Urban Diplomacy

With the effect of globalization, important changes and transformations have taken place in the political, social, and administrative fields. States need to interact with each other now. Interactions at the international level have increased the importance of interstate collaboration. Economic, legal, commercial, social, and cultural collaboration between countries has begun to show an increase.

One of the basic instruments of soft power, which is an important concept in international relations, is the concept of cultural diplomacy and urban diplomacy. Urban diplomacy has an important place in diplomatic relations between countries.One of the tools of urban diplomacy is intercity collaboration as well as interstate collaboration.
One of the international collaborations that urban diplomacy, which is emerged as a result of the collaboration between cities, finds implementation area is town twining practices. Twin town means that two cities that are geographically distant from each other establish friendly relations in order to carry out joint activities on cultural, economic, and service delivery issues at international level. The concept of twin town is used in the international literature as “sister city” originating in the USA or “town twinning” of European origin.
Town twining are applied internationally in many countries of the world as a means of ensuring social, cultural, and economic collaboration between cities. Twin towns also implemented effectively in Turkey. Many municipalities, especially metropolitan cities such as Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Bursa, Antalya, and Konya, go to twin town unity with cities from different countries.
Local governments in Turkey have completed national procedures regarding twining town partnerships and have signed a collaboration protocol. Thus, social, cultural, and economic collaboration is made between twin towns that have become official.In addition, technical information and experience are shared on local services, and the protection of the natural and historical environment is ensured. In addition, diplomacy and lobbying are offered and funds from international organizations are used.
According to the data from the Directorate General for Local Authorities of the Ministry of Interior, Turkey’s 81 provinces conducted twin town collaboration with 1830 cities from different countries between 1992-2020. Konya ranks 6th in Turkey with 56 twin town collaboration. 19 and 24 twin town collaboration agreements were made between 2001-2010 and 2011-2020, respectively, in Konya.It draws attention that the collaborations established in Konya, which has hosted important cultures and has a deep-rooted cultural background, are mostly cultural and economic. Student meetings, creating solutions to environmental problems, preserving historical and cultural values constitute an important result of twining town practices.
In order to further increase the success of Konya Metropolitan Municipality’s applications for town twining collaboration; collaboration should be developed in economic, social, and cultural aspects.In addition, it is necessary to increase the mutual interaction between cities, to consider good practice examples, to benefit from intercity policy transfer, and to be put into practice.
Collaborations to be established with twin towns should not only be perceived as touristic and cultural convergence of cities. However, sharing experiences, producing projects, making cities more liveable should be the main goals of twining town collaborations. Considering all these issues, it is thought that Konya Metropolitan Municipality should give more importance to twining town practices. In this context, it is important to produce projects and carry out activities.