= City Diplomacy: From City-States to Global Cities =

'''City Diplomacy: From City-States to Global Cities''' (ISBN:  9780472055036) was written by Raffaele Marchetti in 2021.

The divisions portrayed here are my own, and rather in contrast to the parts delimited in the book.

== Current IR theory ==

The world view of state-centric theories follows from classical ideas of legitimacy and sovereignty that have rarely sustained themselves in reality; from realist theories that have dominated in an era of intense international military competition; and from the temporary remedy of the UN.

More effective governance, administration, agenda setting, and policy design is happening elsewhere. This is revealed in behaviors:
 * Multinational corporations pump money into semi-private ("hybrid") companies and NGOs to affect changes.
   * Gates Foundation
   * Major intersection with corporate social responsibility theory
 * New technologies and services that citizens, especially younger ones, interface with daily are not organized or administered at the state level.
   * ICANN and SWIFT

Five tendencies in recent global governance:
 1. Interdependence of national politics and international politics. ("Inter-mestic", a combination of international and domestic).
 2. Non-state actors (NSAs) are actors, not puppets of national governments. They can be seen advising on the creation of (e.g., human rights) laws; investigating and reporting on violations (e.g., of human rights laws); and representing victims (e.g., of human rights violations) in adjudication or litigation. Particular interest in four types:
    a. profit oriented transnational enterprises
    a. nongovernmental organizations that tend to have public goals
    a. local government
    a. standards-setting bodies, which are either private firms or hybrid companies
 3. Authority is vested in private firms rather than public institutions. And rather than allocating authority through electoral systems, private firms accumulate authority on the basis of expertise.
 4. Soft power is used rather than hard power. Given that authority is wielded by NSAs, who have no hard power, this is a simple necessity. Emphasis is on building capacity; walking away from governance means walking away from the benefits.
 5. Institutional analysis is complex. When designing a new program, politicians circumvent unfavorable national institutions and pick an international one; or circumvent unfavorable public institutions and pick a private one; or vice versa.



== Frameworks and models about cities ==

Cities are a coincidence of three different ideas:

 1. ''Urbs'', a geographic place where people live and word.
 2. ''Civitas'', a collection of citizens that regularly interact.
 3. ''Polis'', a layered network of governmental institutions.

City states do and have historically existed, but they commonly act as states at the expense of acting as cities.

Modern cities have a grossly disproportionate weight in the economy.

Friedmann 1986 developed a framework for world cities. The "functional thesis" is that cities fulfill functions: headquartering, financial centers, and connecting local economies to global economies. World cities perform all three. The "hierarchical thesis" is that behavior of private firms reveals a division between primary and secondary cities because they prefer to operate in a world city. Similarly, world cities see an influx of workers.

Sassen 2001 argues that world cities intrinsically derive their role from the network of cities. Cities should rather be analyzed as nodes on this network. Fundamentally a cooperative model of cities rather than a competitive one.

Taylor 2012 identifies circumstances where cities develop hierarchies. National and regional governments have hierarchies, and in localities where politics dominate the economy, of course the economy would organize itself around those political hierarchies. Some regions can support multiple cities, but not support more than one gateway city, so a hierarchy emerges with the economy favoring the city that is more connected to the global economy. Cities tend to compete in periods of decline, creating hierarchies.

Taylor 2004, Taylor 2014, and Taylor et al 2009 develop a model where the global economy is a network, cities are nodes, and private firms are subnodes. This reflects a concept where cities are geographic coincidences of private firms which actually form the economy.

Cities develop from porousness. People, ideas, and goods move within a city easily. They also are absorbed into and exported from a city easily.

''Urban archipelegos'' are developing from the high availability of workers across levels of skill; from the ease of moving people, ideas, and goods within these small areas with intense infrastructural investment; from the concentration of research and innovation; and from the concentration of political power.



== Cities in evolving IR theory ==

The [[WorldHistory/PeaceOfWestphalia|Westphalian system]] legitimized states alone as diplomatic actors. This system seems to have persisted for a long time. In the modern world it is challenged on two fronts:
 * Citizens want more direct control over international relations.
 * States' competency in managing diplomacy is under question.

More concretely:
 * NSAs are filling gaps of expertise and legitimacy.
 * Cross-cutting issues (e.g. global climate change) have politicized matters of global coordination.

Cities are well positioned to take advantage of these trends. They have traditional authority and recognition, but are able to more rapidly respond and evolve than a state.

Sister cities and twin cities programs are an interesting phenomena. In some case they seem to lead national politics, as with [[Turkey/Istanbul|Istanbul]] and [[Japan/Tokyo|Tokyo]]/[[Japan/Kyoto|Kyoto]]/Shimonoseki.
 * see Japan Year in Turkey, Turkey Year in Japan, etc.

Other cases see national politics directing cities to terminate their relationships.
 * [[Japan/Osaka|Osaka]] and [[UnitedStates/SanFrancisco|San Francisco]] following comfort women statue.
 * [[China/Beijing|Beijing]] and [[Czechia/Prague|Prague]] following establishment of parallel status with [[Taiwan/Taipei|Taipei]].

More instances of cities forming diplomacy despite the state:
 * [[Spain/Barcelona|Barcelona]] tries to assert diplomatic authority contrary to Spain.
 * After [[UnitedStates/DonaldTrump|Trump]] left the [[WorldHistory/ParisAccords|Paris Accords]], a large number of [[UnitedStates|U.S.]] mayors committed to it.

Much of cities diplomatic activity is economic.
 * Creating city brands (e.g., "I Love New York")
 * Attracting cultural investment (e.g., Olympics, sports teams)
 * Exporting cultural investment (e.g., arts and music festivals, orchestras, philharmonics, theater)

Cities even play a role in security.
 * Many associations and institutions centered on promoting peace. Mayors for Peace, Rwandese Association of Local Government Authorities, etc.
 * [[Japan/Tokyo|Tokyo Metropolitan Government]] sparked controversy by announcing plans to purchase the Senkaku Islands privately.
 * The technological transformation of law enforcement, as seen in mass surveillance, is happening in cities first and foremost.

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== My thoughts ==

The author seems to frame their theory as the less Euro-centric alternative to.the status quo. They argue that the state-centric model is inherited from Westphalia and is characterized by theories of American hegemony. But also they point to largely Western tradition of Mediterranean city states.

There is no shortage of institutions created for and around cities, though there isn't a solid analysis of whether these institutions matter?

I think that politicization of international relations is a great point, but to what degree are cities' participation in this diplomacy about participating in policymaking, and to what degree is it just performative signaling?



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