The Global City 2.0

Kristin Ljungkvist's book "The Global City 2.0" argues that global cities are taking on new roles as they increasingly participate in international affairs and global politics. Ljungkvist uses a case study of New York City to explore how the city's role in the globalized world is constructed and narrated locally. She argues that global city-hood as a specific type of collective identity can play a constitutive part in such interest formation.

Global cities all over the world are taking on new roles as they increasingly participate directly and independently in international affairs and global politics. So far, surprisingly few studies have analyzed the role of the Global City beyond its already well explicated role in the globalized economy. How is it that local governments of Global Cities claim international political authority and develop what appears to be their own independent foreign and security policies despite the fact that such policy areas have traditionally been considered to be the core function of nation-states and central governments? What does it mean to be and to govern the contemporary Global City? In this book Kristin Ljungkvist claims that we can better understand why local governments find it to be in their Global City's interest to claim international political authority by exploring how the city's role in the globalized world is constructed and narrated locally. A core claim is that Global City-hood as a specific type of collective identity can play a constitutive part in such interest formation. Combining insights from International Relations and Urban Studies scholarship, and with the help of a case study on New York City, Ljungkvist develops a new analytical framework for studying the Global City as an international political actor. The Global City 2.0 shows that even as the Global City engages in various global issues such as global environmental governance or counterterrorism, such pursuit will be framed and rationalized in terms of the city's economic growth. The quest for growth and global competitiveness are not necessarily the only available meanings attached to the being and governing of the contemporary Global City. However, there seems to be a remarkable persistency and attraction in economistic ideas and an economistic conception of the Global City. Review: This book is a major and original contribution to global city analysis. It is the best and most exhaustive treatment of global cities as political actors in a space that goes well beyond the national. -Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, author of Expulsions A path-breaking study. Ljungkvist powerfully rethinks conceptions and implications of 'the global city'. -Jan Aart Scholte, University of Gothenburg, Sweden