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City-Twinning in Northern Europe Pertti Joenniemi and Alexander Sergunin

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City-Twinning in Northern Europe Pertti Joenniemi and Alexander Sergunin DIIS WORKINGDIIS WORKING PAPER 2009:PAPER21 When two aspire to become one: City-twinning in Northern Europe Pertti Joenniemi and Alexander Sergunin DIIS Working Paper 2009:21 WORKING PAPER WORKING 1 DIIS WORKING PAPER 2009:21 PERTTI JOENNIEMI Senior Researcher, DIIS [email protected] ALEXANDER SERGUNIN Professor of International Relations St. Petersburg State University DIIS Working Papers make available DIIS researchers’ and DIIS project partners’ work in progress towards proper publishing. They may include important documentation which is not necessarily published elsewhere. DIIS Working Papers are published under the responsibility of the author alone. DIIS Working Papers should not be quoted without the express permission of the author. DIIS WORKING PAPER 2009:21 © Copenhagen 2009 Danish Institute for International Studies, DIIS Strandgade 56, DK-1401 Copenhagen, Denmark Ph: +45 32 69 87 87 Fax: +45 32 69 87 00 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.diis.dk Cover Design: Carsten Schiøler Layout: Allan Lind Jørgensen Printed in Denmark by Vesterkopi AS ISBN: 978-87-7605-347-5 Price: DKK 25.00 (VAT included) DIIS publications can be downloaded free of charge from www.diis.dk 2 DIIS WORKING PAPER 2009:21 CONTENTS Abstract 4 Introduction 5 Cities Intruding the Sphere of International Relations 7 The City Twin Association 9 The Model of Tornio-Haparanda 11 Narva-Ivangorod: A Case of Partition 16 The Case of Imatra-Svetogorsk 22 Valga-Valka: Divided by Nationness 28 Concluding Remarks 31 References 36 3 DIIS WORKING PAPER 2009:21 ABSTRACT The paper probes four cases on city twinning (Imatra-Svetogorsk; Tornio- Haparanda; Valga/Valka; Narva/Ivangorod), all sharing a joint border and lo- cated in Northern Europe. However, it also aims at discussing the dynamics and future of twinning in a broader, more principal and critical perspective. It notes that although the legacies tend to pertain to the existence of rather divisive borders and despite a number of other obstacles, city twinning has more recently turned into an established form of crossing and doing away with the divisive effects of borders. The model of cities re-imagining their borders, activating them through increased cooperation and pooling resources increas- ingly impacts and changes the local landscapes but has broader state-related and European consequences as well. Twinning may conceptually stands out as a misnomer and figure as a problematic representation pertaining to paired border cities but it also appears quite hegemonic in terms of the naming used by an increasing amount of cities involved, a number of them now being lo- cated in Northern Europe. 4 DIIS WORKING PAPER 2009:21 INTRODUCTION with non-socialist countries under the label of ‘sister-ship cities’ (goroda-pobratimy) point- Twinning is there as one of the departures ing to fraternal relations among the cities in used by cities in aspiring for a distinct, vis- question. Rather than a twin city – pointing ible and favourable profile. It is, in this sense, to far-reaching unity – the concepts used are part and parcel of their policies of place- those of ‘city twins’ or ‘double cities’ (dvojnoj marketing and branding in the context of the gorod), i.e. departures preserving at least some increasingly intense and transnational region- distinctiveness. alization. Thus, claiming that a city-pair cooper- There is, however, nothing ‘natural’ or ating across national borders amounts to inevitable in the use of the concept. Adja- twins is very much a choice and constitutes cent cities may, in fact, tap into a relatively one option among many. It may further be broad repertoire of naming in endeavouring noted that talking about twinning rather at strengthening the international features than utilizing some other conceptual depar- of their otherwise quite local and national ture and representation available stands out, profile by coalescing across statist borders. in comparison, as something particularly They may, for example, brand themselves demanding and challenging. The resorting as ‘connected cities’, ‘border-crossing cit- to the concept of twinning figures as a quite ies’, ‘trans-border cities’, ‘partnership cities’, ambitious move with the concept having ‘bi-national cities’ or ‘sister cities’. Moreo- connotations of similitude, like-minded- ver, they may use some of the labels avail- ness and pertaining to claims of an almost able on the EU-related menu such being an identical nature of the two entities involved. ‘Euroregion’. For example Malmö and Co- In pointing to shared and unified space, the penhagen regard themselves as ‘connected concept goes far beyond – as perceptively cities’ rather than twins (cf. Buursink, 2001). argued by van Houtum and Ernste (2001: Helsinki and Tallinn have, for their part, em- 103) – a mere functionalist strategy of reach- ployed the concept of ‘Euroregion’ in their ing across borders. The parties involved in cooperation (cf. Pikner, 2008a). Likewise, twinning do