The Shifting Status of Cities in International Law? A Review, Several Questions and a Straight Answer

Witnessing the sometimes confusing and often nebulous debate on the position of cities in international law, one could wonder what cities are and what they do in contemporary international law. One could also wonder whether allowing cities to actively participate in the formation and implementation of international norms, and to contribute to international multilateral negotiations on issues of global concern such as sustainable development, climate change or human rights, does really imply a change in their status in international law. In this contribution, the reasons why cities are not subjects of international law, or better, why cities and local authorities still matter in international law because they are part of a State, are systematically assessed. Specific attention is paid to the status and role of transnational city networks. Before concluding, this article makes some final comments on the prospects for cities and transnational city networks in international law.

Growing Old in a Transnational Setting: Investigating Perceptions of Ageing and Changing Filial Ties Among Older Indians in Saskatoon

Numerous studies have examined the experience of growing old in a transnational context among Indians. However, in most of these studies, the older adults had immigrated as senior citizens to be with their adult children. Indians who have grown old in transnational settings have not been examined in detail in the gerontological scholarship. Adopting a cross-cultural lens, the present study focusses on perceptions of ageing among older Indians who have grown old in the city of Saskatoon. The study demonstrates how these older Indians refute the Successful Ageing model and accept their physical weaknesses in their course of ageing. Additionally, the study also examines how caregiving arrangements and intergenerational relationships are shaped among these older Indians and their adult children, in a transnational city, such as Saskatoon. Finally, the study highlights how later life gender roles are constructed in a transnational backdrop.

Urban Climate Politics in Emerging Economies: A Multi-Level Governance Perspective

Several scholars have pointed to the increasing salience of cities in the global endeavour to reduce dangerous climate change to 1.5°C. However, we still lack systematic comparative analyses on how urban climate initiatives evolve in different political-administrative systems of countries in the Global South and what role transnational city networks play in that context. This question is specifically important with regard to the role of cities in contributing to reaching the targets of the Paris Agreement. Against this backdrop, this article explores the vertical and horizontal integration of cities’ climate actions in the multi-level climate governance landscapes in Brazil, India, Indonesia and South Africa. We contend that while transnational city networks provide significant support to cities in some cases, their tools and practices can only reach their full potential where they encounter committed local administrations and when they are not constrained by domestic political-administrative and economic factors.

The diffusion of climate policies among German municipalities

The German government established a funding scheme for local climate policy in 2008. The translation of this programme into climate action varies between municipalities. This article studies the drivers and barriers for the diffusion of the programme among German municipalities. A major aim is to disentangle the diffusion effects across different steps within the policy cycle by employing Event History Analysis and spatial panel autoregressive models. Geographical proximity, party channels and transnational city networks are predictors of the diffusion process. Differences in diffusion effects between policy adoption and substantial policy output indicate that emulation as well as learning influence policy activity. Furthermore, increasing deployment of solar photovoltaic systems in neighbouring municipalities is associated with an intensification of climate policy in the focal municipality. The absence of similar effects for other renewable energy technologies hints at the “conditional nature” of policy learning with respect to the policy-makers’ vote- and policy-seeking behaviour.