the local state to recongure politi

cal-territorial alliances on multiple scale

levels of their host states. Therefore, just a

the ter ritorial structu re of the state condition

the politics of scale within wor ld cities, s

too is the re-scalin g of urbanisation processe

intertwined with a re-scaling of politics an

political contestation within the ter ri toria

state.

Urban R egions and Sp atial Planning System

As noted earlier, new geographies of stat

spatial policy are emerging throughout th

EU that are oriented towards the `endoge

nous poten tials of delineated sub- nationa

ter ritories such as urb an regions, which ar

now increasin gly view ed as the geo gr aphica

foundations of national industrial perfor

m an ce. F or in st anc e, in con tem po rarGerm any, the Spatial Planning L aw


15/22


essential `level of policy implementation

(Brenner, 1997b). Likewise, in the Nether-

lands, the post-war project of `deconcentra-

tion, wh ich attempted to spread urbanisation

beyond the western agglomeration of the

Randstad , has been radically reversed since

the lat e 1980s un der a new `com pac t citiespolicy. The revised nation al fr amew orks for

Dutch spatial planning introduced in the

1990s have likewise actively promoted the

recentralisation of industrial growth within

the western ur ban cores (Amsterdam, Rotter-

dam, Utrecht and the Hague) and unambigu-

ously specied the Randstad megalopolis as

the urban-regional engine of national eco n-

omic growth (Faludi and van der Valk,1994). Closely analogous reorientations of

nati onally organised spatial planning system s

are occurring throughout the EU (Albrechts

and Swyngedouw, 1989). Meanwhile, on the

EU level itself, the classical goal of mediat-

ing coreperiphery po larisation through re-

gional structural policies is likewise being

redened to promote `endogenous potentials

for regional economic development through-

out European territorial space (Tommel,

1996). This trend is likely to intensify as the

structural funds programme is redened in

conjunction with EU enlargement. As these

examples make clear, nationally organised

state spaces throughout the EU are currently

being rehierarchised and redifferentiated into

a highly uneven mosaic of relatively distinc-

tive ur ban- regional eco nomic spaces, each

dened according to its specic position

within supranational divisions of labour.

Urban Regions and Metropolitan Gover-

nance

In the midst of these supra-urban re-scalings,

the pro blem of constructing relatively xed

congurations of territorial org anisation on

urban-regional scales has remained as urgentas ever. The political-regulatory institutions

regional scales that generally supersede th

reach of each of these administrative levels

Problems of metropo-litan governance ar

therefore return ing to the fo refro nt of politi

cal discussion and debate in many European

cities. Whereas debates on metropolitan in

sti tu tio ns d ur ing th e 1 960s an d 19 70focused predominantly on the issues o

administrative efciency and local servic

pr ovision, contempo rary discussions o

regional governance increasingly emphasis

the need for adm inistrative exibility, re

gionally co-ordinated economic developmen

strategies and the problem of intensie

global interspatial competition. In this con

tex t, regional form s of regulation are beinjustied as crucial prer equisites for main tain

ing a citys locational advantages in th

world economy. Throughout Europe, from

London, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels

Lyon and Paris to the Ruhr agglomeration

Hannover, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich

Zurich, Bolog na and Milan, urban economi

policy is bei ng linked ever more direct ly t

diverse forms of spatial planning, investmen

and regulation on regional scales (se

Lefevre 1998; Wentz, 1994).3 These newl

emergent forms of regional co

operation within major urban regions ar

grounded upon a distinctively post-Fordis

variant of `solidarity that entails an econ

omic logic of maximising the competitive

ness of a territorially deli mited space o

capitalist production rather than a socia

logic of redistributing its economic surplu

across the social space of a single coheren

`society (Ronneberger, 1997). On the othe

hand, this globally induced con cern to estab

lish regional forms of regulation is frequentl

challenged through pressures from below i

defence of local autonomy, place- and scale

specic vested interests and the continue

jurisdictio nal fr agmentation of the loca l stat

(Ronneberger and Schmid, 1995). Undethese cond itions, state terr itorial org anisat io


16/22

NEIL BRENNER446

struggle for regulatory control over the

urbanisation process mediated through socio-

polit ical contestation ov er the scal e(s) of

governance. As urban regions throughout

Europe compete with one another for loca-

tional advantag es in the global and Euro pean

urban hierarchies, the scales of urban andregional territorial organisation are becoming

ever more crucial at once as regulatory

instruments of the state and as sites of socio-

polit ical conict.

