From cities-states to global cities: the role of cities in global governance

Abstract

Global governance has altered institutional architecture and the systemic and institutional conditions under which power is exercised, as well as the characteristics of the political system, the form of government, and the system of intermediation of interests. However, although it has surpassed the State's dimension of power, it created new interstate dimensions and new relations between powers, particularly at the level of cities. Cities have helped to solve common problems in a more efficient and effective way by facilitating the exchange of knowledge, sharing of solutions and resources, and building capacity to implement and monitor progress in order to achieve collectively agreed goals, in a bottom-up approach. Cities have the virtue of securing the most direct social and political contract between societies and the notion of authority. This study, therefore, aims to reflect on this emerging, less hierarchical and rigid governance and address complex global challenges such as climate and demographic change; increasing crime rates; disruptive technology; and pressures on resources, infrastructure and energy. As a global/local interface, cities can ensure effective solutions to current challenges and act together in areas where the global agenda has stalled.

Energy Community in Action—Energy Citizenship Contract as Tool for Climate Neutrality

“…One of the main issues discussed by the selected papers is what type of political authority has legitimacy to promote and guide a new social contract, what roles global, regional, national or local energy governance could have in bringing about the required behavioral, economic, technological changes [44] and the role that can be played by cities [45] or by an open society of equal peers that share sustainable goods and services among participants [46]. Cassen, C., et al, in [47] link the need for a negotiation of the social contract to specific fiscal reforms and measures to secure funding for initiatives aimed at broadening and upscaling low carbon experiments, to foster both radical changes in infrastructures and deep transformations in people behavior.…”