The City Diplomacy and Istanbul's Capacity for City Diplomacy

Abstract

Today, cities are considered as the sub-actors of nation-states in the international system. The disruption of public services is stemming from continuous migration emerged as a new problem during the early 2000s. It would not be unjustified to argue that this migration is an undesired result of the processes of both urbanization and industrialization, which began in the 1970s. However, as the process of industrialization remained incomplete, it created various governance issues especially between the local and national governments. This migration flux has influenced a significant number of cities in Türkiye including İstanbul. From 2000 and onwards, İstanbul has gradually been losing its urban culture and urban identity cause of emigration. Therefore, urbanization could not be completed both economically and socially in Istanbul. Within this framework, this article aims to explore the city diplomacy capacity of İstanbul in terms of solving economic and political problems arising from urbanization. In so doing, this article takes the tension between local and central government in terms of use of diplomacy as an example.