Organizing (Civic) Culture: The Making of Europeans

Abstract

The historiography has treated town twinnings as a phenomenon of mainly political significance (Chapter 2). The present chapter focuses on those aspects of town twinning practices that are most immediately related to their politically defined mission. Unlike contributions in normative political science, which tend to emphasize the political possibilities and perspectives of town twinning, frequently without taking into account their social embeddedness, this chapter aims to expose the sociality at work in the articulation of political projects and ambitions in twinning practices.