ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews relevant debates in International Relations and its neighbouring disciplines on the importance of the city for state-identity politics. It provides an overview of key formative moments and common practices in Astana and Doha's development and introduce and discuss the role of main actors involved. The chapter also provides a detailed interpretive analysis of the dominant sense-making tropes that surround extravagant development practices in both cities. It traces the political dimensions in the (re)production of Astana and Doha's emerging 'city-brands'. In ‘Urban reconstruction and autocratic regimes’, Maria Cavalcanti similarly stresses this point by highlighting how from the mid-19th century onwards autocratic political leaders have used cities to project a visionary and legitimate mode of governance.