The Territorial O rganisation of World Cities

It is ultimately on the urban scale, however,

that the pro ductive cap acities of territor ialorganisation are mobilised. Today, municipal

governments throughout Europe are directly

embracing this goal through a wide range of

supply-side strategies that entail the demar-

cation, construction and promotion of stra-

tegic urb an places for industrial

developmentfor example, ofce centres,

industrial parks, telematics networks, trans-

port and shipping terminals and various types

of retail, entertainment and cultural facilities.

These em ergent fo rms of `u rb an entrepren eu-

rialism have been analysed extensively with

reference to the crucial role of publicprivate

partnerships in facil itating cap ital investm ent

in mega-projects situated in strategically des-

ignated locations of the city (Gottdiener,

1990; Harvey, 1989c; Mayer, 1994). The

Docklands in London is perhaps the most

spectacular European instance of this type of

massive state investment in the urban infra-

structure of global capital, but it exemplies

a broader strategic shift in urban policy that

can be observed in cities throughout the

world. As Harvey (1989c, pp. 78) indicates,

such state-nanced mega-projects are de-

signed primarily to enhance the productive

capacity of urban places within global ows

of value, rather than to reorganise living andworking conditions more broadly within cit-

valorised at globally competitive turnove

tim es. Thro ughout Euro pe, this lin k betwee

pr oce sses of ur ban re-scalin g and state re

scaling is embodied institutionally in the ke

role of various newly created para-stat

agencies in planning and co-ordinating in

vestment within these local mega-project(for example, the London Docklands Devel

opment Corporation, Frankfurts Rhein-Mai

Economic Development Corporation, th

Schiphol Airport Development Corporation

and many others).

This br oad ov erview has only begun t

examine the intricacies of the various geo

graphical scales on which these struggle

over the territorial organisation of urban governance are occurring in contemporary Eu

rope and their complex, rapidly changin

interconnections. The scales of state terr

torial power are both the medium and th

outcome of this dizzying, multi-scalar dialec

tic of `g local transformati on that is today fa

from over. Conicts that erupt over the terr

torial organisation of the state on each o

these scales ar e, of cour se, also conditione

by the territorial-organisational conguratio

of the other scales upon which they are su

perimposed. At the same tim e, these cir cum

scribed socio-political conicts can becom

highly volati le, `jum ping scales (S mith

1993) to inuence, restructure or even trans

form the organisational structure of th

broader scale-congurations in which the

are enmeshed.

It is in this sense that the currently unfo ld

ing denationalisation of urbanisation, accu

mulation and state territorial power ha

opened up a space for scales themselves t

become direct objects of socio-politica

struggle. U nder these circumstances, scale

do not merely circumscribe social relation

within determinate geographical boundaries

but constitute an active, socially produce

and politically contested moment of thosrelations. As densely organised forceelds i


17/22


polit ical and geoe con om ic terms. The central

analytical and political conclusion that

emerges from this analysis is that problems

of urban governance can no longer be con-

fronted merely on an urban scale, as dilem-

mas of municipal or even regional regulation,

but must be analysed as well on the national,supranational and global scales of state terri-

torial po wer for it is ultim ately on these

supra-urban scales that the intensely contra-

dictory political geography of neoliberalism

is congured.

8. Conclusion: Scaling P olitics, P oliticising

Scales

Currently unfolding re-scalings of urbanisa-

tion and state ter ri tor ial power have entailed

a major transformation in the geographical

organisation of world capitalism. The spatial

scales of capitalist production, urbanisation

and state regulation are today being radically

reorganised, so dramatically that inherited

geographical vocabularies for describing the

nested hierarchy of scales that interl ace

world capitalism no longer provide adequate

analytical tools for conceptualising the multi-

layered, densely interwoven and highly con-

tradictory chara cter of contempor ary spatial

practi ces. Faced with cap itals increasingly

`glocal spatio-temporal dynamics, the terri-

torial infr astructures of urb anisation and state

regulation no longer coalesce around the na-

tional scal e-lev el. Wh ereas cities today oper-

ate increasingly as urban nodes within a

world urban hierarchy, states are rapidly re-

structuring themselves to enhance the global

competitiveness of their major cities and re-

gions.

