Acceso usuarios
Vincent Beal, Gilles Pinson 
An enigma lies at the heart of this article. In December 2006, the mayor of Saint-Étienne,Michel Thiollière, was elected as the fifth best mayor in the world by the internet site CityMayors. Yet no publicity was made locally around this award. Taking this anecdote asa starting point, this article deals with the motivations that can lead a city mayorto become involved in urban international relationships’ policy (city twinning,participation in cities networks, study trips, etc.). On the one hand these activitiesprovide resources for building up political legitimacy and for electoral control, and onthe other they provide resources for policy solutions to urban problems in the publicrealm. Nevertheless, in a context of transformation of the process of legitimization ofurban elected officials, the second kind of resources seems to be the most sought after inmayoral involvement in international activities.
