The Impact of Cities on International Systems

Abstract

At first glance, the impact of cities on international systems may seem to be a trivial, or at least a marginal, subject—particularly when compared to factors of such overwhelming importance as the $400 billion annual military expenditures of the national governments of the world. But the subject becomes more interesting when we consider the fact that 38 % of the world’s population lives in cities (Population Reference Bureau 1976).

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At first glance, the impact of cities on international systems may seem to be a trivial, or at least a marginal, subject—particularly when compared to factors of such overwhelming importance as the $400 billion annual military expenditures of the national governments of the world. But the subject becomes more interesting when we consider the fact that 38 % of the world’s population lives in cities (Population Reference Bureau 1976). In fact, most of the international relations of the world can be viewed as relations among cities. As people living in cities pursue their interests and needs in banking, education, manufacturing, medicine, recreation, and research, to name only a few, these activities and their repercussions flow across national boundaries. The national border crossings involved in this activity are far more numerous than those of national governments. Even people who don’t live in cities usually are dependent on the international facilities in cities, such as air terminals, ports, customs, and banks.¹

It can be said, for example, that “such activities, even though quantitatively more numerous, are not as important as the activities of national governments. National governments decide matters of war and peace and also can regulate all other border crossings.” But there are widespread exceptions to this kind of generalization. For example, multinational corporations (MNCs) have an obvious and widely reported impact on national governments. And most national governments must compromise with the desire of their citizens for products produced abroad even when it undermines national economic planning. This is why an increasing number of scholars are devoting attention to nongovernmental international relations, usually under the label “transnational relations.” This work is gradually providing more complex models for understanding international phenomena than simplistic nation-state paradigms.

There is yet another reason why the international relations of cities is worthy of our attention. Invariably, the seats of national governments are located in cities. Their policies are influenced by their locale, particularly in the case of foreign affairs, traditionally more under the control of the central government than other issues. In cases where the seat of a national government is in a city that is dominant in the country, the foreign policy of that government may be simply an extension of those policies through which the elite in the city dominate the country itself. Thus, some national governments might more correctly be conceptualized as cities.

This examination of the impact of cities on international systems will be divided into two parts. First, recent changes in the paradigms that guide international relations research will be illustrated. This will reveal the difficulty that scholars are having in freeing themselves from the “billiard ball” model. It will offer insight into why cities in international systems are a neglected subject of inquiry. Second, an effort will be made to provide some conceptual tools for observing and analyzing cities in international systems along with illustrative examples.

While much in this chapter is speculative and argues by example rather than by proof adduced from many cases, the views put forth emerge out of an effort to research the international relations of a mid-American city—Columbus, Ohio—over a three-year period, and to share with the people information on the surprising depth of involvement of their city in international systems—in agriculture, medicine, religion, research, trade, banking, arts, and many other areas.

3.1 Evolving Paradigms for International Research

The “billiard ball” model (Wolfers 1962, p. 19) has long guided research and teaching. It assumes that nation states are unitary actors in international systems. It also assumes that nation states are the most important actors, deeming unnecessary any attempt to subject this as assumption to empirical testing. These assumptions have received serious challenge from empirical examination of foreign policy making and execution by national governments in research under the labels “burea cratic politics” (Allison 1971), “linkage groups” (Rosenau 1969), an “issue areas” (Deutsch 1966). As a result of this work, the foreign policies of governments are no longer assumed to be unitary. Across variety of issues such as energy, health, population, and trade, policy may sometimes be integrated and coordinated. Conflicting interests an priorities of different branches of government, however, under pressure from different interest groups and regional priorities in the country, may produce uncoordinated and even contradictory policies.

3.1.1 The World Politics Paradigm of Keohane and Nye

Increasing research and interest in what is called transnational relations has also provided a substantial challenge to the “billiard ball” model (Fig. 2.1). Angell (1969) helped to provide a holistic conceptualization of this activity in an integrated review of the scattered literature on transnational relations in education, business, religion, and so on. Keohane and Nye (1971) provided readings on different transnational activity, such as MNCs, the Catholic Church, foundations, and labor unions (Fig. 3.1). This work also helped to create a holistic view of a scattered array of activities, most of which had received slight attention from international relations scholars. Their “world politics paradigm” includes not only states as units but also intergovernmental organizations and transnational organizations (i.e., international nongovernmental organizations, and MNCs). Taking into account the fact that these units are not always unitary actors, they include in their scheme the subunits of each of these three categories. This sixfold table is reproduced as Fig. 3.1. The states as units (cell A) would include the “formal foreign policy structure of the state.” Governmental subunits (cell B) are included because “subunits of governments may also have distinct foreign policies which are not all filtered through the top leadership and which do not fit into a unitary ac tor model” (Keohane and Nye 1971, p. 730). This might include cultural programs or collaboration among national weather agencies. The subunits of international organizations and transnational organizations are defined in similar fashion. With this extension of the statecentric paradigm, Keohane and Nye (1971) assert that they have broadened the conception of actors to include transnational actors and have broken down “the hard shell of the nation-state” by including governmental subunits. In their terminology, they have added to the actors in the statecentric paradigm (cells A and C), actors in transgovernmental interactions (cells B and D), and actors in transnational interactions (cells E and F).

