Citizen or City Diplomacy? Diplomatic Co-Production and the Middle Ground in Municipal Twinning Relationships

Abstract

Since their early origins in the Cold War, municipal twinning relationships have relied on citizen initiative and participation. Where does the government end and the citizen begin? Using examples from Canada–Asia city twinning, we argue that municipal twinning relationships should be viewed as a co-produced diplomatic ‘middle ground’ formed by the interactions of official and domestic society actors. We map how the concept of a co-produced middle ground helps us better understand the identities, capacities, continuities, criteria and conceptions at the heart of municipal twinning relationships. These insights could inform a co-productive model for municipalities to approach the design and implementation of twinning relationships. As a preliminary examination of domestic society actors in municipal twinning using the interpretative framework of co-production, this article points towards possibilities for future avenues of research and policy-making that more carefully attend to the actors, sites and scales of subnational diplomacy.