Following the movement of globalisation, non-central governments have been playing increasingly influential roles on the global scene, connecting across national borders and developing their own foreign policies.
[5][6] The academic field of paradiplomatic studies is nonetheless suffering from fragmentation and terminological scatterdness, resulting both from ongoing debates within scholars,[7] and from the diversity of terms characterizing subnational governments worldwide.
This latter concept expresses a growing trend to the internationalization of domestic ("intermestic") issues, which takes local and regional concerns to the central stage of international affairs.
[8] Some subnational governments engage in paradiplomatic activities to promote development by exploring complementarity with partners facing similar problems, with a view to joining forces to arrive at solutions more easily.
In addition, they can explore opportunities alongside international organizations that offer assistance programs for local development projects, with ideas of cross-cultural connections and reciprocity.
Throughout history, cities and towns "have played a central role economically, politically, and culturally in all human societies and precede nation states by some 5,000 years".
And the first formal diplomatic agreement involving a subnational government may have been signed in 1907 between the Brazilian state of São Paulo and the country of Japan, for immigration management purposes.
[12] Cultural motivations led to the first city-to-city twinnings in 1918 between European localities, a growingly popular form of subnational cooperation later labelled "people-to-people diplomacy" by US President Eisenhower.
In 1913, the first transnational network of local governments was created in Ghent (Belgium) in the form of a global municipal movement: the Union Internationale des Villes.
First, the United Nations Advisory Committee of Local Authorities[32] (UNACLA) was created in 1999 by the Commission on Human Settlements, aiming to facilitate the dialogue of subnational governments with the UN System.
[33][34] UCLG has since worked both as a network counting more than 240,000 members worldwide,[35] and as an advocacy platform, initiating the creation of the complementary coordination mechanism Global Taskforce of Local and Regional Governments[36] in 2013.
An additional type labelled d) "protodiplomacy" implies actions motivated by separatist/secessionnist objectives - also framed as "sovereignty paradiplomacy" in the more recent typology proposed by Rodrigo Tavares.
[37] A comprising view of the phenomenon should also consider formal and informal contacts in a wide range of multilateral associations of local authorities, and their growing presence in global summits and governance instances.
Conditions can vary largely from a limited capacity to negotiate with the assistance of their central authorities to a most complete autonomy based on sovereign constitutional prerogatives.
A March 2014 debate in the British House of Lords acknowledged the evolution of town twinning into city diplomacy, particularly around trade and tourism, but also in culture and post-conflict reconciliation.
[41] São Paulo has aggressively pursued ‘city-diplomacy’ and has not only become the first subnational government in the Southern Hemisphere to sign direct bilateral agreements with the United States and Britain.
Some states do formally recognize the stakes their political and administrative units have in foreign affairs and have, accordingly, set the required legal basis at a constitutional level.
Legal provisions on this matter are present in the constitution of the following federations: Paradiplomacy being a very context-specific global phenomenon, the following section is not exhaustive and only illustrates a few examples linked to their national context.
Since 1994, an amendment to the Constitución de la Republica allows the provinces of Argentina (articles 124 and 125) to establish treaties and agreements with foreign nations to the effect of the administration of justice, economic interest or common utility works.
In Belgium, a 1993 constitutional revision granted Regions and Communities the right to develop international co-operation, including the celebration of treaties, in matters of their exclusive competence (article 167 (3)).
These treaties are known as traités mixtes, and is the object of a co-operation agreement between the federal state, the Communities and the Regions (8 March 1994), which provides for a complex mechanism of shared responsibilities.
The 1995 Dayton Agreement, which ended the Bosnian War, formally acknowledged the high degree of subsidiarily decentralised powers for two composite entities, including the right to establish special parallel relations with neighboring countries consistent with sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
While not provided in the Dayton Agreement, since 2009 Republika Srpska has opened a number of representative offices in Moscow, Stuttgart, Jerusalem, Thessaloniki, Washington D.C., Brussels and Vienna.
The total amount spent on diplomacy by the ten Canadian provinces is equal to that of the fifty American states, despite the fact Canada's population is one-ninth the size and the economy is only one-fourteenth as large.
Ontario formerly had representation in Boston, Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas; it continues to promote the province's industries from delegations in New York City and Los Angeles.
However, the cantons shall be considered, having a say in the preparation of decisions of foreign policy concerning their competencies or their essential interests, whenever they are affected, and participate in international negotiations as appropriate, as stated in Article 55.
[58] Having established that the power to make treaties and conduct external affairs belong to the president and the Congress, the first federal constitution sets an array of prohibitions to the States in Section 10 of Article I.