Bright Future for City Diplomacy and Soft Power

Abstract

Cities are once again in the forefront of diplomatic activities. In this essay, I unpack a relatively understudied area within city diplomacy: the link between cities and countries. Although cities enjoy a heightened level of agency in the international arena, they do not exist in a vacuum. As substate actors, the actions of cities could impact their home countries. Using lessons learned from public diplomacy studies and situating soft power as a framework to describe such activities, I first present the changes in the diplomatic landscape that paved the way to resurgence of city diplomacy. Next, I propose a more inclusive definition of the activities of cities in the international arena. Last, I show the link between cities and countries.