City Hall Goes Abroad : The Foreign Policy of Local Politics

During the 1980s, United States cities came of age as forces to be reckoned with in US foreign policy. This scholarly, yet readable, analysis carefully explores the roots and influence of municipal activism, surveying particular organizing issues and developing an `active city' profile by examining particular cases.

City Hall Goes Abroad provides a systematic examination of local activism, specifically city governments acting on international issues. It delineates the growth of these activities in the past two decades, focusing on four issues: the comprehensive test ban, nuclear-free zone declarations, divestment from South Africa, and sanctuary for Central American refugees. This book is useful in understanding not only these specific issues and the cities that have acted on them, but the general phenomenon of nonstate activism that has emerged and the direction of this activism in the 1990s and beyond. This unique volume examines the subject matter from both a descriptive and quantitative perspective. The comprehensive way in which the topic is addressed will be of interest to academics, activists, and government practitioners as well as students of urban politics, local government, foreign policy, and international relations. "Heidi H. Hobbs is to be commended for producing a book that should be required reading for any student of foreign policy making--by central and noncentral governments--and that advances the analysis of the global activities of American municipal governments. --Canadian Journal of Urban Research