Urban Foreign Policy and Domestic Dilemmas: Insights from Swiss and EU City-Regions

City-regions have gained economic and political power in the process of globalisation. Many of them use this power to develop their own international activities. This book investigates why city-regions go global and the consequences of their newly gained self-confidence on the international scale. The book analyses Swiss and EU city-regions' international activities with seven in-depth case studies. The book shows that the local economic setting, and the political response in developing international activities, are closely linked. Not only has urban politics changed due to its international dimension, but also the interplay between the core city, the agglomeration communities, the regional, the national, and EU levels. Understanding the role of the EU in city-regions' international activities is crucial for comprehending recent trends in urban governance.

Nico van der Heiden is Senior Project Manager at the Institute for Political Science and at the Centre for Democracy Studies at the University of Zurich. He is also Lecturer at the University of Lucerne and at the University for Applied Sciences, Lucerne. He studied Political Science, Economics, and Media Science at the University of Zurich, from which he also gained his PhD in 2009. Previously, he has held positions as Research Assistant at the Universities of Zurich and Lucerne, and as Visiting Scholar at the Institut National de la Recherche; Scientifique Urbanisation, Culture et Société in Montréal. He is currently carrying out research on urban and metropolitan governance, the international activities of sub-national entities, and new forms of participation in established democracies.