City Diplomacy: Towards More Strategic Networking? Learning with WHO Healthy Cities
| Author | Michele Acuto,Agis Tsouros,Mika Morissette |
| Date | 01 February 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12382 |
| Published date | 01 February 2017 |
City Diplomacy: Towards More Strategic
Networking? Learning with WHO Healthy Cities
Michele Acuto and Mika Morissette
University College London
Agis Tsouros
Imperial College London
Abstract
Cities 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’. Institu-
tionalized 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 poten-
tial of city networks must go hand-in-hand with more integrative and strategic thinking at both local and international levels.
Policy implications
•Recognize the global extent of city networking: global policy actors are faced today by a vast city networking landscape well
beyond limiting ‘national networks’and ‘twinning’partnerships between cities; yet we have little systematic appreciation
of the shape and impact of this landscape.
•Public-private coalitions are key: albeit critical for legitimacy and long term survival, the support of multilateral organizations
to city networking is not enough to grant their success and requires other global policy actors (e.g. business and
philanthropies).
•More strategic and less opportunistic networking is needed: there might be today too many city networks, painting a confus-
ing global landscape of possible engagements and raising questions of possible natural selection among networks in a
resource-constrained space.
•Networks are communities, not just branding opportunities: cities’incentives to the involvement in institutionalized network-
ing remain closely connected to investment/market opportunities and legitimacy-building, but it is the role of networks as
‘communities of practice’that cities regularly reiterate as key to success.
Introduction
Cities are increasingly capturing the attention of major inter-
national actors such as UN agencies, EU and World Bank,
now regularly featuring in high-level talks such as the nego-
tiation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This
recognition is far from sidelined. For instance, if advocacy
by cities on climate change has traditionally taken place
outside of formal frameworks, the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change has now called for an explicit
focus on cities in its sixth assessment (AR6), and even a spe-
cial report in the seventh (AR7). This also follows growing
participation in national and regional politics by individual
city leaders and coalitions of cities both in the Global North
and South, from the devolution challenges of the UK to the
smart city hype in India and the United States.
1
With cities
currently housing more than half the world’s population and
standing on the frontline of key challenges such as indus-
trial pollution, the spread of infectious diseases, economic
and social inequalities and migration, it is progressively clear
why the participation of city leaders in discussing current
societal challenges is vital (e.g. Bloomberg, 2015). As has
been argued elsewhere (Acuto, 2016), this urbanization of
international affairs also comes with mounting acknowledg-
ment of the active participation of cities, as local govern-
ments not just as places, in global policy processes.
Institutionalized networks of cities, while not new, are
becoming a growing presence on the international scene.
©2016 The Authors Global Policy published by Durham University and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Global Policy (2017) 8:1 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12382
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use,
distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Global Policy Volume 8 . Issue 1 . February 2017
14
Research Article
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