Byse Workshop Session 3: Cities Beyond the State? International Governance in Divided Cities

In this session, we will examine experimentations with international governance of local spaces, which have taken various forms. We will discuss international administrations in conflicted cities as innovative responses to contested sovereignty, ranging from interwar Danzig and post–Balkan Wars Mostar to divided Nicosia, alongside Berman’s proposal for overlapping international sovereignties in Jerusalem. We will ask: what avenues for intervention and engagement open up when they are framed at the local realm? Can we imagine a locality subject to overlapping sovereignties, or no sovereign authority at all? Are these experiments, often treated as exceptions, truly exceptional, or rather reflective of broader patterns in global governance?