The City as a Global Political Actor This book engages with the thorny question of global urban political agency. It critically assesses the now popular statement that in the context of paralysed and failing nation state governments, cities can and will provide leadership in address- ing global challenges. Cities can act politically on the global scale, but the analysis of global urban politi- cal agency needs to be firmly embedded in the field of urban studies. Collectively, the chapters in this volume contextualize urban agency in time and space and pluralize it by looking at how urban agency is nurtured through coalitions between a wide range of public and private actors. The authors develop and critically assess the conceptual un- derpinnings of the notion of global urban political agency from a variety of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives. The second part contains several (theoretically informed) empirical analyses of global urban political agency in cities around the globe. This book geographically expands analysis by looking beyond global cities in diverse contexts. It is highly recommended reading for scholars in the fields of in- ternational relations and urban studies who are looking for an interdisciplinary and empirically grounded understanding of global urban political agency, in a diversity of contexts and a plurality of forms. Stijn Oosterlynck is Associate Professor in Urban Sociology at the University of Antwerp, Sociology department. Luce Beeckmans is a full-time post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Architecture & Urban Planning of Ghent University, Belgium. David Bassens is Associate Professor of Economic Geography at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels, where he is Associate Director of Cosmopolis: Centre for Urban Research. Ben Derudder is Professor of Human Geography at Ghent University’s Department of Geography, and an Associate Director of the Globalization and World Cities (GaWC) research network. Barbara Segaert is a scientific coordinator at the University Centre Saint-Ignatius Antwerp (UCSIA), where she develops academic programmes on various topics of contemporary relevance to society. Luc Braeckmans is Director of Academic Affairs of the University Centre Saint- Ignatius Antwerp (UCSIA). He is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Antwerp, where he is also chair of the Centre for Andragogy. Routledge Studies in Urbanism and the City This series offers a forum for original and innovative research that engages with key debates and concepts in the field. Titles within the series range from empirical investigations to theoretical engagements, offering international perspectives and multidisciplinary dialogues across the social sciences and humanities, from urban studies, planning, geography, geohumanities, soci- ology, politics, the arts, cultural studies, philosophy and literature. Rebel Streets and the Informal Economy Street Trade and the Law Edited by Alison Brown Mega-events and Urban Image Construction Beijing and Rio de Janeiro Anne-Marie Broudehoux Urban Geopolitics Rethinking Planning in Contested Cities Edited by Jonathan Rokem and Camillo Boano Contested Markets, Contested Cities Gentrification and Urban Justice in Retail Spaces Edited by Sara González The City as a Global Political Actor Edited by Stijn Oosterlynck, Luce Beeckmans, David Bassens, Ben Derudder, Barbara Segaert and Luc Braeckmans For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ series/RSUC The City as a Global Political Actor Edited by Stijn Oosterlynck, Luce Beeckmans, David Bassens, Ben Derudder, Barbara Segaert and Luc Braeckmans First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 selection and editorial matter, Stijn Oosterlynck, Luce Beeckmans, David Bassens, Ben Derudder, Barbara Segaert and Luc Braeckmans; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Stijn Oosterlynck, Luce Beeckmans, David Bassens, Ben Derudder, Barbara Segaert and Luc Braeckmans to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Oosterlynck, Stijn, editor. | Beeckmans, Luce, editor. | Bassens, David, editor. | Derudder, Ben, editor. | Segaert, Barbara, editor. | Braeckmans, Luc, 1953–editor. Title: The city as a global political actor / [edited by Stijn Oosterlynck, Luce Beeckmans, David Bassens, Ben Derudder, Barbara Segaert, and Luc Braeckmans]. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2018. | Series: Routledge studies in urbanism and the city | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018025188 | ISBN 9781138573574 (hbk: alk. paper) | ISBN 9780203701508 (ebk) | ISBN 9781351330725 (mobi/kindle) | ISBN 9781351330732 (epub) | ISBN 9781351330749 (pdf) Subjects: LCSH: Metropolitan government. | Cities and towns–Political aspects. | International relations. | Globalization–Political aspects. Classification: LCC JS50 .C57 2018 | DDC 320.8/5–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018025188 ISBN: 978-1-138-57357-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-70150-8 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra Contents List of illustrations vii List of contributors viii List of editors xii 1 An urban studies take on global urban political agency 1 DAVID BASSENS, LUCE BEECkMANS, BEN DERUDDER AND STIJN OOSTERLYNCk PART I The city as a site for political innovation 23 2 Reflecting on the ‘Global Parliament of Mayors’ project 25 ERIC CORIJN 3 Social inequality and transformation of the urban economy 39 ENzO MINGIONE 4 Voracious cities and obstructing states? 60 GILLES PINSON 5 Global-urban policymaking 86 kEVIN WARD 6 The politics of the (global) urban: city strategies as repeated instances 100 JENNIFER ROBINSON 7 Whose urban agency is it anyway? 