The Territorial State

The ideal-type European state is a territorially bounded polity, which encloses coterminous economic, social, and political systems. The ‘end of territory’ in the face of national and, later, transnational integration, has frequently been pronounced. Rather than deterritorialization, we are witnessing a reterritorialization as economic, social, and political systems migrate to new levels, above, below, and across states. This is the process of rescaling. States have responded by institutional reform, seeking to recover control of systems that have escaped their purview. Territories have also been constructed bottom-up by political entrepreneurs. There have been significant divergences in public policy among regions. Rescaling and the construction of territory are inherently political and contested processes.