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The suggestion that locally elected officials and local government managers in the United States now operate in a rapidly globalizing world is not news. Because managers encounter the impact of global forces every day in their communities of all sizes, few local leaders ask whether global forces are going to impact their localities. Instead, they are asking more salient questions: What might globalization mean for my community? How do we take advantage of global changes? What lessons can we draw from the experiences of other countries?
As authors who have written on this subject, we recognize that the dynamics of globalization present local governments in all countries with formidable new challenges.1 But it is also the case that globalization is opening up remarkable new opportunities for local government leaders and managers. In this article, we suggest that we are entering an era in which cross-national policy learning can lead to significant advances in the practice of local government management in the United States.
Successful communities of the future will be the innovative ones that know how to learn - not just from other path-breaking communities in the United States but also from inventive communities in other countries.
WHY STUDY EXPERIENCE ABROAD?
There are several reasons why we encourage all local leaders to consider adopting an international learning perspective. At a general level, it can be claimed that the forces of globalization threaten local democracy. This claim grows out of the fact that many decisions made by multinational companies and distant public agencies are often insensitive to place. A classic example is when a plant closure decision is made in the boardroom of a private company in a far-off land with little or no regard for local consequences.
Similarly, localities are often buffeted by decisions made at the supranational level by organizations like the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Group of Eight. In our tightly knit global economy, distant decision makers can now have a profound impact on the lives of local residents, who can feel increasingly disempowered, isolated, and unable to plan for their futures.
For city and county leaders to respond creatively to situations of this kind, it is imperative for them to understand how other localities are responding to these...