Because urban regions occupy the highly

contradictory interface between the world

economy and the territorial state, they are

embedded within a multiplicity of social,

economic and political processes organisedupon superimposed spatial scales. The result-

tin ual construction, deconst ruction an

reconstruction of relatively stabilise

congurations of territorial organisation. Th

re-scaling of urbanisation leads to a con

comitant re-scaling of the state throug

which, simultaneously, territorial organis

ation is mobilised as a productive force ansocial relations are circumscribed within de

terminate geo graphical boundaries. These re

scaled congurations of state territoria

organisation in turn transform the condition

under which the urbanisation process un

folds. However, whether these disjointe

strategies of reterritorialisation within Eu

ropean cities might establish new spatia

xes for sustained capital accumulation ithe globallocal disorder of the late 20t

century is a matter that can only be resolve

thro ugh the po litics of scale itself, thro ug

the on going strugg le for hegemonic contro

over place, territory and space.

Henri Lefebvre (1995/1968, 1991/1974

1978) has argued at length that struggles ove

the terr itori al org anisation of the urb anisat io

pr oce ss express the dual character of spati a

scales under capitalismi.e. their role a

once as framings for everyday social rela

tio ns and as pro du ctive for ces for successiv

rounds of world-scale capital accumulation

Therefore, each scale on which the urb anisa

tio n pro cess unf olds simultaneously bound

social relations within determinate geograph

ical arenas, hierarchises places and territo

ries within broader congurations of uneve

geographical development and mediate

capitals incessant struggle to expand it

command and control over the abstract spac

of the world economy. The emergent politic

of scale regarding urban governance withi

contemporary urban regions presents yet an

other dimension of territorial organisatio

under capitalism to which Lefebvre also de

voted considerable attentionits role as

realm of potentially transformative politicapr axis in which `coun ter plan s, `counter


18/22

NEIL BRENNER448

on which each of these intertwined dimen-

sions of spatial practices is superimposed.

Today, there is an urg ent need for new con -

ceptualisations of scale to obtain an analyti-

caland politicalx on current processes

of reterritorialisation and their implications

for the geographical organisation of socialrelations in an era of neoliberal globalisation.

Notes

1. Although much of Lefebvres state theoryfocuses upon the states role as a form of

ter ritorialisa tion fo r cap ital, he also devotesextensive attention to ways in which the stateoperates as the m ost crucial institutional me -diator of capitals uneven geographical de-velopment. The states mediation of unevengeographical development always occurs

through historically speci c regulatorystrategies and institutional forms that oftenstand in sharp tension with those oriented

towards the ter ri torialisation of cap ita l. OnLefebvres state theory, see Brenner, 1997a,1998b.

2. With Mann (1988, 1993), I view the essentialattribute of the modern territorial state as its

ter ritorially cen tralised form , in contradis-tin ction to all oth er powe r actors in the capi-talist wor ld system (capita list r ms, civicassociations, NGOs, etc.). This denitionleads to an analysis of contemporary pro-cesses of globalisation as being superim-

posed and overlaid upon the glob al grid ofstate territorialities rather than signalling aunilinear erosion of territoriality as such. Bycontrast, many authors who dene the statein terms of the isomorphic link between terri-

tory and sovereignty; as a self-enclosed con-tainer of econom ic, polit ical and/or culturalprocesses; or as a locus of community andcollective identity interpret contemporary

transfo rmati ons as a pr ocess of state decli ne(see, for example, Appadurai, 1996; Cerny,1995; Ruggie, 1993).

3. After over a decade of central state controlover London, the Confederation of BritishIndustry has advocated the construction of aLondon Development Agency responsiblefor planning urban growth throughout theSouth East; meanwhile, a London municipalcouncil has recently been approved by local

f d h kf / h i i

tra tive organisatio n and prod uctive capacitiewithin a single regulatory armature of thstate. Even in the Randstad region of thNetherlands, where central state proposals tconstruct new, regionally organised `city

provinces were ov erw helm ing ly rejected ilocal referenda held in 1995 in Amsterdamand Rotterdam, new forms of informal insti

tut ion al co-ordination are neverth eless curren tly b eing d eve lo pe d throug ho ut th

Randstad to regulate and pr omote urbagrowth on regional scales.

