Session details
Organizer(s)
Laura Kolbe (University of Helsinki)
Keywords
City diplomacy, Transnational networks, Urban foreign relations
Abstract
Conventionally, there is a vast academic literature on state diplomacy but less on discussing the role of city diplomacy. From the antiquity (Athens, Rome) and medieval city networks, through 17th and 18th growth of capital cities and finally to Cold War's twin city relations and city networks in an EU/global environment, one might say: cities have been diplomatic actors in Europe and beyond for a long time.
Diplomacy here might be defined as the institutions and processes by which local government or City Halls in general involve themselves in relations or as actors on an international political stage with the aim of representing themselves and their interests to one another. We are interested in different kind of aspects in city diplomacy and subnational urban activism: branding and lobbying, information spreading, economic and political outreach, exchange or other forms of "foreign" relations, twin cities and networks - meaning the contacts beyond national borders with other urban and regional administrations, states, international organizations or foreign audiences. Although still seldom-studied in an academic historic environment, we are convinced that international contacts have often been essential to the development of cities and to their urban self-understanding.
Our session wants to focus more scholarly attention on the diplomatic functions of cities. We consider that city diplomacy research could profit from a more varied empirical and comparative material. We hope to attract a great variation of paper proposals when it comes to geographical terms, including centre/periphery axis in European and American cities and Asian megalopolises, but a lot of variation in chronological terms, by rediscovering the historical roots of current involvements. By using the conception of city diplomacy, we plan to study in historical depth a variety of aspects in international outreach as practiced by cities at three levels:
• By showing long-term historical evolutions to current cities' international activities.
• By looking at empirical case studies, namely single cities with their long durée role in foreign politics
• By looking at certain historical periods (like Cold War) when cities were parts of a “hybridized diplomacy” mixing state and non-state practitioners
Papers
Perception of City Planning and Environment on both Sides of the Iron Curtain in Finnish-Soviet Twinning City Conferences 1969 – 1989
Author(s)
Laura Kolbe (University of Helsinki)
Keywords
Urban Twinning, City Planning, Urban Environment
Abstract
"For almost 100 years, European cities and towns have been forming friendship agreements over the border, allowing them to collaborate in numerous ways with their international partners. During the Cold War years this concept of friendship towns had a new political, even global dimension: could the cities across the Iron Curtain cooperate “beyond the divide”?
Among the first countries in postwar-Europe, Finnish and Soviet Union cities and towns started to collaborate in 1953 across borders routinely. Historically, this town twinning took place in the optimistic post-war spirit of reconciliation, cooperation and companionship. Twin town relationships were created between many Soviet and Finnish towns, following the exceptional political YYA-treaty, meaning the agreement on “friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance between Finland and the Soviet Union” in 1948.
Planning cities was a central theme in these conferences. My paper analyses the presentations, speeches, declarations and petitions in the two large Soviet-Finnish twin city conferences, held in Tallinn (1974) and Oulu (1990). In these conferences also the “ecological aspect” was widely discussed. The aim is to show how the notions of "planning" and “environment” was discussed and developed in the Finnish-Soviet twinning city conferences during two decades.
The background is European Year of Nature Protection 1970. “Nature principles” became part of national and urban planning discourse. It reflected the change of values in western world as the ecological issues were raised into the speeches of leading politicians. In all Scandinavian countries municipalities reacted by establishing nature protection boards and offices, as well as employed civil servants from the field. Less in known of the development in the Soviet Union.
My main question in this paper will be:
- How was “environmental protection problem” interpreted on both sides of iron Curtain and
- Could nature and nature protection be a central tool for peacebuilding during Cold War and in urban cooperation? The rich archive material reveals the dual aspects and allows comparison.
The Spatial Narratives of the Cold War Diplomacy: The Case of Belgrade
Author(s)
Aleksandra Stupar (University of Belgrade - Faculty of Architecture)
Keywords
Belgrade, Urban Scenery, Cold War Narrative
Abstract
During the Cold War Yugoslavia had a specific international position generated by several shifts in its foreign and domestic policy. After the expulsion from the Cominform in 1948, the state leadership of the newly established Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia began to form its own socialist discourse. Based on both the Western and the Eastern cultural models, it was shaped according to the goals of the Communist Party as the Yugoslav path into socialism, or the third way, simultaneously distancing itself from the Western consumerist capitalism and the Soviet state-totalitarianism. Belgrade, as the capital of Yugoslavia, had a significant economical, cultural, political and symbolical role in diplomacy, as a setting for various international meetings, conferences and events which, consequently, had an enormous impact on urban reality and spatial transformations.
The paper focuses on the second half of the 20th century, when Belgrade was exposed to various spatial interventions triggered by anticipated international events such as the First Conference of Heads of State of Government of Non-Aligned countries (September, 1961), the Second Conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe-OSCE (1977) and the Bid for the Summer Olympic games in 1992 (1986). Considering the importance of these events, as well as the symbolic position of Belgrade within Yugoslavia, the state and the city authorities put a significant effort into their organization and the (re)creation within this context. During these years, the city also participated in creating the general vision of a new urban image. The urban scenery was changed through a number of activities and spatial interventions conducted on different levels and scales in order to ‘’polish’’ and modify the appearance of the city. By looking into the ways these interventions were conceived and conducted, the paper tends to identify how the production of space operated as a form of wider activities related to the improvement of the Belgrade’s position on the Cold War diplomatic stage. The scale and importance of selected events triggered various experiences on diverse levels and scales of perception, altering the urban structure and political position of the city, while creating the legacy which could be recognized even nowadays.