Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State: The International Relations of California [1st ed.] 9783030541316, 9783030541323

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xxiii
Front Matter ....Pages 1-1
Introduction (Alison R. Holmes)....Pages 3-20
Taking a Practice Approach to California (Alison R. Holmes)....Pages 21-35
California Today (Alison R. Holmes)....Pages 37-54
Front Matter ....Pages 55-55
Old Sovereignty (Alison R. Holmes)....Pages 57-75
Globalized Spaces and Places of Sovereignty (Alison R. Holmes)....Pages 77-93
Diplomacy and Paradiplomacy in California (Alison R. Holmes)....Pages 95-114
Front Matter ....Pages 115-115
Consuls General: From Alta to American California (Alison R. Holmes)....Pages 117-140
Locating California on the Vertical Axis of Diplomacy (Alison R. Holmes)....Pages 141-170
Representing All of California to the World (Alison R. Holmes)....Pages 171-197
Multi-layered Diplomacy in a Global State (Alison R. Holmes)....Pages 199-208
Back Matter ....Pages 209-234

Citation preview

STUDIES IN DIPLOMACY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State The International Relations of California Alison R. Holmes

Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations

Series Editors Donna Lee Manchester Metropolitan University Manchester, UK Paul Sharp College of Liberal Arts University of Minnesota Duluth, USA Marcus Holmes College of William & Mary Williamsburg, USA

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14471

Alison R. Holmes

Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State The International Relations of California

Alison R. Holmes Humboldt State University Arcata, CA, USA

Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations ISBN 978-3-030-54131-6 ISBN 978-3-030-54132-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Jason Langley/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For Paddy. Paddy always relished huge ideas and had a keen and constant eye on the future, but it was an article of faith for him that his job as a politician was to “ do things” rather than to “ be something”. A true internationalist, Paddy understood that to be global is not to operate “above” other levels, but to be connected from the bottom to the top - and back again and truly lived his belief that we are stronger together because our humanity is indivisible. This is the flame we must tend because the light of this Truth reveals our only protection against the Darkness.

“Ashdown’s third law is that in the modern age, where everything is connected to everything, the most important thing about what you can do, is what you can do with others. The most important bit about your structure…[is] your capacity to network with others…we are now locked together…we share a destiny with each other…It used to be the case that if my tribe was more powerful than their tribe, I was safe; if my country was more powerful than their country, I was safe; if my alliance…was more powerful than their alliance, I was safe. The advent of…interconnectedness…means that…I share a destiny with my enemy.” TEDxBrussels. December 2011 Jeremy John Durham Ashdown. Baron Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon. Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George. Companion of Honour. Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Privy Council of the United Kingdom. (27 February 1941–22 December 2018)

A Note About The Cover Photo

Redwoods are known for being the tallest trees on earth, often reaching heights over 300 feet, a diameter of 24 feet, and living well over 600 years. They have survived because of their ability to resist fire, disease and insects, while their home along the foggy California coastline adds a sense of mystery to these natural wonders. This image illustrates one of the redwood’s more remarkable regeneration strategies. After a redwood is cut down, new ones sprout from the roots of the fallen tree in a near-perfect circle, officially identified as a “fairy ring”, and evoking the circle of flags commonly seen at bodies such as the United Nations or the European Union as a symbol of their shared governance. For California, its tribes, cities and counties remain connected to the old state system, but as traditional sovereign power diminishes, these subnational entities are finding new connections and developing new networks. The old state system has effectively been “logged out”, but if we take this opportunity to embrace our many indentities —from the local to the global and back again—we could take our place in a global world and make all of California’s constituent parts stronger in the process.

ix

Acknowledgments

First and foremost, I would like to extend my deep and heartfelt thanks to all the people interviewed for this project. Without exception, every person I spoke to was unstinting with their time, patient with my questions, and generous with their rich insights and observations (and their staff tremendously helpful in setting up appointments and making the logistics work). I am profoundly grateful, not only for your support for this research, but for the work you do every day as diplomats to our country, and as representatives of all the sovereign entities that make up these united states to the world beyond. The once steady and bright spirit of internationalism is suffering the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”. To represent a foreign country in the United States—or to welcome diplomats and international visitors to our shores for business, politics and intellectual exchange—was already becoming more of a challenge, but the advent of a pandemic has shaken us all to our core. This makes the work done by the diplomatic and consular corps, together with all those who represent the cities, counties, tribes (and states) that make up the great Republic of California (and our country as a whole) more urgent than ever. If anything stands out from this research on subnational diplomacy— and what is, effectively, a form of identity politics—I hope it is the need to build a shared understanding of the benefits of multiple sovereignties and to use our diversity as the foundation of unity. My fear is that our differences could be equally used to sow dissent and precipitate the demise

xi

xii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

of a cosmopolitan worldview. Up and down what I have called here the vertical axis of California, we need to understand that to be “global” is to see ourselves as connected, and as sharing a destiny—even with our enemies. ∗ ∗ ∗ There are a number of other people who have helped carry this load and I am very proud that many are current or former students. Jaycob Bytel and Alex Hawthorne, both Political Science (PSCI) alums, are making their mark in the politics of Sacramento, but generously took time to help a former professor connect in the capitol. International Studies (INTL) students, Crystal Betances, Lyla Godfred as well as Lily O’Connell helped with transcriptions while Kai Cooper and Hailey LeJoie offered yeoman service on dull, but necessary background work. Harlee Keller, an INTL alum, provided insightful comments and applied her adept editing pen to the entire text. I dare not ask if this was because of, or despite, her experience with a previous manuscript—but once again she went above and beyond and I am in her debt. I am grateful for the opportunity to be a jobbing blogger and journalist for The American magazine in London at the Climate Change Action Summit in San Francisco in September of 2018, and honored to be allowed as an observer at the 18th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) in May of 2019. The Center for California Studies at Sacramento State University hosted me as a Visiting Scholar for a presentation of this work in August 2019. This event included a distinguished panel of Jamie Callahan, Deputy Cabinet Secretary in Governor Newsom’s office, Anka Lee, Director of International Relations for the California Assembly and Douglas Smurr of Gordon & Rees Scully Mansukhani and formerly the head of the California Office in Mexico City who all provided invaluable insight. The University of Southern California’s Center for Public Diplomacy’ Director, Jay Wang, and the Deputy Mayor for International Affairs of Los Angeles, Nina Hachigian, kindly invited me to participate in a private event on City Diplomacy in November of 2019. In a timely way, the event reminded me that research is never done as I met a whole new group of people dedicated to California’s global network. Professional colleagues Abe Lowenthal, author of Global California, encouraged me to believe it was time to refresh at his original question

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

xiii

and Richard Marcus of CSU Long Beach immediately supported a new take on global California. Closer to home, the INTL faculty, particularly Noah Zerbe and Beth Wilson, make my job more satisfying and enjoyable (and this project easier to undertake). Finally, Joice Chang (PSCI) spent far more time listening to these ideas than should be asked of anyone, but her honest curiosity and steady reinforcement made her unflinching questions the basis of many hours of memorable conversation. Too many colleagues to list here, read, commented, and otherwise suffered the grinding gears of evolution through conferences, professional events (lunches, parties, standing in the hallway or at the photocopier— no opportunity lost!) and my appreciation to them is matched only by my regret for becoming such a bore. Thanks are also due to my home institution of Humboldt State University for a sabbatical that provided much needed time and a Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity (RSCA) grant that covered some of the travel. The efforts by all of these people to guide and inform my work have been invaluable and I am forever in their debt—but I apologize here in advance for any (inevitable?) mistakes and misinterpretations as they remain forever mine alone. Finally, a special thanks to my partner who lived at the sharp end of this project. A Brit who has lived in California most of his adult life, I hope he thinks I did justice to the diplomatic efforts and the global aspirations of our adopted state. Arcata, CA, USA

Alison R. Holmes

Contents

Part I Spaces to Places and the Vertical Axis of Diplomacy in Practice 3

1

Introduction

2

Taking a Practice Approach to California

21

3

California Today

37

Part II

The Theoretical Challenges to Subnational International Affairs

4

Old Sovereignty

57

5

Globalized Spaces and Places of Sovereignty

77

6

Diplomacy and Paradiplomacy in California

95

xv

xvi

CONTENTS

Part III

California: Multi-layered Diplomacy in Action

7

Consuls General: From Alta to American California

117

8

Locating California on the Vertical Axis of Diplomacy

141

9

Representing All of California to the World

171

10

Multi-layered Diplomacy in a Global State

199

Charts

209

Further Reading

225

Index

231

About the Author

Alison R. Holmes, Ph.D. is Associate Professor and Program Leader of International Studies at Humboldt State University in California where she has worked since 2011. Holmes received a B.S. in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, an A.M. in Social Policy from the University of Chicago, and both a Diploma and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. Prior to academe, Holmes worked in national British politics for the Liberal Democrats. She was the National Campaign Manager for the 1992 and 1997 General Elections under leader Paddy Ashdown and a consultant to the party in 2010. After leaving politics, Holmes worked primarily in strategic communications, first as Deputy Head of Corporate Communication Strategy for the BBC then as the Director of Strategic Communication at Burson-Marsteller. She was headhunted to be the Managing Director of the London office of BritishAmerican Business in 2001, but left the private sector when she completed her Ph.D. (while working as speechwriter and communications advisor to the US Ambassador to London). Holmes has taught at the London College of Communication and Leicester University and held fellowships at both the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University and at Yale University where she was the Pierre Keller Transatlantic Fellow.

xvii

xviii

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

She has written/edited three previous books and numerous chapters and articles. She has a bi-monthly international affairs column in The American, a British magazine, and is a blog contributor to the University of Southern California’s Center for Public Diplomacy.

