| This work examines global cities' translocal activities regarding climate change. Cities have been neglected as a unit of analysis in the field of International Relations (IR). My content analysis of seven prominent political science journals for three recent years reveals that none of the 790 research articles examines politics and policies of subnational governments across nation-state boundaries. However, cities have become significant transnational actors in IR by playing noteworthy roles in tackling global climate change issues and by forming transnational networks during this process. I propose theorizing "translocal relations," which explains variations and interactions across local governments' policies and politics, within and across the national boundaries. In the first chapter, I presented two main hypotheses: first, the degree of sub-national entities' integration to globalization is likely to determine their translocal politics and policies in concerning international issues. Second, the variations of cities' translocal activities are largely contingent on cities' own attributes, rather than those of countries. In other words, characteristics of subnational governments--such as level of political leadership and policy performance--are likely to influence transnational policy process and outcomes, instead of national-level factors.;Applying a hierarchical model of 257 cities in 118 countries around the world, I find that city-level factors, including the degree of globalization and climate vulnerabilities, are positively associated with cities' participation in translocal networks, such as the C40 Cities Climate Leadership group and the Climate Protection Program. National-level factors, regime types, economic prosperity, or international commitment to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, have no effect on cities' transnational activities. The next chapter models collaborative relations among C40 member cities, using network analysis. An exponential random graph models suggest that the policy performance of the cities, the level of globalization, and homophily in the region are the determining factors of collaborative ties on climate policies.;The last empirical chapter focuses on individual cities' climate change policies. The case studies include five cities in two countries; the findings suggest that comprehensive and cooperative climate policies are contingent on city-level variables, including political leadership of mayors, urban climate change governance, and the level of globalization. |
