Cities in Global and Regional Governance: From Multilateralism to Multistakeholderism?

Cities have been advocating for a seat at the global table for decades. Although they are recognized as part of the international system, their capacity to influence is still limited to a consultative role and largely symbolic. Global and regional governance structures have been designed by and for nation states and they leave little room for the involvement of other stakeholders, including local governments. Yet, as the UN marks its 75 anniversary, intergovernmental multilateralism is increasingly being called into question. In recent decades, other seemingly more inclusive global governance frameworks are emerging, such as multistakeholderism.

Within the framework of the Great Powers and Urbanization Project (GPUP), CIDOB’s Global Cities Programme is bringing together GPUP partner institutions, city diplomacy practitioners and other experts for a digital seminar to discuss the changing role of cities in global and regional governance.  GPUP is a collaborative research initiative between the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, the University of Melbourne’s Connected Cities Lab, the Argentine Council for International Relations (CARI), the African Centre for Cities and CIDOB – Barcelona Centre for International Affairs. Taking the premise that at the beginning of the twenty-first century, neither the city, the nation-state, nor geopolitical rivalries are declining in relevance, the GPUP project aims at evaluating potential ways to construct foreign policies, reform global governance, and represent stakeholders in an era of both geopolitical competition and urbanization.  

The two-days seminar will discuss the possibilities and constraints of cities' political agency within the contemporary global order. Further, it will explore how cities and their networks can strengthen and formalize their role within global and regional governance institutions and mechanisms. To examine possible future scenarios, the discussion will draw on the debate over the emergence and consolidation of new practices of multistakeholder global governance. Specifically, it will address the tensions and complementarity between two strategies for bringing urban concerns and interests to the global stage: on the one hand, the ambition to reform the current multilateral system, moving towards a seemingly more inclusive multistakeholder framework; and, on the other, the ongoing development of innovative forms of city diplomacy that create new spaces for transnational and operate mostly independently from nation states and international organizations.  

The seminar’s first session will be to questions from a European perspective. The discussion will revolve around the current instruments, institutional mechanisms and participation channels, both formal and informal, available to local and regional governments (LRGs) to influence and shape EU policymaking and implementation. In order to frame the conversation, the session will begin with four paper presentations by experts and practitioners, that will address, among others: the effectiveness of the Committee of the Regions to enhance sub-national governments’ say in EU law-making; the involvement of LRGs in the negotiations of the Multiannual Financial Framework; or the potential of some of the most recent policy initiatives, such as the EU Urban Agenda or the European Green Deal, to engage cities as key drivers of the green and digital transition. The presentations will be followed by an interactive debate among speakers, GPUP partners, and other seminar participants. 

The seminar’s second session will build on the European focused conclusions of day one by discussing the political agency of cities from the global perspective. It will feature a roundtable session that will address questions such as: To what extent does the current crisis of multilateralism constitute an opportunity for local governments to push for greater recognition within global governance structures? What are the promises and perils of multistakeholderism as an alternative governance mode? How is city diplomacy being reconfigured towards more innovative practices, which operate at the margins of nation states and are leaned towards urban-experimentation and new forms of public-private governance? How are traditional city networks engaging with these new diplomatic practices? And, finally, what are the implications of the ‘multistakeholderization’ and hybridization of city diplomacy for the role of cities in global governance? In a moderated discussion, each speaker will be posed a specific question related to their area of expertise, and a more general one connected with the overall topic of the session.