References

ALBRECHTS, L. and SWYNGEDOUW, E. (1989) Thchallenges for regional policy under a exiblreg ime o f accu mulation , in : L . ALBRECHT

(Ed.) Regional P olicy at the Crossroads: European Perspectives, pp. 6789. London: Jessica Kingsley.

ALBROW, M. (1996) The Global Age: State anSociety Be yo nd Mod ern ity. Oxford: Polity.

ALTVATER, E. (1992) Fordist and post-Fordist inte rnational division of lab or and mo netarregimes, in: M. STO RP ER and A. J. SCOTT (EdsPa thways to Industrialization and Regional D evelopment, pp. 2145. New York: Routledge.

ALTVATER, E. and MAHNKOPF, B. (1996) Grenze

der Globaliseriung. Munster: Westfalische

Dampfboot.AMI N, A. and T HRIFT, N. (1992) Neo-Marshallia

no des in glob al networ ks, International Journaof Urban and Regional Research, 16, pp. 571587.

AMI N, A . a n d T HRIFT, N. (1994) Living in thg lo ba l, in: A . AMI N and N. THRIFT (EdsGlobalization, Institutions and Regional Development in Europe, pp. 122. New York: Oxford University Press.

ANDERSON, J. (1996) The shifting stage of politic s: new mediev al and po stm odern ter ritorialtie s?, E n viro nm en t a nd P la nn ing D , 14pp . 13 31 53.

APPADURAI, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Cult ur al Dimens ions of Globalizati on. Min

neapolis: Univ ersity of Minn esota Press.ARR IG HI, G. (1994) The Long Twentieth Century

New York: Verso.BRA UD EL , F. (1984) The Perspective of the World

trans. Sian Reyn olds. Berk eley and Lo s An geles: University of California Press.

BRE NN ER, N. (1997a) Global, fragmented, hierarchical: Henri Lefebvres geographies o


19/22


structuring in contemporary Europe, Review of International Political Economy, 5, pp. 137.

BRE NNE R, N. (1998b) Between xity and m otion:accumulation, territorial organization and the

historical geog raphy of spatial scales, Environ-ment and Planning D, 16, pp. 459481.

BRE NNE R, N. (1998c) Beyond state-centrism?Space, territoriality and geographical scale inglobalization studies, Theory and Society.

CASTELLS, M . (1 98 9) The Informational City.Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

CASTELLS, M. (1 9 9 6 ) The Rise of the NetworkSo cie ty. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

CERNY, P. (1995) Globalization and the changinglogic of collective action, International Organi-

zatio n, 49, pp. 595625.COX, K. (1990) Territorial structures of the state:

some conceptual issues, Tijdschrift voorE con omisch e en S ocia le G eog ra e, 81,

pp. 251 266.COX, R. (19 87 ) Production, Power and World

Order. New York: Columbia University Press.DIELEMAN, F. and MUST ER D, S. (Eds) (1992) Th e

Randstad: A Research and Policy Laboratory.Dordrecht: Kluwer.

DUNC AN, S . a n d G OODWIN, M. (1988) The LocalState and Uneven Development. London: PolityPress.

Economist, The (1998) Capitals of capital: a sur-vey of nancial centres. 9 May, pp. 146.

EVANS, R . a n d HARDING, A. (1997) Regionalisa-tion, regional institutions and eco nom ic devel-opment, Policy and Politics, 25, pp. 1930.

FALUDI, A. and VAN DER VAL K, A. (1994) Rule andOrder: Dutch Planning Doctrine in the Twenti-eth Century. Dordrecht: Kluwer AcademicPublishers.

FRI ED MA NN, J. (1973) The future of human habi-tat, in: D. MACALLISTER (Ed.) A New Focus forLand Use Planning, pp. 96134. Washington,DC: National Science Foundation Press.

FRI ED MA NN, J. (1986) The world city hypothesis,Development and Change, 17, pp. 6983.

FRI ED MA NN, J. (1995) Where we stand: a decadeof world city research, in: P. KNOX a nd P .

TAYLOR (Eds) World Cities in a World-System,pp. 214 7. New York: Cam bridge UniversityPress.

FRI ED MA NN, J . a n d MILLER, J. (1965) The urbaneld, Journal of the American Institute of Plan-ners, 31, pp. 312320.

