The role of the city as a discursive practice in international law and governance

This thesis examines the city as a discursive practice in international law and governance. It approaches the city as a discursive phenomenon, which is in international law and governance shaped by a network of actors. The city is practised as an organising frame for international norm-and-policy-making by international institutions, intercity organisations, international non-governmental organisations and other institutional actors. To show the networked complexity of the city as a discursive practice, this thesis focuses specifically on the international networked governance of urban and housing issues. The case study of this networked field of international governance shows how involved actors articulate the city's international role through the agency of municipal governments, the use of the concept of decentralization, and the visibility of the city as a distinct socio-political space.
Additionally, the analysis of the city as a discursive practice, as it arises within the international networked governance of urban and housing issues, shows it to be defined by a particular discursive dynamic of international law. The state-centric formal trajectory of international law, the trajectory of diffusion of international legal authority, and a post-political trajectory of vertical — normative — consolidation interact in networked governance and together shape the role(s) of the city. This thesis argues that the discursive frame of the city, shaped by different trajectories of international ordering that contentiously coexist within networked governance, is both a stabilising and a disrupting element in international law and governance.