Conflicts and Connections: City Partnerships in the “Global Cold War”

13th International Conference on Urban History, European Association for Urban History (EAUH), Finland, Helsinki, August 24-27, 2016

Christian Rau (Institut für Zeitgeschichte München-Berlin) / Eloisa Betti (University of Bologna) / Vladimir Unkovski-Korica (National Research University Higher School of Economics Moscow)

We invite paper proposals for a panel at the EAUH 2016 which deals with city partnerships in the "Global Cold War" (S 34).

In the last decade and a half, Cold War historiography has gone beyond the focus on the superpowers and been enriched thanks to new perspectives stressing the gender, cultural, urban and global dimensions of the Cold War. Focusing on global interactions and entanglements recent studies have shown that regional and urban actors were very closely connected among one another and across national borders. Especially during the Cold War period, the number of twinning agreements signed rose significantly. While governments used them to support their foreign policies, they could develop their own dynamics, overcoming the East-West and North/South divide. They could link Eastern and Western European cities across the Iron Curtain and, also link European and “Third World” cities. Furthermore, city partnership (e.g. twinning) seems to be particularly important at the initial stages of European détente, where local actors were beginning to look for ways to transcend local confines and international bipolar divisions to pursue their own interests. In this perspective, urban partnerships could function as arenas of integration and supporting globalisation processes. However, there is a lack of research on the role of city partnerships during the Cold War.

Therefore, the session aims to contribute to the emerging theme of “Cold War Cities” discussed at the 2012 and 2014 EAUH conferences, by focusing on the role of city partnership in creating more differentiated insights into the history of the “Global Cold War” (Odd Arne Westad). To explore its history it is necessary to modify the traditional national perspectives. A combination of urban and global history approaches can be a starting point for this. Exploring new forms of relationships and cooperation among Eastern/Western European and “Third World” Cities the urban perspective can contribute to the understanding of how the international, national and local levels interacted in Cold War Era and, last but not least, how they began to shape the present day. In this respect, the session also aims to stimulate the current conceptual debates on “Cold War Cities” and the “Global Cold War” and to discuss how to link both concepts.

The session investigates traditional political, economic and cultural perspectives of city partnership as well as new analytical approaches such as gender, agency, ecology. Possible topics include, but are not limited to: cities’ international politics, cities linked through twinning agreement, partnership among port cities, European city partnership with the so called “Third World” or “Global South” cities.

Abtracts should not exceed 300 words. Please submit your abstract online via the EAUH website (https://eauh2016.net/programme/call-for-papers/)

The Call for Papers is open until October 31, 2015. Succesful candidates will be informed by December 31, 2015. For more information about the timetable etc., please visit the EAUH 2016 website.

You are also welcome to contact us before making an official proposal.

Kind regards

Christian Rau

rau@ifz-muenchen.de