City Networks in Global Norm Dynamics. How do Network Structures Influence the Activities of International City Networks? (URBANORMS)
Outline of the project: The project analyzes international city networks in global politics. These networks represent a new type of urban agency, whose reach and organizational level substantially exceed established forms of city partnerships. As with other actors, their network structure enables new, intensified forms of interaction and, potentially, new forms of influence in world politics.
Against this background, this project analyzes the research question how network structures influence the activities of international city networks in global norm dynamics. Global norm dynamics involve a range of transnational and local processes that influence the initiation, diffusion, contestation, and weakening of norms. Despite the growing emphasis on local actors in international relations (IR) research on norms, the variance of activities shown by city networks as well as the relation to their network structure remain under-researched.
As a consequence, this project systematically examines the variance of activities linked to global norm dynamics (as dependent variable) and explains this variance through network structures (as independent variable), referring to central concepts of IR research and social network analysis like power, intensity of cooperation or collective identity.
The project is based on a y-centered research design, including a triangulation of methods to generate and analyze data. In a first step, it brings together existent explanations of activities linked to norm dynamics and empirically examines a broad base of city networks and their activities related to norm dynamics. Further steps are dedicated to examining four city networks and explain their activities linked to norms on security, human rights, health, and digitalization. Methods include interviews, survey research, document, and social network analysis.
All in all, the project contributes to theory-building in IR by bringing together norm research with findings from ‚urban studies‘, linking them to theoretical and methodological research on international networks. The results are not only relevant for norm research, but also for research on agency in global governance.
Aims and objective of the project: The project aims at five interrelated objectives:
The project team started the work in URBANORMS in 2022. A detailed version of its research design, first results, and other news will arrive from then onwards at www.city-networks.de
Funding information:
Title of the project: City networks in global norm dynamics. How do network structures influence the activities of international city networks? (URBANORMS)
Funding institution: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Funding period: 2022 bis 2025
Principal Investigator: Prof. Dr. Anja P. Jakobi
Research team: Dr. Bastian Loges, Dr. Katharina Mann, Ronja Hänschen