the world's cities contrasting regional national and global perspectives

In addition to disciplinary divisions, the issue of methodological nationalism remains a key feature of debates around the state of the social sciences. In 2009 Queen Elizabeth II asked an audience of economists at the London School of Economics and Political Science, if the crisis was so large and obvious in retrospect, “why did nobody notice it?” In the wake of the crisis, dozens of articles were published, mostly by economists to attempt to excuse themselves for their predictive errors (Rivas and Perez-Quiros 2015, 534-36). Following the crisis, many observers demanded to know why few had predicted it. The global financial crisis is a case in point. Inattention to these nexus-related issues can lead to failures, especially when singular disciplines fail to see the more multifaceted nature of the issues at hand.

By these he means compounded issues such as climate change, inequality, resource scarcity, digital transformations, or migration, which demand scholarly analysis of an interdisciplinary and even transdisciplinary nature. Nonetheless, we suggest that more and more of what Stirling (2015) identifies as “nexus-related” challenges are emerging.

The world's cities contrasting regional national and global perspectives