The new climate leaders?

Review of International Studies

Volumn 39, Issue 4, 2013, Pages 835-857

  Acuto, Michele ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 84888366828     PISSN: 02602105     EISSN: 14699044     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0260210512000502     Document Type: Article

References (84)

1. Alexei Barrionueovo, 'World Bank to Help Cities Control Climate Change', New York Times (2 June 2011), available at: {http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/ science/earth/02climate.html?-r=3} accessed 24. January 2012.
2. See 'The 2008 Global Cities Index', Foreign Policy (November/December 2008), pp. 68-77.
3. Heidi H. Hobbs, City Hall Goes Abroad: The Foreign Policy of Local Politics (Ann Harbor: University of Michigan, 1994)
4. Earl H. Fry, 'State and Local Governments in the International Arena', Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 509 (1990), pp. 118-27
5. also see Ivo D. Duchacek, Daniel Latouche, and Garth Stevenson, Perforated Sovereignties and International Relations (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988).
6. Chadwick F. Alger, 'The World Relations of Cities: Closing the Gap Between Social Science Paradigms and Everyday Human Experience', International Studies Quarterly, 34:4 (1990), pp. 494 and 513.
7. A relevant exception, albeit still limited in its consideration of cities, is Brian Hocking, Localizing Foreign Policy: Non-Central Governments and Multilayered Diplomacy (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993).
8. The interaction of cities and global governance has also been explored in Michele Betsill and Harriet Bulkeley, 'Cities and the Multilevel Governance of Global Climate Change', Global Governance, 12:2 (2006), pp. 141-59.
9. Simon Curtis, 'Global Cities and the Transformation of the International System', Review of International Studies, 37:4 (2011), pp. 1923-47.
10. This is for example the case of Kent Calder and Mariko de Feytas, 'Global Political Cities as Actors in Twenty-First Century International Affairs', SAIS Review, 29:1 (2009), pp. 79-97. I have offered a more extensive rejoinder on this issue of agency in Michele Acuto, 'Global cities: gorillas in our midst', Alternatives, 35:4 (2010), pp. 425-48.
11. As suggested in Jan Melissen and Rogier van der Pluijm, 'City diplomacy: the Expanding Role of Cities in International Politics' (The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations 'Clingendael', April 2007).
12. Curtis, 'Global cities and the Transformation of the International System', p. 1939.
13. I have illustrated the analytical advantages of ANT for integrating cities in global governance more at length in Michele Acuto, 'Putting ANTs in the mille-feuille', CITY, 15:4 (2011), pp. 552-62.
14. Useful introductions to ANT can be found in John Law, 'Notes on the Theory of the Actor-Network: Ordering, Strategy and Heterogeneity', Systems Practice, 5:4 (1992), pp. 379-93
15. Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Social: an Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
16. On the anthropocentric limits of the international agency discourse see Jacob Schiff, 'Real? As if ! Critical reflections on state personhood', Review of International Studies, 34:2 (2008), pp. 363-77.
17. John Law, 'Notes on the Theory of the Actor-Network: Ordering, Strategy and Heterogeneity', Systems Practice, 5:4 (1992), p. 387.
18. The idea of supervience and the question of agency in the international arena has been object of a recent lively debate in Review of International Affairs. As Alex Wendt pointed out on states, 'supervenience' is to be intended here a somewhat 'weak' theoretical variant to emergentism. It is the emergence of a set of properties (or group actor) 'over' another, in the sense that there cannot be a transformation in the former without also producing a difference in the latter, a view that allows us to connect 'macro' to 'micro' phenomena and thus networking within the C40 with networking of the C40. Alexander Wendt, 'The state as a person in international theory', Review of International Studies, 30:1 (2004), p. 300.
19. Michel Callon and John Law, 'Agency and the Hybrid Collectif ', South Atlantic Quarterly, 94 (1995), pp. 481-507.
20. John Law, Arie Rip, and Michael Callon (eds), Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology of Science in the Real World (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986), p. 4.
21. Michel Callon, 'Struggles and Negotiations to Define What Is Problematic and What Is Not: The Sociology of Translation', in Roger G. Krohn, Karin D. Knorr-Cetina, and Richard Whitley (eds), The Social Process of Scientific Investigation: Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook (Boston: Reidel, 1980), p. 211.
22. This model originated in Michel Callon, 'Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scollops and the Fisherman of St Brieuc Bay', in John Law (ed.), Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986), pp. 196-223.
23. It has now developed widely across most of ANT theorists, as in Anna Davies, 'Power, Politics and Networks: Shaping Partnerships for Sustainable Communities', Area, 34:2 (2002), pp. 190-203.
