ince the early 2000s, calls for cities to have a ‘seat at the table’ of global governance have repeatedly made headlines. Whether elected, appointed or otherwise, numerous city leaders have captured the zeitgeist of the so–called ‘urban age’ as poster children of urban possibility in the wake of the planet’s most pressing challenges. They have embodied shared ambition, offered beacons of cooperation, and represented coalitions of the willing that have often crossed geopolitical and postcolonial boundaries. Enterprising mayors venturing into city diplomacy are increasingly in the hot seat.
At the turn of the last decade, just before the pandemic, momentum was going in the right direction. It had been going hand in hand with the detente of cities and states from some of the ‘cities versus states’ confrontations of the 1990s in sustainability and 2000s on climate. In the past decade, a more conciliatory tone than the early adversarial positions of mayors vs. diplomats, accusing central governments of moving at too slow a pace against the time pressures of global challenges, had begun to take hold. The multilateral system had almost wholesale (security issues aside) embraced more directly city–based action. Of course, this was not all rosy, with lingering questions of national interest and sovereignty versus the capacity for ‘city speech’ on the international stage. The global picture was still quite patchy.
Mayors in the hot seat
Then the music changed, and the seats mayors had won on the international stage got much hotter. The 2020s have seen a return of a starker ‘great divide’ between domestic and international affairs that has been breached by enterprising cities following through on the momentum of the 2000s. All–out city diplomacy is now often proving extraordinarily complicated for most city leaders. This is even when what we could call a ‘global urban governance’ has reached greater maturity and assembled around not just cities but expanding coalitions of non–City–Hall actors, like philanthropy, UN agencies, research and business, joining the chorus of the ‘seat at the table’, city diplomacy is undoubtedly more robust than that of the 1990s and early 2000s.
Yet paradoxically, what makes the seat hotter and hotter for city leaders internationally is closer to home than the world of diplomats or the attention of their central governments. Mayors now face severe challenges to the idea that city diplomacy is valid at all, and they do so at home.
Poster child of this is the dramatic rise of disinformation and misinformation campaigns actively undermining the cosmopolitan spirit of much city diplomacy. Placed as a prominent global risk by the World Economic Forum, disinformation has a uniquely destabilizing effect and threatens fundamentally city leadership. Engaging with international philanthropies and the UN is an easy anchor for conspiracy theorists, while concerned citizens with growing anxiety about hyper–local repercussions of economic and security downturns are easy prey to misinformation on the all–pervasive social media. Even in less radicalized contexts, operating as a ‘global city’ mayor is becoming more demanding. Today, outgoing mayors enmeshed in city networking on a planetary scale or attempting their first forays in doing so as latecomers to the ‘urban age’ face constant confrontation by various diverse political actors ranging from far right to far left. Attending global summits, signing up for international city networks, implementing shared concordats, and embarking on joint transnational reforms are often reported by problematic (where not clickbait) local presses such as jaunts and vanity projects.
This highlights the downside of mayors' perceived advantage by being ‘closest to the people’ as leaders walking the talk ‘on their streets’. This proximity also makes them very accessible and vulnerable to direct, personal, and—we must call it for what it is—often racist, gendered, and bigoted attacks. This is a distraction for some lucky ones, tiring at best, mentally taxing as a norm, and frequently crossing the line for many.
These are not simply anti–democratic trends. Many more progressive mayors who have been out there in the wave of city diplomacy of the 2000s and 2010s now face conservative backlashes and counter–candidates, drawing municipal perspectives ‘home’ from perceivably unnecessary international engagements. These challenges are all underpinned by a profoundly cash strapped condition where municipal finances are often stretched to the limit. In some dramatic cases, they face bankruptcy and central/state administration. Tight finances require pragmatism even among those most supportive of the city diplomacy effort, who must prioritize among hundreds of city networks, comparable numbers of international urban events each year, and benchmarking and ranking exercises or philanthropic programs and UN initiatives. At the midpoint of the 2020s, city diplomacy is an increasingly costly activity for many city leaders worldwide, not just in financial terms but also politically. Whilst it has amassed a growingly convinced coalition of crucial global governance actors, it is also confronting actual revenge of the logic of ‘two–level games’. This is a textbook truism for all diplomatically trained readers, but perhaps less of a common knowledge in local career politicians and municipal officers.
