The political economy of city diplomacy

Abstract City diplomacy is a major trend in the soft power development. As cities face daily political issues deriving from globalisation (such as mass tourism, migration, climate change, and commodification of culture), they demand for, rather than contesting with a nationstate, an operational reinterpretation of sovereignty oriented to solve problems. Political economy approach is a useful method to understand the role of global cities where the nation state has many deficiencies. The global city establishes rules to influence international legal development and practice, even without a traditional legal basis (such as sovereignty, monopoly on violence, and legal exclusivity). As these ‘superstar cities’ grow, other cities are losing opportunities to develop and take advantage of globalisation. The risk of inter-urban inequality feeds populism. Cities will become the middle power in global political organisations in the future, and political economy will shed light on how power and values operate at the urban level.