Suchergebnisse

Global governance is in flux. Scholarship on the practice of global governance has reimagined it as a realm of disputes and confrontation, rather than one of interest-alignment within multilateral interstate forums. A profound sense of governance deficit is provoking critical reflection both within the corridors of power and among practitioners and scholars. A call within academic circles for renewed reflection on global governance as a practice-oriented scholarship has elicited varied responses from the international relation (IR) fraternity. In taking stock of the state of the art of 'global governance theory', a number of scholars have advocated for its revival to be grounded in the kind of critical reflection often absent from mainstream IR discussion. Others contest any meaningful demarcation between IR and global governance scholarship. This forum responds to a number of converging developments. Situating contributions broadly within the notion of an interregnum, it is a first cut towards a more innovative global governance research and practice-oriented agenda. We focus, in particular, on reframing the problematique of global governance from one dominated by multilateral interstate geopolitics, towards a critical reappraisal of both structure and political economy in light of the evident complexity of global governance systems.

Leading Cities is a global review of the state of city leadership and urban governance today. Drawing on research into 202 cities in 100 countries, the book provides a broad, international evidence base grounded in the experiences of all types of cities. It offers a scholarly but also practical assessment of how cities are led, what challenges their leaders face, and the ways in which this leadership is increasingly connected to global affairs.

Arguing that effective leadership is not just something created by an individual, Elizabeth Rapoport, Michele Acuto and Leonora Grcheva focus on three elements of city leadership: leaders, the structures and institutions that underpin them, and the tools used to drive change. Each of these elements are examined in turn, as are the major urban policy issues that leaders confront today on the ground. The book also takes a deep dive into one particular example of tool or instrument of city leadership – the strategic urban plan.

Abstract
City diplomacy has a long history and has witnessed a clear sprawl over the last century. Successive "generations" of city diplomacy approaches have emerged over this period, with a heyday of networked urban governance in the last two decades. The covid-19 pandemic crisis presents a key opportunity to contemplate the direction of city diplomacy amid global systemic disruptions, raising questions about the effectiveness of differing diplomatic styles across cities but also the prospect of a new generational shift. This essay traces the history of generations in city diplomacy, examines prospects for novel ways of understanding city diplomacy, and contemplates how the pandemic's impact heralds not the demise of internationalization in urban governance but an era in which city diplomacy is even more crucial amid fundamental limitations.

International audience ; The water-energy-food nexus has achieved considerable prominence across academic research and policy sectors. The nexus sets an imperative for integrated management and policymaking, centring on the potential trade-offs and complementarities between interdependent water, energy and food systems. Applications of the nexus focus largely on technical or managerial solutions and calls to acknowledge the political dimension of nexus interdependencies have implications for governance at the urban scale. This paper aims to 'urbanise' the nexus agenda and consider the implications of policy integration for urban governance. This examines the nexus in the context of current approaches to urban governance and power relations shaping the provision of water, energy and food in urban areas. Urban infrastructure networks underpin these resource systems and related management systems, although their management tends to operate in silos, with little joint decision-making and planning. Three hypotheses about the interplay between integrative policy framings and urban governance are explored to reconcile integrative policy framings at the urban scale: the appropriation of the nexus narrative by urban governments; re-establishment of political power through integrated management, and implementation of the nexus through smart city approaches. These hypotheses progress the political dimension of the nexus debate and reflect on the role of urban governance in addressing global challenges.

International audience ; The water-energy-food nexus has achieved considerable prominence across academic research and policy sectors. The nexus sets an imperative for integrated management and policymaking, centring on the potential trade-offs and complementarities between interdependent water, energy and food systems. Applications of the nexus focus largely on technical or managerial solutions and calls to acknowledge the political dimension of nexus interdependencies have implications for governance at the urban scale. This paper aims to 'urbanise' the nexus agenda and consider the implications of policy integration for urban governance. This examines the nexus in the context of current approaches to urban governance and power relations shaping the provision of water, energy and food in urban areas. Urban infrastructure networks underpin these resource systems and related management systems, although their management tends to operate in silos, with little joint decision-making and planning. Three hypotheses about the interplay between integrative policy framings and urban governance are explored to reconcile integrative policy framings at the urban scale: the appropriation of the nexus narrative by urban governments; re-establishment of political power through integrated management, and implementation of the nexus through smart city approaches. These hypotheses progress the political dimension of the nexus debate and reflect on the role of urban governance in addressing global challenges.

AbstractCities are increasingly capturing the attention of major international actors and now regularly feature in multilateral processes. Yet while there are many studies on networking among cities, there have been few studies of 'city networks' as formal and institutionalized governance structures facilitating city‐to‐city and city‐to‐other actors cooperation, or 'city diplomacy'. Institutionalized networks of cities, while not new, are becoming a growing presence on the international scene, almost omnipresent and perhaps even too common. Might it be time for a 'Darwinian' selection between city networking options? Diving deeper into this networked challenge, this essay focuses on the effects this networked diplomacy and overlap it might have on cities. Drawing on a research collaboration between the UCL City Leadership Laboratory at University College London and the World Health Organization's Healthy Cities Network and both a global dataset of city networks as well as qualitative focus group data, we consider the growth of these governance structures, their strengths, but also the weaknesses associated with their rapid growth, and how cities can engage with this networked landscape more strategically. In short, we argue that the potential of city networks must go hand‐in‐hand with more integrative and strategic thinking at both local and international levels.