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The Need for a Sophisticated and
Globally Engaged Civic Leadership
by William B. Stafford
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Maintaining and promoting a healthy economy is part of the job description of every community’s local elected officials. In order to meet this challenge and exercise the leadership role to which they are elected, municipal officials must be engaged at the local, regional and global levels.
Globalization encompasses many things, but it is the globalization of the local economy that is enormously important from the perspective of the municipal official. Further, globalization of the economy concerns far more than a simple calculation of exports and imports. The international marketplace affects colleges and universities enrolling international students, the volume of tourism, the success or failure of efforts to attract foreign investment, and the level of innovation a community is likely to generate from hosting a diverse population.
Municipal officials must be engaged globally, because it is in their constituents’ best interest to do so. For those who need a more detailed explanation of why local officials must be involved in international relations, below are 11 reasons.
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Blue collar, white collar, no collar – jobs are tied to international business.
The dollar value of international trade (the sale of goods and services plus the earnings and payments on investments) represents more than one third (33.7 percent) of the U.S. economy as of the year 2000, up from 13 percent of the Gross Domestic Product in 1970. According the Office of the United States Trade Representative, 12 million American jobs – nearly 10 percent of the total – are linked to the export of U.S. goods and services. Agricultural exports alone support 765,000 American jobs. The jobs supported by exports are estimated to pay 13 percent to 18 percent more than non-export-related jobs.
Local officials establish the economic climate and influence the success of regional efforts to create and sustain jobs. This task requires understanding of and involvement in the world economy. Port workers, freight handlers, bankers, sales representatives and accountants all are affected by a city’s competitiveness in the world economy. Moreover, every cup of coffee, every household appliance, every article of clothing, every movie ticket, and every share of common stock purchased by those bankers and dock workers are affected by the world economy.
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The world invests in America.
Companies large and small from all over the world design, build or sell their goods and services to the American market. Subsidiaries of international companies, such as Korean automobile manufacturers, Japanese electronics companies, European financial services firms and Chilean vintners, bring billions of dollars in foreign direct investment to the United States. In 2001, foreign direct investment in the United States totaled $157.9 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. U.S. subsidiaries employ 6.4 million American workers – an increase of 30 percent over the last five years, reports The Organization for International Investment.
Foreign subsidiaries often are the unrecognized international connections that communities can use to access the global economy. Household names such Toyota and Nestle, along with less familiar ones such as AirTouch Communications and Laidlaw Inc., often are the most significant economic engines in the region.
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Avoid "Ugly American" Syndrome.
America transacts business with the world. Partners in commerce bring their innovations and their entrepreneurship, along with their cultural viewpoint and their ethnic customs. To understand our partners, customers and competitors, it is best to visit their homes. Only 25 percent of the American public has a passport, which suggests at least general unfamiliarity with the languages and cultures of other nations. Cities and towns that learn about and welcome the people of diverse cultures demonstrate that their community is a comfortable location to conduct international business. Local government officials set the tone.
Know thy neighbor.
Immigrants seek refuge on America’s shores by the hundreds of thousands. While many of the huddled masses continue to be the tired and the poor, a far greater number constitute the best and brightest from both the developed and the developing world. Political and economic opportunity in the United States attracts the most creative and motivated individuals. New immigrants keep in close contact with family and friends in their country of origin, providing another bridge between American communities and the rest of the world.
Small businesses that trade overseas often do so with buyers and sellers in their native country. These microenterprises create jobs and pay taxes. Public officials that want to help these businesses thrive will get to know the homelands of their constituents. Understanding the history and culture of a place such as the Philippines provides a much better understanding of the Filipino residents in a community.
A guide for the good host.
Tourism was an $88-billion industry for the United States in 2002. Nearly 42 million international visitors arrived in the United States. Whether it’s national parks, monuments, scenic rivers, bike paths, museums, art galleries, or the shops, hotels and restaurants that provide associated services, the one attribute that keeps visitors coming is hospitality. Convention centers and business-class hotels market themselves internationally. Every tourist is a future business contact. Local officials act as hosts, and again, set a tone for the openness of the community.
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Why reinvent the wheel?
Americans are innovators. We lead the world in the number of patented ideas. However, we do not have a monopoly on creativity. Corporations search the world for the best suppliers and the smartest engineers. To be a world-class competitor, companies benchmark themselves against the best, then up the ante and discover the next brilliant idea. Likewise for municipal leaders, learning what is happening in urban services, infrastructure, arts and culture in other cities and regions around the world is the key to economic and social dynamism.
Visit your relatives.
The U.S. sister cities network involves more than 2,100 cities and towns in over 120 countries around the world. Local officials are central to the establishment and maintenance of these twinning relationships, and to the hosting of visits by delegations from the sister cities and sister counties. Reciprocal visits build trust and strengthen the government-to-government and citizen-to-citizen relationships. Unfortunately, because the domestic political price tag for international travel often is too high for most local officials to stand, outbound delegations from the United States tend to be fewer and farther apart, reinforcing the perception overseas about the arrogance and insensitivity of Americans to other customs and cultures.
You want respect? Leave the country.
Local officials, particularly mayors and council presidents, are amazed at how well they are treated by their counterparts in other countries. Titles often mean a great deal more outside the United States than they do at home. To be an elected official from an American city or town commands enormous respect. In many countries, nothing is accomplished unless the local government takes charge. More to the point, in most nations, local officials and local governments have a more central role in the economy. Commerce and business involve corporate executives and local and regional political leaders, especially in Asia. The savvy mayor can and will leverage his or her position in order to open doors for local business, particularly small and medium-size companies.
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Prime the pump.
Participating in a trade and business development mission overseas almost always results in reverse missions coming to the United States from those markets. Although it is difficult for small companies to travel to an international destination, they still can make international contacts. When city leaders agree to host a foreign delegation at city hall, local business owners ought to be invited to meet with the delegation. Here again, the municipal government plays the role of facilitator and broker, making the right introductions and adding credibility to the process. By going on trade missions, and encouraging reciprocal visits, public officials help generate new business prospects for small companies.
You ignore the world at your peril.
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Americans have changed the way they perceive the world and our collective place in it. Isolation from the crises on this planet – famine, war, dictatorship, oppression, pollution, overpopulation, scarcity of resources – is a luxury in which we Americans can no longer indulge. The phenomenon of globalization has convinced people that we have never before experienced such a high level of interconnectedness among the world’s cultures, economies and civilizations. As one public official stated, "My neighborhood is now the world."
Many others are making decisions that impact cities.
If you have a subsidiary of a multinational corporation in your region, the decisions about the growth or collapse of that factory or office building are made in Geneva or Paris or Tokyo or Beijing. The U.S. government has embarked upon the most ambitious effort to secure bilateral and multilateral trade agreements since the establishment of the global trading regime. Trade agreements are being negotiated that regulate government procurement, regulation of services, economic subsidies and the rights of investors. When citizens want accountability, they look to their local officials. Understanding and managing these global decision points is now part of the portfolio of the municipal official.
William B. Stafford is executive director of the Greater Seattle Trade Development Alliance. James A. Brooks, the manager for international programs at the National League of Cities, contributed to this essay, which is reprinted with permission.
Reprinted from Quality Cities September/October 2003
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