they vote for their own parties in their own countries but existing reform proposals are not sufficient It works to connect local communities across Europe and it may provide a new way to elect the European Parliament it is common to see a sign by the side of the road that not only has the name of the place but also a list of sister cities or twin towns Dutch Lopik is partners with Lezoux (France) The West-Swedish community of Mark partners with Apolda (Germany) It will come as no surprise that there is a Council of European Municipalities and Communities or that it has a programme to promote 'twinning' There is even a European town-twinning association with one partner from each member state Named after the number of original partners this Douzelage steadily increased its size with every wave of enlargement It has now grown to 28 (at the time of writing Twinning forges connections that contrast starkly with the way the European Parliament (EP) is elected Ever since the first direct elections in 1979 EP elections have been organised by member states according to national rules They are contested by national parties and candidates Some progress has been made towards harmonising the rules but European elections remain national affairs The European Town Twinning Association aims to 'establish .. sporting and cultural links between towns for the mutual benefit of the inhabitants' There is widespread dissatisfaction about the lack of genuine European parties EU democratisation is not possible without a European party system The most radical reform proposal discussed in the EP so far seeks to establish an additional supranational district There is no agreement on how many Members of European Parliament (MEPs) should be elected in this EU-wide district its proponents expect a transformative effect the proposal for a supranational district focuses only on connecting voters to Brussels/Strasbourg But what about linking citizens in one member state to another even if the entire EP were elected in a single-EU wide district its sheer size would create problems of geographical linkage increasing the distance between voters and MEPs voters would likely remain motivated by national considerations such reform wouldn't necessarily strengthen Europe-wide parties The latest EP report to include an EU-wide district would have allowed lists submitted by national political parties and even movements the supranational district proposal focuses only on vertical linkage on connecting voters to Brussels/Strasbourg But what about horizontal linkage – linking citizens in one member state to another Having one European electorate would do little to strengthen the connections between European citizens. Voters in different parts of Europe would cast their ballots independently from each other, for their own reasons, unaware of the issues that divide and unite them, even when voting for the same European-level parties. This is where the idea of electoral twinning comes in Twinning focuses on horizontal linkages. It works for villages, towns, and cities. It can also work to link electorates, and to create genuine European parties. There are around 345 million eligible voters and 705 seats in the EP. On this basis, the EP could create 705 electoral districts, with half a million voters each. Now imagine the EU map divided into four quadrants: North-West, North-East, South-West, and South-East. Precise zone boundaries aren't important, but they should be of roughly equal size. To elect MEPs, districts from each zone would be 'twinned' to create a multi-member cross-national district. In accordance with EU law, the winning candidates should be determined by proportional representation. The smallest cross-national district would have four seats, twinning one district from each of the four European zones, but larger districts could easily be created. Candidates would have to appeal not only to the electorate in their home constituency, but to voters in four locations across the EU The behaviour of parties, candidates, and voters in such a cross-national district would be very different from what it is now. Parties would have to campaign on issues relevant across the EU, fielding candidates with appeal beyond the local. Only European parties would be able to run campaigns simultaneously in different corners of Europe. But they couldn't do so without a strong presence on the ground. Candidates could not win by attracting only narrow support from their home constituency. They would have to appeal to voters from across the EU, not in an abstract sense, but concretely, to voters in four specific locations. Voters would realise that they are electing their MEPs together with citizens from three other places in the EU. They would share their MEPs with fellow Europeans in a concrete, not an abstract sense. The mission of the European town twinning association is 'to promote and foster the spirit of Europe and to establish among others educational, economic, tourist, sporting and cultural links between the towns for the mutual benefit of the inhabitants thereof'. Electoral twinning (known in political science as 'constituency pooling') shares that spirit and works in much the same way. It would allow the citizens of Lopik, Lezoux, Grebenstein, and Sarsina, as well as the citizens of Apolda, Ontinyent, Mark, and Szamotuly, to elect their MEPs together. Together, they would create a horizontally integrated European electorate that strengthens European democracy. Matthijs has been teaching and researching political science for more than two decades. Before joining CEU in Vienna, has was a full professor at Jacobs University Bremen. Matthijs has published widely on political parties, electoral systems, democratisation, and the challenge of democracy in divided societies. His most recent research interests include terrorism and feminist institutionalism. This <a target="_blank" href="https://theloop.ecpr.eu/twinning-a-new-way-to-elect-the-european-parliament/">article</a> was originally published at <a target="_blank" href="https://theloop.ecpr.eu">The Loop</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license * I agree to receive your newsletters and accept the data privacy notice Your email address is only used to send you The Loop Digest newsletter and website in this browser for the next time I comment Δdocument.