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 2.1 Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig. Fig.

3.1 5.1 5.2 6.1 8.1

Vertical axis of diplomacy a California trade partners 2017—top 10 export countries b California trade partners 2017—top 10 import countries California’s demographic breakdown Traditional mandala of power Phases in US Government Policy toward Tribes Other terms for “para-diplomacy” Vertical axis of diplomacy

10 27 46 79 87 104 142

xix

List of Charts

Chart C.1 Chart C.2 Chart C.3 Chart C.4 Chart C.5

California governors 1958–2019 California’s business agreements with other countries and subnationals California’s climate change agreements with other countries and subnationals Interviews conducted California’s international initiative timeline

210 211 213 219 221

xxi

List of Maps

Map 9.1 Map 9.2

The United Kingdom Dulawat, California

179 188

xxiii

PART I

Spaces to Places and the Vertical Axis of Diplomacy in Practice

Part I lays out the current political environment of California, the methodology of this research, and the historical and current diversity of the state, its peoples, and its economy. Part I also locates this research at the point of convergence between theory and practice and introduces two key themes. The first is the issue of “space” vs “place” as a feature in the evolution of contemporary governance. The second is what is presented here as the “vertical axis” of diplomacy, i.e., the different actors at a variety of levels of governance and increasingly active on the international stage. The goal of this section is to provide the questions and relevant context for an exploration of California’s international aspirations and potential global role.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

California has always helped write America’s future. And we know the decisions we make, would be important at any time. But what we do today is even more consequential, because of what’s happening in our country…The country is watching us. The world is waiting on us. The future depends on us. And we will seize this moment. (Newsom 2019)

California in 2019 on the Cusp---Of What? Every inaugural address has at least two tasks. The first is to set out the proverbial policy stall of the new administration (while hopefully putting some distance between the incoming and outgoing leadership). Second, these speeches should paint a picture of the new governor’s “vision”, if not in specific terms, at least in tenor and tone. Governor Newsom’s 2019 inaugural address was true to form on both counts as he sought to “renew the California Dream for a new generation” in an address aptly titled, A California for all. For Newsom, the first goal was more challenging given that this was the first Democrat-to-Democrat transition in over 130 years (see Chart C.1). Newsom therefore needed to renew the people’s faith in the idea that a “coast of dreams” was still possible, but without the benefit of following a governor of a different political hue. The length of his predecessor’s term left relatively little room for any ritual naming and blaming despite the relentlessness of issues facing California such as

© The Author(s) 2020 A. R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3_1

3

4

A. R. HOLMES

income disparity, homelessness, underperforming educational institutions, and uneven healthcare. Yet, this context did help the governor frame the second task, which was to portray himself as the man with the ideas to manage California’s vast governmental machine. In a speech leaning toward a policy “to-do” list, he clearly aligned himself with the notion of the “Party of California”. This idea, popularized by the influential historian Kevin Starr, was not directly referenced by Newsom, but the content of his speech certainly included Starr’s core assertion that [California’s] “history and heritage, its environment, its economy and, above all, the well-being of its people is worth imagining, worth struggling for; California represents a collective ideal connected to individual and social fulfillment. Everyone belongs to the Party of California. Everyone is welcome” (Starr 2003). Originally written on the eve of Governor Schwarzenegger’s second inauguration and set out in an opinion piece for The Los Angeles Times, Starr’s idea of the Party of California and argument in favor of a “fusion” leader who would not govern as a Republican in an “ideological and fiercely partisan” way, became Schwarzenegger’s self-professed organizing principle (Schwarzenegger 2012). Today it’s clear that whatever the provenance, Starr’s ideal of a governor who could follow the “greats” (identified as Hiram Johnson, Earl Warren, Pat Brown and Ronald Reagan) and be guided by practical skills and functional leadership, is being given new life with Newsom’s declaration that the “mission of our Administration…will be the ‘California for all’” (Newsom 2019). While most of Newsom’s speech called down the California Dream by framing and reframing a time-honored narrative of California’s history and peoples, its regular allusions to the world outside the state were a departure. Despite being a first-term governor, Newsom broke with a pattern that has held through a number of modern-day transitions, albeit more commonly between Democrat and Republican. Historically, topics that reference other countries, international institutions, or any other recognizably global perspective, only made it to an inaugural address in a governor’s second term, whatever the party (http://governors.library. ca.gov). Returning to Governor Schwarzenegger, he was initially elected in the unusual circumstance of a recall, but only seriously referred to the rest of the world in his second inaugural address where he set out his case for California as a nation-state. Similarly (and perhaps more indicatively given it was across four terms in office) Governor Brown only made the

1

INTRODUCTION

5

world beyond California a main part of his speech the second time around – both times. Political scientists and observers often suggest that leaders on the eve of a second term feel a combination of freedom from party political or domestic pressure and a desire for a political legacy. However, in Newsom’s case, there is an argument that the more likely reason is that he is a young man in a hurry with something to prove on the national stage. Many public figures and scholars refer to California as “exceptional”. Yet Governor Newsom’s approach suggests that the real innovation of his administration is in his assertion that the exceptionality of the state is not only needed by the rest of the country, but by the rest of the world. As he put it in the conclusion: “The eyes of the world are upon us. Now more than ever, America needs California. It needs the guiding light of our values and the progress they make possible. This is where America’s future is made. This is our charge. That is our calling” (Newsom 2019). Heady stuff, but the real test of hubris is external recognition and the governor’s rhetoric did not fall short. Far from demurring from his assertion, observers added their own, some even grander, assessments. For example, Joe Garofoli of the San Francisco Chronicle suggested that the new administration in Sacramento will be not “just a hub of the resistance against the president; it will be its own nation-state” (Garofoli 2019). Taylor Kate Brown, also of the San Francisco Chronicle, argued that Newsom’s early decisions to create a State Surgeon General, on prescription drugs and on Medi-Cal, were the kind of “large-scale ideas” that form the basis of nation-state positioning (Brown 2019). Joe Mathews even compared California to Taiwan, calling them both a “halfway country” that share the challenge of being a “younger sibling” in a big brother world (Mathews 2019). Finally, and returning to the “Party of California” theme, Miriam Pawal in the New York Times (and author of The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty That Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation) argued, “The Party of California is part spiritual commitment to the idea that there is something special about this place, part pragmatic bow to the reality of governing the world’s fifth largest economy, a vast, diverse nation-state” (Pawal 2018). These examples are not necessarily significant on their own, but they do suggest a sea change. Few people probably recall Governor Davis’s comments in 1999 when, at a luncheon for Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, he declared, “For Mexico and California, a great nation and a great nation-state, our deepening relationship is not merely the product

6

A. R. HOLMES

of diplomatic niceties…it is an economic necessity” (Smurr 2010). Later, when Governor Schwarzenegger used the term “nation-state” it still seemed a little too “Hollywood” and perhaps slightly awkward. Contrast those perceptions with the present day, when the idea of California as a “nation-state” – by whatever definition one might use – has become standard commentariat fare and almost an assumption of the daily business of the new Governor’s role and power. This new understanding is nowhere more evident than in two of the Governor’s early initiatives – both given even more significance as they took place in the symbolically important “first 100 days”. The first was a trip to El Salvador. The second was the creation, by Executive Order N-08-19, of the position of a State of California Representative for International Affairs and Trade Development (emphasis added) to lead an interagency committee. The role was to be filled, and the committee led, by the first woman elected to the post of Lieutenant Governor, Eleni Kounalakis (a former Ambassador to Hungary). The innovation was not so much the fact of an international trip, but that its purpose was not trade or economic development, but a “factfinding” investigation into the conditions and causes of immigration to California. Similarly, the move to create an interagency committee is not particularly radical or even new, but becomes significant when seen as a signal of the state’s intention to reach beyond economic interests and to potentially take policy positions in the much broader (and ill-defined) area of “international affairs” now included in the title. The deeper question, and one that can only be answered with time, is what do these moves say about the Governor’s strategic goals? There are at least three possibilities. First, these steps could be a political/domestic defensive move to mark out and protect the governor’s position in terms of the state’s leadership on international issues. This seems possible given the (over?)reach of mayors such as LA’s Eric Garcetti who also created the new role of Deputy Mayor for International Affairs and appointed Nina Hachigian (another former ambassador) to the post in September 2017. Second, it could be early positioning for a future run at higher office. This is not an uncommon move from the California statehouse although, to date, not an overwhelmingly successful strategy. Third, and most relevant here, such a move could reflect a much broader development in subnational diplomacy and the shifting role of different entities with varying degrees of sovereignty on the global stage. The governor may seek a leadership role for California on as many fronts as possible,

