Regional Diplomacy Research Articles

Regional diplomacy: a piece in the neo-medieval puzzle?

Until recently, diplomacy has been regarded as the exclusive domain of the State. Recent evolutions in diplomatic theory and practice however repudiate this State-centric exclusivity. Looking back at past diplomatic practices might shed new light on contemporary diplomacy. The neo-medieval paradigm claims that we are entering a new global setting which in certain aspects resembles that of the Middle Ages. When we see beyond the State-centric concept of diplomacy, a number of tendencies in today’s diplomacy come to the fore showing a striking resemblance with medieval diplomacy, and regional diplomacy plays a paramount role in this process.

Collective health and regional integration in Latin America: An opportunity for building a new international health agenda

ABSTRACTFrom its origins, the Latin American Social Medicine and the Collective Health (LASM/CH) movements have focused on thinking about health from and for the region. After the implementation of neoliberal policies, social improvements and the geopolitical strengthening of the region became the roots of new regional integration projects in South America. The objective of this article is twofold. First, we explore the legacy of long-standing efforts in the region that address the social and political dimensions of health, associated with the LASM/CH movements and their influence on the contemporary regional health agenda. Second, we analyze the UNASUR Health policy, its role in the construction of a regional health agenda, and the principles of South-South cooperation it supports. In order to accomplish this, a qualitative analysis was conducted, involving primary and secondary data. Through UNASUR, a new framework of regional health integration and regional health diplomacy emerged in South America and a ‘window of opportunity’ opened for the ideas of Social Medicine and Collective Health to occupy a dominant place on the regional health agenda. It is possible to observe a confluence between the principles and values of these movements and those of the main constituent bases of UNASUR Health.

“A Picture of Peace”

AbstractDuring the interwar period, internationalists declared Hawai‘i the “new Geneva” of the Pacific: a locus for regional diplomacy, social reform, and cross-cultural exchange. This article examines the Pan-Pacific Women’s Association (PPWA) as part of the emerging Honolulu-based Pan-Pacific internationalist movement. The PPWA enacted social reform grounded in ideals of antiracism, affective connection, and cross-cultural exchange. The article recuperates “friendship” in two ways: first, as a fundamental tenet of Pacific interwar internationalist praxis, and second, as an analytic attuned to internationalism’s entanglements with empire, race, gender, and sexuality. Despite the PPWA’s progressive antiracist liberal cosmopolitanism, the ideology and practice of international and interracial friendship often consolidated, rather than dismantled, hierarchies of race, nationality, class, gender, and sexuality.

Peran diplomasi sebagai cara meningkatkan Pengakuan internasional terhadap posisi suatu Negara dalam mengimplementasikan kebijakan politik luar negeri (Studi kasus di Indonesia)

Economic benefits are increasingly seen as important in the relations of two States. Economic diplomacy is understood here as a factor supporting the increasing bilateral trade and investment between the two countries. The law has evolved to support the activities of countries to achieve their national goals. This paper does not use descriptive techniques to illustrate the superiority of diplomatic programs and the performance of foreign ministries in carrying out diplomatic programs. Economic diplomacy as an instrument has been used by Indonesia to improve its export performance to partner countries this is because Indonesia is increasingly dependent on the international market, not only the average ratio of exports to GDP is increasing, but also the average import ratio that shows increase. Diplomacy is also useful to boost cooperation opportunities in order to open markets for food and agricultural products. Indonesia's diplomatic performance has shown strengthening, both in bilateral, regional and multilateral terms. The subsequent multilateral and regional diplomacy efforts to be undertaken by Indonesia should continue to be strengthened by strong bilateral diplomacy.Keywords:Economic diplomacy, multilateral diplomacy, foreign policy

