چكيده لاتين :
1. Introduction
Nation states have long practiced diplomatic functions such as facilitating
communication, negotiating agreements, gathering information, preventing
conflicts, and taking part in international society. Cities are now using similar
tactics, mirroring and engaging with state-level diplomacy and tackling issues such
as local infrastructure needs or bottom-up approaches to peacekeeping. Cities are
increasingly capturing the attention of major international actors such as UN
agencies, EU and World Bank, now regularly featuring in high-level talks such as
the negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Cities are
increasingly held responsible for dealing with city-level issues that have global
implications such as pollution, health, safety, climate change, migration, and
economic well-being. In response, cities are formalizing city-to-city cooperation on
the international stage and developing networks and partnerships to develop
solutions to these challenges. Today there are at least 200 city networks connecting
local authorities across borders and continents, and the political-economic clout of
cities is growing. All of these new roles for cities and local governments have
developed within the context of the concept and literature of urban diplomacy.
Urban diplomacy is a tool for maximizing the benefits of state and non-state actors
within the space of flows by placing cities as the practical arena of national and
global interactions.
Urban diplomacy has been introduced and expanded in Iranian urban research
literature for nearly a decade. Initial examination of these studies shows that many
of them replicate some sort of uniform literature, and this uniformity and repetition
has led to a lack of creativity and little help to advance the field. In addition,
research is still not too much, and it is important to read through the appropriate set
of studies and to combine their features to help guide future research while finding
potential inconsistencies. Therefore, this article, by gathering and reviewing the
researches on the subject of urban diplomacy in Iran, attempts to extract the
characteristics of the work done by qualitative meta-analysis approach and to
describe the situation and provide a proper formulation of these studies.2. Review of Literature
City diplomacy is generally understood as a form of subnational diplomacy. It is an
interplay between “diplomatic and urban practice”2 that seeks to impact the
international environment in a way that benefits the safety, security, and prosperity
of local citizens and advances their global interest and identity. As subnational
actors, cities can also help to promote a nation’s international image and interest.3
City diplomacy is achieved through cities’ engagement with other “glocal” actors
and embodies a wide range of practices, including “facilitating communication,
negotiating agreements, gathering information, preventing conflicts, and taking
part in international society.”4 The phenomenon is nothing new; what is new is that
the nature and scope of city diplomacy have deepened and broadened. Wang and
Amiri (2019) Have identified five key functions of city diplomacy as it is currently
understood and practiced based on goals and organization in USA cities: Economic
Development; Diplomatic Representation and Protocol; Global Policy
Collaboration and Action; Community Engagement and Civic Empowerment; and
Hosting Special International Events. Among these five general functions,
Economic Development and Diplomatic Representation and Protocol are broadly
pursued across cities, while the strength of the rest varies based on the local and
political context in each city. Therefore, the capacity of urban diplomacy for
Iranian cities is also enormous, which should be realized in an appropriate way.
This article attempts to study and analyze all the research on urban diplomacy in
Iran.
3. Method
The present study was carried out using scientific databases including: Humanities
Comprehensive Portal, Noor Specialized Journals Database (Noormags), Iranian
Publications Database (Magiran), Iranian Institute of Information Science and
Technology (IranDoc), and Academic Jihad Scientific Information Database(SID).
In total, 32 studies including books, articles, dissertations and theses were
identified. Of these, 10 were related to theses and dissertations, which were
excluded from the qualitative analysis process due to difficulty in accessing them,
with the dissertation usually published in paper form. The analysis of the status quo
using descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis are based on Norman Blaikie's
three questions.
4. Results and Discussion
The results show that the focus of the research has been in the form of two research
papers and theses. 52% of the research has been done in the fields of political
geography, political science and international relations. 71.9% of the research
methods were descriptive-analytical. Qualitative analysis of research based on
Blaikie's segmentation also shows that the researches with the 'why' question are
the largest among the researched studies that have explored the why of urban
diplomacy and its effects. Then there is the "what" research, which is more
concerned with defining urban diplomacy and describing its features, dimensions,and indicators. and finally, research on the "how" question that has more seriously addressed how to change the existing practice of urban diplomacy.
5. Conclusion
The proposals in this paper to change existing practices to implement or enhance
urban diplomacy are discussed in two general respects: defining a roadmap for
urban diplomacy and providing its legal and institutional infrastructure at the
national level, along with measures that At the local level, such as: establishing a
specific organizational structure for municipal diplomacy in municipalities,
formulating appropriate vision and strategies in line with national roadmaps and
specific local conditions for urban diplomacy, prioritizing actions to achieve
formulated goals and vision, serious support for members city council of activists
of urban diplomacy in municipalities, continuous and useful use of diplomacy and
international relations experts in municipalities, active and purposeful presence of
municipal representatives in programs related to international NGOs.
