Dr Simon Curtis

Cities have been the motive force of globalisation. As cities have grown to sizes unknown in the historical record, they very often dwarf many states in terms of population and economic power, placing our frameworks for understanding the international system under strain. Cities have increasingly tried, often successfully, to translate their new-found heft and economic might into political power - in the halls of international organisations, in the United Nations system, and also through the many hundreds of transnational networks that are having real influence on global governance issues and outcomes in areas such as climate change, migration, global health, and disaster risk management.This volume argues that cities and infrastructures of connectivity - including transportation, digital architectures, computational stacks, and energy infrastructures - are also important components of international order itself - objects and mediums of geopolitical competition. The 'global' cities that have emerged in the current round of globalisation are not simply urban phenomena, but have been dependent upon the liberal international order and the powerful states that underpinned it for the international environment in which they were able to thrive - and have in turn underpinned that order. With the rise of China and its immensely ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, we have seen once again this intrinsic connection between geopolitical power and infrastructure and urbanism, as great powers make cities and their connecting infrastructures a central plank of an emerging contestation over the shape of the twenty-first century.This volume assesses the emergence of global cities and their continuing evolution within the international system, and the ways in which such cities challenge our existing understandings of diplomacy, territoriality, sovereignty, legitimacy, international law and agency. Also, importantly, this handbook considers the growing importance of understanding global infrastructures in the twenty-first century, and how they are a little understood and yet critical aspect of international order and competition.

Hegemonic transition is typically associated with major power war. Relatively neglected is its association of systemic change with shifts in material and social infrastructure. This article develops a structural power model that highlights the importance of infrastructure to hegemonic control. It shows how the provision of systemic infrastructure connects the key structures of power in the international system, creating path-dependencies and imposing switching costs. Using the example of China’s infrastructure-led grand strategy, we show how a new pathway to peaceful hegemonic change may become available through infrastructure provision, as existing infrastructure is repurposed, alternatives are provided, and new infrastructure at the leading edge of technological change is built to cater for the requirements of the future.

"An exploration of how China's Belt and Road Initiative seeks to reshape international order and how it has catalyzed a new era of infrastructural geopolitics. Over the past decade China has put infrastructural and urban development at the heart of a strategy aimed at nothing less than the transformation of international order. The Belt and Road Initiative, which seeks to revitalize and reconnect the ancient Silk Roads that linked much of the world before the rise of the West, is an attempt to place China at the center of this new international order, one shaped by Chinese power, norms, and values. It seeks to do so, in part, by shaping our shared urban future. Simon Curtis and Ian Klaus explore how China's specific investments in urban development--cities, roads, railways, ports, digital and energy connectivity--are directly linked to its foreign policy goals. Curtis and Klaus examine the implications of these developments as they evolve across the vast Afro-Eurasian region. The distinctive model of international order and urban life emerging with the rise of Chinese power and influence offers a potential rival to the one that has accompanied the rise and zenith of Western power, marking a new age of infrastructural geopolitics and Great Power competition." - Amazon.com viewed Apr. 30, 2024