Chile\u2019s role in global health diplomacy: a narrative literature review

BackgroundGlobal health diplomacy (GHD) has become an important field of investigation due to health concerns increasingly entering the foreign policy domain. Much of the existing academic writing focuses on North-South cooperation in global health, and emphasizes the role of security and economic interests by Northern countries as drivers of GHD. Chile presents a favourable environment for an expanded involvement in future GHD activities. However, there is little knowledge about what has been driving Chile’s integration of health into foreign policy, and little effort to appropriate knowledge from international relations theories to better theoretically grasp the emergence of GHD.MethodsTo fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a narrative literature review of the driving forces behind Chile’s integration of health into foreign policy. Drawing on a popular analytical framework used in international relations scholarship, we identified driving forces of the integration of health into Chile foreign policy at three levels of analysis.ResultsAt the international/global level of analysis, the main driving forces were related to national security concerns and compliance with regulations of international organizations. At the regional level, GHD was driven by a commitment to regional solidarity through mutually beneficial cooperation in response to neoliberal reforms; health coordination in emergencies; and protection of indigenous peoples. Finally, at the domestic level, drivers identified include economic interests of various productive sectors and how health regulations might impact those; the high degree of social inequity which impacts on access to healthcare; and management of natural disasters.ConclusionHealth actions in the context of international relations in Chile are still mainly motivated by more traditional foreign policy interests rather than by a desire to satisfy health needs per se. This seems to conform with findings of existing GHD scholarship that emphasize the importance of security and economic interests as driving forces of GHD, and how health is often appropriated instrumentally within foreign policy settings to achieve other goals. But the review also reveals that in the context of South-South cooperation (and regional health diplomacy), solidarity and normative considerations can be important driving forces as well. Finally, the review demonstrates that there has been an evolution from chiefly domestically focused health policies (e.g. maternal and child nutrition treatment) towards internationally inspired integrated policies (e.g. maternal and child nutrition promotion aligned with international guidelines).

City Diplomacy

Diplomacy is one of the oldest mechanisms of managing the international environment. It is traditionally associated with operation of the state. However, in contemporary times the parameters of the international environment have changed considerably. States are no longer the only entities participating in international relations. Along with states, sub-state actors (regions and cities) have emerged, as well as supra-state (the EU) and non-state entities. Sub-state actors go through the process of repositioning in the contemporary international order: from being an object of management to building their own subject status in this respect. In order to achieve this goal, they increasingly use mechanisms and instruments which were the sole domain of the state until recently. Despite substantial attention paid to regional diplomacy, academic discussion has focused less on the increasing role of cities in diplomacy. The paper aims to introduce the concept of city diplomacy. It will be argued that cities have become important actors on the world stage, that they have developed diplomatic apparatus, and that city diplomacy is becoming more and more professional diplomatic activity.

China's dual strategy of coercion and inducement towards ASEAN

ABSTRACTThis article contributes to the discussion about China's divisive influence on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It argues that recent China–ASEAN relations are based on Beijing's successful implementation of a dual strategy of coercion and inducement. The effectiveness of this strategy is tested against the South China Sea disputes – the issue that lies in the core of regional security and a key platform of power display. The article outlines Beijing's recent interaction with individual ASEAN member-states and its implications for the regional multilateral diplomacy. While by no means identical, Beijing's dual strategy of coercion and inducement with individual ASEAN states have resulted in an effective abuse of the ASEAN consensus principle – a tactic often referred to as ‘divide and rule’. Consequently, the group's internal discord has further eroded and affected the institutional confidence of ASEAN. This article draws attention to the psychological effect of coercion as a perception of punishment, and inducement as a perception of reward.

Paradiplomacy and political geography: The geopolitics of substate regional diplomacy

AbstractPolitical geographers have increasingly engaged with “alternative” diplomatic practices, actors, cultures, and sites which transcend traditional state‐centric modalities. Despite this growing interest, the term paradiplomacy, referring to the international activities of substate regions, has not featured heavily in the geographical literature. This paper brings debates surrounding the nature and practices of paradiplomacy into conversation with recent political geography scholarship on diplomacy and, in particular, geopolitics. It begins by introducing the increasingly plural understandings of diplomacy that have challenged dominant state‐centric discourse and foregrounded the inherent spatiality of diplomatic practices. This is followed by an examination of the dynamic evolution of the term “paradiplomacy.” The paper goes on to suggest how theoretical and methodological insights from political geography could be productively interwoven with the study of paradiplomacy. The final section exemplifies this through an exploration of the geopolitics of substate diplomacy. It is argued that by building on methodological insights from critical readings of geopolitics, it is possible to offer a multi‐scalar analysis of paradiplomacy which contributes to an ongoing project of political geography—to unsettle and challenge ingrained imaginaries which underpin our understandings of the region, the state, and the international political system.

Cultural capital schemes in Asia: mirroring Europe or carving out their own concepts?

