Urban Foreign Policy and Domestic Dilemmas

The book highlights the complexity of scalar relations: city-regions, through their international activities, have not gained influence 'against' the national scale. International urban networks should therefore be seen as a new spatial layer, not one that replaces the nation state. City networks are increasing in size and number all over Europe, and city-regions' urban policy will continue to strike their own balance between foreign and domestic concerns, and between economic and social agendas. Van der Heiden's intensive study of Swiss regions therefore makes a valuable, insightful and timely contribution to the field. -- Josephine Rekers, Lund University

Nico van der Heiden is Senior Project Manager at the Institute for Political Science and at the Centre for Democracy Studies at the University of Zurich. He is also Lecturer at the University of Lucerne and at the University for Applied Sciences, Lucerne. He studied Political Science, Economics, and Media Science at the University of Zurich, from which he also gained his PhD in 2009. Previously, he has held positions as Research Assistant at the Universities of Zurich and Lucerne, and as Visiting Scholar at the Institut National de la Recherche; Scientifique Urbanisation, Culture et Société in Montréal. He is currently carrying out research on urban and metropolitan governance, the international activities of sub-national entities, and new forms of participation in established democracies.