24. Bruno Latour, 'Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts', in Wiebe Bijker and John Law (eds), Shaping Technology/Building Society (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1992), p. 249.
25. Callon, 'Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation', p. 198.
26. Taking part in this summit were London, Barcelona, Beijing, Berlin, Brussels, Chicago, Curitiba, New Delhi, Madrid, Melbourne, Mexico City, New York, Paris, Philadelphia, Rome, San Francisco, São Paulo, Shanghai, Stockholm, Toronto, and Zurich.
27. As noted in Gavron's speech at the outset of the summit. GLA Mayor Press Release (4 October 2005): 'Mayor brings together major cities to take lead on climate change', available at: {http://www.london.gov.uk/media} accessed 14 December 2010.
28. Communiqué of the Large World Cities (C20), London - action #6 (5 October 2005), p. 2.
29. The term is from Kevin R. Cox, 'Spaces of Dependence, Spaces of Engagement and the Politics of Scale, Or: Looking for Local Politics', Political Geography, 17:1 (1998), pp. 1-23.
30. Interview with C40 member city local government (transport and planning) officer, Singapore (14 January 2011).
31. ARUP-C40 joint report 'Climate Action in Megacities: C40 Cities Baseline and Opportunities', available at: {http://www.arup.com/Publications/Climate- Action-in-Megacities.aspx} accessed 17 July 2011.
32. The expressions have often been reiterated, not least by the successive C40 Chairs David Miller of Toronto and Michael Bloomberg of New York, at the outset of each biannual Summit.
33. Ian Clark, 'Legitimacy in a Global Order', Review of International Studies, 29:1 (2003), pp. 75-95.
34. C40 Large Cities Climate Summit statement, 'Seoul Declaration' (18-21 May 2009), available at {http://www.c40cities.org/news/news-20090522.jsp} accessed 27 April 2011.
35. Mayor Bloomberg keynote address to the C40 Large Cities Climate Summit 2007 (15 May 2007). Transcript available at: {http://www.c40cities.org/summit/ 2007/speeches} accessed 24 April 2011.
36. 'By some estimates, urban areas account for 78 per cent of carbon emissions from human activities.' See Nicholas Stern, The Economics of Climate Change: The Stern Review (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 517. Much of the same could also be said of the 'canonical' the definition of 'sustainability' set by the Brundtland Report Our Common Future in 1987.
37. The figure now regularly appears in speeches, powerpoints, reports, and pamphlets at both C40 summits and workshops.
38. David Satterthwaite, 'Cities' Contribution to Global Warming: Notes on the Allocation of Greenhouse Gas Emissions', Environment and Urbanization, 20:2 (2008), pp. 539-49.
39. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's opening speech, C40 São Paulo Summit (1 June 2011), available at: {http://c40saopaulosummit.com/site/conteudo/index.php? in-secao=27&lang=3&in-conteudo=112} accessed 17 July 2011.
40. For the text of the agreement see: Clinton Foundation Press Release (1 August 2006): 'President Clinton Launches Clinton Climate Initiative', available at: {http://www.clintonfoundation.org/news/news-media} accessed 14 August 2011.
41. Michael Barbaro, 'Bloomberg and Clinton to Merge Climate Groups', The New York Times (13 April 2011).
42. The Strategy, yet to be officially released, was sketched at the Hong Kong Summit (5-6 November 2010) and illustrated publicly by Bloomberg in the address to the fourth biannual summit in São Paulo (31 May-2 June 2011).
43. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's opening speech, C40 São Paulo Summit (1 June 2011), emphasis added.
44. Jorge Heine, 'On the Manner of Practicising the New Diplomacy', in Andrew F. Cooper, Brian Hocking, and William Maley (eds), Global Governance and Diplomacy: Worlds Apart? (London: Palgrave, 2008), p. 273.
45. Recent cases of academic attention to the case can be traced, amongst others, in Philipp Pattberg, 'The Role and Relevance of Networked Climate Governance', in Frank Biermann, Philipp Pattberg, and Fariborz Zelli (eds), Global Climate Governance Beyond 2012: Architecture, Agency and Adaptation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 146-64
46. Sofie Bouteligier, Cities, Networks and Global Environmental Governance (London: Routledge, 2012).
47. See, for example, the BBC World Service special The Climate Connection (9 December 2010): 'Part Four The New Leaders' which has pointed at the C40 as a model of innovative climate leadership: 'From Toronto to Seoul, Karachi to Addis Ababa the C40 leaders have put aside their naturally competitive instincts to create real environmental benefits for their own citizens and to share them with other cities', available at: {http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/science/2010/ 12/101201-climate-connection-prog-four-tx.shtml} accessed 8 January 2012.
48. See, for instance, the interview with C40 Chair special advisor Rohit Aggarwala on E&E TV's OnPoint (27 July 2011), available at: {http://www.eenews.net/tv/video-guide/1373?page=1&sort-type=date} accessed 8. January 2012.
49. A summary of Robert Zoellick's speech at C40 São Paulo Summit (1 June 2011) and of the partnership is available at: {http://go.worldbank.org/ BVGELE3NQ0} accessed 17 July 2011.
50. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's opening speech, C40 São Paulo Summit (1 June 2011).
51. ARUP report, 'Climate Action in Megacities: C40 Cities Baseline and Opportunities' (Version 1.0) released by the C40 Climate Leadership Group and ARUP (1 June 2011), available at: {http://www.arup.com/News/2011-06-June/01-Jun- 11-C40-Climate-Action-Megacities-Sao-Paulo.aspx} accessed 24 January 2012.
52. On 'global deal' and 'global civil society' see respectively Robert Falkner, Hannes Stephan, and John Vogler, 'International Climate Policy after Copenhagen: Towards a "Building Blocks" Approach', Global Policy, 1:3 (2010), pp. 252-62
53. Ronnie D. Lipschutz, 'Reconstructing World Politics: The Emergence of Global Civil Society', Millennium, 21:3 (1992), pp. 389-420.
54. Michael E. Porter and Claas van der Linde, 'Green and Competitive: Ending the Stalemate', Harvard Business Review, 73:5 (1999), pp. 120-34.
55. Interview with former Greater London Authority communications officer, London (1 July 2009).
56. A problem brought to the forefront of environmental policymaking by the Stern Review.
57. Minutes of the Meeting of the Council of the City of Sydney, Meeting No. 1456 (2 April 2007), p. 229.
58. Ulrich Beck, 'Subpolitics: Ecology and the Disintegration of Institutional Power', Organization Environment, 10:1 (1997), pp. 52-65.
59. Ulrich Beck, World Risk Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999), p. 40.
60. See David Lake, 'Global Governance: A Relational Approach', in Aseem Prakash and Jeffrey Hart (eds), Globalization and Governance (London: Routledge, 1999), pp. 31-8.
61. On these features in the European case see, amongst others, Maria Green Cowles, James A. Caporaso, and Thomas Risse (eds), Transforming Europe: Europeanization and Domestic Change (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001).
62. Boris Holzer and Mads P. Sørensen, 'Rethinking Subpolitics: Beyond the "Iron Cage" of Modern Politics?', Theory Culture Society, 20:2 (2003), p. 80.
63. Brian Hocking, 'Catalytic Diplomacy: Beyond "Newness" and "Decline" ', in Jan Melissen (ed.), Innovation in Diplomatic Practice (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999), p. 21.
64. I here of course paraphrase Joseph S. Nye, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (New York: Public Affairs, 2004).
65. Ulrich Beck, The Reinvention of Politics: Rethinking Modernity in the Global Social Order, trans. Mark Ritter (Cambridge: Polity, 1997), p. 98.
66. List and Pettit, Group Agency, p. 40.
67. I have explored this multiscalar construction more at length by unpacking the C40. See Michele Acuto, The Urban Link (London: Routledge, 2013).
68. The C40 steering committee includes New York (chair), London, Los Angeles, Berlin, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Johannesburg, São Paulo, Seoul, and Tokyo.
69. Kristine Kern and Harriet Bulkeley, 'Cities, Europeanization and Multi-level Governance: Governing Climate Change through Transnational Municipal Networks', Journal of Common Market Studies, 47:2 (2009), pp. 309-32.
70. Interview with Greater London Authority political officer, London (30 June 2009).
71. This is also confirmed by a recent quantitative study of the C40 developed in Taedong Lee and Susan van de Meene, 'Who Teaches and Who Learns?: Policy Learning through the C40 Cities Climate Network', Policy Sciences, 45:3 (2012), pp. 199-220.
72. Mikael Román, 'Governing from the Middle: The C40 Cities Leadership Group', Corporate Governance, 10:1 (2010), p. 84.
73. Thus removing the debate on the acceptability of such principles and shifting the discussion on their technical implementation only. Amanda Root, Market Citizenship: Experiments in Democracy and Globalization (London: SAGE, 2007), p. 44.
74. Ulrich Beck, World at Risk (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), p. 95.
75. Ulrich Beck, Power in a Global Age (Cambridge: Polity, 2005), p. 23.
76. Beck, World Risk Society, p. 40.
77. James Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: 'Development', Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), pp. 255-6.
78. See respectively Erik Swyngedouw, 'Antinomies of the Postpolitical City: In Search of a Democratic Politics of Environmental Production', International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 33:3 (2009), pp. 608
79. Harold Lasswell, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How (New York: Peter Smith, 1950).
80. John Harriss, Depoliticizing Development: The World Bank and Social Capital (London: Anthem, 2002), p. 11.
81. To this one could also add, as Roman notes, the inherent political agenda of the Clinton Foundation itself, which brings with its implementation support the former President's take on world politics. See Román, 'Governing from the Middle', p. 80.
82. This critique is voiced, amongst others in Doreen Massey, World City (London: Polity, 2007) and Jennifer Robinson, Ordinary Cities (New York: Routledge, 2006).
83. Ronnie D. Lipschutz and James K. Rowe, Regulation for the Rest of Us? (London: Routledge, 2005), p. 173.
84. Erik Swyngedouw, 'Neither Global nor Local: "Glocalization" and the Politics of Scale', in Kevin R. Cox (ed.), Globalization: Reasserting the Power of the Local (New York: Guilford, 1997), pp. 137-66.