1

INTRODUCTION

7

but the fact remains that the state of California is far from alone in terms of taking action on a growing range of issues and at levels that have been long considered the exclusive domain of national government actors. Of course, it is also possible that all three of these interpretations are simultaneously part of the governor’s thinking. The test as to which option is the most accurate or successful will be whether these very public and symbolic actions are supported by the building of the necessary structures and coordinating mechanisms – a challenge that may require some careful planning and sharp conversations with colleagues at every level, both within and beyond the state. This party-political overview of California in 2019 is simply a quick snapshot of the state of California in this moment and as useful background for a later discussion of a strategic frame and next steps. That said, this book will leave the explicitly political realm largely to others and focus mainly on the third option by arguing that California’s increasing action on the global stage is more than party rhetoric or the positioning of individual politicians. The assertion here is that the recent, clear, and necessary change in the state’s approach is the reflection of something much deeper in the entire system of states and a seismic shift in our understanding of sovereignty. Further, the argument is that the world is not “waiting” for California as much as the state is one part, albeit an important one, of a much larger trend that portends profound implications for global governance and its diplomatic structures. The relationship between states and their subnational units is fundamentally shifting in not all, but in a large and growing number of instances. The different layers and players, all with vastly different understanding of both the theory and the practice of concepts such as sovereignty and statecraft, are undergoing massive change and California has a great deal to contribute – and to learn – in that evolutionary process. Politicians and journalists often use the term “nation-state” to assert power and size or to frame comparisons. However, from a scholarly perspective, the power of this terminology in international relations more broadly, and diplomacy specifically, cannot be overstated. Indeed, the emerging truth of this claim and the evolution of California as a previously diffident, now wannabe nation-state (or region state, or even state-nation, as will be discussed below) are at the core of this investigation. Intentionally placed at the nexus of space and place, theory and practice, this book seeks to examine California’s claims to “globality” along with what is

8

A. R. HOLMES

termed here as the “vertical axis” of sovereignty and as expressed through sovereignty’s necessary sister institution, diplomacy, albeit in a very broad form.

The State’s “Vertical Axis” The idea of a “vertical dimension of foreign policy” for US state activity was used by Samuel Lucas McMillan in his examination of the “new federalism” and the changing roles of governors in international affairs (McMillan 2008). In his work, McMillan draws particular attention to the withdrawal of federal government support to states in areas of economic development. He argues that this, in turn, necessitated states (governors in particular) to respond by using their own offices or other state infrastructure to compete for trade and investment at the international level. More through silence than active encouragement, McMillan agrees with others that Congress has effectively given “tacit approval” to the broad variety of initiatives, but that states have now potentially reached the outer limits of their constitutional boundaries. Specifically, while states are expressly forbidden from negotiating formal treaties, they continue to expand their repertoire of compacts, memorandums of understanding, agreements, and a range of other instruments. Further, such agreements are established, not only with parity entities (e.g., other subnationals at the same “level”), but with national leaders and coalitions of units that vary widely in terms of size and remit. Much has been written about the huge increase in such agreements around issues related to climate change, but work on that specific area has effectively created opportunities for similar agreements on a host of other issues and between many different types of actor. This serves as evidence for what McMillan recognizes, along with Brian Hocking and others, as a diplomatic environment that is increasingly multi-layered or multicentric vs hierarchical and/or country-centric. McMillan also suggests that such activity supports the sense that this new form of diplomacy is overtaking the top-heavy chain of command that has typified the portrayal of the structures of foreign affairs in the past. As set out, McMillan’s idea of a vertical dimension is a descriptor of American domestic activity with states and governors engaging in, and responding to national foreign policy, primarily – though not exclusively – in the area of economic issues. However, the term “vertical axis of diplomacy”, as presented and developed in this text, is a concept built on prior work and is used in both a

1

INTRODUCTION

9

narrower and much broader sense. The idea is narrower in that the focus of this discussion is on California’s diplomacy as demonstrated and acted out through its international activities and profile at one level; broader in that California is being used here effectively as a case study of subnationals found elsewhere. This book will argue that California (in parallel with other, as yet, non-secessionist subnationals) is inching its way toward what is becoming an identifiable form of “global diplomacy”. The state’s actions are the result of different entities (and the system as a whole) advancing to this specific point in their development along what has been called elsewhere the chronological or “horizontal axis” of diplomacy (Holmes 2016). In other words, the entire system has been altered over time because of the changes in each of the separate entities that make up that system. A process of action and reaction in the entities at every level has now fundamentally altered the system as a whole in what is effectively a paradigm shift of diplomacy. These changes can, and regularly have been, examined over time as a process of evolution along the horizontal axis. However, such change can also be examined in a specific moment as a kind of cross-section from the perspective of a single entity using this unique vertical approach. Thus, for these purposes, the vertical axis of diplomacy is presented as both a theoretical framework for the relevant international relations questions related to sovereignty and power and as a useful visual for the practical issues of policy and action. The idea of a vertical axis helps frame this examination of all of the entities “below” and “above” the level of the state of California that are now acting on the international stage and many in the “name” of the state. In theoretical terms, the vertical image reflects traditional ideas of hierarchy, power, state identity, and recognition, and highlights the “nested sovereignties” created by the “multiple, overlapping, intersecting networks of power” (Mann 1986) that operate in the current structures of statecraft. The vertical also hints at a geospatial and historical depth, crucial to understanding how the current types of diplomacy based on Mann’s “sources” of “social power” (namely political, economic, military, and cultural) are played out by different entities with different concepts of agency and crucially linked to notions of identity and sovereignty (Fig. 1.1).

10

A. R. HOLMES

Fig. 1.1

Vertical axis of diplomacy

Internaonal Naonal State Counes

Tribes Cies Diplomacy

Tribes

In more practical terms, the vertical axis makes it more apparent that, while some actors may have more influence or power in one issue area or another, the processes of globalization have empowered many different entities to act in the global arena. California has therefore become one of many entities, all of which are increasingly taking action “up and down” the vertical policy axis with enthusiasm, though often without a clear strategy or coordination. In that same vein, if perhaps in a more abstract way, the vertical also offers insight on the increasingly complex dilemma and potential management of what is called here the “intersecting sovereignties” found within a specific type of unit or jurisdiction, namely those found in the place we call California. However, and before any progress is possible, the term “place” requires further context.

Identity, Sovereignty, and Governance--The Truth and the Lie of the CA Myth Another important aspect of the vertical image as used here is as a point of access to ideas of place, space, and identity or what has been called by many scholars the “time-space compression” created by globalization (Giddens 2001; Held 2000; Massey 1994). The contention is that this feature of modernity has created for California – and perhaps the entire world – a resurgence of “space” in the midst of the state-based “places”

1

INTRODUCTION

11

used by our systems of governance. Tim Cresswell, a human geographer, has suggested that there is an important (and, as will be argued, increasingly crucial) difference between concepts of space and place, particularly for our understanding of the current changes in sovereignty(ies). Cresswell asserts, “Space is a more abstract concept than place. When we speak of space we tend to think of outer-space or the spaces of geometry. Spaces have areas and volumes. Places have space between them” (Cresswell 2004). He goes on to suggest that, in contrast, places are where we find a combination of “materiality, meaning and practice” (Cresswell 2009). From the perspective of California’s global positioning, he also offers the tantalizing observation that the meanings attributed to space and place are based on a people’s worldview as evidenced in the accounts of early travel writers and geographers. Thus, Cresswell agrees with Yi-Fu Tuan that “space becomes place” when we know it better and “endow it with value” (Cresswell 2004). To this space/place distinction, Doreen Massey adds the vital point that there is a “power geometry” to the time–space compression associated with globalization. This compression, when linked to her idea of a place as an idealized world (i.e., unreal/unobtainable) where people live in an entirely homogenous community (Massey 1994), and to the evolution of the harsh realities of capital and industrial exchange, it becomes possible to assert a more complicated and even deeper vertical story for California and its people. This deeper story, put simply, is that development and modernity have changed the spaces of California into managed places. Further, by taking a longer perspective we can also appreciate the fundamentally different starting points or worldviews this represents. The processes of globalization have privileged place over space with profound implications for governance and diplomacy for California as an ancient multi-identity, multi-entity space/place. However, recent developments suggest a need to revisit this diminution of the role of space so as to make room for a more global understanding of both. As creation stories go, Californians have no shortage of options. Again, using gubernatorial inauguration addresses effectively as a text for contemporary projections of California’s identity and self-narrative, most governors choose to begin California’s story with John Fremont – explorer, politician, and military man; or perhaps John Sutter and the discovery of gold. Very few governors have made reference to native peoples and no recent holder of the post has opted to look further back than written history, or pointed to the origins of the people who