Despite bearing similar names and sharing certain aims, the implementation of the cultural city/capital initiative in Europe and in the subregions of Southeast and Northeast Asia has been substantially dissimilar. In Europe, the annual European Capital of Culture (ECoC) status commonly constitutes an opportunity to showcase the best of the arts and culture of the host city, and counts on the support of sizable public funding. In Southeast Asia, the initiative scarcely receives any public or regional funds and the understanding of what the designation means varies widely from country to country. In Northeast Asia, regional diplomacy is one of the main motivations for initiating the scheme. This paper seeks to examine the cultural capital patterns chosen in these Asian subregions in comparison with their European counterpart, as well as their motivations and reasons to exist. Ultimately, the paper investigates how much ASEAN and Northeast Asia are simply trying to replicate the European model, carve their own concepts, or create hybrid schemes.

South Korea’s mismatched diplomacy in Asia: middle power identity, interests, and foreign policy

Middle power identity and interests claimed by South Korean leaders predict a foreign policy of multilateralism, institution building, and contributions to global public goods. South Korea is indeed active in global governance, but its regional diplomacy for much of the Park Geun-hye administration defied middle power expectations. In recent years, Seoul appeared to apply a strategy of isolating and pressuring Tokyo, while behaving like a smaller power showing deference to Beijing. Existing literature offers several explanations for failures to implement middle power diplomacy: historical memory impediments (e.g., Japan), budgetary constraints (e.g., Canada and Australia), stalled regionalization (Brazil and Turkey), and inadequate economic development (India and Indonesia). Finding these explanations insufficient for the South Korean case, this article shows how anti-Japan identity and Korean unification interests at times overwhelmed South Korean middle power identity and interests, respectively. The article offers implications for the growing category of states considered middle powers and concludes with policy recommendations for how Seoul can adjust its mismatched diplomacy to serve as a constructive middle power in Asia.

Moving towards South-South International Health: debts and challenges in the regional health agenda.

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it aims to investigate the increased interest in health as an important dimension of the foreign policy and diplomatic concerns together with the emergence of a new framework for regional health integration and regional health diplomacy. Second, it seeks to understand the role and practices of new regional blocs in the field of health and whether they are conducting to the emergence of new strategies for addressing health regional policies in South America. The regional policy process relates to health as a right. Thus, some practices and processes in social policy are setting new standards for political and social cohesion in the construction of new regionalism. Health crosses national, regional, and global agendas in a multi-directional fashion, rather than via one-way, top-down policy transfer. A special feature of Unasur is upholding regional health sovereignty despite the unique fact that member countries retain national autonomy. Unasur has projected foreign policy that promotes social values in ways that seem innovative. Experience as Unasur shows that regional organisms can become a game changer in global diplomacy and an influential actor in the international agenda. Resumen El objetivo de este artículo es doble. En primer lugar,investigar el creciente interés en la salud como una dimensión importante de la política exterior, en sintonía con el surgimiento de un nuevo marcopara la integración regional y la diplomacia en salud. En segundo lugar, comprender el papel y las prácticas de los nuevos bloques regionales en el campo de la salud y si estasconducena la emergencia de nuevas estrategias para abordar las políticas sanitarias regionales en América del Sur. Los nuevos procesos de integración regional se refieren a la salud como un derecho. Así, algunas prácticas y procesos de la política regional están estableciendo nuevos patrones de cohesión política y social en el avancede un nuevo regionalismo. La salud en este proceso de formulación e implementación de la política regional,atraviesa las agendas nacionales, regionales y globales de forma multidireccional. Un valor agregado de Unasur es su propuesta de avanzar es pos de una mayor soberanía regional en salud, a pesar del hecho de que los países miembros mantienen su autonomía nacional. En este sentido, Unasur ha proyectado una política exterior que promueve principios y valores a partir de un enfoque innovador. El caso de Unasur muestra que los organismos regionales tienen el potencial para cambiar las reglas (y el resultado) del juego en la diplomacia global y convertirse en actores influyentes en la agenda internacional.

