Diplomacy of Constituent Units: Québec and Wallonia in Comparison
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Masaryk University Faculty of Social Studies Department of International Relations and European Studies Diplomacy of Constituent Units: Québec and Wallonia in Comparison Bachelor Thesis Petra Vychodilová Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Vít Hloušek, Ph.D. UCO: 273675 Field of Study: International Relations and European Studies Year of Enrollment: 2007 Brno, 2011 I hereby declare that this thesis is entirely my work and has not been taken from the work of others unless such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. Date: November 30th, 2011 Signature: 2 Acknowledgement First and foremost, I would like to express profound gratitude to my thesis supervisor, doc. PhDr. Vít Hloušek, Ph.D., who accepted me as his Bachelor student without any hesitation. Thereafter, he offered me a lot of advice, guiding me in the right direction throughout the whole research work. His professionalism and invaluable experience enabled me to complete my work successfully. 3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 6 2. Theoretical Section ......................................................................................................... 10 2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 10 2.2. Paradiplomacy Revisited ....................................................................................... 10 2.2.1. Development of Paradiplomacy .............................................................................. 10 2.2.2. Definition of Paradiplomacy ................................................................................... 11 2.2.3. Factors Conditioning Paradiplomacy ..................................................................... 12 2.2.4. Typology of Paradiplomacy ..................................................................................... 13 2.4. Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 15 3. Methodological Section ................................................................................................. 17 3.1. Research Method .................................................................................................... 17 3.2. Case Selection .......................................................................................................... 17 3.3. Sources ...................................................................................................................... 18 4. Analytical Section ........................................................................................................... 19 4.1. Historical Context ................................................................................................... 19 4.1.1. Québec as an International Actor ........................................................................... 19 4.1.2. Wallonia as an International Actor ........................................................................ 20 4.2. Constitutional Setting............................................................................................. 21 4.2.1. Treaty-making and Treaty-implementing Powers ................................................. 21 4.2.2. Establishment of Representation Abroad ................................................................ 24 4.3. Intergovernmental Relations ................................................................................. 25 4.3.1. Nature of Intergovernmental Relations .................................................................. 25 4 4.3.2. Formalization (institutionalization) of intergovernmental relations ..................... 27 4.4. Paradiplomatic Activities in Action ..................................................................... 29 4.4.1. Ministries of International Relations ..................................................................... 29 4.4.2. Formal Treaties and Agreements ............................................................................ 30 4.4.2. Representation Abroad............................................................................................ 31 4.4.3. Participation in Multilateral Organizations .......................................................... 32 4.4.4. Budget ..................................................................................................................... 34 5. Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 35 5.1. Constitutional Setting............................................................................................. 35 5.2. Intergovernmental Relations ................................................................................. 35 5.3. Paradiplomatic Activities in Action ..................................................................... 36 5.4. Hypothesis ............................................................................................................... 36 5.5. Future Research....................................................................................................... 37 6. Bibliography .................................................................................................................... 38 6.1. Primary Sources ...................................................................................................... 38 6.2. Secondary Literature .............................................................................................. 41 5 1. Introduction National states are no longer the only actors on the international stage, let alone the only actors conducting foreign policy and creating diplomatic connections. Constituent units1, including both the constituent governments2 (e.g. cantons, Länder, provinces, regions, and states) and local governments (e.g. municipalities) of federal countries and decentralized unitary systems, have become new subjects of international relations, pursuing their own specific foreign policies independent of their central state (Wolff, 2007, p. 141 – 142). The trend of non-central governments developing their own foreign policy capacity, accompanied by emerging spectrum of diplomatic instruments and strategies, has been referred to as "paradiplomacy". Although paradiplomacy is not a new phenomenon, recent years have witnessed a rapid growth in both the number of constituent units engaging in international activities and the scope of those activities (Lecours & Moreno, 2006, p. 2 – 3; Duchacek, 1984, p. 5). Constituent units have become new subjects of international relations. Their considerable efforts to develop international action have generally been most visible in Western industrialized liberal democracies. However, constituent governments in many developing countries have already got involved in some form of paradiplomacy as well (Lécours, 2008, p. 1; Griffiths, 2005). The phenomenon of paradiplomacy has been in the center of interest from a variety of disciplinary perspectives (Hocking, 1999, p. 17). Most frequently, however, the process of constituent units conducting their own foreign policy has been a subject of study for comparative politics and international relations scholars 1 The term "constituent unit" is used in this thesis instead of another commonly used term "subnational unit" as subnational might imply that cantons, Länder, provinces, regions and the like are below or inferior to national states and, thus, also inferior in the field of international relations (Kincaid, 2001, p. 1). 2 The term "constituent governments" is used interchangeably with the term "non-central governments". 6 (Lecours, 2002a, p. 2). The first significant attempt of comparativists to understand and explain regional competences in foreign relations have been carried out in a multi-authored book edited by Ivo Duchacek, Daniel Latouche and Garth Stevenson in 1988. Via case studies and comparative analysis of Belgium, Canada, France, Switzerland, and the United States, an international group of scholars looked at how and why constituent units increasingly seek access to foreign resources of wealth and technological information (Criekemans, 2010a, p. 2). Two years later, Hans J. Michelmann and Panayotis Soldatos edited a volume on paradiplomacy, which for the first time offered a typology of actors in international relations and provided an explanatory framework for the study of constituent units as foreign-policy actors. That work significantly contributed to the first wave of theorizing about paradiplomacy (Hooghe, 1996, p. 202). The third major multi-authored volume on paradiplomacy was brought together in 1999 by Francisco Aldecoa and Michael Keating who attempted to systemize the opportunity structures of constituent units and provide a more general overview of the most prominent paradiplomatic actions of constituent governments around the world (Aldecoa Keating, 1999, p. vii-x). Academic literature on paradiplomacy did not restrict itself to the boundaries of English language. In 2001, Stéphane Paquin edited a multi-authored volume in French, trying to develop a more comparable approach and explanatory framework of paradiplomacy. Followed by another multi-authored work in French language edited by Massart-Piérard in 2005, scholars from various disciplines asked more explicitly than ever before what the increasing distribution and intensity of constituent governments´