The future of city diplomacy?
This is compounded by the commonplace lock–ins affecting international relations. The state–based action on advancing that ‘seat’ at the multilateral table, or at least empowering mayors to assist more proactively in bridging divides and linking governance scales to tackle pressing, is perhaps slowing down. To be clear, city diplomacy has achieved some real wins, but maybe too few and too slow. This is the case of the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) for Climate Action launched at COP28, which took quite some wrangling to garner signatories in significant countries but also now sanctions the need for central–local cooperation on international climate action. Other initiatives faltered. Stalling negotiations on the global Pandemic Treaty have seen a progressive removal of direct referencing to cities, and it seems unlikely that, if the treaty or guidelines were to see the light next May 2025, much would be done to redress this urban myopia.
So, on this World City Day, I would ask the diplomatic community to spare a thought of appreciation for those many mayors still out there on the multilateral scene. Do so not only for the wellbeing of our often democratically elected local leaders, but also remember there are generally valiant teams of city diplomats underpinning their international entrepreneurship. And, if diplomats wish to redress this dangerous mid–2020s backlash, I would encourage as many of them as possible to take practical action to cement the valuable international role of city diplomacy players. To do so, it is essential to normalize the key institutions of global urban governance both within countries of as much as in the multilateral sector,
The urgency of this consolidation moment is ever more critical. It needs to happen, unglamorously, as much diplomacy does behind the scenes. It needs to happen to push ahead with urban action on climate, migration, resilience and development finance, to name a few. It is time for a renewed urban age enthusiasm.
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City diplomats go from a seat at the table to the hot seat
Photo by Piotr Chrobot on Unsplash
October 31, 2024
City diplomacy was beginning to flourish at the turn of the last decade. But the pandemic and other polycrisis challenges pose daunting challenges for the future of city diplomacy, writes Prof. Michele Acuto.
S
ince the early 2000s, calls for cities to have a ‘seat at the table’ of global governance have repeatedly made headlines. Whether elected, appointed or otherwise, numerous city leaders have captured the zeitgeist of the so–called ‘urban age’ as poster children of urban possibility in the wake of the planet’s most pressing challenges. They have embodied shared ambition, offered beacons of cooperation, and represented coalitions of the willing that have often crossed geopolitical and postcolonial boundaries. Enterprising mayors venturing into city diplomacy are increasingly in the hot seat.
At the turn of the last decade, just before the pandemic, momentum was going in the right direction. It had been going hand in hand with the detente of cities and states from some of the ‘cities versus states’ confrontations of the 1990s in sustainability and 2000s on climate. In the past decade, a more conciliatory tone than the early adversarial positions of mayors vs. diplomats, accusing central governments of moving at too slow a pace against the time pressures of global challenges, had begun to take hold. The multilateral system had almost wholesale (security issues aside) embraced more directly city–based action. Of course, this was not all rosy, with lingering questions of national interest and sovereignty versus the capacity for ‘city speech’ on the international stage. The global picture was still quite patchy.
Mayors in the hot seat
Then the music changed, and the seats mayors had won on the international stage got much hotter. The 2020s have seen a return of a starker ‘great divide’ between domestic and international affairs that has been breached by enterprising cities following through on the momentum of the 2000s. All–out city diplomacy is now often proving extraordinarily complicated for most city leaders. This is even when what we could call a ‘global urban governance’ has reached greater maturity and assembled around not just cities but expanding coalitions of non–City–Hall actors, like philanthropy, UN agencies, research and business, joining the chorus of the ‘seat at the table’, city diplomacy is undoubtedly more robust than that of the 1990s and early 2000s.
Yet paradoxically, what makes the seat hotter and hotter for city leaders internationally is closer to home than the world of diplomats or the attention of their central governments. Mayors now face severe challenges to the idea that city diplomacy is valid at all, and they do so at home.
