Para-diplomacy of the largest Polish cities – luxurious supplement or important policy?

Throughout the last 20 years the issue of international political activity of large cities has gained on popularity. Students of this subject look at recent processes of glocalisation, renationalization and European multi-level governance system as a chance for cities to regain their political influence in front of national states. Post-socialist context seems especially interesting with this respect, as for those cities the above mentioned global processes were accompanied by similar emancipation coming from political transformation and revival of territorial self-government. As a result, the way in which post-socialist cities use their newly gained space for political maneuver has become very specific. The paper analysis political activity of Polish largest cities with relation to those phenomena. It presents the results of the study which comprised 12 largest Polish cities participating in national and international lobbying organizations (like Eurocities) and included desk research (i.a. analysis of local documents and statistical data) as well as face-to-face interviews with representatives of selected cities. The focus is placed on the cities’ activities on international arena, but we also refer to national context. Para-diplomatic activities are divided in networking, town-twinning and individual policies. Special attention is paid to public perception of such activities. The main question is if and how Polish cities use the newly given space for political maneuver, whereby the assumption was that these activities are still rather a fashionable side-activity than an important part of urban policies.