1.1 Why This Book?
With more than half of the world population living in urban areas, and with the projected rise of this figure to nearly 60% in the next decade (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs 2016), it is almost redundant to stress the importance of cities. As places to live, work, and play, cities facilitate the development, wellbeing, safety, and security of their residents while “providing the density, interaction, and networks that make us more creative and productive” (Florida 2011, para. 2). This is particularly important for the field of public diplomacy because public diplomacy activities are run through or by city governments. At its root, public diplomacy is about the connections that form between people and between people and foreign governments. Cities are the first physical spaces where foreign publics come to interact with a country, and its people. Traditional examples of the role of cities in public diplomacy include Sister Cities International and the International Visitor Leadership Program. But we continue to see the co-dependence between cities and public diplomacy programs such as hosting the Olympics, various cultural and educational exchange programs, and city branding, media broadcasting, and advocacy campaigns. The international examples presented in this book highlight more nuances about how cities advance public diplomacy goals of their respective nations.
In this book, we invited scholars and practitioners to reflect on a recently acknowledged trend in cities’ actions in the international arena. We do not claim that cities have never been interested in engaging with other international actors. Indeed, cities have appointed ambassadors to other cities and engaged in trade negotiations with each other throughout history (van der Pluijm and Melissen 2007). Yet, the analytical attention to their presence has been limited until recently. Acuto (2013, p. 2) called cities “the invisible gorillas of international studies”, establishing an analogy with the invisible gorilla experiment in which subjects who watch a video focusing on basketball players completely miss the person walking around in a gorilla costume. As the practice of city diplomacy is evolving, we need to form more intellectual and academic frameworks to advance the study and practice, which will in turn advance public diplomacy goals and programming. Additionally, we need such research to be conducted to inform policies that guide or interfere with city diplomacy. While such research and policymaking will be focused on city diplomacy, it will also have broader implications for global public diplomacy.
In this edited volume, our aim is to contribute to the discussions on the role of cities in international relations. In the last few years, we have witnessed the rise of cities as players in global politics, with objectives ranging from branding and attracting foreign businesses and travelers to brokering international agreements in the face of climate change and other security challenges. On the scholarship side, there have been attempts to describe and theorize these practices. This book builds on the existing body of practice and literature to expand and enrich the field through three mechanisms.
First, we believe in the necessity of a sustained dialogue between scholars and practitioners. The latter group has experience in a variety of diplomatic processes on numerous topics ranging from refugee settlements to climate change (Musch and Sizoo 2008). Moreover, this breadth of activities translates into attempts to create knowledge within the practice. From best practice papers to industry research reports, practitioners have chronicled their experiences. Scholars have been following these developments and presenting their own analytical accounts. For instance, Lecavalier and Gordon (Chap. 2) share statistics and works on city networks. The rapid increase in the number of actual city networks in the last two decades was replicated in the number of scholarly works on the topic. We position this book as both a home and a source for both scholars and practitioners, and accordingly invited contributors from both academia and industry. The diversity of our authors is reflected in their approaches to the research questions at hand. The following pages include theoretical chapters, empirical case studies, and reflections of practitioners on the new strategies and roles of cities in international relations.
Second, there are many different tools and strategies cities can use to engage in international affairs. We use city diplomacy almost as an umbrella term but acknowledge that the vocabulary used to describe the international activities of cities is extensive. The chapters in this volume will discuss, for instance, how cities internationalize themselves through global governance (Leffel, Chap. 4 and Guirao-Espiñeira, Chap. 11), networking (Abdullah and Garcia-Chueca, Chap. 3), twinning (Lara, Chap. 9), international summits (Insch, Chap. 8), and museums (Grincheva, Chap. 6), among others. This variation in terminology is not an invitation to or a defense of neologisms but is solely an acknowledgement of the depth of practice.
Last, we argue that cities are more diverse than they are portrayed in the literature. Current literature has produced extensive accounts of how global cities combat climate change through city diplomacy (Curtis 2014). The existing focus is not without its merits or reasons. Indeed, such cities have sustained a high level of activity in the international arena for years and enjoy the resources to continue their activities (Barber 2014; Bouteligier 2013). These cities have been affected by climate change; in other words, they have needed to act (Bouteligier 2013). As the study and practice of city diplomacy is growing (Acuto et al. 2017; Sizoo 2007), it is time to improve policies and strategies. The chapters included in this volume together present a more inclusive picture of what cities are doing or have the potential to do. We have brought together studies discussing how cities interact not only with each other but also with other actors, including their own state governments, other states, and non-governmental organizations, to present solutions to the problems they are facing.
In other words, we started working on this book project because we believe a new wave of city diplomacy studies is afoot. Throughout the last year, we had the opportunity to discuss with our contributors the most recent developments in the practice and study of city diplomacy. In the next section, we outline the major types of activities cities engage as a preview of the in-depth discussions in the following chapters.
1.2 Structure of the Book
The book consists of four sections: three conceptual sections and a case analysis section. While discussing the role of cities in the international arena, the concept of city diplomacy is used as an umbrella term to describe the actions by local governments that intend to raise the global profile of their cities and influence global policies in ways that advance the interests of local constituents. Yet, as an umbrella term, city diplomacy lacks a nuanced analytical framework. The actions discussed within this concept can take multiple forms, such as diplomatic representation, negotiation, collaboration, branding, advocacy, and public diplomacy. Moreover, these activities span policy areas such as trade, climate change, security, peacebuilding, tourism, and education. For instance, Chaps. 2, 3, and 4 use global governance and networks as their focus of analysis. Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 bring in communication and engagement as they explain how concepts such as soft power and place branding apply to the practice of city diplomacy. The chapters in the last conceptual section discuss city diplomacy across different levels of governance: national, regional, and global.
The first section of this book, Global Governance through City Networks, includes three chapters that shed light on city networks as facilitators of global governance in the twenty-first century. These chapters intend to help readers identify key actors within global city networks, the mechanisms through which these actors advance their policy interests, and the representation structure and power dynamics. Moreover, the authors allude to the ways in which the private sector can become involved with city networks and play a role in global governance. Consequently, they portray how cities can utilize their networks as venues for influencing global policies in ways that advance their respective local interests.
In Chap. 2, Beyond Networking? The Agency of City Network Secretariats in the Realm of City Diplomacy, Emma Lecavalier and David J. Gordon challenge one of the main assumptions in city diplomacy by shifting the agency focus to city network secretariats (CNSs) rather than cities. They argue that CNSs have the capacity to act as autonomous agents in global politics. Through the case of CitiesIPCC, their research demonstrates how three separate city networks came together to influence the agenda of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Hannah Abdullah and Eva Garcia-Chueca position city networks as the principal mechanism for cities to contribute to global politics. Cacophony or Complementarity? The Expanding Ecosystem of City Networks under Scrutiny shares the insights and information the authors gained during a seminar organized by the Global Cities Programme at Barcelona Centre for International Affairs which brought together representatives from various city networks. Their findings demonstrate how the crowded scenes of city networks have been hel...