FRI ED MA NN, J . a n d WOLFF, G. (1982) World cityformation: an agenda for research and action,International Journal of Urban and Regional

h 6 309 344

USA , International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 14, pp. 383403.

GOTTMANN, J. (1961) Megalopolis: The Urbani zed Northeastern Seaboard of the Unit e

States. New York: T he T wen tieth Ce ntu rFu nd .

HALL , T. and HUBBA RD, P. (1 99 6) T he e n

trepreneurial city: new politics, new urban geographies, Progress in Human Geography, 20pp . 15 31 74.

HARVEY, D. (1982) The Limits to Capital. Ne wYork: Oxford University Press.

HARVEY, D. (1985) The geopolitics of capitalism

in: D. GRE GO RY and J. URR Y (Eds) Social Relations and Spatial Structures, pp. 128163. London: Macmillan.

HARVEY, D . ( 198 9a) The Condit ion of Posmodernity. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

HARVEY, D. (1989b) The Urban Experience. Batim ore: Joh ns Hop kins Univ ersity Press.

HARVEY, D. (1989c) From managerialism to entrepreneurialism: the transfo rmation in urba

governance in late capitalism, Geograska Annaler, B, 71, pp. 318.

HARVEY, D. (1996) Globalization in question, Rethinking Marxism, 8(4), 117.

HEEG, S. (1996): Endogene Potentiale oder foot

loose capitalism? Einige Anmerkungen zusozialen Regulation des Raums, in: M. BRU C

and H.-P. KRE BS (Eds) Unternehmen GlobusF a cette n n ach fo rd istisch er R egu la tio n

pp . 19 92 23. Mun ster: Westfalisches Da mp f

boot.HERRIGEL, G . ( 199 6) Industrial Constructions

The Sources of German Industrial Pow er. NewYork: Cambridge University Press.

HIRSCH, J . (19 95) Der nationale Wettbewerbssta at: S ta at, D em okra tie u nd P olitik i

globa len Kap ita lism us. Berlin/AmsterdamEdition ID-Archiv.

HIRST, P. and THOMPSON, G. (1995) Globalizatioin Question. Cambridge: Polity.

HIT Z, H., K EI L, R., L EHRER, U. ET AL. (Eds) (1995Capitales Fatales: Urbanisierung und Politin de n F inanzm etropolen F rankfurt u nd Z urich

Zurich: Rotpu nktverlag.JESSOP, B (1993) Towards a Schumpeterian work

fare state? Preliminary remarks on post-Fordispo litical econom y, Studies in Political Economy, 40, pp. 740.

JESSOP, B (1994) Post-Fordism and the state, in

A. AMI N (Ed.) Post-Fordism: A Readerpp . 25 12 79. Cambridge, MA: Bla ckwell.

J B (1998) Th ti f t i


20/22

NEIL BRENNER450

KEI L, R. (1994) Global sprawl: urban form afterFord ism, Environment and Planning D, 12 ,pp. 162 166.

KNOX, P . a n d TAYLOR, P. J. (Eds) (1995) WorldCities in a World-system. N ew Y or k: C am-bridge University Press.

KRATK E, S . ( 199 1) Strukturwan del der Stadte.Frankf urt: Campus.

KRATK E, S. (1995) Stadt, Raum, O konomie. Ba sel:Birk hauser Verlag.

LASH, S . a nd U RR Y J. (1987) The End of Orga-nized Capitalism. Madison: University of Wis-consin Press.

LEFEBVRE, H. (1976) De lEtat: d e H egel a M arxpa r St aline, V ol. 2. Paris: Union GeneraledEditions.

LEFEBVRE, H. (1977) De lEtat: le mode de pro-duction etatiq ue, Vol. 3. Par is: Union GeneraledEditions.

LEFEBVRE, H. (1978) De lEtat: les contradictionsde lEtat modern, Vol. 4. Par is: Union GeneraledEditions.

LEFEBVRE, H. (1986) Le retour de la dialectique:12 mots clefs pour le monde moderne. Paris:Messidor/Editions sociales.

LEFEBVRE, H. (1991[1974]) The Production of Sp ace, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Cam-bridge, MA: Blackwell.

LEFEBVRE, H. (1995[1968]) The right to the city,in: Writings on Cities, pp. 63184. Cambridge,MA: Blackwell.

