3 results
5 - Act II
- David J. Gordon, University of California, Santa Cruz
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- Book:
- Cities on the World Stage
- Published online:
- 16 April 2020
- Print publication:
- 07 May 2020, pp 139-167
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Summary
Whereas the C40 was fragmented in its early years, the network underwent a process of transformative change that began with the selection of Michael Bloomberg, as mayor of New York City, as C40 Chair in late 2009. As described in Chapters 1 and 3, both coordination and convergence around a common set of governance norms and a collective identity were increasingly apparent during the four-year period (2010-2014) in which New York occupied the C40 Chair. The theory of global urban governance fields is applied to explain why Bloomberg and New York were able to achieve what both the Clinton Climate Initiative and previous C40 Chairs could not. Bloomberg and New York brought with them considerable claims to material, reputational, and institutional capital, but it was the ability to link these to securing recognition for the cities of the C40 from external audiences – international financial institutions like the World Bank, multinational corporations, private capital markets – that authorized them to set the terms upon which such recognition would be granted within the governance field. In so doing the C40 began to converge toward a common set of governance norms – autonomy and global accountability – that underpin the production of coordinated action.
6 - Act III
- David J. Gordon, University of California, Santa Cruz
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- Book:
- Cities on the World Stage
- Published online:
- 16 April 2020
- Print publication:
- 07 May 2020, pp 168-202
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Summary
Convergence and coordination in the C40 emerged as a function of the authority of Michael Bloomberg and New York City to establish and project onto the governance field a particular set of governance norms and a sense of collective identity. This chapter demonstrates the extent to which convergence around those norms and identity not only continued, but also rather accelerated, following the shift in C40 leadership that took place in early 2014. The analytic focus thus shifts from an emphasis on agency – who claims authority, how actors attempt to shape the substance of the governance field – to the structuring effects that governance fields exert once those ideational and identity contours are entrenched. The chapter documents the extent to which the C40 governance field, from 2014-2018, consolidated around governance norms of autonomous agency and global accountability. The theory of global urban governance fields is deployed to illuminate the manner in which these norms constitute both the parameters within which member cities have come to understand and enact their role as global climate governors, and the mechanism of recognition through which these norms are replicated and reinforced across the C40.
4 - Act I
- David J. Gordon, University of California, Santa Cruz
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- Book:
- Cities on the World Stage
- Published online:
- 16 April 2020
- Print publication:
- 07 May 2020, pp 111-138
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Summary
While the C40 has come to claim a position of global leadership based on a demonstrated ability to generate coordinated action and collective effort, the description of the network presented in Chapter 1 signals that this has not always been the case. This chapter explores the early phase of the C40 (2005-2009) in which the network was characterized by uneven participation and an inability to engender network-wide engagement and coordination. Applying the theory of global urban governance fields brings to light the dynamics of competition and political contestation and links the observed lack of coordination to an inability to achieve convergence around a common identity. The Clinton Climate Initiative and the C40 Chair (occupied by the cities of London and Toronto) and Secretariat each sought to project divergent ideas with respect to how cities of the C40 should “do” global climate governance, yet neither was able to leverage the mechanism of recognition to effectively claim authority and give shape and substance to the governance field. As a result, the governance field remained fragmented and uncoordinated; split, as with so many other city-networks, into a small group of leading cities and a large group of laggards.