Taking Up the Bet on Connections: a Municipal Contribution

In: Contemporary European history, Band 11, Heft 4, S. 507-527

Abstract

Globalisation, the buzzword of the late twentieth century, calls for the attention of historians. As others have already suggested, one way to contribute to the historicisation of the phenomena encapsulated in this idiom is to pay attention to connections over long periods. Connections between municipal governments and exchanges about the subject have both been neglected by historical scholarship for various reasons, but they can contribute to the history of the 'construction of the universal'. Indeed, the information systems of municipal connections – their vectors, actors and structures – have defined, intersected with, nourished or undergone a series of would-be universalist 'transboundary formations'. These formations are shifting combinations of values, collective actions, practices, rules, organisations and individuals, all of which are advanced as possible futures for mankind. By examining some of these discourses of 'social order' and 'world order' and the way in which they combine with municipal connections, this article attempts to produce the 'municipal contribution' announced in its title.