12

A. R. HOLMES

arrived 12,000–13,000 years ago, or supported their policies by using the extended and repeated cycles of immigration that settled the land, territory or state. This much longer and potentially more complicated narrative includes periodic arrivals from the north, east, and south (Luthin 2002). Some scholars, using relatively new data and techniques, even argue there were arrivals from the west by sea (Erlandson in Raab and Jones 2004). Later, still more waves of humanity arrived, fleeing the complex and often violent histories of their homelands. The only constant remains the fact that each successive group brought its own unique cultural (and biological) heritage – though disease often arrived well in advance of their original host with tragic consequences. Yet, contemporary storytelling insists on beginning the story with various Europeans. We also persist in calling these later arrivals Spanish, Mexican, Russian, French, British (Scottish and Irish), and Chinese – despite the fact these power bases were not “countries” in the modern state form as presently defined until well into the seventeenth and even the eighteenth centuries. Thus, the stories of those peoples and the places they came from provide the weft, while the warp includes the history of sovereignty and institutions of diplomacy as the threads combine to form the meta-narrative fabric of the current moment. One of the more significant stories that arose from this constantly forming and reforming story includes the origins of the name for what was becoming a “place”. The name used today was, perhaps aptly, derived from the Queen of a mythical island nation, Calafia. Her story as the leader of a brave Amazonian people “on the right hand of the Indies” and “very close to the side of Terrestrial Paradise”, was popularized by Garci Ordóñez Montalvo in 1510. This tale was, in turn, based on stories found in Portuguese and French culture (while inadvertently contributing to the incorrect assumption California was an island) (Starr 2005). Thus, what was to become the state of California was built on global human stock and a mythical identity from its earliest days. One of the more intriguing aspects of the processes of globalization is a renewed desire to investigate the complex and overlapping threads of history in terms of the state’s peoples. This process of historical fragmentation has been revealing more and more points of intersection along the historical/chronological or “horizontal axis” as concepts of “place” began to replace “space” with resulting changes in forms of identity and units of governance. As Caroline Miranda suggests, “Before California was West,

1

INTRODUCTION

13

it was North and it was East: the uppermost periphery of the Mexican Empire, and the arrival point for Chinese immigrants making the perilous journey from Guangdong. It was part of different maps that co-exist, one on top of the others: layers of visions and lesser-known narratives that are ongoing and still unfolding” (Miranda 2019). However, she was not the first person to make the observation that California, as both space and place, has many histories. In a 1903 “prequel” to this idea, President Roosevelt observed that, half a century after California had become a state and therefore part of the country, it still remained somehow different and distinct. Long before Governor Newsom portrayed California as both exceptional and open, Roosevelt told a group in Ventura, CA, “When I come here to California I am not in the West, I am west of the West” (Roosevelt 1903a). The president repeated this point several times on a two-month coast-to-coast excursion, saying to a group in Bloomington, IN: “I have addressed my fellow countrymen, in the east, in what is known as the middle west, in the west, and beyond the west - in California - and wherever I have spoken…the thought that has been most apparent…is the essential unity of our people…Our people are one”. The president concluded this particular speech by sharing an anecdote about his time in the “cow country” of North Dakota. While he was there, a man had told the president he was going to spend the winter in the “far East” – by which he meant Duluth. As the president explained to his audience, to that man “Duluth represented the extreme easternmost part of the horizon. The terms ‘east’ and ‘west’ are of no consequence” (Roosevelt 1903b). The conclusion he drew from this exchange is perhaps indicative of the idealistic and universalist thinking of his day as he argued “a good American…will be at home in any part of this country, from one ocean to the other, from the gulf to the Canadian line” (Roosevelt 1903b). In contrast, Miranda’s comments suggest a more modern approach, as she deconstructs the place we recognize as Los Angeles into its various spaces and uses those coexisting realities as the basis of claims for the recognition of separateness. Mark Arax – the grandson of an Armenian immigrant who, in a nod to President Roosevelt, named a book of essays about California West of the West – brings this idea full circle. He wants to believe in the myth of unity even while reporting its diverse and often divided reality.

14

A. R. HOLMES

I have worked to find the truth and the lie of the California myth. What is not mythical about its desert, its Sierra, its farms, its redwood forest, its Hollywood, its Silicon Valley, its Golden Gate, its prisons, its ghettos of Little Tokyo, Seoul, Managua, Michoacán, San Salvador, Yerevan, Saigon, Beijing, Addis Ababa, Tehran and Tel Aviv? Then to dig down in any one of these places and discover a mirage, a chimera, a poverty, a greed, a hubris, a crime – the lie that was the antithesis of the original myth, which by its very dimension had become a new myth…Our vastness is a vastness of heft, yes, but also a vastness of idea and projection and execution. And our myth, at least the best part of it, continues to act as a powerful lure to a new generation of seekers. (Arax 2009)

California’s Role in Space and Place The contemporary and common understanding of California is as a political entity known as a state that sits on the west coast of the United States, a federal state system and the entity through which California engages with the international system of states. However, before diving into a more holistic and, as asserted here, a more global understanding of California’s identity as expressed in its diplomacy, we must take a step back. California’s dimensions of space were expressed through the worldviews of its original settlers and often linked to geographic location and natural features. This approach was gradually overtaken by ideas of place as simultaneous and consecutive groups of settlers followed. The prevailing systems of governance shifted from the tribal and advanced hunter-gathering lifeways to the “modern”, through the relatively recent, state-dominated narratives of territory and boundaries. The argument here is that these early systems or interpretations were not wiped out, but that these maps or perceptions of space, while largely unseen and unrecognized, have continued to coexist and, together with more recent ideas of place, helped form the foundation of California’s vertical axis and remain crucial to the creation of a more globally connected identity. Thus, the mythology of sovereignty continues to be interpreted and utilized in the realms of both “space” and “place” and to be expressed in the diplomacy found up and down this vertical axis. Part of the question will be whether one of the unforeseen consequences of globalization is how the collective governance of space combined with a territorial and hierarchical approach to place will alter our understanding

1

INTRODUCTION

15

of sovereign action by subnational entities such as California, its counties, cities, tribes/nations. The goal of this project is to investigate California’s evolution as a global entity as demonstrated in the way it now operates as an international actor – at home and abroad. Most would agree that the certainties concerning levels of analysis or governance hierarchies have been fatally undermined by the exponential increase in the number of players making claims to act on the international stage. Meanwhile, “lower levels” (or sub-units) increasingly make calls to “higher” authorities to demand they deliver on expectations while the traditional promises of security – both military and economic – go unfulfilled. As Governor Newsom charts his course into the stiff winds of change, it becomes even more important to understand how a subnational entity, albeit a substantial one, continues to be shaped by key concepts such as sovereignty and how diplomatic practice can and should reflect these different ideas of space, place, governance, and sovereignty. For California, the first challenge is simply being the fifth largest economy in the world while firmly embedded in a federal structure. Some suggest that the state is too large (and too opinionated) for its own good, but despite having more than enough economic weight to both encourage and force others to follow its lead, it remains constrained by constitutional and legal requirements and the potentially dire financial and cultural consequences of trying to “go it alone”. Thus, California must tread carefully and negotiate on the international stage through regulations and memorandums of understanding rather than formal treaties or binding agreements. However, that is not the only challenge to California’s globality – a term that will be discussed – as there are also internal entities and actors creating fundamentally different types of constraint on the state’s actions. On its face, this argument will support Governor Newsom (and countless other political, cultural, academic, and economic observers) in the view that California has always been exceptional and perhaps even unique. Thus, declaring it a nation-state is not as strange or unlikely as it may have first appeared. However, and as useful as the vertical axis may be as visual aid, this investigation will ultimately undermine many traditional ideas. Hierarchies, with their neat layers or levels of sovereignty, will be challenged in favor of what this investigation identifies as “intersecting sovereignties”. The goal is to try to more accurately reflect the far

16

A. R. HOLMES

more complex relationships that exist within and above California’s state structures. Thus, in the theoretical sense, California finds itself operating on an increasingly wide number of “diplomatic sites” (Neumann 2013) up and down the vertical axis as international, federal, state, county, city, and tribal authorities each act in their own interests, but intersect at the level of California’s leadership. In the practical sense, state and tribal officials, national and international organizations and the diplomatic representatives of other countries all create and recreate the processes by which California sets out both its domestic and international agenda or, in more traditional language, its “national interests”.

