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Description of  Transnational Imaginations of Socialism: Town Twinning and Local Government in 'Red' Italy and the GDR, 1960s 1970s (Rethinking the Cold War, 6)

Town twinning refers to the postwar phenomenon of administrative exchange between analogous municipalities. Cold War-related research has mostly interpreted it as an instrument to pursue European integration, or to solidify dtente "from below". However, municipalities were not only administrative, neutral actors, but also bearers of political content. This is particularly visible in the case of Italian towns located in the Western bloc, guided by socialist-oriented administrations, and their "twin" counterparts in the German Democratic Republic. Read more