WELCOME TO URBANORMS:
Exploring international city networks in global norm dynamics!
URBANORMS is a research project that studies the activities and structures of international city networks in global politics. Its mission is to understand how network structures influence the activities of international city networks in global norm dynamics and to explore the variance of these activities in reference to different institutional and political backgrounds.
Urbanorms was launched in Spring of 2022 at the Institute of International Relations of the TU Braunschweig. The research team consists of Prof. Dr. Anja P. Jakobi as Principal Investigator, as well as Ronja Haenschen, M.A., Dr. Bastian Loges, and several Student Assistants.
Funding for this project is provided by the German Research Foundation (DFG) until 2026.
Explore our website to discover more about our ongoing research, findings and publications.
News
On 21. January 2026, Prof. Dr. Anja P Jakobi delivered a lecture on cities in the context of war and violence at TU Darmstadt. Drawing on her ongoing book project and research within the URBANORMS project, she presented an analytical perspective on the role of cities in situations of conflict and violence. The subsequent interdisciplinary discussion with students and researchers was highly engaging and explored the topic in depth from multiple perspectives. Prof. Dr. Jakobi was delighted to return to TU Darmstadt and would like to express sincere thanks to Prof. Dr. Markus Lederer for organizing this exchange.
In a recent article published in Global Constitutionalism, Prof. Dr Anja P. Jakobi and Dr Bastian Loges examine the potential for stabilising norms in times of crisis, focusing on international city networks as productive actors amid multilateral stagnation.
In “Stabilising Contested Normative Orders: How International City Networks Contribute to Preventing Norm Decay,” the authors use the cases of “Mayors for Peace,” “Rainbow Cities Network,” and “Fast-Track Cities Initiative” to analyse how international city networks contribute to stabilise contested norms in the areas of nuclear disarmament, LGBTIQ+ rights, and HIV/AIDS policies through their activities.
Using an analytical framework based on research on norm robustness, norm resiliency, and norm legitimacy, they show that the activities of international city networks stabilise normative orders in different ways: they support norms in discourse and practice, promote the linking of norms in clusters, and include previously marginalised actors in international norm dynamics. At the same time, international city networks sustain their activities through network-specific organisational, social, and legal capacities and stabilise norms over time and across locations.
From 1-4 September 2025, Ronja Haenschen participated in the EURA-ECPR PhD Summer School on Local Government & Politics, jointly organized by the European Urban Research Association (EURA) and the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) in cooperation with the International Center for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS). The event took place at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.
The program offered a well-balanced mix of lectures by established scholar, exciting research presentations by doctoral candidates, and intensive discussion, fostering a fruitful exchange in an inspiring atmosphere. Ronja Hänschen presented her paper on the influence of international city networks (ICNs) on digital urban governance initiatives.
Anja P. Jakobi just published an article on the role of local actors in peace and security, focussing on the role of cities and the international citiy network Mayors for Peace and nuclear arms. The article is linked to research of the Urbanorms project and has been published as part of a special issue on the complexity of the nuclear order in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs.
We are excited to present the results of a student project by Jonas Abel, "An international city network of its own? The Global Diffusion of Brunswick/Braunschweig", based on an idea from Prof. Dr. Anja P. Jakobi. The project aims to visualize the diffusion of city-names around the world, a process, in which new settlements adopt the name of an already existing city. The reasons for this behavior are often the migration history of its citizens or an attempt to honor the original city for its historic and cultural significance.
The research focused on the question which places around the world are using the city of Braunschweig as their namesake. To visualize the findings, Jonas Abel created a world map, marking the location of the individual examples. The results can be seen by using the following link:
On December 5 to 6, 2024, an interdisciplinary workshop titled “Cities as Global Actors in International Politics: Patterns, Processes, and Impacts” took place at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg. Organized by Judith Keller (University of Heidelberg) and Gordon Friedrichs (Max Planck Institute), the event brought together an international group of researchers to discuss the evolving role of cities in global governance.
The Urbanorms-Team attended with the paper presentations by Ronja Haenschen on “International City Networks and Local Policymaking in Digital Urban Governance: The Impact of Cities Coalition for Digital Rights Membership on AI Initiative Adoption” and by Bastian Loges on “Defenders of an Order in Crisis? International City Networks on LGBT+ Rights and the Contestation of Liberal Norms”.
From September 24 to 27, 2024, the 29th Annual Conference of the German Political Science Association (GPSA), themed "Politics in Times of Polycrises," took place at the University of Göttingen. The URBANORMS team organized a panel titled "Cities and Their Politics in Multi-Level Systems: From Local Politics and Urban Diplomacy to Global City Networks," chaired by Anja P. Jakobi, with Bastian Loges serving as discussant.
At this panel, Ronja Haenschen presented her paper, "Digitalizing Municipal Governance: International City Networks as Drivers of the Global Diffusion of Digital Urban Governance Initiatives." Additionally, Anja P. Jakobi and Bastian Loges jointly presented their paper, "Urban Networking and Global Norms: Towards a Better Understanding of International City Networks".
Furthermore, both Anja P. Jakobi and Bastian Loges contributed to the panel on "International Norms Research (1): Theoretical Controversies and Methodological Innovations" where they presented their paper "Stabilising Contested Normative Orders: How International City Networks Prevent Norm Decay".
On 11 and 12 July 2024, the Max Planck Research Group "The Multiplication of Authorities in Global Governance Institutions" (MAGGI) under the lead of Janne Mende organized a workshop on "Multiplication of Global Governance Authority: Contestation, In/formalization, and Constellations". An international and interdisciplinary group of researchers spent two days at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg to discuss current findings from research on international authority. In this context, the URBANORMS team presented a paper on "Authority Claims of International City Networks: Multiplying Authority in Global Governance?", co-authored by Dr. Bastian Loges, Prof. Dr. Anja P. Jakobi and Ronja Haenschen.