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value" own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA) provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation FR View all partners The hypothesis of cultural third places was introduced during a seminar organised by L’Agence Régionale du livre PACA and titled “Bibliothèque This article reports the main characteristics and interrogations gathered by the hypothesis of cultural third places Many cultural places are being transformed through the mutations of digital world reduced public financing and the rise of the knowledge-based economy third places libraries are centred on users and prioritise to digital tools and new learning patterns such as serious games and collaborative platforms Cultural science centres, like Medialab Prado in Madrid (Spain), Cap Sciences (Bordeaux, France) or Quai des Savoirs (Toulouse, France) are reinventing their mediation patterns ; they build them on collective intelligence methods (developed in living labs) and fast prototyping tools (fab labs) These new generation centres propose multiple spaces with different social and functional dimensions At the opposite of the diffusion of culture and knowledge politics towards the “general public” everything is designed so the visitors can build in an active and ascendant way new knowledge Museums such as the Arts Décoratifs in Paris or the Musée Gallo-Romain in Lyon have transformed themselves into genuine laboratories for real-time experimentation during Museomix events These three-day meetings have been held over the past years bringing together hundreds of participants (coders hackers) who were in charge of inventing new exhibition forms and developing possible interaction with artworks Former industrial sites such as the Friche Belle de Mai in Marseille (France), the 104 in Paris (France) or Emsherpark Park in the Ruhr region of Germany stand up for a dynamic vision of their cultural heritage These urban brownfields now open up culture to experimentation and coproduction These third places share a common belief in the importance of moving away from an elitist and diffusionist vision of culture to take interest in informal actors and in everyday social spaces digital and technical cultures of knowledge and other forms Beyond these characteristics, it seems essential to better define these cultural places as well as the current transformations. That’s why we rely on the concept of the “third place” developed by American sociologist Ray Oldenburg He hypothesized of an increasing development of open and hybrid spaces (between the residence and workplace) that facilitate the meeting between heterogeneous actors and multiple resources for example of third places of activity and coworking spaces that are specialized in the creation of shared and collaborative workspaces which seek to stimulate innovation through collective intelligence Social third places and spaces of public innovation pursue clear social objectives on important issues facing our society in citizen participation and public action policy Our hypothesis is that we are seeing the emergence of a new category – the cultural third place We define them as hybrid and open spaces of knowledge and culture sharing finds his or her place at the heart of the learning production and dissemination processes of cultures and knowledge The cultural third places are embedded throughout their territory and position themselves between lofty cultural institutions and on-the-ground residents Cultural third places promote a culture of experimentation staging and coproduction of knowledges and cultures The hypothesis of the cultural third places is valid only if cultural places are precisely observed and if the following problems are investigated: To what extent do cultural third places play a key role in social life Do they succeed in embedding socially both knowledge and culture Do they manage making technical and digital innovations a real social learning How do cultural third places regulate the tensions and to overtake structuring antagonisms between science and knowledge abstract approach and experimental approach space for reflection and space for sociability knowledge society (the commons) and knowledge based economy (the market) cultures and of multiple actors with potential or actual differing interests allow to improve the mechanisms of production and distribution of knowledge what are the positive and negative externalities (identity-related tensions What are long-term risks of this generalised movement of despecialisation of cultural centres Are we about to witness the emergence of generic spaces invalidating the attempts to differentiate libraries incubators or public service organizations Are cultural skills and traditional occupations satisfactory enough to take into account the risks of the new stakes inherent to cultural third places are cultural third places an omen of new forms of producing and disseminating knowledge Or are they only “aesthetic screens” hiding the reality of budget restrictions and the decline of some cultural and knowledge venues It is toward this complex of issues that we will direct our attention in a next article that will present a critical reading of cultural third places This text was translated by Sarah Marcelly Fernandez This article was originally published in French 2 ContributorsEquus LyricsThis song is an instrumentalEmbedCancelHow to Format Lyrics: To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum Find answers to frequently asked questions about the song and explore its deeper meaning