Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Over the past few decades, municipal governments became increasingly involved in international cooperation, including in development activities abroad. Municipal international cooperation can facilitate the transfer of knowledge and resources from local governments in developed countries to local governments in developing countries, which makes it a promising instrument for development. Despite the growing interest of local governments in consolidating their roles as active development actors and the recognized potential of municipal partnerships to create positive outcomes for development, research on the phenomenon is scarce. This paper contributes to the existing literature on municipal international partnerships by discussing the structures of cooperation between local governments in developed and developing countries and the types of organizations and institutions that local governments create and support in the context of municipal international cooperation. The paper focuses on town twining relationships as a common form of cooperation between local governments in developed and developing countries. Over forty interviews with local government officials and representatives of local government associations and town twinning organizations in two countries informed this paper. The analysis shows that a range of actors are involved in municipal international partnerships, and the structures of cooperation between local governments in developed and developing countries varies from highly centralized to entirely decentralized. The paper draws connections between structures of cooperation and local policy objectives for municipal international relations. Implications of findings for practice in the field of international development are discussed.