Poster child of this is the dramatic rise of disinformation and misinformation campaigns actively undermining the cosmopolitan spirit of much city diplomacy. Placed as a prominent global risk by the World Economic Forum, disinformation has a uniquely destabilizing effect and threatens fundamentally city leadership. Engaging with international philanthropies and the UN is an easy anchor for conspiracy theorists, while concerned citizens with growing anxiety about hyper–local repercussions of economic and security downturns are easy prey to misinformation on the all–pervasive social media. Even in less radicalized contexts, operating as a ‘global city’ mayor is becoming more demanding. Today, outgoing mayors enmeshed in city networking on a planetary scale or attempting their first forays in doing so as latecomers to the ‘urban age’ face constant confrontation by various diverse political actors ranging from far right to far left. Attending global summits, signing up for international city networks, implementing shared concordats, and embarking on joint transnational reforms are often reported by problematic (where not clickbait) local presses such as jaunts and vanity projects.
This highlights the downside of mayors' perceived advantage by being ‘closest to the people’ as leaders walking the talk ‘on their streets’. This proximity also makes them very accessible and vulnerable to direct, personal, and—we must call it for what it is—often racist, gendered, and bigoted attacks. This is a distraction for some lucky ones, tiring at best, mentally taxing as a norm, and frequently crossing the line for many.
These are not simply anti–democratic trends. Many more progressive mayors who have been out there in the wave of city diplomacy of the 2000s and 2010s now face conservative backlashes and counter–candidates, drawing municipal perspectives ‘home’ from perceivably unnecessary international engagements. These challenges are all underpinned by a profoundly cash strapped condition where municipal finances are often stretched to the limit. In some dramatic cases, they face bankruptcy and central/state administration. Tight finances require pragmatism even among those most supportive of the city diplomacy effort, who must prioritize among hundreds of city networks, comparable numbers of international urban events each year, and benchmarking and ranking exercises or philanthropic programs and UN initiatives. At the midpoint of the 2020s, city diplomacy is an increasingly costly activity for many city leaders worldwide, not just in financial terms but also politically. Whilst it has amassed a growingly convinced coalition of crucial global governance actors, it is also confronting actual revenge of the logic of ‘two–level games’. This is a textbook truism for all diplomatically trained readers, but perhaps less of a common knowledge in local career politicians and municipal officers.
The future of city diplomacy?
This is compounded by the commonplace lock–ins affecting international relations. The state–based action on advancing that ‘seat’ at the multilateral table, or at least empowering mayors to assist more proactively in bridging divides and linking governance scales to tackle pressing, is perhaps slowing down. To be clear, city diplomacy has achieved some real wins, but maybe too few and too slow. This is the case of the Coalition for High Ambition Multilevel Partnerships (CHAMP) for Climate Action launched at COP28, which took quite some wrangling to garner signatories in significant countries but also now sanctions the need for central–local cooperation on international climate action. Other initiatives faltered. Stalling negotiations on the global Pandemic Treaty have seen a progressive removal of direct referencing to cities, and it seems unlikely that, if the treaty or guidelines were to see the light next May 2025, much would be done to redress this urban myopia.
So, on this World City Day, I would ask the diplomatic community to spare a thought of appreciation for those many mayors still out there on the multilateral scene. Do so not only for the wellbeing of our often democratically elected local leaders, but also remember there are generally valiant teams of city diplomats underpinning their international entrepreneurship. And, if diplomats wish to redress this dangerous mid–2020s backlash, I would encourage as many of them as possible to take practical action to cement the valuable international role of city diplomacy players. To do so, it is essential to normalize the key institutions of global urban governance both within countries of as much as in the multilateral sector,
The urgency of this consolidation moment is ever more critical. It needs to happen, unglamorously, as much diplomacy does behind the scenes. It needs to happen to push ahead with urban action on climate, migration, resilience and development finance, to name a few. It is time for a renewed urban age enthusiasm.
