URBANORMS

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.

We are pleased to announce that our new student working paper, „Strukturen und Aktivitäten von Städtenetzwerken der Sicherheitspolitik - Ein Vergleich der Netzwerke Mayors for Peace, Peace Messenger Cities, Resilient Cities Network und Strong Cities Network“, authored by Sarah Haase, B.A., and Anna Rethmann, B.A., is now available for download (German only). This paper offers insights into the global governance of international city networks in security policy by comparing four networks. The findings highlight diverse efforts to promote global peace and security, revealing different missions, structures, and activities that address various global security challenges. It underscores the key role of ICNs and the importance of city collaboration, while also indicating a need for further research.

From June 5-8, 2024, the 3rd Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) conference of Leiden University took place in The Hague. Ronja Hänschen presented the paper "What do International City Networks Contribute to Global Governance? Towards a Better Theoretical and Empirical Assessment," co-authored with Anja P. Jakobi and Bastian Loges, on the panel “Local-Global Governance.”

We are pleased to announce that our new working paper, "Urban Networking and Global Norms: Towards a Better Understanding of International City Networks", authored by Prof. Dr. Anja P. Jakobi and Dr. Bastian Loges, is now available for download. This paper bridges urban studies, norm research, and network research to examine how International Relations (IR) can contribute to a comprehensive and comparative analysis of international city networks (ICNs). ICNs are increasingly active in international politics, however, there is limited understanding of the variety of their activities and explanations for them. This paper addresses this gap by applying norm research to classify ICNs' activities as contributions to global norm dynamics and by examining their structural characteristics through IR network research. Thus, it paves the way for more systematic research on ICNs and cross-fertilization of usually separated research strands in IR.

In the article "What do International City Networks Contribute to Global Governance? Towards a Better Conceptual and Empirical Assessment", Anja P. Jakobi, Bastian Loges, and Ronja Haneschen explore the question of how international city networks contribute to global norm dynamics. They analyze 30 international city networks and conclude that their contribution cannot be reduced to the local implementation of norms. At the same time, they also show that the variance in the structures, missions and activities of international city networks calls for further research.

The article has been published in Global Society and is available as open access.

We are excited to announce that our new working paper, “Comparing International City Networks – An Analytical Framework” authored by Ronja Haenschen, M.A., Dr. Bastian Loges, and Dr. Katharina Mann, is now available for download. This paper presents a comprehensive framework for comparing international city networks across various contexts, structures, and activities, applying it to four networks: Fast-Track Cities Initiatives, Strong Cities Network, Cities Coalition for Digital Rights, and Rainbow Cities Network.

The paper offers initial findings from our URBANORMS research project and provides a valuable tool for researchers seeking to understand the role of international city networks in global governance.