CITY DIPLOMACY: STRATEGIC DECISION MAKING IN THE AGE OF INCREASING CITY NETWORKS

The UN's New Urban Agenda highlights the responsibility of cities and city actors in promoting and implementing global sustainable development. There is also compelling and growing evidence regarding the role of urban environments on some of our most significant future challenges (including climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, resilience, global health, security and the economy) that is increasingly being accepted by the academic and global community. Consequently, this has placed urban policy at the core of a number of key global programmes and the past decade has seen a dramatic rise in the number of 'city networks' as a means of responding to these complex challenges.
While there is a growing body of literature describing city networks and their role in promoting development, the literature is limited regarding the decision-making process of the city in selecting between the vast arrays of possible city networks. This is partly because there are still no formal and institutionalised governance arrangements for joining these networks, and decisions are made more opportunistically than strategically. This can be counter-productive and lead to overlapping and inefficient use of a city's already stretched resources. "Today, an important portion of city networking activities can be justifiably described as 'city diplomacy', in that they constitute mediated 'international' relations between rightful representatives of polities (cities in this instance), and that they result in agreements, collaborations, further institution- building and cooperation across boundaries." (Acuto & Rayner, 2016)
This research aims to first explore at a macro level the potential forms of national or local governance structures and processes required to review and ratify selected city networks. Secondly, at a micro level, this research aims to propose informed decision-making processes for city actors for choosing which city networks to focus their efforts on. To support this research the city networks need to be studied based on their geographic and thematic spread, their governance structure, their objectives and the required input from the city. Furthermore, throughout the PhD this research will aim to explore a number of questions regarding city networks and the relevant urban and global policy requirements.