not just cooperate with each cities straddling borders may distinguish other while at the same time retaining their themselves through the use of more techni- rather different being (cf. Arreola, 1996). cal and project-related names or apply some Instead, they ride on notions pertaining to place-specific labels or tap into their joint similarity from the very start and articulate, history or some specific historical events in terms of policies of representation and offers applicable alternatives. Yet another scale, their very being by (re)connecting the option consists of networking with border- previously unconnected. Subsequently, they related cities coming together as a cluster aim at reducing various functional restraints rather than a pair. that tend to hide their rather identical na- As to Russia, there is the concept of ‘sput- ture and therewith the border located in-be- nik-cities’ coined initially during the Soviet tween the city-pair is narrated – instead of period in order to cover functional relations accepting its usual divisive impact and par- between cities either within the country or titioning effects – as something to be abol- in the sphere of the socialist countries. In ished. The border is turned, in the context some cases relations could be established of twinning, into a connective factor and a 5 DIIS WORKING PAPER 2009:21 resource for a rather unified agglomeration so wide that concepts such as twinning have to emerge. been void of any credibility. This then also implies that being engaged Twinning thus amounts, once utilized as in twinning challenges quite sharply the tra- a departure for locally based cross-border ditional comprehensions of borders between cooperation, to a kind of liberation if not national states and the way borders are as- mutiny. It does so from the very start in be- sumed to unfold and function. Twinning ac- ing transnational and not just bi-national in tually boils down, in one of its aspects, to character. It is, in being transnational in char- a strategy employed by border-related cities acter, very much at odds with the standard in their efforts of restraining and revers- formula of nation-state building that is with ing the impact of border-drawing and more similarity located inside and difference placed generally the centripetal forces of modern on the outside. The degree of alleged simi- nation-building. It amounts to efforts of cir- larity in the context of twinning may vary cumventing and undermining the logic that – consisting either of being alike in the sense has usually deprived border-related cities of of shared citiness or having some specific any standing of their own in a transnational bonds and ‘natural’ properties supporting context. Instead of being recognized as in- claims pertaining to far-reaching unity – but teresting, legitimate and to some extent also it amounts in both cases to a breach in the important actors, they have more often than standard state-related discourse in having not been marginalized and seen as being lo- connotations of considerable unity and inti- cated at the fringes of their respective states mate connectedness reaching across national and subsequently also the state-dominated borders. It exhibits, if viewed in a traditional system of international relations. As argued perspective, more strongly than some of the by Jan Buursink (2001: 7), they have been other concepts employed by cities reaching seen as ‘pitiful’. Cities located at borders across national borders that the logic under- have been relatively rare to start with, and if girding cities coming together in the context nonetheless there, they have been depicted of their border-crossing activities may to a as subordinate actors and – owing to their large degree conflict considerably with the location in the vicinity of national borders way states usually outline and constitute their – perceived as end stations, i.e. void of any borders and border-related regions. contacts across the border. Having a twin One may thus suspect – and do so precisely on the other side of the border has in this because of the inherently offensive connota- context figured as something inconceivable tions inherent in the concept – that the city- as no conceptual and mental space has been pairs employing twinning as their departure available for any border-transcending pro- amount to political dreamscapes. They stand jections premised on alleged similarity and for visions rather than exemplify cases of unity. strong and concrete transnational integration. Overall, cities located at the vicinity of the Arguably, they have adopted evocative names national border have, rather than coming to- and coined tempting visions of togetherness gether, been expected to stay aloof from each but the energy created and released through other and turn their back towards those on the use of such narratives and imagineering the opposite side of the border. The psy- tend in the end to boil down to very little. chological distance has, in actual fact, been Naming does not automatically translate to 6 DIIS WORKING PAPER 2009:21 tangible togetherness and concrete integra- their own and to do so even without any deci- tion.
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