Town Twinning in Cold-War Britain: (Dis)continuities in Twentieth-Century Municipal Internationalism

Clarke, Nick

doi:10.1080/13619461003768272

Cited by 41 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 18 publications

(3 reference statements)

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“…During the cold war an ideological dimension was added to the motives to form partnerships; TT could help to promote understanding for different ideological systems. The latter initiatives often met with distrust from more central governments (Clarke 2010), and it is questionable whether these ideological forms of TT reduced transaction costs in a way that could stimulate population growth. Figure 1 illustrates TT in European countries.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Town Twinning and German City Growth

2015

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in AbstractAfter World War II (WWII), town twinning became popular, notably in Germany. This was mainly a reaction to the war experience, and it was aimed at creating renewed international understanding and co-operation between German cities and cities in other countries. The contacts created by town twinning also resulted in increased international access for the cities involved. This potentially stimulates growth in these cities compared to cities that do not have (as many) twinning partners. In this DICE report article we summarize the findings of Brakman, Garretsen and Oumer (2015) on the effects of town twinning on population growth in German counties and municipalities. Our results show that German counties and municipalities that engage in town twinning often experienced significantly higher population growth than German cities that did not have twinning partners. The number or intensity of twinning relations in particular, as well as town twinning with French cities, and with neighboring countries more generally, turn out to have a positive effect on city growth. We also find that the positive population growth effects of town twinning are confined to the larger German cities.

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Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Town Twinning and German City Growth

2015

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“…So, for example, in the case of urban policy [considered more directly in the paper by McCann and Ward (2012)] explicitly place-based policies and priorities are consistently formulated with reference to particular understandings of the global context, and it is hard to ignore the heavily populated world of consultants, exchanges and visits, political and professional networks that cluster around urban initiatives and which often have a longer history than is sometimes acknowledged (see, eg, K Ward, 2006;Clarke, 2010;. Meanwhile urban competitiveness in a global marketplace has become a shared concern of academic and policy literatures (see, eg, Buck et al, 2005) as debates have oscillated between emphasizing the need for successful cities to open themselves up to the market to bemoaning the ideological hegemony of neoliberalism as a political force or, more positively, searching for the spaces to develop alternative visions at the urban level (Brenner et al, 2010;Cochrane, 2007;Leitner et al, 2006).…”

Section: Thinking About the Geographies Of Policy Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Researching the Geographies of Policy Mobility: Confronting the Methodological Challenges

2012

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“…The favoured approach was the CEM bonding model and reasons for this can be found in correspondence and other documents held in the National Archives at Kew, London. Again, these documents are analysed in detail elsewhere (Clarke 2010b supplemented -and, to a certain extent, replaced -the position that local welfare could best be secured by providing local welfare services, with the position that it could best be secured by attracting mobile investment capital (Cochrane 1993, Hall and Hubbard 1998, Harvey 1989). This 'new urban politics' provided one frame for Some have used the term 'town twinning' to describe just those partnerships forged in Western Europe after the Second World War, and have used other terms to describe later arrangements: 'North-South linking', 'decentralised cooperation', 'city-to-city cooperation' etc.…”

Section: Conceptualising Town Twinningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Elsewhere, I have used it to further understandings of urban policy mobility (Clarke 2010a) and municipal internationalism (Clarke 2010b). In the rest of this paper, I want to use town twinning research to engage with feminist moral philosophy and one of its applications: geographies of care.…”

Section: The Problem Of Care-at-a-distancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…There has been next to nothing published on town twinning by geographers since 1991 (though see Clarke 2010aClarke , 2010b. The same cannot be said for other disciplines where a literature does exist on town twinning and related fields such as municipal internationalism (Ewen and Hebbert 2007), municipal diplomacy (Hobbs 1994, Kincaid 1989, Kirby et al 1995, Shuman 1986-87, 1992, and municipal exchange (Bontenbal and Lindert 2009, Hewitt 1996, Shuman 1994.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Globalising care? Town twinning in Britain since 1945

Clarke

2011

Geoforum

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Town twinning describes the establishment and practice, by various groups and to various ends, of relatively formal and long-term relationships between settlements usually located in different nation-states. Twin towns are sometimes called sister cities. This paper draws on a study of town twinning that focused on the involvement of British localities since the end of the Second World War and analysed data collected by the Local Government Association (for England and Wales), materials archived in the National Archives at Kew, London and various local record offices, and transcripts of interviews with representatives of relevant local, national, and international organisations. The paper makes three main contributions. Firstly, it provides a brief history of town twinning involving British localities. Secondly, it develops from this historical narrative an original conceptualisation of town twinning, arguing that it should be approached less as a coherent movement and more as a device, a repertoire, and a model. Thirdly, it argues that town twinning has often been used as a device for extending care across space -and that much can be learned from its history for contemporary geographies of care. Town twinning participants have approached the problem of care-at-a-distance as both an ontological problem and a practical problem. Some have focused more than others on the role of distanciated causal relationships in the generation of needs in distant places. Some are currently encountering another problem as they attempt to globalise care: the problem of carein-a-hurry.

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Town Twinning in Cold-War Britain: (Dis)continuities in Twentieth-Century Municipal Internationalism

Cited by 41 publications

References 18 publications

Town Twinning and German City Growth

Town Twinning and German City Growth

Researching the Geographies of Policy Mobility: Confronting the Methodological Challenges

Globalising care? Town twinning in Britain since 1945

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