Fig. 3.1

Actors in world politics. Source Keohane and Nye, transnational relations in world politics, p. 730. A + C, actors in the state-centric paradigm; B + D, actors in transgovernmental interactions; E + F, actors in transnational interactions

The potential interactions between these six kinds of actors produce thirty-six possibilities, as represented by Keohane and Nye in Fig. 3.2. They classify these thirty-six possibilities into their three categories: interstate, transgovernmental, and transnational.

Fig. 3.2

Bilateral interactions in world politics. Source Keohane and Nye, transnational relations in world politics, p. 732. IS, interstate interactions; TG, transgovernmental interactions; TN, transnational interactions; TG + TN, transnational relations; TG + TN + I, world politics interactions

This “world politics” paradigm gives us an analytic framework for data collecting and theory building that reflects more adequately the world we are trying to understand. It can handle, for example, multifaceted aspects of the international relations of the Allende government in Chile: the influence of ITT on the Chilean government (C, A), the influence of the U.S. government on the Chilean government (A, A) and on certain international lending institutions (A, C), and so on.

The paradigm is nevertheless puzzling in the greater differentiation it provides for governmental activity in contrast with nongovernmental activity. This can be discerned most easily in Fig. 3.1, where boxes A, B, C, and D differentiate governmental activity, and only E and F differentiate nongovernmental activity. Left out of nongovernmental differentiation are national nongovernmental organizations as units, and their subunits. These have been added to Fig. 3.3 as boxes X and Y. These would be comparable to states as units and governmental subunits on the governmental side. As an example, the “world politics” paradigm cannot handle the international relations of the AFL-CIO, a national nongovernmental organization (labor) in the United States, as effectively as it handles the international relations of the national government of Malta.

Fig. 3.3

Extending Keohane and Nye’s differentiation of nongovernmental actors. A + C, actors in the state-centric paradigm; B + D, actors in transgovernmental interactions; E + F + X + Y, Actors in transnational interactions

The “world politics” paradigm also does not provide analytic distinction for subnational territorial units. For example, with respect to governments, overlooked are efforts of state (province) governments in the United States to attract foreign firms and foreign investment, and the international relations of the Quebec separatist movement. These cannot be handled as effectively because the “billiard ball” model has only been replaced in the relations between units that are national in scope. The nation-state unit continues to be the organizing principle for the paradigm. As a result, the only governments delineated are national governments and entities that consist of collectivities of national governments (intergovernmental organizations). Why not regional, state (province), and city and metropolitan governments? With respect to nongovernmental actors, the “world politics” paradigm skips from “certain individuals” to subunits of transnational organizations—units in between are ignored! Omitted are the international programs of regional (subnational) church bodies, sister cities (town twinning), and relief efforts that originate from a variety of subnational territorial units. Adequate reflection of these kinds of subnational activities would require the addition in Fig. 3.3 of categories for subnational units.

These omissions may flow from Keohane and Nye’s (1971, p. 730) definition of “world politics” as

political interactions between any “significant actors” whose characteristics include autonomy, the control of substantial resources relevant to a given issue area, and participation in political relationships across state lines. Since we define politics in terms of the conscious employment of resources, “both material and symbolic, including the threat or exercise of punishment, to induce other actors to behave differently than they would otherwise behave,” it is clear that we are positing a conception of world politics in which the central phenomenon is bargaining between a variety of autonomous or semiautonomous actors.

Thus, actors are only included that (1) are significant, (2) are autonomous (or semiautonomous), (3) control substantial resources relevant to a given issue area, and (4) employ material and symbolic resources (including threat or exercise of punishment) across nation-state lines.

If we accept Keohane and Nye’s definition of “world politics,” should subnational actors be included? There is no doubt that subnational organizations, both governmental and nongovernmental, for example, move substantial resources and employ material and symbolic resources across nation-state lines, particularly when activity is aggregated for a specific subnational territorial unit. It is difficult, however, to decide whether they meet the criteria of significance and autonomy, because these are not clearly defined by Keohane and Nye. Whatever the definition might be, I question the logic of an approach that leaves out the voluminous international transactions of subnational actors. Only if they are included will it be possible to investigate which ones are significant and which ones are autonomous or semiautonomous. We do not now have an adequate knowledge base for making these judgments.

It can be suspected that the omissions from the “world politics” paradigm flow from the imprisoning hold that the nation-state unit of analysis has on even those who are trying to reconceptualize world politics. To paraphrase General McArthur: “Old paradigms never die, they only fade away.” This unit of analysis has evolved out of specific historic conditions in which some nation states have in fact been very significant and autonomous in contrast to all other international actors. But it has also evolved out of an ideology which affirms that nation states should be significant and autonomous international actors. It has been difficult to separate the empirical fact from ideology so long as the nation-state unit of analysis has prevailed. The “world politics” paradigm provides the possibility of moving toward testing empirically the assumption of nation-state preeminence vis-a-vis international governmental and nongovernmental organizations. But it does not provide the analytic possibility of challenging the assumption of nation-state preeminence with respect to subnational actors.

