Debating the value of twinning in the United Kingdom: the need for a broader perspective

Abstract

The twinning model has been used to develop a wide array of political, economic and cultural relationships that connect communities and institutions in the United Kingdom with counterparts overseas. However, where local governments were once among the most ardent promoters of twinning, years of austerity coupled with changing processes of financial rationalisation, have led many councils to question the value of these relationships. Today, fewer British local authorities are taking up new twinnings and some have even been involved in a process of quiet ‘untwinning’. This paper takes pause to examine what might be lost with this set of changes—it asks: just what is of value of twinning? Taking a cue from ongoing debates in the field of cultural policy studies, it advocates for a broadening and deepening of the operational concept of ‘public value’ to better account for the manifold ways that twinning can deliver pro-social benefits to British communities and their partners.

Canadian twinning in the Indo-Pacific: the agency of subnational actors in present relationships and future strategies

“…Furthermore, as briefly discussed below and identified in other studies of twinning (Ryan and Mazzilli, 2021;Harrison and Huang, 2022), twinning is not isolated from other forms of NCG diplomacy. It can often serve as the spark for these other activities or as a platform to institutionalize relationships begun through other activities.…”

“…In the Global South, twinning became a tool to support development, technical exchange, and economic growth, particularly through partnerships with localities in the Global North (Hewitt, 1999;Bontenbal, 2009;Clarke, 2012;Mayer and Long, 2021). While the end of the Cold War saw a resurgence in twinning as a tool for building mutual understanding and promoting global justice (Kavaloski, 1990;Foglesong, 2020), emerging neoliberal policy norms that prioritized private sector growth and devalued public investment in social goods also spurred a global shift toward twinning as a means for enhancing trade and investment (Clarke, 2009;Ryan and Mazzilli, 2021). More than three decades after Zelinsky (1991) made the first English-language attempt to describe twinning as a global phenomenon, finding tens of thousands of twinning agreements increasing rapidly in number, the twinning of the world continues to accelerate and expand at a celeritous pace.…”