City Diplomacy: An Introduction to the Forum

Abstract

Whilst city diplomacy as a topic of study is gaining more attention, the practice is often approached through fields other than the study of diplomacy or international relations. A commonly accepted framework, and the governance system that supports it, is missing to shape research and scholarship. This forum outlines the key parameters of a framework for city diplomacy rooted in earlier research and validated through five essays by geographically and professionally diverse authors. The framework introduced in this introduction structured the direction of the essays that are informed by academic research and by practitioners. The essays also propose policies and strategies to make city diplomacy more systematically and officially integrated into global affairs.