This article explores the reactivation of the old center/periphery conflict in Europe around the conjunction of two factors that weaken the traditional mechanisms of legitimation of the nation-state: economic globalization and European integration. However, this weakening of the stato-national political order does not automatically generate a centrifugal territorial fragmentation – the effects are diverse. They depend essentially on the national styles of public action and the territorial models of collective action for which the concept of political capacity provides understanding. Using the examples of Brittany and Scotland, the article shows the variability of configurations that allow regions to take advantage of changes in the nation-state system and to enter into their own path of evolution.