Book Structure Part I of this volume is designed to set the stage for both the theory and the practice approach that will follow. By focusing on California as both the theoretical center and the practical central actor in the investigation, the goal is to outline the questions and the territory that will be covered. This will include a snapshot of California today in this chapter followed by a discussion of methodology in Chapter 2 and then a deeper dive into California’s profile as an international or even global actor in Chapter 3. This section is designed to offer the background necessary for the theory and practice discussions that follow. Part II will delve more deeply into the key background ideas or theory that underpins the questions at hand. To that end, Chapter 4 will examine the concept of sovereignty. The focus here will not be on the vast traditional international relations literature on sovereignty, but will instead outline the main critiques of the foundational European/Westphalian concept of sovereignty. This will be followed by a discussion of the tools and ideas needed to consider the implications of a “breakdown” of traditional sovereignty. Terms such as “quasi”, “plural democracy”, or “fragments of sovereignty” suggest a fragility or even the fundamental erosion of this background idea, particularly when applied to modern approaches to identity and politics. This overview of mainstream understandings of sovereignty will be followed in Chapter 5 by a discussion of perhaps the biggest challenge to these traditional/hierarchical notions; the concept of indigenous inherent sovereignty as used by Native Americans and indigenous peoples. The disconnect between mainstream international relations theory and

1

INTRODUCTION

17

native studies on this issue has profound implications in terms of practice and policy as different groups and advocates in California (and around the world) continue to talk past each other. The use of the same or similar terminology has damaging consequences that affect outcomes on vital issues such as the environment, human rights, and self-government/determination. Part II will conclude with a discussion of sovereignty’s “sister institution” or “handmaid”, namely, diplomacy in Chapter 6. This will include an examination of paradiplomacy as this evolving subfield is particularly relevant to California’s global development. Again, the goal will not be to cover the expanse of diplomatic studies, but simply to provide an overview of relevant concepts and to connect the theoretical to the practical as relevant to the study of California’s place on a vertical axis of diplomacy. For some time, IR scholars have recognized the gaps and incompatibilities in trying to match traditional theory to practical politics. Meanwhile, other areas of study such as native studies have struggled with the effects of what Marshall Beier calls the “hegemonologue” (Beier 2009). The goal of Part II, in what may seem to be an over-emphasis on theory, is the overarching question of California’s unique “actor-ness” (Hocking 1999). To understand the practical actions of California, it is necessary to also understand the growing trend of cities, counties, and tribes to seek international or global solutions to the issues of identity politics. This also requires some kind of reconciliation in our understanding of these background concepts if California as an entity is to operate effectively along its vertical axis. Part III will turn specifically to the actors and actions along the vertical axis and look at California as a case study. Chapter 7 will discuss the work and activities of consuls general in the state and a host of diplomatic, state, and national actors in an effort to explore California’s distinctive context and approach. Chapter 8 will more fully unpack the vertical axis approach and examine the work of other subnational actors. Chapter 9, returning to the practice approach, will look specifically at the recommendations and suggestions offered by all those sharing this new form of international space with California. The goal will be to draw together some observations for future opportunities and to offer two specific insight studies of entities making progress in this space in the hope these will be useful as California shapes its global identity and role. Finally, the Conclusion will connect the disciplinary questions of international relations and native studies to the global governance discourse.

18

A. R. HOLMES

The argument is simply that, while the hierarchical state has served a purpose suited to a specific time, globalization has created new forms of interaction. Ideas of statehood and sovereignty must therefore be revisited and revised as they are now thwarting a more appropriate explanation of the practical dimensions of globality – just as disciplinary silos have prevented the exploration of opportunities for collaboration and a shared understanding of governance along the vertical axis and in a global world. There is a need for a reconciliation of terminology as globalization continues to compress time and distance as well as altering our sense of place in a way that perhaps harkens back to more fluid ideas of space. California is ideally situated to help lead this process.

References Arax, Mark. 2009. West of the West: Dreamers, Believers, Builders and Killers in the Golden State. New York: Public Affairs. Beier, J. Marshall (ed.). 2009. Indigenous Diplomacies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Brown, Taylor Kate. 2019. Bay Briefing: Is California a Nation-State? Newsom’s Health Care Proposals Make It Look Like One. San Francisco Chronicle. January 8. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Briefing-Is-Cal ifornia-a-nation-state-13515865.php. Accessed 16 March 2019. Cresswell, Tim. 2004. Place: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Cresswell, Tim. 2009. Place. https://booksite.elsevier.com/brochures/hugy/ SampleContent/Place.pdf. Accessed 15 April 2015. Erlandson, Jon M. 2004. Anatomically Modern Humans, Maritime Voyaging, and the Pleistocene Colonization of the Americas. In L. Mark Raab and Terry L. Jones (eds.) Prehistoric California: Archaeology and the Myth of Paradise, 108–120. Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press. Garofoli, Joe. 2019. Gavin Newsom Wants California to Be Its Own Nation-State in the Trump Era. San Francisco Chronicle. February 12. https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Gavin-Newsom-wants-Cal ifornia-to-be-its-own-13611747.php. Accessed 16 March 2019. Giddens, Anthony (ed.). 2001. The Global Third Way Debate. Cambridge: Polity Press. Governors’ Speeches. State Archive. http://governors.library.ca.gov. Held, David (ed.). 2000. Globalizing World? Culture, Economics and Politics. London: Routledge. Hocking, Brian. 1999. Patrolling the ‘Frontier’: Globalization, Localization and the ‘Actorness’ of Non-central Governments. In Francisco Aldecoa and

1

INTRODUCTION

19

Michael Keating (eds.) Paradiplomacy in Action: The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments. Oregon: Frank Crass Publishers. Holmes, Alison (ed.) 2016. Global Diplomacy: Theories, Types and Models. Boulder: Westview Press. Luthin, Herbert W. (ed.). 2002. Surviving Through the Days: Translations of Native California stories and Songs—A California Indian Reader. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mann, Michael. 1986. Volume 1. The Sources of Social Power: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Massey, Doreen. 1994. Space, Place and Gender. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mathews, Joe. 2019. Two Renegade States—California and Taiwan. San Francisco Chronicle. March 11. https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/article/ 2-renegade-nation-states-California-and-Taiwan-12739723.php. Accessed 16 March 2019. McMillan, Samuel Lucas. 2008. Subnational Foreign Policy Actors: How and Why Governors Participate in U.S. Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy Analysis 4: 227–253. Miranda, Caroline. 2019. Remapping LA. Guernica. February 19. https://www. guernicamag.com/remapping-la/. Accessed 2 March 2019. Neumann, Iver. 2013. Diplomatic Sites. London: Hurst & Company. Newsom, Gavin. 2019. Transcript: Gavin Newsom’s Inauguration Address: A California for All. Delivered January 7. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2019/01/ 07/newsom-inaugural-address/. Accessed 16 March 2019. Office of Tribal Affairs: California Department of Social Services. n.d. Tribal Government 101: Separate Sovereigns. Handout. Office of Tribal Affairs: California Department of Social Services. n.d. Tribal Government 101: Tribal Sovereigns. Handout. Pawal, Miriam. 2018. What Makes California Politics So Special? New York Times. August 18. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/opinion/sunday/califo rnia-politics-jerry-brown-arnold-schwarzenegger-.html. Accessed 16 March 2019. Roosevelt, Theodore. 1903a. Speech at Ventura CA May 9. June 3. Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt. https://theodore-roosevelt.com/trspeechescomplete. html. Accessed 12 March 2019. Roosevelt, Theodore. 1903b. Speech at Bloomington IL June 3. Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt. https://theodore-roosevelt.com/trspeechescomplete. html. Accessed 12 March 2019. Starr, Kevin. 2003. Fuse It—Or Lose It. Los Angeles Times. November 16. http://articles.latimes.com/2003/nov/16/opinion/op-starr16. Accessed 16 March 2019. Starr, Kevin. 2005. California: A History. New York: Modern Library.

20

A. R. HOLMES

Schwarzenegger, Arnold. 2012. Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. Smurr, Douglas. 2010. California Adrift Internationally: Resetting Course for the 21st Century. Journal of International Business and Cultural Studies 3: 1–24.