As quantitative studies have become an increasingly important part of inquiry, the very data that are supposed to help us see and analyze world politics have also screened certain phenomena from view. Many of these data were originally collected by national governments. To a large degree, our view of the world has been dictated by national government statisticians who have gathered national statistics to fill specific purposes of national governments. But the availability of these statistics has lured international relations researchers into perpetuating the nation-state unit of analysis even when gathering their own data, though this unit of analysis excludes important alternative units of analysis from view. Thus it is a vicious circle. Using the nation-state unit of analysis, we collect data on nation states and then we say that they are the most important actors because that is all we can see. It would be the same were we to put on pink eyeglasses, cast our gaze into a field of daisies, and report that we see pink daisies.

Commenting on this problem, John Burton (International Studies Association 1974, p. 8) has written:

To what extent have our own creations, our own pre-theories and notions of human institutional behavior, our own expectations of behavior, resulted in that behavior? To what degree have our images of reality, which could be false, made a reality of our imagination?

Burton further suggests the “cobweb” model as a better image to guide inquiry than one based on nation states, and perceives the world “like millions of cobwebs superimposed one upon another, covering the whole globe.” He urges: “The starting point is man, and his social behavior, and the special study is this behavior at an inter-communal, international, or inter-state level.” Elsewhere (1968, pp. 8–9) he frankly admits the value bias of his paradigm:

The value orientation is explicit: it is those of man, not those of institutions; the development of man, not the preservation of institutions for their own sake.

3.1.2 The Global System Paradigm of Mansbach, Ferguson, and Lampert

In their paradigm, Mansbach et al. (1976) move one step further away from the “billiard ball” paradigm. Like Keohane and Nye, they include interstate governmental actors, interstate nongovernmental actors, and nation states. But they extend their paradigm to include governmental noncentral (regional, provincial, or municipal governments), intrastate nongovernmental (OXFAM, Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities, the Irish Republican Army), and individuals (see Fig. 3.4). They assert (1976, p. 41) that governmental noncentral actors are generally only “peripherally concerned with world politics or, at most, have an indirect impact on the global political system” but specifically cite secessionist movements of provincial officials (e.g., Katanga and Biafra) as important exceptions. Although admitting that intrastate nongovernmental actors are “generally thought of as subject to the regulation of a central government, at least in matters of foreign policy,” they note (1976, p. 41) that groups “ranging from philanthropic organizations and political parties to ethnic communities, labor Unions, and industrial corporations may, from time to time, conduct relations directly with autonomous actors other than their own government.”

Fig. 3.4

Actors defined by membership and principal task. Source Mansbach, Ferguson, and Lampert, the web of world politics, p. 42

Instead of providing special categories for centrally controlled and subunit controlled actors (as Keohane and Nye do), they divide the activity of each actor by four issue areas: physical protection (protection from coercive deprivation), economic development and regulation (activities intended to overcome the constraints imposed on individual or collective capacity for self-development and growth), residual public interest tasks (activities that are designed to overcome constraints other than economic, such as disease or ignorance), and group status (bind the individual to others, provide him with psychological and emotional security). Mansbach, Ferguson, and Lampert’s matrix of interaction possibilities, like Keohane and Nye’s, has thirty-six cells (Fig. 3.5), but this would be extended to 4 × 36 in the context of the four issue areas. By setting forth separate categories for governmental noncentral, intrastate nongovernmental, and individuals, Mansbach, Ferguson, and Lampert have begun to break the internal structure of the “billiard balls” into pieces.

Fig. 3.5

Alignments in a complex conglomerate system. Source Mansbach, Ferguson, and Lampert, The Web of World Politics, p. 44

Of course, matrices of actors are only shopping lists for the researcher. They don’t necessarily tell you what the world is like but only tell you where to look. Fortunately, Mansbach, Ferguson, and Lampert have used their matrix in coding international events data from the New York Times for three geographic areas (Middle East, Latin America, and Western Europe) in three time periods (1948–1956, 1956–1967, and 1967–1972). This is not the appropriate place to report their research, but one paragraph from their findings (1976, p. 276) is of particular interest:

Without doubt, nation-states through their governments are still the primary actors involved in global politics if we take *‘involvement” to mean the appearance of a given actor as either the actor or target in a dyad. Nation-states appeared in almost 89 % of all dyads. Yet nonstate groups appeared in about two-thirds as many, or 56 %.

The usefulness of the broader paradigm is demonstrated by the presence of meaningful events in all categories. But the conclusion that “nation-states through their governments are still the primary actors involved in global politics,” insofar as it is based on the evidence the authors provide, is questionable. There are three possible reasons why national governments (the authors use the label nation-state) are involved in 89 % of the reported dyads: (1) This may be empirically true, although it is unlikely, because nonnational government actors far outnumber national government actors; (2) those reporting and editing events in the New York Times are indeed perceiving the totality of “global politics,” subnational as well as national and nongovernmental as well as governmental, but are reporting and printing only what they consider to be most significant; (3) the press is perceptually imprisoned in the “billiard ball” model, at least to the extent that actions are only perceived to be events if they involve at least one national government actor.