The Changing Paradigm of Pacific Regional Politics

Analyses of recent developments in Pacific regional politics have emphasized the role of ideas and new thinking about how the Pacific should engage in global and regional diplomacy (the so-called ‘paradigm shift’). These ideas include the call for regional self-determination, the claim that Pacific island states need to engage more assertively in global diplomacy, the call for a ‘genuine Pacific voice’ to be heard in global forums, recognition that a ‘one region approach’ need not be the best approach, the reconfiguring of diplomatic alliances to leverage Pacific island positions better in global forums, and embracing non-state actors as equal partners. The importance of this paradigm shift is that it challenges many prevailing stereotypes and assumptions about Pacific islands diplomacy. It recognizes and facilitates choices and alternatives. It emphasizes the imperative of being proactive and of taking responsibility for the challenges facing the Pacific islands; and being creative in finding solutions. This is a fundamentally empowering transformation. But in order to understand where this might lead, it is necessary to explore where this transformation has so far played out. Case studies at the national, regional and global levels give insights into the impact and potential of the new Pacific diplomacy.

Evolving Diplomacy of Regional Organizations - Some Experiences in Balkans

The regional organizations are becoming more and more the necessity of modern times. On vertically approaches the regional diplomacy and organizations are between international and national level of governmental institutions worldwide. Being in between global national levels the regional organizations are very interesting players to bring both above mentioned actors closer to each- other and to harmonize some time their contradictory approaches and interests. On horizontal approaches the regional organizations are located and operate in the common valuable areas with more or less the same or similar situations, in the common political landscape, in the same geography, geo-strategy, culture and markets. Therefore, they share the achievements and challenges together. That is why the increasing role of multilateral diplomacy through evolving regional organizations is very important facilitating mechanism to shift from old fashion bilateral oriented diplomacy toward globalization trends.

A new state’s debut in regional diplomacy: Namibia and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC)

ABSTRACTThe Republic of Namibia has been one of the last states in southern Africa to gain independence. As a newly independent state, Namibia formulated a regional foreign policy-based on historical support and relations. One arena where Namibia made its diplomatic debut was in a multilateral context through its engagement with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and its predecessor, the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC). Building on the parallels in Namibia and SADC’s relations, Namibia has transformed itself into a leading country in the region through various diplomatic practices typically used by new states. As s a newly independent or new state, the case of Namibia’s regional diplomacy in respect of SADC offers some insights into new state diplomacy. Firstly, Namibia’s regional diplomacy reflects some continuity in the liberation movements’ relations with regional actors. In the second instance, regional diplomacy offers new states a relatively safe environment to develop its diplomatic confidence. Thirdly, Namibia’s regional diplomacy reiterates the importance of diplomatic skill, technical expertise and bureaucratic experience, which, in the fourth instance, can be translated into credible organizational and diplomatic innovation in the region.

Hardening the Hard, Softening the Soft: Assertiveness and China’s Regional Strategy

ABSTRACTThere is a growing view that the emerging brand of Chinese regional diplomacy in recent years is increasingly assertive. This article attempts to make better sense of this perceived more forceful Chinese diplomacy. It argues that Chinese regional behavior is more profitably understood through the lens of a two-pronged foreign policy strategy that combines two particular aspects. One is a tougher and more uncompromising approach toward issues that China regards as concerning its core interests. The other is a more flexible and cooperative position toward interests that, while significant, are of secondary importance.

Multilateralism in East Asia: Less than the Sum of Its Parts?

The East Asian region is famous for many things, among the more surprising of which is the relatively ineffective nature of its multilateral institutions. Although many scholars claim that organizations such as Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) have been effective parts of regional diplomacy, this article suggests that the so-called ASEAN Way has provided a template for regional under achievement and ineffectiveness. As a consequence, and despite a recent flurry of regional initiatives, none of them has been anything like as significant or effective as the European Union was at the height of its powers. This is the unsurprising consequence of institutional design and the politics of the lowest common denominator. The rise of China is unlikely to change this. On contrary, not only has ASEAN solidarity fractured in the face of an increasingly assertive China, but China’s own instrumental attitude to institutional development means that under-performance is likely to remain the regional norm as an array of ineffective institutions compete for authority and relevance.

Economic statecraft in South Africa's regional diplomacy

This paper considers the extent to which South Africa utilises positive economic statecraft to promote human rights in the region – that is, the degree to which it mobilises its economic engagement to affect a desirable political outcome in its foreign engagements in Southern Africa. The country's reaction to crises in Zimbabwe and Swaziland over the past 20 years is a strong indicator of the limits of South Africa's statecraft in this regard. These engagements highlight the inevitable clash between the country's principled preference for ‘non-interference’ in the affairs of sovereign states and its constitutional mandate to respect and promote human rights. Despite eschewing the role of ‘regional hegemon’, there is an expectation that South Africa will play an integral role in securing regional stability. Yet there is little evidence to suggest that the country chooses to approach resolving regional challenges with a co-ordinated political and economic approach. This paper argues that, to be more effective in spreading a progressive regional agenda that encourages democracy, governance and human rights, South Africa needs to incorporate a stronger element of positive economic statecraft in its foreign policy implementation.