LEFEVRE, C. (1998) Metropolitan government andgovernance in western countries: a critical re-view, International Journal of Urban and Re-

gion al Research, 22, pp. 926.LEITNER, H . a n d SHEPPARD, E. (1998) Economic

uncertainty, inter-urban competition and theefcacy of entrepreneurialism, in: T. H ALL andP. HUB BA RD (Eds) The Entrepreneurial City,

pp. 285 308. Ch ich ester: Wiley.LIPIETZ, A. (1987) Mirages and Miracles. L o n -

don: Verso.LOGAN, J . a n d MOLOTCH, H. (1987) Urban For-

tunes: The Political Economy of Place. Berke-ley and Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress.

LOGAN, J . a n d SWANSTROM, T. (Eds) (1990) Be-yo nd the City Limits: Urban Policy and Ec on-om ic R estructuring in ComparativePerspective. Philadelphia: Temple UniversityPress.

MANDEL, E. (1975) Late Capitalism. New York:Verso.

MAN N, M. (1988) The autonomous power of thei i i h i d l i

MANN, M. (1997) Has globalization ended thrise and rise of the nation-state?, Review

o f I nte rn atio na l P o litica l E co nom y, 4pp . 47 24 96.

MARX, K. (1973[1857]) Grundrisse: Foundationof the Critique of Political Economy, tranMartin Nicolaus. New York: Penguin.

MASSEY, D . (19 93) P ow er- geo me try and pr ogressive sense of place, in: J. BIR D E T A L(Eds) Mapping the Futures: Local CulturesG lob al Ch an ge, pp. 5970. London

Ro utledge.

MAYER, M. (1992) The shifting local politicasystem in European cities, in: M. DUN FO RD anG. KAFKALAS (Eds) Cities and Regions in thNew Europe: The GlobalLocal Interplay an

Spati al Development St rategies, pp. 255276London: Belhaven Press.

MAYER, M. (1994) Post-Fordist city politics, inA. AMI N (Ed.) Post-Fordism: A Reader

pp . 31 63 37. Cambridge, MA: Bla ckwell.

O BRIE N, R. (1992) Global Financial IntegrationThe End of Geography. London: Pinter.

OHMAE, K. (1995) The End of the Nation StateNew York: The Free Press.

PEC K, J. and T ICKELL, A. (1994) Searching for

new institution al x : the aft er- Fordist crisis anthe globallocal disorder, in: A. AMI N (EdPost-Fordism: A Reader, pp. 280315. Cam

bridge, MA: Blackwell.PEC K, J. and T ICKELL, A. (1995) The social regu

lation of uneven development: `regulatordecit, Englands South East, and the collapsof Thatcherism, Environment and Planning A27, pp. 1540.

POULANTZAS, N. (1978) State, Power, Socialismtrans. Pa trick Ca miller. Lo nd on: New LeBooks.

PRI GGE, W. (1995) Urbi et orbiZur Epistemolo

gie des Stadtischen, in: H. Hitz E T A L . (Eds

Capitales Fatales: Urbanisierung und Politin de n F inanzm etropolen F rankfurt u nd Z urich

pp . 17 61 87. Zuric h: Ro tpunk tverlag.RONNEBERGER, K . (1 997) K on tr oll iert e A u

tonomie und rig ide No rm: Zur neoli beraleRestr uktur ierung des So zia len, W ide rspruche.

RONNEBERGER, K. and SCHMID, C. (1995Globalisierung und Metropolenpolitik: U berlegungen zum Urbanisierungsprozess de

neun ziger Jahre, in: H. Hitz ET AL . ( EdC ap itale s F ata les: U rb anisie ru ng u n

Politik in den Finanzmetropolen Frankfurun d Zurich, pp. 354378. Zurich: Rotpunkt

l


21/22


tions, International Organization, 47, pp. 139174.

SASSEN, S. (1991) The Global City. Princeton, N J:Princeton University Press.

SASSEN, S. (1993) Cities in the World Economy.London: Sage.

SCHOLTE, J. A. (1996) The geography of collec-tive identities in a globalizin g world,

Review ofInternational Political Economy, 3 , p p. 5 65 608.

SCOTT, A. J. (1988a) Metropolis: From the Div-ision of Labor to Urban Form. Berkeley/LosAngeles: University of California Press.

