Sub-national Diplomacy: A Wake-up Call to County Governments in Kenya

Traditionally, diplomacy has been a preserve of the state in which representatives of a given country manage international relations abroad. However, the growing influence of non-state actors in the international political space continues to galvanize a rethink among scholars of what constitutes diplomacy.

When President Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, the Governors of California, New York, and Washington issued a joint statement affirming that they were still in the fight against climate change. Governor Jerry Brown of California went ahead to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing to discuss matters climate change (Sloss, 2017).

Sub-national actors are under the authority of the national government and despite their good intentions, they are limited by constitutional provisions that prevent them from entering into treaties with foreign powers in addition to other challenges like finances and expertise required for the conduct of diplomacy. According to Cornago (2010), US states and Canadian provinces are somehow making use of their economic power and social legitimacy to influence federal positions on issues like global trade, security, human rights, and climate change. This nevertheless raises the question of whether there is a possibility of entering into international agreements that skirt around constitutional limitations but are just as effective. 

Depending on the state, that may not be straightforward although there is need to broaden our understanding of what diplomacy means. To quote Fiona McConnell, “…diplomats are increasingly having to diversify their knowledge and practices – to engage with foreign publics, to master social media and to step beyond traditional remits...” (McConnell, 2019). Thomas Jackson suggests that “it is possible to interrogate the role which substate regional diplomacy has in the production of the region itself as a political unit and how such practices interact with notions of national and local identity (Jackson, 2017). In Indonesia, the Jakarta government which is administratively under the control of the national government creatively made use of the digital space during the Corvid-19 outbreak to collaborate with foreign audiences including through virtual summits in what is also referred to as “paradiplomacy” (Luerdi, 2021). Paradiplomacy is defined as “sub-state governments’ involvement in international relations, through the establishment of formal and informal contacts, either permanent or ad hoc, with foreign public or private entities, with the aim to promote socio-economic, cultural or political issues, as well as any other foreign dimension of their own constitutional competences (Cornago, 2010).”

It has been argued that federal states such as Belgium, Canada, Australia, United States, and Russia have developed far more advanced paradiplomatic structures than other parts of the world (Jackson, 2017). Bavaria, which is the largest Germany state has separate institutions to handle international trade, international cultural or educational policies and tourism (Criekemans,2010). However, Cornago (2010) is of the opinion that sub-state diplomacy is neither restricted to federal countries nor to well established democracies as it is increasingly becoming present in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, and South Africa. In Mexico, the state of Chiapas signed an agreement with the European Union in 2004 which led to an award of 15 million euros in support of poverty alleviation programmes and conservation efforts (Schiavon, 2010). It is therefore safe to say that Kenya is now set to enter this domain with the birth of county governments, but paradiplomatic structures are still literally non-existent. This has not stopped previous and recently elected Governors to promise foreign trade deals to voters both before and after the elections.

The fourth schedule of the Kenyan constitution outlines foreign affairs, foreign policy, and international trade as functions of the national government. This is in addition to the use of international waters and water resources as well as immigration. However, from the above discussion on paradiplomacy, there is an emerging role in diplomacy for sub-national actors such as county governments which makes it necessary to come up with the required legislation and structures to normalize it even if under the guidance of the national government. Although the county governments have not handled well other devolved functions like healthcare, getting the right personnel and sufficient resources can help them navigate international issues such as global trade, foreign direct investment, cultural diplomacy, education, or climate change that eventually boost economic prospects of the nation at large.

Finally, collaboration with more advanced sub-state actors such as California, Quebec, Wallonia or Catalonia and multilateral organizations on specific policy issues can be part of the conversation and a good starting point for county governments since these established governments or organizations already have the resources and structures to implement certain initiatives where shared interest comes into play.

References

Criekemans, D. (2010). Regional Sub-State Diplomacy From A Comparative Perspective: Quebec, Scotland, Bavaria, Catalonia, Wallonia And Flanders. The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 5, 37-64.

David Sloss, California's Climate Diplomacy and Dormant Preemption, 56 Washburn L.J. 507 (2017).

Fiona McConnell, Rethinking the Geographies of Diplomacy, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom. 46-55(2019)

Jorge A. Schiavon, Sub-State Diplomacy in Mexico, Th e Hague Journal of Diplomacy 5 (2010) 65-97.

Luerdi, L. (2021) “PARADIPLOMACY OF INDONESIAN SUB-STATE ACTOR: DIGITAL DIPLOMACY OF JAKARTA GOVERNMENT IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19”, Berumpun: Journal of Social, Politics, and Humanities, 4(2), pp. 104-126. doi: 10.33019/berumpun.v4i2.59.

Noé Cornago (2010), On the Normalization of Sub-State Diplomacy. Th e Hague Journal of Diplomacy 5 (2010) 11-36

Thomas Jackson (2017), Paradiplomacy and political geography: The geopolitics of substate regional diplomacy. Department of Geography, University of Cambridge