Cities, Networks, and Global Environmental Governance
This book is a timely study of important social transformations in our increasingly global and increasingly urban world. As a result of global dynamicsthe increasing interconnection of people and placesinnovations in global environmental governance alter the role of cities in shaping the future of the planet.
This innovative study (1) operationalizes theories of the network society and global citieswhich originally focused on the global economyfrom a global ecology perspective, (2) brings together two types of city networks that have been treated separately in the literature, (3) and uses empirical analysis to nuance theoretical assumptions that have been predominant in the literature.
Through direct observation and interviews, Sofie Bouteligier discovers the structure and logic pertaining to office networks of environmental non-governmental organizations and environmental consultancy firms. In so doing, she demonstrates the ways in which cities fulfill the role of strategic sites of global environmental governance, concentrating knowledge, infrastructure, and institutions vital to the function of transnational actors. Using analysis of transnational municipal networks, such as Metropolis and the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Bouteligier demonstrates the important role of municipalities in addressing global environment challenges.
Sofie Bouteligier conducted her PhD research at the Global Environmental Governance and Sustainable Development Research Group of KULeuven, Belgium. Currently, she is a postdoc researcher at the Environmental Policy Group of Wageningen University and an associate fellow of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies. Her research focuses on city networks for global environmental governance and the interactions between multinational private companies and cities in the search for sustainable urban futures.
Cities and Global Governance
EDITED BY NOAH J. TOLY, Wheaton College
The Routledge series Cities and Global Governance is composed of contributed volumes covering key areas of study at the intersection of urbanism and global governance. Each title explores dimensions of the relationship between the local and the global, between urban landscapes and global dynamics. Authors in the series make empirical and theoretical contributions that advance our understanding of the role of cities as sites and actors in global governance.
1 Cities, Networks, and Global
Environmental Governance
Spaces of Innovation, Places of
Leadership
Sofie Bouteligier
Cities, Networks, and Global
Environmental Governance
Spaces of Innovation, Places of Leadership
Sofie Bouteligier
First published 2013
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2013 Taylor & Francis
The right of Sofie Bouteligier to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her 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.
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bouteligier, Sofie.
Cities, networks, and global environmental governance : spaces of innovation, places of leadership/Sofie Bouteligier.
p. cm. (Cities and global governance)
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Urban ecology (Sociology) 2. GlobalizationEnvironmental aspects. 3. Cities and towns. I. Title.
HT241.B68 2012
307.76dc23
2012035422
ISBN: 978-0-415-53751-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-10648-8 (ebk)
For moeke and vake
Text Boxes
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Tables and Maps
TABLES
MAPS
Acknowledgments
This book would not have been possible without the support of many people in my professional and private life. Sincere gratitude is therefore going to the Global Environmental Governance and Sustainable Development Research Group at KULeuven: first and foremost to my supervisor Hans Bruyninckx and also to my colleagues Stefan, Karoline, Sander, Simon, Jane, Pei-Fei, and David. Other colleagues that have been of great help were Noah Toly, Paul James, Edith Drieskens, and Tom Delreux.
For this study, I am indebted to the 79 interviewees who were willing to share their views and opinions. Special appreciation is going to Josep Roig and Agns Bickart of the Metropolis General Secretariat, to Simon Reddy, Executive Director of C40, and to Mark Watts, former adviser of Mayor Ken Livingstone, and currently director at Arup.
My family and dearest friends made sure the past years were not only professionally but also personally enriching. Thank you moeke and vake, Tom and Tine, Hans and Caroline, Eline and Marie, Bart, Marieke, Thomas, Kati, Liesbet, Ingrid, Bettina, and Bert for being such lovely people.
Series Editors Introduction
Sometime in the past four years, demographers agree, population has crossed a threshold. For the first time in human history, more than 50% of the global population lives in urbanized areas, and this proportion is only expected to increase in the coming decades. In addition to this demographic shift, political economic developments have conspired to make cities strategic sites and actors for the shaping of global affairs and the future of the planet. Many cities are now more or less directly articulated to global affairs, exposing urban landscapes to the vicissitudes of global dynamics while also providing municipal governments and various nongovernmental actors with ready-made platforms for scale-jumping activities.
Over the past quarter century, a number of research agendas have emerged to investigate these relationships. Research on global cities began by emphasizing the way in which urban agglomerations serve as sites for the coordination of globally diffuse, but still socially concentrated, capital as advanced producer and financial services firms locate in cities in order to take advantage of urban propinquity. Since then, others have examined the location strategies of other globally influential sectors and industries, noting that coordination of global investments is not the only marker of globalization. Coupling this research agenda with network theory has empowered scholars not only to identify those cities with a disproportionate presence of globally influential actors but to specify a given citys relative centrality or marginality to global affairs. That same body of literature has also spawned a cottage industry of scholarship on the ways in which municipalities themselves influence global affairs, often through participation in transnational municipal networks. All of these research streams have contributed to more nuanced understandings of place and the role of subnational actors in global governance.