Prospects and Challenges of Intraregional Trade and Investment among India and BIMSTEC

The globalisation wave gave rise to a number of regional arrangements. The thought of economic regionalism expanded the prominence in international trade as well as regional diplomacy. In present world, no nations survive into economic isolation. So, Trade liberalisation alone is notadequate condition for nations to turn either single or multiple “Regional Integration Arrangements” (RIA). Within such arrangements. Desire is to assist neighbouring states for mutually beneficial purposes, as well as to take anticipatory action against the spill over of unrest and mass economic migration. The fascinating logic of regional groupings in Asia, coupled with the obvious failure of SAARC and the near incapacitating East Asian crisis of 1997, jointly contributed to the creation of BIMSTEC. The BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) grouping, brainchild of Thailand, is a unique initiative in sub regional economic cooperation. It has the distinction of combining five geographically contiguous countries of SAARC with two of ASEAN, thus creating a vast scope for regional development. BIMSTEC is a relatively young organization among the various regional and sub-regional grouping in Asia. This paper investigate growth of Intra-regional trade and investment among India and BIMSTEC nations and their prospects and challenges. Time series data has been used to calculate intra-regional trade with Intra Industry Trade (IIT) index and econometric model i.e. ARIMA (Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average) has been used for analysing prospects of trade and investment. The group demonstrate that there is momentous progress to expand the intra-bloc trade and investment with preferential liberalisation within the regional arrangement.

Unscrambling of the British Empire: India and Pakistan as ‘unequal’ members of the Commonwealth

ABSTRACTThis article seeks to address the phenomenon of the British Commonwealth diplomacy at a historical juncture of adjustment to the emergent postcolonial reality of India and Pakistan. It focuses on the issue of London’s diplomatic correspondence on sharing the confidential information with the old and new dominions. It seeks to explore the nature of the diplomatic dilemma of His Majesty’s Government with reference to the ‘alien’ culture, religion and race of the two South Asian countries on the one hand and the need to keep the Commonwealth as a major instrument of projecting and protecting the British influence on the world stage on the other. The article analyses this duality of purpose in the context of the competing views of London about the nature and quantum of information to be shared with its counterparts in Delhi and Karachi. This debate is couched in the framework of wider currents of global and regional diplomacy characterized by the superpower rivalry and Indo-Pakistan conflict, respectively, that underscored London’s reservations about treating the old and new dominions on an equal footing. This article grasps the moment of a global change in power and prestige as the Commonwealth increasingly lost its significance due to the quest of the newly independent countries to operate through their respective regional frameworks as well as emergence of the United Nations as a viable and powerful international organization. This moment defines the two parallel developments of London’s unwillingness to trust the two South Asian countries with full diplomatic communication and the latter’s gradual drift away from the Commonwealth’s core principles of policy.

Free Elections and Political Instability in Lesotho

Since 1993, Lesotho has had six free elections. Five have been followed by episodes of coercive regional diplomacy or military intervention to maintain order or sustain the elected government. Two of these interventions have occurred as Lesotho's electoral system was being transformed from a first-past-the-post dominant party system to a mixed member proportional pattern, and a third intervention is presently underway. This essay contends that the effort to remedy the prior lack of inclusiveness in Parliament has accentuated the fissiparous proclivities within Lesotho's political culture. Following the 2012 and 2015 elections, greater fragmentation among political parties led to hung parliaments and coalition governments with minimal parliamentary majorities. This essay questions whether Staffan Lindberg's conceptual model regarding the link between the consolidation of democracy and the experience of successive free and fair elections can adequately explain Lesotho's trajectory. Remarkably, the transfers of power by Pakalitha Mosisili to Motsoahae Thomas Thabane in 2012, and by Thabane back to Mosisili in 2015, were the first such exchanges between an incumbent government and an opposition party in southern Africa during the post-liberation era. Whether this positive development might be translated into more effective governance and regard for democratic norms will be explored.