Who leads and who follows? A study of norms in global city climate governance

The impact of climate change is accelerating and frontline communities of global cities are experiencing the brunt of these impacts. Unfortunately, although cities have increased the scale and activity around climate mitigation and adaptation, there remain equity concerns. Why is that the case?

To explore this puzzle, I look at three phenomena: how cities become norm entrepreneurs and norm leaders within the regime of global urban climate governance, patterns of norm adoption, and the impacts of norm adoption behaviors on vulnerable populations within cities. Traditional approaches to understanding norm life cycles obscure the impact of superstructures, like the political economy or hierarchies within the international system, in shaping who becomes a norm entrepreneur, which norms survive versus fail, and how cities rationalize trade-offs for vulnerable populations when adopting norms.

To address these gaps, I use a critical approach to norms theory, which integrates postcolonial, coloniality, and neo-Gramscian perspectives to account for the material, historical, and social processes involved in shaping governance and actor behaviors. I use data collected across four cities – Buenos Aires, Ho Chi Minh City, Mexico City, and Seoul – to empirically study these themes. The three methods I use to analyze these data include: semi-structured and background interviews with government agencies, activists, experts, journalists, NGOs, and residents; process tracing of norm adoption behaviors; and grounded visualization (visual ethnography) of norm implementation.

I argue that power, history, and international financial structures combine to shape which cities become urban climate governance norm entrepreneurs and norm leaders. I argue that cities can pursue norm leadership through hegemonic challenge (becoming a norm entrepreneur) or hegemonic assimilation. Second, I identify and describe select clusters of norms in three categories of urban climate governance: climate action plans (CAPs), mobility, and greenspaces. Finally, I show that not all norms are good and that some norms which become internalized and adopted by global urban climate governance actors may, in fact, harm frontline communities.