While we can only guess, there is a strong probability that (3) is the explanation for why national government actors are involved in 89 % of the dyads. Journalists, like scholars, require several cycles of reconceptualization, broader observation, learning, and reconceptualization before they will shed outmoded assumptions about which actors are involved and which actors are significant in world politics. They, too, have pink glasses!

It is symptomatic of the hold of the nation-state unit on world politics thinking that the Mansbach, Ferguson, and Lampert paradigm is also significantly constrained by this unit of analysis. With respect to governmental actors, they enumerate: interstate, nation-state, and noncentral (i.e., within state). The noncentral category ranges from cities to within-state nations such as Scotland. With respect to nongovernmental actors, they enumerate individuals, intrastate nongovernmental and interstate nongovernmental. Unlike Keohane and Nye, they add intrastate governmental. But puzzling is the failure to differentiate national nongovernmental activities from subnational nongovernmental activities. For example, in the United States the national YMCA has extensive relations with national YMCAs in other countries (national nongovernmental), but YMCAs in a number of cities also have relations with YMCAs in other countries through a variety of exchange programs (city nongovernmental).

It is also notable that Mansbach, Ferguson, and Lampert preserve some of the mythology of the nation state—using this term instead of “national governmental.” “Governmental” or “nongovernmental” are terms used to describe all other actors (with the exception of individual).

Figure 3.6 represents an effort to fill in the gaps of the Mansbach, Ferguson, Lampert paradigm by providing both governmental and nongovernmental actors with respect to nation states, provinces, and cities.

Fig. 3.6

Extension of the Mansbach, Ferguson, and Lampert paradigm

Some readers may think that the extended paradigm adds useless complexity by differentiating insignificant actors in world politics. But the answer to this question is uncertain until we observe the world through the eyes of the extended paradigm, partly because of the special way in which the traditional nation-state paradigm has limited our perception over a long period of time.

3.2 Impact of Research Paradigms on Public Participation in International Affairs

Thus far, the argument for extending the world politics paradigm has been based on increasing capacity for understanding the world—that is, on scientific grounds. A second reason why a richer paradigm is needed stems from the impact of the nation-state paradigm on public participation in foreign policy making—both governmental and nongovernmental. It tends to inhibit widespread public participation. First, the “nation-state actor” concept assumes that these actors are acting for the entire society within a specified boundary. This mystique is intensified when these actors use terms such as “national interest” to justify their policies. Were these actors simply labelled “national government,” this would leave the issue of in whose interests the government is acting an open question. But the “nation-state actor” concept carries with it a mystique that inhibits raising the question. Even in countries that claim to be democracies, public impact on foreign policy making is normally very limited. Even the legislative branches of democratic governments often have little impact. In many countries, the so-called nation-state actor could far better be described as an urban elite, using the nation-state myth as a means for preserving and aggrandizing the interests of this elite—within nation-state boundaries as well as externally. Thus, the “nation-state actor” concept is highly value laden, tending to give unquestioned legitimacy to such actors. This legitimacy is enhanced even further by membership of this elite in the United Nations—a “trade union” of “nation-state actors” that carefully refrains from intruding on the so-called internal affairs of each other. It is a very exclusive club, admitting only one actor from each nation state.² All that is required for membership is the capacity to maintain internal order from one center and carry out relations in the form prescribed by the union.

A second way in which the nation-state unit of analysis limits public participation is the inability of most people to perceive a participatory link between themselves and foreign policy making. It is literally unthinkable because the “nation-state actor” myth suggests that foreign policy making is esoteric and difficult and requires unique knowledge different from all other realms of human affairs. It is simultaneously unthinkable because it necessarily deals with “distant” events that must be handled at the border. The larger the country, or the less it is developed, the more difficult it is for people to perceive linkages between themselves and foreign policy—or linkages with people in other nation states.

So the nation-state unit of analysis has an exceptionally influential hold on the capacity of humankind to perceive a changing world, to participate in this changing world, and to think about alternatives to the present organization of the world. Since we tend to see only nation states, it is unthinkable that we participate in anything but nation states and we cannot think of a future world whose basic units are anything but nation states.³

3.3 Cities as Units of Analysis

Meanwhile, technological development is fundamentally changing the ways in which people living in different nation states are linked to each other. Trade, travel, communication, and migration are nothing new. Humans have always linked to other parts of the world—as distant as their knowledge of other worlds and technology of travel and communication permitted. But in the past this activity “took off” from border cities. While many individuals were linked to distant people through their use of salt, sugar, spices, or gold, these linkages were mediated by border cities. But air travel and satellite communication have fundamentally changed linkages in two senses. First, the traditional border cities are now too congested to serve adequately any longer the needs of inland cities, and these cities now have adequate traffic to support direct flights abroad—for example, the Civil Aeronautics Board in the United States recently approved nonstop European service from Cleveland, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Tampa. For the same reason, companies in Columbus, Ohio are turning to Columbus banks for their international banking needs. Second, air travel and satellite communication have fundamentally altered the notion of border. For the traveller who clears customs in Columbus, Ohio, this is the border. For the banker who makes a transaction by Telex or satellite from Indianapolis, Lyon, or Nagoya, these are the borders.

