Reimagining the Scalar Topologies of Cross-border Governance: Eu(ro)regions in the Post-colonial Present

Abstract

Much recent writing on the restructuring of the nation-state presupposes a functionalist and unidirectional logic defined by capital-centric 'jumping of scales' and 'spatial fixes'. This is the guiding trope underlying much work on emergent forms of supra- as well as sub-national regional governance within the European Union. In this paper, the author takes issue with such formulations as they apply to Europe's cross-border regions, arguing that their territorial dynamics must be embedded within a larger geo-historical framework which takes into account another period of attempted capital-centred transcendence--namely, European overseas imperialism. Drawing on early 20th-century Marxist theories of imperialism, the author juxtaposes the period of state scale restructuring within the Dutch colonial context in Indonesia with contemporary efforts at cross-border institution-building in the Dutch-German-Belgian euregios. In so doing, he sketches the conditions for new forms of post-scalar, trans-sovereign political agency that may be emerging at the interstices of the European interstate system. European state theory is thereby invited to engage with broader post-colonial debates.

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