chapter 2 Conceptualizations of Paradiplomacy
Before elucidating upon the analytical framework, this book will delve deeper into the concept (and indeed even the term) of paradiplomacy. The word para- diplomacy is but one of the various denominations to describe the diplomatic and foreign policy activities of political agents on a governance level below that of the state. Other denominations might include “substate diplomacy,” “subnational diplomacy,” or “regional diplomacy,” etc. This chapter offers a double-edged conceptualization of paradiplomacy in the Mediterranean region. This is deemed necessary because of the semantic confusion that exists in the literature about what paradiplomacy is. First, a genealogical survey or archaeological excavation of historical traces of paradiplomacy is presented to elucidate the term or concept of paradiplomacy. Second, this chapter offers analysis of current paradiplomacy in light of this terminological disarray, but also within the larger deterritorialization– reterritorialization dynamic. The chapter will first offer a diachronic explora- tion of parallel diplomacy, before then presenting a synchronic portrait of contemporary paradiplomacy.
2.1 An Archaeology of Paradiplomacy64
This first conceptual section presents a diachronic exploration of the historic antecedents of current Mediterranean paradiplomacy in order to elucidate the sometimes semantic and conceptual confusions that arise when using the terms paradiplomacy, constitutional diplomacy, or substate diplomacy. Paradiplomacy, the term most commonly used in the literature on the subject, generates the most conceptual indistinctness. An archaeological approach in the tradition of Michel Foucault will clarify both the historical practice of sub- and nonstate diplomacy in the Mediterranean region and the ways in which this is conceived and conceptualized.
64 This part of the chapter is published as “An Archaeology of Mediterranean Diplomacy: The Evidence of Paradiplomacy,” In: International Journal of Euro-Mediterranean Studies, April 2013.
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2.1.1 The Term “Paradiplomacy” When considering paradiplomacy, one thing stands out. Practically all of the literature on the subject defines paradiplomacy as the external activities of substate, non-central governmental or regional entities.65 For one reason or another, diplomatic and external activities are considered as synonymous here. Still, “Diplomacy” and the scholarly field of “Diplomatic Studies” are demar- cated from “Foreign Policy” and “Foreign Policy Analysis,” albeit not always that clearly.66 Is this merely a semantic confusion, a disarray of terminology, or is there more to it? Is there a reason to differentiate between diplomacy and for- eign policy when talking about states, while making this boundary permeable for regions (or substates, or subnational entities, or federal entities)? Is there a reason for this discursive practice of bordering/debordering, for this specific presentation of paradiplomacy, and can this reason be discovered? Can this permeability between diplomacy and foreign policy subsequently be repre- sented as an empirical or theoretical given? Our knowledge of paradiplomacy is being formed via these discourses, this body of literature, both academic and policy-oriented. In order to unveil this “doing things with words,” we must not only analyze the practice of paradiplomacy, but also the ways in which this practice is presented to us, and how it is conceptualized and theorized. To analyze simultaneously a social (or political) phenomenon such as (para) diplomacy and our knowledge of these phenomena, this book relies on archae- ology as a historical hermeneutical analysis and critique. Archaeology not only
65 For example, Duchacek, “Perforated Sovereignties”; Philippart, E. (1997). “Le comité des régions confronté à la ‘paradiplomatie’ des régions de l’Union Européenne.” In: J. Bourrinet et al. (ed.), Le comité des régions de l’Union Européenne. Paris: Economica: 147–182; Aldecoa, F. and M. Keating (eds) (1999). Paradiplomacy in Action: The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments. London: Frank Cass; Kaiser, R. (2003). “Paradiplomacy and Multilevel Governance in Europe and North America: Subnational Governments in International Arenas.” Participation 27(1): 17–19; Paquin, S. (2004). Paradiplomatie et rela- tions internationales: Théorie des strategies internationales des régions face à la mondiali- sation. Brussels: P.I.E.-Peter Lang; Wolff, S. (2007). “Paradiplomacy: Scope, Opportunities and Challenges.” Bologna Center Journal of International Affairs 10 (spring): 141–150; and Lecours, A. (2008). Political Issues of Paradiplomacy: Lessons from the Developed World. The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations “Clingendael.” 66 See Criekemans, “Exploring the Relationship between Geopolitics, Foreign Policy and Diplomacy.” Summarily, we might distinguish foreign relations and diplomacy as the mes- sage and the medium of international relations, in which diplomacy is primarily the framework in which international relations take place, whereas foreign policy deals with the content as well as the aims and objectives of a state or other actor’s relations with other states or international actors; see Melissen, Innovation in Diplomatic Practice: xvii.