From this perspective, to ask what the impact of cities is on international systems is far from trivial—in the sense that it is not an unimportant question. It may seem trivial in another sense—in terms of being so obvious that it may seem unnecessary to raise the question. This is analogous to asking what the impact of the flow of water is on a river, since the flow of water is the river. In similar fashion, transactions between cities in different countries are international systems. Certainly, national governments attempt to control and do control some of these transactions in their interest. But nongovernmental actors also impact governments through their activities—such as through consumer demands, foreign exchange manipulations, hijackings, and so on. Also, that part of national governments involved in foreign affairs can often be conceptualized as a city. Of course, it is a special kind of headquarters city for international activity. But so are Detroit (General Motors), Rotterdam (Unilever), and Turin (Fiat).

We can conclude that cities have two values as units of analysis in world politics. First, linkages among people in different countries are clustered in cities because cities provide the facilities that put people, money, goods, and information into orbit across national boundaries. The city unit of analysis reflects more faithfully than the nation-state unit who is linked to whom, for what purposes, and with what effects. If for some purposes it is deemed necessary to sum data on cities to larger units—such as provinces, regions, or nation states—this can be done. But the reverse is not possible. Present national statistics cannot normally be disaggregated to smaller units. Second, the city unit of analysis is close to people and can make involvement and participation in foreign policy making seem thinkable to them.

The impact of cities on global systems can be viewed from at least four vantage points. First, cities are the creators of new technology and culture that eventually flow around the world. Second, cities are nodes in international systems, providing the facilities that link international systems. Third, cities are headquarters from which both governmental and nongovernmental international systems are controlled. Fourth, people identify with cities and turn to them for protection and support.

First, the city “historically has been the main source of change, both in the international system and in all aspects of the social system, as it has produced new ideas, new ideologies, new philosophies, and new technologies” (Boulding 1968, p. 1122). Cities provide storehouses of knowledge and the “synthesis and synergy of the many separate parts” of society that produce these changes. They provide the milieu in which science and technology are able to produce atomic energy, supersonic aircraft, and satellite communication. National governments utilize and even support these developments, but they are dependent on knowledge processes that are independent of government. And they are propelled into utilization and support by a variety of individual, group, and organizational interests in cities that are external to government. In cities are also to be found the originators and purveyors of fast foods, pop music, and dress fads that spread rapidly to all continents. Much of this is transmitted by youth, presumably the least powerful in terms of the measures of power used by international relations specialists. Yet these cultural artifacts permeate borders with guard towers, barbed wire, and landmines. For example, jeans are now manufactured around the world by private and governmental factories that found home production an inevitable response to the smuggling and blackmarket purchase of jeans.

Second, cities are the nodes in a diversity of global and subglobal systems—with respect to manufacturing, medicine, banking, research, arts, sports, and so on (Fig. 3.7). These activities tend to be clustered in cities. Even when they are not (as in the case of agriculture and extractive industry), cities provide the transportation and communication facilities that permit international exchange. These facilities move people, money, goods, and information that link cities in the same country, and in different countries into these systems. Taking medical activity as an example, hospitals in Columbus, Ohio attract doctors and nurses from many parts of the world because of relatively high pay and good working conditions. Columbus corporations produce drugs for export, and also import drugs. Research institutes in Columbus are dependent on global information systems in their medical research. These institutes provide technical assistance abroad, and private voluntary agencies also provide medical aid abroad.

Fig. 3.7

Activities providing international links between cities

As an example, Fig. 3.8 portrays data, primarily acquired through mail questionnaires, on the international links of Columbus, Ohio.⁴ It reveals that exports are primarily directed toward Europe, that travel is mainly distributed between Latin America and Canada, that foreign students at Ohio State University are largely from East Asia, but that religious ties are largely in Latin America and Africa. Figure 3.9 portrays a more detailed image of the international links of one institution in Columbus—The Ohio State University. It summarizes all university activity targeted on specific foreign areas—teaching, research, conferences, organizational memberships, and so on. As a whole, the greatest attention is focussed on Europe and Canada, yet there are pronounced differences across colleges. For example, the humanities are more strongly oriented toward Europe than any other college. And the school of agriculture leads all colleges in its attention to Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Fig. 3.8

A bird’s eye view of Columbus, Ohio in the world. One way to get a perspective on the international involvement of a city is to “map” how its specific sectors “reach” to various regions of the world

Fig. 3.9

Regional distribution (in percent) of faculty ties for selected colleges of Ohio State University

Third, cities provide the headquarters for virtually all international systems. These include national governmental and nongovernmental activities and headquarters for international governmental and nongovernmental organizations. For example, the Yearbook of International^ Organizations reports that some 2,750 international organizations (governmental and nongovernmental) had some 4,000 headquarters and! secondary offices. Twenty cities accounted for 2,168 of these in 1972 (Table 3.1). It is notable that fifteen of these cities are national capitals, underlying the very prominent role these cities play in international! systems.

