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Project

Would mayors rule a better world? An analysis of how city networks can escape gridlock in the climate mitigation field

The Paris Climate Agreement formally recognizes the role of local governments/cities in combating global warming. Cities have in fact been collaborating on climate change in international city networks for a long time, with these networks often being hailed as a promising alternative or addition to gridlocked interstate cooperation. However, it remains insufficiently clear how local governments succeed in avoiding or escaping the structural causes of this gridlock. A critical analysis of the global governance capacities of these networks is therefore much-needed. Focusing on the cooperation on the Paris Agreement, this research examines if and how these networks provide a better institutional context for transnational cooperation, if and how they better manage to integrate the input of different (kinds of) actors, and if and how actors in these networks reach consensus more easily. Drawing on interviews and focus groups with network employees and municipal policymakers as well as document analysis, a grounded theory approach is marshalled to develop a mid-level theory for analyzing whether and how city networks can escape the structural causes for interstate gridlock.

Date:19 Apr 2021 →  Today
Keywords:city networks, gridlock, Paris Climate Agreement
Disciplines:Local and urban politics, Diplomacy, International politics
Project type:PhD project