Culture is at the heart of the stategies of cities : it is an articulated resource of their urban, economical and social projects. This is how new models and concepts appear, promoting a position about its territorial virtues : cultural planning, the creative city, the cultural metropolis, the artistic district, etc. Culture is thus considered as an aspect of territorial development, which contributes to the "cultural sector" losing part of its autonomy. The changes in public cultural action are directly linked to the creation of governance modes that are based on a political logic of the territory. The conventional principles thus generated put the local actors and the former balance to the test. From the government of culture to the cultural governance of cities, we observe the process of emergence and institutionalisation of specific worlds of cooperation in Lille, Lyon, Saint-Etienne and Montreal. The point of this thesis is to contribute to the debate on the constitution of cities as collective actors