Table 3.1 Location of international organization offices: headquarters plus secondary (top twenty cities, 1960–1972). Source adapted from yearbook of international organizations, 1974 (brussels: union of international associations)

Cities also are the headquarters for multinational corporations. Table 3.2 provides illustrative data on the headquarters city of European and U.S. corporations with subsidiaries and associations in twenty-six op more countries. Less than one third of these firms are located in national capitals.

Table 3.2 Number of headquarters by city for business enterprises with subsidiaries and associations in twenty-six or more countries. Source adapted from yearbook of international organizations, 1968–1969 (brussels: union of international associations)

Fourth, cities are units with which citizens identify and to which they turn for assistance with problems such as roads, education, and garbage collection and to which they turn for protection from fire, robbery, ar personal assault. But there is no doubt that identity with nations has certain respects been stronger than that with cities in the twentieth century. In modern times, providing protection from (and utilizing) large-scale violence has become almost the exclusive prerogative of the national government. And in the twentieth century, people have increasingly looked to national governments for standard setting and financial port for social services, if not for direct carrying out of these services.

Increase in social services has generated larger and larger national bureaucracies that are often unable to deliver services effectively to people in their neighborhoods and cities. Particularly in Europe and North America, this has brought impetus for decentralization of social service delivery. At the same time, the inability of national governments to project their citizens from the ravages of war in the twentieth century has brought declining confidence in the traditional means for providing national security—national government employment of weapons of mass destruction. One response has been efforts to collectivize violence through the use of collective security arrangements in international governmental organizations. Another response has been efforts to dissipate the causes of hostility among nations by building cooperation on issues such as health, ecology, and space that transcend national boundaries. Partly in response to the assumptions of functionalism (Mitrany 1966), and in part simply in response to the need for new institutions for solving problems, the number of international governmental and nongovernmental organizations has rapidly grown to some 2,800 since World War II (according to the 1974 edition of the Yearbook of International Organizations). And in the United States, one list includes over eight hundred voluntary transnational exchange programs with a U.S. base. Many of these programs are viewed as means for people-to-people con tact that will dissipate hostility and make the nation-state system work better. While many have strong local chapters and activity, most do not have self-conscious concern for the role of cities in global systems.

Sister City and Mundialization programs are explicitly designed to link cities in different countries and create consciousness with respect to cities as international actors. Sister City (or Town Twinning) programs link city officials in two cities as well as people in a variety of the professions and other walks of life. The Town Affiliation Association lists over four hundred U.S. cities with over five hundred affiliations with cities in nearly seventy countries. European cities are affiliated with over one thousand cities throughout the world. These relationships provide for cultural exchange and for a variety of collaborative projects.⁵

“Mundialization” attempts to help a city to establish an identity with the whole world. This program encourages people to ask their city government to pass a law declaring that:

• 1. The city is a “world city”—a fragment of world territory linked to the community of man and wishing to live in peace with other local communities under a world system of enforceable world law.

• 2. The United Nations flag will fly daily beside the national flag at City Hall.

• 3. The city will establish a Sister City relationship with another “world city” in another country. Either through voluntary contributions or the city budget, 0.01 % of tax levies will be contributed to the United Nations.

Mundialization began in the form of a “world city” declaration in the 1950s in Japan and Europe. It was developed into its present form in Canada and has spread to a number of Canadian cities. (Newcombe and Clark 1972; Newcombe and Newcombe 1969).

Programs such as these provide people in cities with personal links to people in other cities and help them to perceive their city as one city in a global network of cities with many common problems and goals. As such, they may provide participatory learning experiences that help people to begin to rethink the actual and potential impact of their cities, and themselves, on international systems.

In 1967, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church adopted “Guidelines for Development of Strategy for Metropolitan Mission,” including a section on “Peace: The International Dimensions of Metropolitan Mission.”

Every metropolitan area is linked with the rest of the world through a network; of business, economic, academic, political, communication, friendship and other ties. Through these links each metropolitan judicatory has mission opportunities to work for peace among nations. There is growing importance hat mission responsibilities in relation to the international character of metropolitan life be given appropriate attention in the development of metropolitan mission strategy. The presence of foreign students and professors, foreign tourists, government representatives, business representatives and firms, cultural visitors from abroad, foreign ships and seamen, and foreign commerce Evidence the impact of other nations on the metropolis. Equally significant is She impact of persons, events and actions of a metropolitan area on persons, events and nations abroad. Its residents travel and work abroad in many (capacities for business, or government or for pleasure. The policies and actions of industry, business, and banking centered in a metropolis may have profound effects on the life of people in other nations. Moreover, as citizens, I: metropolitan residents have responsibility for the wide and deep implications of our nation’s foreign policy. Metropolitan mission strategy must include appropriate ministries of the Church in relation to persons, issues, and structures having some of these international ramifications.