132 MICHELE ACUTO vi Contents PART II Exploring city political agency around the globe 145 8 Greening the global city: the role of C40 cities as actors in global environmental governance 147 SABINE BARTHOLD 9 Metropolitan regions as new scales and evolving policy concepts in the European Union’s policy context 168 CAROLA FRICkE 10 Building city political agency across scales: the Johannesburg International Relations Strategy 187 ELISABETH PEYROUX 11 A closer look at the role of international accolades in worlding Cape Town’s urban politics 207 LAURA NkULA-WENz 12 Urban rehabilitation and residential struggles in the post-socialist city of Budapest 227 GERGELY OLT AND LUDOVIC LEPELTIER-kUTASI 13 Aspiring global nations? Tracing the actors behind Belgrade’s ‘nationally important’ waterfront 250 JORN kOELEMAIJ Index 275 Illustrations Figures 9.1 Hierarchical relationships between collective actors in the EU multi-scalar system 174 11.1 Interurban networks of Cape Town as WDC 2014 216 12.1 Rehabilitation areas in Budapest 234 13.1 Location of Belgrade Waterfront within the city 260 13.2 A large billboard next to the historical central train station of Belgrade advertises Belgrade Waterfront 261 13.3 The Belgrade Waterfront gallery presents the model to anyone who is interested in seeing how the project is supposed to be realized 261 Tables 9.1 Comparing approaches in academic literature related to metropolitan regions 175 13.1 List of respondents Belgrade Waterfront research 269 Contributors Michele Acuto is Chair of Global Urban Politics in the Faculty of Architec- ture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne, where he is also Director of AURIN (the Australian Urban Research Infrastruc- ture Network), and the Connected Cities Lab. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Bosch Foundation Global Governance Futures Program. Michele was previously Direc- tor of the City Leadership Lab and Professor of Diplomacy and Urban Theory at University College London, and Barter Fellow of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities at the University of Oxford. He also taught at the University of Canberra, University of Southern California, Australian National University and National University of Singapore. Outside academia, Michele worked for the Institute of E uropean Affairs in Dublin, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), the kimberley Process for conflict diamonds, the European Commission’s response to pandemic threats. He has also worked for several years on city leadership and city networks with, amongst others, Arup, World Health Organization, World Bank Group, the C40 Climate Leadership Group, and UN-Habitat. Michele is the author of several articles, pub- lications and policy documents on the link between urban governance and international politics, having recently served as co-chair of the Nature Sustainability Expert Panel on ‘science and the future of cities’. Sabine Barthold is a PhD Candidate in Urban Studies at the Center for Met- ropolitan Studies and Fellow of the German National Academic Foun- dation at TU Berlin. She studied at the New School for Social Research and obtained a degree in Sociology and Political Science from Dres- den University. Her research interests range from post-socialist urban transformations to urban climate governance and eco-modernization in global cities and draws from theories of Urban Sociology as well as Critical Geography and Urban Political Ecology. Her current research is focussed on inter-urban knowledge and policy transfer within the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and the ways that city networks engage as global actors in international climate governance. Contributors ix Eric Corijn is cultural philosopher and social scientist, Professor of Urban Studies at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, founder of Cosmopolis, Centre for Urban Research, vice-chair of the Brussels Studies Institute and Director of the Brussels Academy. Carola Fricke is a researcher and lecturer for Human Geography at the University of Freiburg. She received her PhD from the Berlin University of Technology. Her PhD project explored the evolution of metropoli- tan policies in various contexts, including the European Union, France and Germany. She moreover researches urban and regional policies in Europe from a comparative perspective, as well as cross-border governance in the field of spatial planning. She is part of the Interna- tional Metropolitan Research Consortium (IMRC), a research collective focussed on comparing processes of metropolitanization within Europe and globally. Methodologically, her work on policy analysis incorporates an interpretive- constructivist perspective, a spatial dimension and a qualitative empirical approach. Jorn Koelemaij is a PhD candidate in Social and Economic Geography at Ghent University. Having a background in Human Geography and Urban Studies (University of Amsterdam), his research project focusses on three main issues: (1) global city aspirations and policies in the non- Western world; (2) the geography of transnational capital investment in real estate and its impact on (mobile) urban development strategies; and (3) the applicability and comparability of the concept of neoliberal ur- banism in different historical-institutional contexts. Ludovic Lepeltier-Kutasi is a PhD Student in Social Geography (UMR CITERES-EMAM, University of Tours), fellow at the CEFRES French Research Center in Humanities and Social Sciences of Prague. Currently he is finishing his PhD thesis about the role of former state housing in contemporary urban dynamics in Budapest, focussing on the case of Magdolna, in the 8th district. His approach is inductive, char- acterized by the consideration of fine scales of observation and ethno- graphic methods. Enzo Mingione is Professor of Sociology at the University of Milano- Bicocca. He has been the President of the Research Committee on Urban and Regional Development, one of the founders of the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research and a trustee of the Foundation of Urban and Regional Studies. His main fields of interest are urban soci- ology, poverty, social politics, social exclusion, labour market, informal sector and economic sociology. Among his books are Social Conflict and the City, Blackwell, Oxford (1981); Beyond Employment, together with Nanneke Redclift (eds), Blackwell, Oxford (1985); Fragmented Societies, Blackwell, Oxford (1991); (Ed) Urban poverty and the Underclass, Black- well, Oxford (1996).