CHAPTER 2

Taking a Practice Approach to California

…practice approaches entail a distinctive view on the drivers of social relations. Practice theories argue against individualistic-interest and norm-based actor models. They situate knowledge in practice rather than “mental frames” or “discourse.” Practice approaches focus on how groups perform their practical activities in world politics to renew and reproduce social order. They therefore overcome familiar dualisms – agents and structures, subjects and objects, and ideational and material – that plague IR theory. (Bueger and Gadinger 2015)

Methodology Understanding California’s changing role as a global actor presents significant challenges in terms of approach. From the outset, this project had four overarching questions around the myths of state governance and the self-narrative of California’s international profile. First, how do the different levels and entities involved in California’s governance understand the concept of sovereignty (including how is it expressed; how has it changed; and how does it operate between the various actors within and above the state level)? Second, how have the features of subnational diplomacy changed in the United States and elsewhere, with the corollary of whether California is leading or following those changes? Third, how do those involved in the (re)production of the state’s formulation and presentation of its global persona see the state’s role and further, © The Author(s) 2020 A. R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3_2

21

22

A. R. HOLMES

how is that perceived by California’s domestic/foreign audiences? A final question and a parallel, policy-oriented goal for this work was to assess whether California has a global strategy and/or the practical infrastructure and skills to operate as an integrated entity at all these levels and what specific actions might support and enhance California’s ability to become a truly global state. In many ways, these questions converge at the intersection of theory and practice. Sovereignty, power, structural alliances, and the evolution of the state system are deeply embedded in the question of how California has, can, and will, develop as a global actor. Yet, the contemporary nature of the questions and the fact the subjects at the heart of the study are themselves actors in the field, present at least two challenges. The first challenge is the observation that the concepts in question are themselves social constructs, created to help identify and understand aspects of political governance. Equally, each concept has been created and continues to change in light of local circumstance. As such, and while many of these terms are bandied about in popular debate, their meanings have shifted – often dramatically – over time. The second challenge, much like the first, stems from the fact that many actors involved participate in, and are affected by, the actions of other actors – even as they reflect on their own approach. In terms of the research process, the subjects were arguably constructing definitions of the terms being used as they considered the questions being asked. This context suggested a more fluid approach would be necessary. As Barry Barnes points out, “(a) no simple either/or contrast can be made between ‘theory’ and ‘practice’; (b) no indefeasible distinction can be established between visible external practice and invisible internal states; (c) any attempt to give a satisfactory description of social life must make reference to much else besides practice; and (d) practice does not account for its own production and reproduction” (Barnes 2001). Thus, the first step was to surface what Mark Kornprobst and Martin Senn argue are the neglected “background ideas” of international relations. As they point out, “The actors we study take their background so much for granted that they hardly ever make them explicit. This often makes us, as students of these actors, gloss over their backgrounds too” (Kornprobst and Senn 2016). These authors go on to break these background issues into five main perspectives or areas of study, namely: the background of individual decision-makers; the Kuhn-ian concept of paradigms and how that helps to frame policy approaches; ideology; the

2

TAKING A PRACTICE APPROACH TO CALIFORNIA

23

“linguistic turn” which focuses on the use of language; and finally the “practice turn” which attempts to place actions in their broadest context. In this research, the perspective of the practice approach seems to offer the most promise because, as Laurent Thévenot suggests, it “contrasts sharply with the model of rationally calculated action. ‘Practice’ brings into view activities which are situated, corporeal, and shaped by habits without reflection” (Thévenot 2001). This approach has also recently attracted attention from those interested in the field of diplomatic studies. This is not surprising, given that this approach lends itself to the challenge of exploring the work of actors who are simultaneously acting in the world and acted on by the world. Practice as an approach or frame is also helpful when dealing with individuals who represent much larger entities in both a literal and symbolic way (Sharp 2009). Christian Bueger and Frank Gadinger outline the distinctive nature of practice research by following Andreas Reckwitz’s distinctions between three different classes of contemporary social theory. The first two, they suggest, are related to interests (homo oeconomicus ) or rational instrumentality (homo sociologicus ) or finally, related to norms where rules dominate behavior by proscribing what is and what is not allowable. The most relevant category for this research is the third, or what Reckwitz calls Culturalist theory. This category relies on trying to understand what makes people think the world is ordered at all and how such thought processes enable them to act in that world. Like all background ideas, the goal of such theories is to uncover the layers of knowledge that are “tacit” or so embedded they are not generally considered overtly so as to come to “understand social order as a product of collectively shared knowledge” (Bueger and Gadinger 2015). Culturalist theories are then further broken into three “families” specifically: mentalist (in the head of the subject); texturalist (outside the head but visible through text and communication); and practical theoretical (a combination of both internal and external). Brueger and Gadinger specifically point out that scholars in this final category “see practice as ontologically between the inside and the outside. They identify the social in the mind (since individuals are carriers of practices), but also in symbolic structure (since practices form more or less extra-subjective structures and patterns of actions). Practice theorists therefore foreground an understanding of shared knowledge as practical knowledge” (Bueger and Gadinger 2015).

24

A. R. HOLMES

To that end, Bueger and Gadinger go on to list six commitments of practice theorists in terms of what they hope to achieve by focusing on practice as their unit of analysis. These are a commitment to: (1) process over stasis; (2) knowledge as being situated in doing; (3) knowledge acquisition as a collective process as groups “learn the rules” in a specific context; (4) an understanding that practices have materiality beyond their human carriers i.e., objects and technology can carry practice; (5) order is multiple and overlapping, which indicates an appreciation that order requires effort rather than chaos; and (6) the world is performative and is continuously changing and evolving. Emanuel Adler and Vincent Pouliot have a similar list of five basic features of practice namely: (1) performance; (2) patterns; (3) competence or having social meaning; (4) a reliance on background knowledge; and based on (5) the idea that practice “weaves together the discursive and material worlds”. Put another way, without some form of communication, there would be no way to tell the difference between behavior and something that should more correctly be identified as a “practice” (Adler and Pouliot 2011). The study of diplomacy, and California specifically, immediately lends itself to this research approach. This project is clearly an attempt to connect background ideas including the abstract notions of sovereignty and power to the actual actions of those involved. Thus, the point made by Adler and Pouliot that, “Methodologically speaking, sense making and situatedness are particularly important” (Adler and Pouliot 2011) is also relevant to an understanding of the current practice of both California diplomats and diplomats from other places seeking to engage with California. Given that the goal of this research was to capture some of the changes in our understanding of background ideas or theories, as well as the practices of the actors involved in projecting and receiving California’s global identity, the next step was to consider what would serve as evidence or indicators. In the effort to follow a practice approach, this study has used an interview-based, respondent-driven methodology. Interviews were initially centered on California’s consular corps – particularly those representing countries that have already signed an agreement and/or those with a large economic or cultural relationship with the state. This was based on the idea these entities were deemed to be primary recipients or consumers of California’s diplomatic activity and engaged in regular and more frequent forms of practice/communication with agents of the state.

2

TAKING A PRACTICE APPROACH TO CALIFORNIA

25

The second group of interviewees overlapped with the first in that the focus was on the question of subnational activity, making diplomats from countries with federal structures particularly relevant. Thus, the number of consular staff for Canada and Mexico (already on the list as large trading partners) was increased and expanded to include officials at their embassies in Washington, DC as they both had federal structures making them comparable in terms of their subnational activity. By the same reasoning, representatives of their subnational units were added to include Quebec and officials from the United Kingdom (Wales and Scotland) in both California and Washington, DC. This is explored specifically in Chapter 9. The third group of interviewees consisted of those involved in subnational/government-to-government diplomacy from a “domestic” perspective. This final group of interviewees included organizations dealing with subnational entities such as cities and counties, as well as those dealing with indigenous issues inside the state of California as well as at the national and international level. The primary modes of investigation involved face-to-face and telephone interviews as well as a short survey to broaden contact and to include a range of countries in terms of the size of consulate. Research also included attendance at the Global Climate Change Action Summit and the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, allowing for an examination of the practices at significant events and the texts and other artifacts of practice created and used by the actors involved at events designed for global consumption. Questions were designed to understand what Pouliot calls the “dispositional logic” of their practices. The idea was to explore how the people interviewed understand and operate within their rules and practices as they are seen, talked about or read (Pouliot 2012). Once conducted, the interviews and research were analyzed to provide what Pouliot calls the “synchronic” (practice at a specific time) and “diachronic” (practice in history and context) aspects of their work (Pouliot 2012).

