Since the Global Financial Crisis, European countries have faced economic stagnation, rising inequalities, worsening social conditions and strains on public services. The capacity of nation-states to combine economic growth with social cohesion has declined and domestic social compromises have been undermined. Attachments to the nation-state have in many places weakened, while in other places there is a return to the interventionist nation-state and a search for new modes of regulation. The crisis has also called into question the shape of the European project, as austerity has provoked hostility to European integration itself, but also calls for a different form of Europe. This special issue focuses on the impact on substate territories of economic crisis, spatial inequalities and the responses of different levels of government to the new challenges to social cohesion