Cross-border Governance, De-Bordering and Re-Bordering in Border Twin Towns and Cities. Europe in Comparative Perspective

Together with post 1989 wave of globalization, and proliferation of local cross-border cooperative initiatives, border twin towns and cities – urban settlements located directly on state borders and having a similar neighbor on the other side – began to play a role as collaboration and integration laboratories. Inter-state relations have been tested there in micro-scale, combining different legal, cultural, economic and social systems in everyday interactions. This paper’s aim is to outline the challenges related to governing cross-border settlements in Europe in the context of European integration, and to compare them with non-European cases, representing other trends and regularities. North America and Africa were chosen as revealing two alternative models. The governance approaches form a theoretical context for the analyses. The main questions of the analysis are: what are the tools and models for governing BTTaCs? How do European and non-European cases differ? What are the reasons for the various models of cross-border governance in BTTaCs in different global regions? The investigation focuses on the multi-level character of the governance of BTTaCs, where joint management of the public sphere has to involve not only the administrative structure of the divided towns, but also non-governmental organizations and the inhabitants, as well as businesses, states and international levels.