26

A. R. HOLMES

Consuls General---The World in California The diplomats sent to California to represent their countries’ national interests seemed a logical starting point for this examination of California’s international profile. Interviewing this group also proved useful in terms of the question of how countries have changed their diplomatic representation in California, as well as how they divide work on certain issues between their consulates in the state and their embassies in Washington, DC. At the time of writing, according to the California Chamber of Commerce (www.advocacy.calchamber.com), California has 112 official consulates and honorary consuls. That said, countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom have additional offices and mechanisms to support trade and to represent their various subnational units e.g., Canadian provinces, especially Quebec, have offices or representatives, as do devolved nations such as Scotland and Wales. Specifically, Los Angeles has 103 consulates, split between 66 career consulates and 37 honorary consuls (www.laconsularcorps.com), making it one of the largest such communities in the world after New York (with 116). While San Francisco has 73 consulate officials, the representation is split more evenly between 37 career and 36 honorary consuls (www.sfc onsularcorps.org) and representing 70 countries. As the two major cities of the state, it was not surprising to find that, if a country is represented in California at all, it is based in at least one of these cities and often both. Mexico is particularly interesting in terms of its representation across California consisting of 10 consulates and one honorary consular office that not only promote trade, but support their citizens with a range of social services. These developments are unusual, but indicative of the increasingly complex relationship between Mexico and the United States and the size of the diaspora in California that now numbers in the thousands, if not millions. Interviews with consuls general focused on two overlapping groups. The first group consisted of countries with a large export or import exchange with California according to 2017 figures (Fig. 2.1).

2

TAKING A PRACTICE APPROACH TO CALIFORNIA

27

Fig. 2.1 a California trade partners 2017—top 10 export countries (Source globalEDGE—https://globaledge.msu.edu/states/california/ tradestats) Country

Export USD$

Mexico

$26,771,801,557

C a n a da

$16,842,021,711

China

$16,433,104,400

Japan

$12,830,448,508

Hong Kong

$12,108,991,143

Korea, South

$9,601,895,013

Taiwan

$6,313,260,046

Germany

$6,003,278,639

Netherlands

$5,785,302,641

United Kingdom

$5,030,384,740

b California trade partners 2017—top 10 import countries Country

Import USD$

China

$159,142,192,980

Mexico

$46,392,712,316

Japan

$40,480,037,936

Canada

$28,690,231,238

Malaysia

$16,387,544,085

Korea, South

$15,787,727,237

Taiwan

$13,401,308,401

Vietnam

$12,459,451,614

Germany

$11,501,912,977

Thailand

$10,361,166,473

28

A. R. HOLMES

The second group included countries that have already engaged with California in international agreements, e.g., countries where CA once had a trade office, or countries, or regions, or where California has already created agreements or memorandums of understanding (many on climate change) (see Chart C.2 and C.3). Larger relationships also warranted more than one interview – not only with their representatives in California, but also with diplomats in Washington, DC. These interview requests focused on countries where the import–export relationship is extensive and, conveniently, these countries often overlapped in terms of their federal structure. Specifically, Mexico and Canada were particularly important given the importance of subnational-to-subnational issues and their representatives were very generous with their time. Likewise, interviews with the United Kingdom in California and Washington, DC were particularly interesting and potentially relevant in policy terms. While they are not federal in an American sense, the long-standing political relationship between Northern Ireland and the United States and the process of devolution of many functions from central government to the still relatively new structures in the nations of Scotland and Wales offered further insight into the developing world of subnational diplomacy. One unexpected challenge was simply making contact with some of the diplomats in California. Despite the much-lauded accessibility offered by the internet, one might offer a preliminary policy suggestion that the public information function of a number of countries (now commonly understood as the public diplomacy of foreign governments) could be significantly improved if their staff attempted to use their own systems. Many consulates have no external or information email listed on their sites. Main telephone lines are regularly answered with long and complicated messages and/or numeric option systems that turn into a repeating loop or often cut to a dial tone. Pages of telephone numbers listed on sites purportedly for specific offices – including the press, information, or public diplomacy office – often rang many times before cutting out without the benefit of a messaging system and messages left on any consulate system were rarely answered. Clearly, it would be unfair to assume that every consulate has the resources to immediately deal with the weight of traffic it receives, but much could be learned from systems that deal with queries in a more direct and timely way – or at least don’t advertise contact points that go nowhere. Perhaps this is an issue that could be taken up by the Consular Deans or a research project that the

2

TAKING A PRACTICE APPROACH TO CALIFORNIA

29

Chamber of Commerce might undertake as a way to help consulates be more consistent in their presence. In addition to the interviews (and to ensure as wide a net as possible) a short survey, based on the themes raised in face-to-face interviews, was circulated to California’s large trading partners. The response to this instrument was not significant, but some of the responses did offer practical suggestions as to how California might better serve its diplomatic guests. Finally, further interviews were designed to get some perspective on the issues diplomats face and how they deal with them separately or as a collective. These included interviews with the Dean of the Consular Corps and the Office of Foreign Missions in Los Angeles. In terms of people sought for these diplomatic interviews, the Consul General was always the recipient of the initial contact and the hoped-for interviewee. Some consulates immediately passed the letter of invitation to another office as a matter of routine, though others passed it on for a specific reason. For example, in some cases, the Consul General was about to move to another post or was new to the post – which raises a separate, but interesting point. It quickly became apparent that countries have no set/predictable rotation for their consuls general and, unlike Washington, DC or other foreign postings where shifts often take place using some kind of recognizable pattern in terms of timing, CGs were treated more like line staff in that they could be moved at any time during the year. This seemed to have the effect of making the consular corps less coherent as a group and often unable to gain a sense of momentum or unity, even on issues they may want to bring to the attention of officials in their city or Sacramento. Returning to the question of scheduling, CGs were often out of town (most cover a huge area and several states), had other diary commitments, or made the decision to cover an academic request with another person in the consulate. This also varied as some consulates deemed it to be a press or public diplomacy issue while others, perhaps taking a different interpretation of the material provided, suggested a political officer, though economic, cultural and even educational officers were also interviewed in lieu of a CG. In terms of the question of who acted as the “lead” office when dealing with political issues in Sacramento, the countries interviewed were split. San Francisco was a common choice, but only if they had consulates in

30

A. R. HOLMES

both San Francisco and Los Angeles. As many countries have only one, many staff simply opt to shuttle from Los Angeles to the capital. In all, 21 interviews were conducted with consuls general or consular staff in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sacramento, while eight interviews were conducted with embassy staff in Washington, DC and made up over half of the 53 interviews conducted in total (see Chart C.4).

California’s Disparate Outward-Facing Team Moving to the process for identifying interviewees from California’s outward-facing or putative “international team”, an early observation was the fact that the state of California has relatively few people specifically charged with tending to the needs and interests of foreign diplomats at the state level. In terms of the larger cities, Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles recently created the position of the Deputy Mayor for International Affairs. This role is currently held by Ambassador Nina Hachigian, who is also developing, among her many other tasks, the function of “host” to the diplomats in Los Angeles. Interestingly, and despite the fact San Diego is California’s second largest city and a major trade and transport hub, it has fewer official representatives permanently located there which results in a different approach. Of its 26 foreign consulates, the overwhelming majority are honorary rather than career officers. That said, Mayor Kevin Faulconer has an Office of International Affairs and Protocol and while no specific staff member is listed, “Binational Collaboration & Global Competitiveness” is considered a key priority and is set out as a separate function from economic development (often considered the purpose of international subnational activity as will be shown). The Mayor’s support for a “binational region” and the pursuit of a “binational economy” has produced trips to Washington, DC and Mexico City and included representatives from the city, county, and the state level, as well as business and community leaders (sandiego.gov/mayor). It is also worth noting that San Diego proactively works in other Californian cities, such as San Francisco, to entice foreign businesses to relocate to San Diego. San Francisco, California’s fourth largest city, offers yet another option. As the home of Silicon Valley (which has produced a number of diplomatic innovations – particularly Denmark’s Ambassador specifically charged to engage with tech companies) San Francisco is the base of operations for many of the consulates’ main political operations. Mayor

2

TAKING A PRACTICE APPROACH TO CALIFORNIA

31

London Breed has no specific post in her office – though this may be due to the fact she was only recently elected to her first full term. At writing, the city had not filled the role in the Office of Protocol which was, for many years, handled by Charlotte Shultz (wife of the former Secretary of State George Shultz) and acted as a social hub for both San Francisco and Los Angeles. There is, however, a significant international presence in the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development with staffing for distinct initiatives for SFAsia, ChinaSF, and LatinSF as well as an active Sister Cities Program (www.oewd.org). In terms of the state capital, Sacramento does not currently have a consular corps per se. There was an attempt in 2000 by the California State University and the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce of Sacramento to create something that would act in this capacity. The Northern California World Trade Center was to serve as the administrative base, but this effort seems to have disappeared. This lack of established infrastructure may be reflected in the fact that most consuls in Sacramento are honorary rather than career consuls – with the notable exception of Mexico. The Mexican consulate in Sacramento is both large, serving most of the northern half of the state and the growing number of Mexican citizens in the area, and heavily involved in the politics of the city and state as evidenced by the seniority and experience of its staff. That said, the Consulate in Los Angeles is still considered to be Mexico’s “flagship” consulate, at least according to Ambassador José Antonio Zabalgoitia, the Deputy Chief of Mission for Mexico in Washington, DC. In terms of the specific support for diplomats, the California Chamber of Commerce was repeatedly mentioned as the most important contact point in the capital and often on broader political/policy issues. Susanne Stirling, their Vice President of International Affairs, was, by far, the person most regularly mentioned by both consular and state staff. Meanwhile, at the city level, Mayor Darrell Steinberg is actively engaged in the Sister Cities network and other international initiatives, though he has not taken on the same roles as those pursued by the mayors of Los Angeles or San Diego in terms of international structures and outreach.