This illustrates a desire by some private institutions to stimulate citizens to play a more self-conscious role in local international participant and decision making—with respect to multinational corporations, international education policies in universities, foreign policies of churches, and so on.

3.4 Cities as International Actors

These kinds of programs have not yet provoked cities as a whole into active pursuit of their interests—as cities—in international systems. They fall far short of Kenneth Boulding’s motto: “Cities of the World unite, you have nothing to lose but your slums, your poverty, and your military expendability.” Two international organizations active in Europe, however, do have more ambitious aims for cities as actors in international systems.⁶ The International Union of Local Authorities (IULA), headquarters in The Hague, desires to ‘Promote local autonomy [and] promote the idea of participation of the population in civic affairs. (Yearbook of International Organizations 1974, p. 496). Even more assertive are the aims of the Council of European Municipalities (CEM), with headquarters in Geneva. The CEM desires to “achieve and defend municipal autonomy…ensure freedom of municipal action and contribute to its prosperity…develop a European outlook within local communities with a view to promoting a Federation of European States, based on their municipal autonomy; ensure their representation in European and international organizations; integrate the representative Assembly of municipalities and local communities in future European institutions*’ (Yearbook of International Organizations 1974, p. 93).

Members of the CEM and the European members of the IULA are active in the European Conference of Local Authorities (ECLA) of the Council of Europe, an outgrowth of the Council of European Municipalities, formed in 1950. ECLA documents provide an exciting dialogue on the problems and the potential of cities in a rapidly changing Europe. The General Report of the Tenth Session of ECLA (1974) asserts that “it is the duty of the Council of Europe to remind, us of the final goal of European construction, which economists and politicians dealing with daily contingencies sometimes lose sight of: the pre-eminence of man and the defence of human rights, participation by all in the commonweal in an organic democracy offering as large a measure as possible of selfmanagement, and the free circulation of men and ideas” (Lugger and Evers 1974, p. 1). Ironically, while common adherence to democratic values is one factor spurring European unification, the transfer of authority to European institutions may undermine the achievement of these values, says the report:

The risk is all the greater as the transfer of authority from national to European level means that decision-makers are even more remote and gives more power to administrators who are less and less accessible—whereas the measures taken in every field have an immediate impact on daily life. Even the direct election of the European Assemblies by the populations concerned would only partly remedy this situation, which is already to be found in the individual countries despite the fact that national parliaments are elected by f universal franchise. (Lugger and Evers 1974, p. 2)

The rapporteurs (the mayor of Innsbruck and the executive director of the Central Association of Norwegian Municipalities) conclude: “Information and participation for and by local authorities are therefore es-1 sential to the cause of European unity and even more so for the institutionalised Europe of tomorrow. Municipalities must be given a share in preparing ! and implementing all measures which concern them” (Lugger and Evers 1974, p. 2).

As a consultative body to the Conference of Ministers and the Consultative Assembly, ECLA is in an uneasy position as it attempts to J generate new norms for direct city and regional involvement in the affairs of an organization that is legally composed of national governments. In keeping with the aspirations of ECLA, the authors of the! report believe the “ideal solution” would be for all ECLA delegates to be j local or regional elected representatives. But presently the “irreplaceable|| life-blood” of the conference are members of local authorities organizations having consultative status with the Council of Europe. These|| members of CEM and IULA are viewed as “the ‘political parties’ of the local authorities and regions and play a major role both in the preparation of elections and in the preparation of Conference reports and decisions” (Lugger and Evers 1974, p. 24).

ECLA documents often reflect the frustrations of participants in their subordination to the Committee of Ministers, a status shared with the Consultative Assembly. Martini (1972, p. 29), deputy secretary general of the Council of European Municipalities, expressed it this way in the ninth session (1972) of ECLA: “For this reason, the Conference’s work, in spite of all it has done, has not produced any specific effective results. The proposals of the local representatives…in the Conference have often been frustrated by the resistance of the Committee of Ministers and so achieved nothing more than bearing witness, even if valuable as such.”

Regionalism is a strong theme in ECLA. On one hand it is seen as “a guarantee against nationalist adventurism and a brake on fanatical patriotism” (Chevallaz 1970). This is similar to the conclusion of a Japanese historian, Miwa (1974, p. 68), who argues that “the excesses of militaristic nationalism” in Japan were made possible by the rejection of localism and “the centripetal force of political centralization and cultural standardization.” On the other hand, regionalism is advocated in the search for political units through which people can directly cope with the problems of modern society. Miwa (1974, p. 68) also observes that “many of the problems that confront highly centralized modern Japan” could better be “resolved by the restoration of localism.”

