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Global cities and the transformation of the International System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2010

SIMON CURTIS
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Abstract

The emergence of a new urban form, the global city, has attracted little attention from International Relations (IR) scholars, despite the fact that much progress has been made in conceptualising and mapping global cities and their networks in other fields. This article argues that global cities pose fundamental questions for IR theorists about the nature of their subject matter, and shows how consideration of the historical relationship between cities and states can illuminate the changing nature of the international system. It highlights how global cities are essential to processes of globalisation, providing a material and infrastructural backbone for global flows, and a set of physical sites that facilitate command and control functions for a decentralised global economy. It goes on to argue that the rise of the global city challenges IR scholars to consider how many of the assumptions that the discipline makes about the modern international system are being destabilised, as important processes deterritorialise at the national level and are reconstituted at different scales.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , October 2011 , pp. 1923 - 1947
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2010

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References

1 In February 2009 there was a significant presence, for the first time, of global cities theorists at the annual International Studies Association conference in New York. The panellists noted that this development represented some kind of breakthrough in crossing the disciplinary divide between the global cities literature and International Relations. However, it was apparent that the content of these panels failed to engage in any substantial way with the theoretical resources of IR. The discussion remained confined to the traditional theories and concepts developed in the global cities literature. One of the purposes of this article is to try to show some of the ways in which the theoretical resources of IR may be brought to bear upon the problem of global cities.

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