SCOTT, A. J. (1988b) New Industrial Spaces. Lon-don: Pion.

SCOTT, A. J. (1996) Regional motors of the globaleconomy, Futures, 28, pp. 391411.

SCOTT, A. J. (1998) Regions and the World Econ-

om y. London: Oxford University Press.

SCOTT, A . J. an d STO RP ER, M. (1992) Industrial-ization and regional development, in: M. STOR -PE R and A. J. SCOTT (Eds) Pathways t oIndustrialization and Regional Development,

pp. 320 . Ne w Yo rk: Routled ge.SHARPE, L . J. (1 993) T he E urop ea n meso: an

appraisal, in: L. J. Sharpe (Ed.) The Ri s e of Meso-government in Europe, pp. 139. Lon-don: Sage.

SMITH, N. (1993) Homeless/global: scaling places,in: J. BIR D E T A L . (Eds)

Mapping the Futures:Local Cultures, Global Change, pp. 87119.New York: Routledge.

SMITH, N. (1995) Remaking scale: competitionand cooperation in prenational and postnationalE ur op e, in: H . ESKELINEN and F . S NICKARS(Eds) Competitive European Peripheries,

pp. 597 4. Berl in: Sp rin ger Verl ag.SMITH, N. (1997) The satanic geographies of

globalization: uneven development in the1990s, Public Culture, 10, pp. 169192.

SOJA, E. (1985) Regions in context: spatiality,perio dicity , and the historical geography of theregional question, Environment a nd PlanningD, 3, pp. 175190.

SOJA, E. (1992) Inside exopolis: scenes fromOrange County, in: M. S ORKIN (Ed.) Variationson a Theme Park: The New American City andt he End of Public Space, pp. 94122. NewYork: The Noonday Press.

STOR PER, M. and SCOTT, A. (1995) The wealth ofregions: market forces and policy im peratives

in loca l an d g lo bal co ntex t, Futures, 27,pp. 505 526.STOR PER, M. and WALKER, R. (1989) The Capital-

STR AN GE, S. (1996) The Retreat of the State. NewYork: Cambridge University Press.

SUD JIC, D. (1993) The 100-mile City. New YorkLondon: Flamingo.

SWYNGEDOUW, E. (1989) The heart of the placethe resurrection of locality in an age of hyperspace, Geograska Annaler B, 71, pp. 3142.

SWYNGEDOUW

, E . (199 2) T h e mammon q ues`glocalisation, interspatial competition and thmonetary orderthe construction of newscales, in: M. DUNF ORD and G. KAFKALAS (EdsCities and Regions in the New Europe, pp. 3967. New York: Belhaven Press.

SWYNGEDOUW, E. (1996) Reconstructing citizenship, the re-scaling of the state and the newauthoritarianism: closing the Belgian MineUrban Studies, 33, pp. 14991521.

SWYNGEDOUW, E. (1997) Neither global nor loca

`glocalization and the politics of scale, in: KCOX (Ed.) Spaces of Globalization, pp. 137166. New York: Guilford Press.

TAYLOR, P. J. ( 1993) Political Geography: Wo rldeconomy, Nation-state and Locality, 3rd ednNew York: Longman.

TAYLOR, P. J. (1995) World cities and territoriastates: the rise and f all of their m utuality, in: PK NO X and P. T AYLOR (Eds) World Cities in World-system, p p. 4 86 2. New York: C ambridge University Press.

TAYLOR, P . J. (199 6) E mb ed ded statism anthe social sciences: op ening up to new spa cesEnvironment and Planning A, 28, pp. 19171928.

TAYLOR, P. J. (1997) Is the UK big enough foboth London and England? Editorial commenEnvironment and Planning A, 29, pp. 766770

TERHORST, P . a n d V AN D E VEN, J. (1995) Thnatio nal ur ban grow th coalition in Th e Neth erlands, Political Geography, 14, pp. 343361.

TILLY, C. (1990) Coercion, Capital and Europea

States, AD 9901 990. Oxford: Blackwell.TO MMEL, I. (1996) Internationale Regulation unlokale Modernisierung, Zeit

Date post:	14-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	sgaraujo
View:	236 times
Download:	0 times

Brenner - Globalisation as Reterritorialization

Documents