Explaining policy teaching versus learning in environmental transnational municipal networks: The case of the Kitakyushu Initiative

This study examines teaching versus learning outcomes in intercity policy knowledge exchange and its theoretical assumptions. We focus on the Kitakyushu Initiative for a Clean Environment (K-Initiative), an environmentally focused transnational municipal network (TMN) operating from 2000 to 2010. Using a combination of social network analysis and case study analysis we advance two key findings: First that cities occupying the teaching role tend to be either in the Global North or exhibit greater environmental commitment and, second, that the observed north-to-south pattern does not involve mere replication but significant adaptation by and coproduction of knowledge with Global South cities. This exhibits structural and agential power dynamics at play in intercity policy learning and illustrates adaptive and iterative learning processes that occur as knowledge exchanged between cities is actually implemented.