Keywords

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

1.1 Introduction

In the 1960s, while I was spending much time doing first-hand research at UN Headquarters in New York City, and living in a suburb of Chicago, I gradually became aware of the extensive involvement around the world of people living in cities. As a Professor of Political Science, teaching international relations, I became concerned that my courses focused on how government officials in Washington were linked around the world, but I did not inform my students about how they, and other people in their city, were linked around the world. Therefore, I began to inform myself about how people in a variety of activities in my city were linked around the world.

In 1971 I moved to the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at Ohio State University, in Columbus, Ohio, and soon developed a research project: Columbus in the World and the World in Columbus (CITW:TWIC). We did an extensive study of Columbus in the world that included foreign trade, banking, travel abroad, voluntary organizations, religious groups, Ohio State University faculty and foreign students, the military, international arts, agriculture, ethnic groups, the Afro-American community, and medical people. Each of these had extensive international involvements, but most of them knew very little about the others. Of course, we shared this information with people in Columbus, and also with interested people in other cities. This included Boulder (Colorado), Lincoln, (Nebraska), Oshkosh (Wisconsin), Philadelphia and Scranton (Pennsylvania), Richmond (Virginia), San Diego (California), and a network of cities in New York.

In 1977 the editor of the The Korean Journal of International Studies, published by The Korean Institute of International Studies, became interested in this project and invited me to publish an article about it in their journal. This was a very important opportunity. It provided me with an opportunity to report what we had learned in CITW:TWIC in a way that made it relevant to people living in cities around the world. This article, “Cities as Arenas for Participatory Learning in Global Citizenship” is Chap. 2 in this volume.

This research motivated me to do more extensive research on the world relations of cities. Five of these articles, published between 1979 and 2011, are printed in this volume. Chapter 3 is “The Impact of Cities on International Systems,” in Krishna Kumar (ed.), Bonds Without Bondage: Explorations in Transcultural Cooperation, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1979. The first part of this article reports on recent changes in paradigms that guide international relations research. Here I report that international relations scholars were becoming increasingly concerned that a focus only on the governments of States was providing too limited an approach to international relations. Using this as a background, I then make an effort to provide conceptual tools for observing and analyzing the involvement of cities in international relations. I was very pleased when this article was published in Polish in Studia Nauk Politycznych (Studies in Political Sciences).

Chapter 4 is “Perceiving, Analysing and Coping With the Local–Global Nexus”, International Social Science Journal, 1988. In this article I consider what the barriers are that prevent people from perceiving and understanding their links to the world. I then extend my concern beyond the global context of cities and discuss the global context of rural areas, households, and women. I also gathered information on significant local responses to global intrusions that includes local non-governmental action on foreign policy issues of States and local government action on foreign policy issues of States.

Chapter 5 is “The World Relations of Cities: Closing the Gap Between Social Science Paradigms and Everyday Human Experience”, International Studies Quarterly, 1990. Here I report that, although the mainstream of social science was ignoring the world relations of cities, there was scattered scholarship in history anthropology, sociology and political science that offered important insight on the growing involvement of human settlements in the world. One main theme is the changing impact of worldwide economic and social forces on cities of the world and their inhabitants. The second main theme is the very significant responses of some city governments and local citizens to these changes, with respect to issues such as war prevention and disarmament, poverty and human rights. I then explore the implications of these developments for democratic theory, and for research and teaching about international relations.

Chapter 6 is “Japanese Municipal International Exchange and Cooperation in the Asia Pacific: Opportunities and Challenges,” Ritsumeikan International Studies, 1997. Scholars in Japan became very interested in my research on cities and invited me to Japan to report on it several times. When they invited me to write an article on Japanese cities, I was very reluctant, because I know only a very few words of Japanese, but they still insisted that I do it. I learned that all Japanese prefectural and major municipal governments had international affairs divisions, and of the existence of a Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (CLAIR). Many Japanese cities have sister city relations with cities around the world, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. This led to the creation of CITYNET, with 43 cities from 17 countries in the Asia Pacific region as members. It has developed a quite interesting relationship with the UN Development Program (UNDP). Very significant are efforts to protect the human rights of foreign residents in Japanese cities.

Chapter 7 is “Searching for Democratic Potential in Emerging: Global Governance: What Are the Implications of Regional and Global Involvements of Local Governments?”, International Journal of Peace Studies, 2011. While doing research on the world relations of cities, I became aware of the fact that there are 5 global organizations of local governments. It is very surprising that the first one was founded in 1913. There are also 16 in the European region, and 5 in regions outside of Europe. It is very significant that the European regional organizations include the European region and also local regions, large cities, border regions, mountain regions, maritime regions, and a specific issue focus. In 1996 a World Association of Cities and Local Authorities Coordination (WACLAC) was created to strengthen the global influence of local authorities, particularly in the United Nations. Now organizations of local governments are active in a number of organizations in the UN system, including the UN Development Program (UNDP), the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Environment Program (UNEP), the UN Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and others.

In conclusion, I hope that this information on the world relations of cities will encourage you to find out how your local community is linked around the world. Because local communities are now increasingly linked around the world, local government agendas are now increasingly identical to that of the government of your country. Thus local cooperation around the world is now required to deal with many environmental, economic, communication, travel and communication problems. You can learn about this at www.un.org/en/sustainaablefuture/cities.shtml. When you are there you might also click on “get involved.” Of course, it is also useful to think about how you are linked around the world throughout your daily life, when you buy food, and many other items, work for a company that exports items, have contact with recent immigrants, communicate on the internet, contribute to air pollution, and breath air from around the world. This will enable you to think how you are having an impact on the rest of the world, and how it is having an impact on you. Are there things that you could do, with your local government, and with governments beyond, to insure that your children, and grandchildren, live in a better world?