Two themes dominate the regional approach of ECLA: the problems of peripheral regions and the problems of national frontier regions. While ECLA documents do not explicitly reject the nation-state unit of analysis in their evaluation of growing European unity, in actuality they imply it. European unification, particularly among the ten, is viewed as really a union of some cities and regions, largely in the interests of these cities and regions, and neglectful of the interests of other cities and regions—particularly the periphery and border areas. Professor Roger Lee, University of London, is quite explicit about this in a report to the First Convention of European Peripheral Regions, held in Galway in 1975. He observes (1975) that “the city, or rather the system of cities, is a vital element in the process of European integration. From one standpoint the links between market, industrial and urban subsystems are seen as ‘one of the clues of European homogeneity’ and the town is regarded as “the expression of the fundamental structure and the essential channel of European territory.” He notes “trends toward locational centralization.” This centralization is the explicit concern of the Galway Declaration of the First Convention of the Authorities of European Peripheral Regions.⁷

Everything is happening as if the construction of Europe was the concern of; some privileged regions situated around the large capitals and large conurbations of North-West Europe, from London to Milan, from Paris to Hamburg, and could not interest to the same extent the peripheral regions, distant provinces, at the edges of Europe…Therefore around Europe in antithesis to the polygon of large urban republics where population, political power and financial means are concentrated, a sort of second Europe is tending to emerge.⁸

The Galway Declaration complains that the regional policy of the European Community is not a policy that will lead to the “balanced development of regions, but policy designed to assist States in carrying out their national development policies” (Council of Europe 1975, p. 2). The periphery regions emphasize a need for transportation and communication links that free them from the feudal structure that links them to the world only through the centers that control emerging European institutions. This would consist of trunk transport and communication to? peripheries, links among peripheries, deconcentration of harbor traffic to more ports, and increased telecommunications linkages to peripheries. In addition, they ask for common policies on the sea, for protection of periphery regions, for studies of the costs of concentration in central regions, for regional development funds, and for protection of the; languages and cultures of periphery areas. Finally, the Declaration asks “that regions be regarded as the political partners of the States and their European institutions…through proper representation, in the decisions of both.” Toward this end, “at a moment when the European Parliament is to be elected by universal suffrage,” they ask for “an in*| stitutionalized collective representation of all the regions of Europe, representation which can take the form of a second Assembly—a European Assembly of Regions” (Council of Europe 1975, p. 5).

Frontier regions are, of course, a special kind of periphery region. In 4 report to the Council of Europe, P. Orianne of the Catholic University of Louvain points to the threefold handicap of frontier regions:

• 1. Usually they are farther away from the centre (capital or regional cem: tre);

• 2. Their most favourable trading area is largely abroad;

• 3. Some of the local authorities which by their nature are called upon to operate with them, are in another country.

In short, to use a familiar expression, to a certain degree they have their backs to the wall…[because] frontier municipalities and regions are themselves without the means of dealing with their counterparts abroad, to the extent that competence in the field of ‘foreign policy’ is the exclusive preserve of the supreme authority. (1973, pp. 1–4)

Professor Orianne eloquently concludes: “Time and mankind patiently strive to put together again what treaties and systems of law once tore asunder to meet the requirements of a particular type of political organization.” (1973, p. 4)

Local authorities in border regions see the need for collaboration between local authorities on different sides of national frontiers in matters such as public transport, environmental protection, water supply and drainage, energy supply, hospitals, firefighting, public services, and the movement of workers across frontiers. The Final Declaration of a 1972 European Symposium on Frontier Regions asks ECLA to create a committee for frontier regions as a means for moving toward “participation of representatives of local and regional communities in the activities of the Conference of Ministers of Regional Planning in this field” (Orianne 1973, p. 28). Professor Orianne urges the development of model legal instruments relevant to border areas:

• 1. Standardization of the rules of private law.

• 2. Model regulations for integrated committees or intermunicipal associations.

• 3. Model agreement between local authorities in frontier areas, for example on the problems of frontier workers, mutual aid in case of need, and certain types of services.

Europe is one remarkably illuminating laboratory for examining evolving relationships among people who identify with a variety of territorial units.⁹ Some people in peripheral and border regions of Europe view European politics as a growing confrontation between two transnational networks of regions and cities, the first being the cities and regions which control the European Community and the second being the cities and regions in peripheries. They see through the Emperor’s new international governmental clothes, and are perceiving underneath an elite serving the interests of elites in specific cities and regions. To these people in periphery and border regions, all cities and regions must be overt constituent elements in a Europe that is to be truly shaped in conformity with Europe’s democratic heritage.

International relations scholars have not made their task easy. Not only have they not provided conceptual and theoretical insight for these pioneers in international institution building, their analytic frameworks and the traditional foci of their work prevent them from seeing what these advocates of direct city and regional participation in European institutions are actually doing. Even the futurists among international relations scholars offer no models for these pioneers. Hopefully, it will not be long before international relations scholars will catch up with the practitioners in ECLA, liberating themselves too from the lingering tyranny of the nation-state unit to the point where they can perceive the changing role of cities and regions in the world. Then they will be able to help others, including journalists, perceive these changes. Only then will they be able to participate in the design of models for future worlds that really explicate participatory links for the public—in the context of places where people live and with respect to the global systems they experience in their everyday lives.