Mapping the Landscape of Transnational Municipal Networks

• In Event: Urban Contestation and Collaboration: Space, Resources, and Networks

Abstract

Transnational municipal networks (TMNs) are a fast-growing phenomenon. With roots dating as far back as the early 20th century, networks linking cities across borders have really proliferated in the past three decades, as a result of the growing salience of transnational issues—above all environmental ones—as well as promotion on the part of international institutions such as the United Nations and the Council of Europe. Today dozens of TMNs of various size and type operate across a wide range of policy areas, performing a variety of functions for their members, such as interest representation, setting standards and diffusing best practices, promoting policy innovation, and providing technical assistance. All in all, TMNs are an important player in the complex web of transnational governance, and a key manifestation of the rescaling of statehood in the era of globalization.

Yet, we know surprisingly little about TMNs. Existing analyses of these organizations tend to concentrate on single cases or small comparisons, and revolve around a handful of larger and more visible usual suspects. Attempts to compile systematic data on TMNs are few and far in between, and all marred by methodological shortcomings. As a result, we still lack reliable, comprehensive, and accessible data on TMNs around the world. This curtails our knowledge of this institutional form—beginning with such basic information as the number, geographic distribution, and thematic concentration of city networks—as well as our ability to fully understand the functioning of TMNs, their consequences on urban governance, and their relationships with states and international organizations. Data scarcity is also a hindrance to the work of city and TMN practitioners, as it deprives them of helpful information to increase synergies and minimize duplications among cross-border networks.

In an attempt to fill this gap, the paper presents a novel dataset of 112 TMNs at the global level, compiled via an innovative strategy that combines data extraction and coding from the UIA’s Yearbook of International Organizations with an online survey of TMN practitioners. Building on the dataset, the paper achieves a twofold goal. First, it provides the most comprehensive map to date of the global landscape of TMNs, including information on their temporal and geographic distribution, the policy fields in which they operate, their membership reach and size, and their administrative and financial capacities. This data is not only interesting per se, but also as a springboard for further causal analyses on the nature, functioning and consequences of TMNs. Second, the paper aims to start a more explicit methodological dialogue among students of city networks on the challenges of collecting reliable data on this elusive organizational form, and how to tackle these in future research.

Author

• Pier Domenico Tortola, University of Groningen