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Crisis of Multilateralism and Cities’ Helping Hand

  • Agnieszka Szpak ORCID logo EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: December 17, 2021

Abstract

This essay shows how cities are stepping into the role of nation-states and are efficiently cooperating with other cities, not only bilaterally but also multilaterally. There are clear symptoms of the crisis of multilateralism that have led cities to attempt to save or fix the multilateral system and solve global problems, notably the current COVID-19 pandemic. Can cities be regarded as a helping hand or as a fix for the multilateral system? With discourse analysis and formal-legal analysis, this article concludes that the answer to the question is positive – cities may help to fix or save the multilateral system.


Corresponding author: Agnieszka Szpak, Department of International Security, Faculty of Political Science and Security Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University, ul. Batorego 39 L, 87-100 Toruń, Poland, E-mail:

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Received: 2021-07-08
Accepted: 2021-12-02
Published Online: 2021-12-17

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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