{"id":16124,"date":"2026-07-27T09:45:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T07:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rki.krtk.hu\/?p=16124"},"modified":"2026-07-27T09:45:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T07:45:02","slug":"between-multilevel-governance-and-urban-foreign-policy-budapest-and-the-pact-of-free-cities-in-central-and-eastern-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rki.krtk.hu\/en\/between-multilevel-governance-and-urban-foreign-policy-budapest-and-the-pact-of-free-cities-in-central-and-eastern-europe\/","title":{"rendered":"Between multilevel governance and urban foreign policy &#8211; Budapest and the Pact of Free Cities in Central and Eastern Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Available in <em>Eastern Journal of European Studies<\/em>: &#8216;Between multilevel governance and urban foreign policy &#8211; Budapest and the Pact of Free Cities in Central and Eastern Europe&#8217; by <strong>Ilona P\u00e1ln\u00e9 Kov\u00e1cs<\/strong> and <strong>Bal\u00e1zs Brucker<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>This article examines the emergence of the Pact of Free Cities (PFC) as a form of politically engaged city diplomacy in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on the literature on multilevel governance, city diplomacy, and new municipalism, the study analyses how Budapest and other opposition-led capitals transformed domestic political conflict into transnational municipal cooperation after 2019. The paper argues that the PFC represents a distinctive form of paradiplomacy, through which cities seek to counterbalance the increasing domestic centralisation and political marginalisation by strengthening their international presence and European networks.<\/p>\n<p>The full article is available here: <a href=\"https:\/\/ejes.uaic.ro\/articles\/EJES2026_1701_16_PAL.pdf\">https:\/\/ejes.uaic.ro\/articles\/EJES2026_1701_16_PAL.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n<p>#MultilevelGovernance #CityDiplomacy #PactOfFreeCities #NewMunicipalism #CentralAndEasternEurope<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Available in Eastern Journal of European Studies: &#8216;Between multilevel governance and urban foreign policy &#8211; Budapest and the Pact of Free Cities in Central and Eastern Europe&#8217; by Ilona P\u00e1ln\u00e9 Kov\u00e1cs and Bal\u00e1zs Brucker. This article examines the emergence of the Pact of Free Cities (PFC) as a form of politically engaged city diplomacy in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":16125,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[196,216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-publications"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Between multilevel governance and urban foreign policy - Budapest and the Pact of Free Cities in Central and Eastern Europe - RKI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/rki.krtk.hu\/en\/between-multilevel-governance-and-urban-foreign-policy-budapest-and-the-pact-of-free-cities-in-central-and-eastern-europe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Between multilevel governance and urban foreign policy - Budapest and the Pact of Free Cities in Central and Eastern Europe - RKI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Available in Eastern Journal of European Studies: &#8216;Between multilevel governance and urban foreign policy &#8211; Budapest and the Pact of Free Cities in Central and Eastern Europe&#8217; by Ilona P\u00e1ln\u00e9 Kov\u00e1cs and Bal\u00e1zs Brucker. This article examines the emergence of the Pact of Free Cities (PFC) as a form of politically engaged city diplomacy in [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/rki.krtk.hu\/en\/between-multilevel-governance-and-urban-foreign-policy-budapest-and-the-pact-of-free-cities-in-central-and-eastern-europe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"RKI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-27T07:45:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/rki.krtk.hu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/EJES.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"472\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"664\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mar\u00f3ti Zolt\u00e1n\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mar\u00f3ti Zolt\u00e1n\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/rki.krtk.hu\\\/en\\\/between-multilevel-governance-and-urban-foreign-policy-budapest-and-the-pact-of-free-cities-in-central-and-eastern-europe\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/rki.krtk.hu\\\/en\\\/between-multilevel-governance-and-urban-foreign-policy-budapest-and-the-pact-of-free-cities-in-central-and-eastern-europe\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Mar\u00f3ti Zolt\u00e1n\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/rki.krtk.hu\\\/en\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ae6adfbcf69710bfcef157bc692c05ce\"},\"headline\":\"Between multilevel governance and urban foreign policy &#8211; 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