Western democratic states should coordinate their foreign policy with domestic local governments. While cities grow in population, clout, and influence on the global stage, they remain an underused asset for foreign diplomacy. They already hold a mounting role in numerous global challenges defined by the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 agenda, such as international trade and migration, climate change, and urban development. Local diplomacy - understood as multilateral or bilateral cross-border relations involving subnational governments - is already at play. But local diplomatic efforts could undermine national and local security if at odds with national interests. Grassroots forums and initiatives for better coordination are hence critical.  

Local diplomacy as an integral component of a comprehensive foreign policy

Last summer, a handful of underlooked global announcements across the western world demonstrated a long-awaited announcement to cities’ diplomatic action. On August 19, 2022, eight mayors from the Eurocities network (Florence, Helsinki, Lyon, Marseille, Oslo, Riga, and Tirana) sent senior delegations to the city of Kyiv to assure their Ukrainian counterparts of their full support in the war aftermath. An agreement was signed grounded on three pillars: sustainable urban development, accountability and financial transparency, and local democracy. As a feature of the EU’s Rebuild Ukraine Initiative, published by the EU Commission in May 2022, the agreement paves the way for Ukraine's path toward the Copenhagen standards. This agreement is an example of cities' cross-border relations aligning with national-level foreign policy objectives. It echoed two unprecedented initiatives by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier this summer: the Cities Summit of the Americas and Cities Forward Initiatives. As forums for city stakeholders in the Americas, these initiatives aim to foster cross-border networks and advance western interests in the U.S. traditional sphere of influence. Such events demonstrate the importance of regional and local actors on the global stage.

But what competitive features do cities and regions hold to perform worldwide? What characteristics do local actions have which allow them to complement national-scale efforts?

Firstly, cities, regions, and provinces, blend, in their very nature, multicultural communities. They serve as global hubs for international migration and trade, and thus now have the economic and political clout to affect international affairs in many state-centered areas of expertise. Local regulations impact not only local stakeholders but spill over their jurisdiction. For example, immigration regulation is a policy area conventionally devoted to the national government. Still, the idea of cities granting migrants political and civic rights, known as “local citizenship,” has made its way and, hence, blurred the lines of diasporas’ political identity. In a time of global and universal connectivity, many domestic political issues reverberate in international cities across the globe where local communities maintained deep multicultural ties. In response, illiberal states have recently expanded their repressive policies overseas, challenging the conventional conception of state sovereignty and cities are exposed to hostile foreign influence.

Secondly, local communities are on the forefront to bear the brunt of global shifts, prompting local executives to step up for their constituents. Local political leaders have then initiated numerous autonomously-decided actions in many state-centered areas of power. Climate change, for example, has been at the heart of the C40 World Mayor Summit Initiative launched as early as 2005. On democracy and the rule of law, the “Little Visegrad Group” formed by the four mayors of Budapest, Prague, Warsaw, and Bratislava in 2019 sidestepped their national government by advocating pro-EU policy. In international trade, regional actors have, for a long time, been critical actors in supporting local and cross-border trade agreements and welcoming direct foreign investment. Governor B. Walker welcoming of Xi Jinping in Anchorage, Alaska, in 2017 was a bold attempt to advance Alaska’s economic opportunities and develop his State’s LNG infrastructure.

The governance of such local cross-border initiatives should not be left adrift by central governments; it could otherwise both jeopardise national security and leave room to local officials to weaponize international affairs to advance their own domestic political agenda.

In this regard, the Chinese thorough understanding of the stakes of regional diplomacy in foreign relations has been a telling example.

On the importance of aligning local and global foreign policy

Even though subnational governments play a rising role in addressing some of the most urgent global uncertainties, the lack of coordination with central governments hinders the scope of their foreign effort. The absence of a formal discussion channel across the multilayers of European governance diminishes the EU’s ability to advance its interest overseas. In this regard, inter-regional connectivity has been at the heart of China’s Belt and Road Initiatives, launched in 2013. Both on the Asian and African continents, many cultural and economic partnerships have been tied with local actors.

China's city-twinning policy offers a prominent case of regional diplomacy at play. Since the 2000s, the Chinese government has increased by 115% the number of its city partnerships. Though, the formal and informal contents of those arrangements vary widely – from education, economics, sports, or culture - it has interestingly raised concerns both in the U.S. and abroad. As Assaf Orion, a former Israeli defence strategist and visiting fellow at the Washington Institute, puts it: “Due to the different structures and modus operandi of the government in […] China, and in view of the differences in power and the gaps in knowledge between elements on each side, city relationships sometimes spill over into foreign and security policy, which […] are under the authority of the national government. Both national and local governments […] need to improve their policy mechanisms and reduce the gaps in skills, knowledge, and awareness of this subject”.

On the African continent, Chinese sub-national provinces have been at the head of the PRC's commitments to African countries since the early 2000s. They formed ties in a wide range of policy arenas, from economic development, agricultural trade, international aid, infrastructure building, health, and sciences. For example, under the 2018 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation agenda, the Hunan province, a notably agricultural region, has been at the forefront of implementing China's green lanes initiatives with Africa by sharing food technology expertise and hosting the China-Africa Economic Trade Expo, an essential gathering between African and Chinese stakeholders in the food industry.

Policy Implications

• The European Union and its member states should consider designing a coherent and multilayered foreign policy that creates space for local governments through the national-level and the EU level and provides local executives with strategic guidance to conduct their international efforts.

• Creating a Bureau for Regional Diplomacy under the authority of both the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and the European Committee of the Region. It would formalise a new channel of discussion between executives at every level of cross-border actions.

• Support and develop the expertise and awareness around regional and local diplomacy, especially among local European executives. Public Affairs schools across Europe could develop diplomatic training programs for local executives.

Conclusion

The crisis in which multilateralism has been entangled since the beginning of the 2000s is due to the ineptitude to overcome the state-centered order that emerged after World War II. For many European political leaders, it is unthinkable to acknowledge a foreign policy role for local governments as the international order, based on the Westphalian tradition only recognizes nation-states as the subject of international law. In a salient book published in 1993, B. Hocking introduced the argument of developing a “multi-layered diplomacy” to address some of the most pressing international disputes. Although his statement was mainly aimed at federally organised nations, his argument for acknowledging a foreign role to local actors became increasingly acute as traditional international forums (G7, G20, WTO, UN, etc.) stalled in addressing global challenges.

While ad-hoc regional cooperation is widely regarded as a key feature of the new world order, multilateral cooperation between local governments would be an alternate route to detour paralyzed global forums and localize more efficiently the implementation of the SDGs. But the design of global actions from local governments heavily depends on each country’s government structure. The capacity and leeway for cities and regions to commit on the international stage is significantly contingent on the power granted by one country’s constitutional framework. Therefore, formal discussions between the different levels of governance are required to determine appropriate means for local executives to act accordingly with the nationally-designed foreign policy.

 Les propos tenus dans cet article n'engage pas la responsabilité de l'Institut Open Diplomacy mais uniquement celle de leurs auteurs.