In the rapidly growing literatures on globalization n, many authors have emphasized the apparent disembodying of social relation from their local-territorial pre-conditions. However, such arguments neglect the relatively fixed and immobile forms of territorial organization upon which the current round of globalization is premised, such as urban-regional agglomerations and territorial states. This article argues that processes of reterritorialsation the re-configuration and re-scaling of forms of territorial organization such as cities and states constitute an intrinsic moment of the current round of globalization. Globalization is conceived here as a reterritorialisation of both socio economic and political-institutional spaces that unfolds simultaneously upon multiple, superimposed geographical scales. The territorial organization of contemporary urban spaces and state institutions must be viewed at once as a presupposition, a medium and an outcome of this highly conflictual dynamic of global spatial restructuring. On this basis, various dimensions of urban governance in contemporary Europe are analyzed as expressions of a politic s of scale that is emerging at the geographical interface e between processes of urban restructuring and state territorial restructuring.