Introduction: Mapping the Complex Parliamentary Field of the Mediterranean—How Many Actors?

Abstract

Following the end of the Cold War and the appearance of globalization and new forms of regionalization, new actors have emerged in world politics and changed the traditional practice of diplomacy. New forms of diplomacy range from economic diplomacy to paradiplomacy, cultural diplomacy, or even celebrity diplomacy. Parliamentary diplomacy has also developed its influence in this new world, and there is now a clear “parliamentarization” of world politics. This phenomenon resulted from democratization, globalization, regionalization, and technological developments. There are now three different perspectives on diplomacy: statist (the state speaks with one voice), globalist (the growth of nonstate diplomacy), and postglobalist (combining both state-centric and multicentric realities). This essay falls clearly within the last of these three possibilities. It focuses on the growth of parliamentary diplomacy in the Mediterranean Basin.