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Cities have been the motive force of globalisation. As cities have grown to sizes unknown in the historical record, they very often dwarf many states in terms of population and economic power, placing our frameworks for understanding the international system under strain. Cities have increasingly tried, often successfully, to translate their new-found heft and economic might into political power – in the halls of international organisations, in the United Nations system, and also through the many hundreds of transnational networks that are having real influence on global governance issues and outcomes in areas such as climate change, migration, global health, and disaster risk management.
This volume argues that cities and infrastructures of connectivity – including transportation, digital architectures, computational stacks, and energy infrastructures – are also important components of international order itself – objects and mediums of geopolitical competition. The ‘global’ cities that have emerged in the current round of globalisation are not simply urban phenomena, but have been dependent upon the liberal international order and the powerful states that underpinned it for the international environment in which they were able to thrive – and have in turn underpinned that order. With the rise of China and its immensely ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, we have seen once again this intrinsic connection between geopolitical power and infrastructure and urbanism, as great powers make cities and their connecting infrastructures a central plank of an emerging contestation over the shape of the twenty-first century.
This volume assesses the emergence of global cities and their continuing evolution within the international system, and the ways in which such cities challenge our existing understandings of diplomacy, territoriality, sovereignty, legitimacy, international law and agency. Also, importantly, this handbook considers the growing importance of understanding global infrastructures in the twenty-first century, and how they are a little understood and yet critical aspect of international order and competition.
Michele Acuto, Universität Bristol, UK.
Simon Curtis, U. of Surrey, UK.
Ian Klaus, California Carnegie, USA.
Gaea Morales, Stanford, USA.
Michele Acuto is Pro-Vice Chancellor (Global Engagement) of the University of Bristol, where he is also Professor of Urban Resilience. Michele has worked with numerous city networks and UN agencies, supporting city diplomacy across climate, health, resilience, and migration. Outside of academia, Michele has worked at the European Commission, the World Health Organisation, and the World Bank. Before joining Bristol, he was Professor and Director of the Melbourne Centre for Cities at the University of Melbourne, Professor of Diplomacy at University College London, and James Martin Fellow at the University of Oxford. He is currently co-convenor of the City Diplomacy Masterclass, funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to enhance cities’ collaborative ambition to connect across borders to drive climate action. Michele holds a PhD in Diplomacy from the Australian National University and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
Simon Curtis is Associate Professor in International Relations at the University of Surrey. His books include Global Cities and Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2016), which was awarded the 2018 Hedley Bull Prize by the European Consortium for Political Research for outstanding contribution to International Relations theory, and The Belt and Road City (with Ian Klaus) (Yale University Press, 2024). He is an Honorary Professor in International Relations at the University of East Anglia. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics.
Ian Klaus is the Founding Director of Carnegie California. He is a leading scholar on the nexus of urbanisation, geopolitics, and global challenges, with extensive experience as a practitioner of subnational diplomacy. Ian has built and led a number of global research efforts focused on bringing localised knowledge into a cohesive whole. Most recently, he co-led and served as the series editor for the Summary for Urban Policymakers, a landmark report that distilled over 8,000 pages of IPCC science into 80 pages of accessible, policy-relevant material for urban policymakers at the city, provincial, and national levels. The report was launched at the UNFCCC pavilion at COP27 with all six IPCC Co-Chairs and remains unique for the IPCC. As a practitioner, Ian has extensive experience advancing and implementing policy. He served as the deputy US negotiator for Habitat 3, as senior adviser for global cities at the US State Department, and as a member of the Policy Planning Staff. More recently, he helped lead the development of both the Urban 20 and Urban 7, the G20 and G7 urban-focused engagement groups. He holds an MA from Oxford University, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar, and a PhD in International History from Harvard University.
Gaea Morales is the Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow with the Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University, and the incoming Helen Houlahan Rigali Assistant Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago. She specialises in global environmental governance, with a focus on the localisation of climate action norms in Southeast Asian cities. Prior to Stanford, she held fellowships at the University of Southern California (USC) Wrigley Institute for Environment & Sustainability, US–Asia Grand Strategy Program, and the Security and Political Economy Lab. Previously, she also served as the Programme Coordinator for the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of International Affairs’ initiative to localise the Sustainable Development Goals, and has worked with the United Nations Development Programme (Philippines) and United Nations Institute for Training and Research (New York). She holds a PhD and an MA in Political Science and International Relations from USC, and a BA in Diplomacy and World Affairs and French Studies from Occidental College.