32

A. R. HOLMES

California State Government and International Activity Delving more deeply into the state’s infrastructure, even the fundamental question of who to contact becomes complex. Generally speaking, the international strategy of California (and most states) rests with the Governor’s office. However, in California’s case – much like many other states/governors – Governor Newsom has now delegated at least part of this responsibility to the Lt. Governor’s office. Under the tenure of Governor Brown, the international agenda was firmly placed under his sustainability agenda and directly geared to climate change issues. In terms of seeking interviews with those involved in the state’s international strategy (vs the more specific environmental one) this posed a different set of issues. For example, almost no information could be found on the Governor’s site – or the California government site more generally – to explain the various international offices at the state level or if/how/whether they were connected. Even assuming that the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GoBiz) is a solid starting point, there is little guidance enabling one to easily find the Senate Office of International Relations, the Office of International Relations at the California State Assembly, or the person responsible for International Affairs and Business Development. In the area of California’s international or “diplomatic” representatives, seven interviews were conducted primarily in Sacramento, but also Los Angeles. Most of the interviews were face-to-face though some were by telephone.

The National/Domestic---International/Subnational Similarly, organizations at the national level engaged in the issues of state/international activity are also widespread. The organizations most relevant to this project are known as the “Big 7” (a name coined by President Clinton). Five of those seven were interviewed: the National Association of Counties (NACO), the National Governors Association (NGA), the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), The Council of State Governments (CSG) [and its relatively new sub-organization, the State International Development Organization (SIDO)], and the National League of Cities (NLC). As part of the respondent-driven research method, the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) was added via a recommendation from

2

TAKING A PRACTICE APPROACH TO CALIFORNIA

33

another organization (while two organizations that were part of the “Big 7” but unavailable or uncontactable were the National Conference of State Legislatures and the United States Conference of Mayors).

Indigenous Government-to-Government Relations According to a California Office of Tribal Affairs handout entitled, “Tribal Government 101: Tribal Sovereigns”, there are 573 federally recognized tribes in the United States. Of that number, 109, or nearly 20%, are based in California, along with 60 unrecognized tribes. In California, only 1 tribe has enrollment numbers over 6000, while six have roughly 3000 people. Twenty tribes stand at around 1000 enrolled members and almost as many again are in single or double digits – with six tribes not reporting (Tribal Governments Directory 2018). California’s position is to maintain a “government-to-government” relationships with these internal tribal “quasi-sovereigns” (Office of Tribal Affairs handout) and specific interviews in this group included: Governor Brown’s (and now Gov. Newsom’s) advisor on Tribal Affairs, the California Department of Health and Social Services, the Department of the Interior – Indian Affairs, the National Indian Law Resource Center, and the National Congress of the American Indian.

Conclusion California has been operating on the global stage for some time, but the question of what motivates and drives this activity has not been explicitly answered. In theoretical terms, this may be due to the fact that we continue to avoid the question by using phrases such as “post sovereign” rather than defining what it means to be “global” as a distinct phase of governance. In practice, the international activities of subnational units such as California, but equally the activities of other actors inside the state such as cities, counties, and tribes, are also happening in other countries and among similar subnational entities around the world. This suggests that California is not the leader, as suggested by Governor Newson, or even alone as an innovator in the area of subnational diplomacy or in creating new activities or structures to deal with international initiatives. However, it does indicate something much deeper is going on in terms of our governance at every level of social interaction. Further, it suggests that

34

A. R. HOLMES

California offers an ideal case study of the vertical axis of diplomacy, understood here as the more traditional levels of “sovereign” engagement. As a large and diverse economy organized and supported by a host of governing entities from cities, counties, and the state itself, to the internal sovereigns of the tribes, California’s actions in this field may be indicative of what it will mean to be truly global. Globalization and its effects on governance have been under discussion among both academics and practitioners for some time. This examination of California’s vertical axis seeks to understand the state’s current activities by revealing the effects of globalization’s compression on concepts of governing space, further, to examine how these ideas of space became overwhelmed by modern notions of place. The theoretical argument is that this process has led to the unraveling of the modern nation-state and the singular sovereign, allowing ancient histories and the concept of plural sovereignties to reemerge. By taking a practice-based approach situated at the point of convergence between theory and the multiple layers and players, the result will hopefully reach a more nuanced understanding of the way in which California engages with the world as well as the way the world sees California. More importantly, it may offer clues to a future for subnationals and the nation-state system as a whole. The argument is that effective governance in the global age will require diplomacy, as the institutional handmaiden of international society, to develop new systems and practices. There is an urgent need to recognize the reality of a multi-centric world where power is distributed more widely, but also more specialized, creating an equally urgent need for strategic overview. Neither the national nor the global perspective are now sufficient on their own to deal with the social issues we face. “Globality” requires an understanding of the simultaneity of the local/global connections made visible through the vertical axis. The question posed here as to the nature of California’s global strategy and profile is a timely investigation of the increasing number of sovereign intersections the state must navigate to deliver a “California for all”.

References Adler, Emanuel and Vincent Pouliot. 2011. International Practices. International Theory 3(1): 1–36.

2

TAKING A PRACTICE APPROACH TO CALIFORNIA

35

Barnes, Barry. 2001. Practices as Collective Action. In Theodore R. Schatzki, Karin Knorr Cetina, and Eike von Savigny (eds.) The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory. London and New York: Routledge. Bueger, Christian and Frank Gadinger. 2015. The Play of International Practice. International Studies Quarterly 59: 449–460. Governor’s Office of the Tribal Advisor. 2018. Directory. Sacramento: State of California. Kornprobst, Markus and Martin Senn. 2016. Introduction: Background Ideas in International Relations. The British Journal of Politics and International Relations 18 (2): 273–281. Pouliot, Vincent. 2012. Methodology: Putting Practice Theory in Practice. In Rebecca Adler-Nissen (ed.) Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in International Relations. New York: Routledge. Sharp, Paul. 2009. Diplomatic Theory of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thévenot, Laurent. 2001. Pragmatic Regimes Governing the World. In Karin Knorr Cetina, Eike von Savigny, and Theodore Schatzki (eds.) The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory, 56–73. London: Routledge.

CHAPTER 3

California Today

California is so big, and its problems so immense, that it needs its own foreign policy. In an era when economics commands foreign relations, this does not mean embassies and armies, but it does mean more trade offices and state agents in foreign countries, its own relations with foreign nations and a governor and legislature willing to represent the state’s interests independently of Washington. (Goldsborough 1993)

Indeed, California is so immense that, over ten years after James Goldsborough made this observation, Kevin Starr described California as not only a “nation-state”, but a “mega state”, a “world commonwealth”, and “a prism through which the larger American identity, for better or for worse, could be glimpsed” (Starr 2005). In contrast, John Kline has turned this description on its head. He argued this same point, but called California a “state-nation”, a distinction that is perhaps more accurate for California as it emphasizes the state-ness of the entity rather than some form of ethnic or linguistic community (Kline 1993). As suggested in the Introduction, California’s place in a large federal system remains a determining factor of its room for maneuver and will help explain much of the “practice” found at the level of intersecting sovereignties and the various claims to authority and jurisdiction within and above the state’s boundaries. Yet, even as subnational actors become increasingly involved internationally, actions still have spatiality and location. Therefore, by way of setting the scene for both the theoretical © The Author(s) 2020 A. R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3_3

37

38

A. R. HOLMES

background concepts and a more detailed look at California’s global profile and future plans, it is important to set out the constitutional constraints and some relevant traditions of American political discourse. Similarly, it will be useful to have a basic understanding of the current structure of the state and its international features and infrastructure.

The Constitutional Basis of State Action The work of scholars who have examined subnational entities in terms of their diplomacy or what is called paradiplomacy, i.e., the parallel diplomacy of subnational entities, will be examined in depth in Part II. However, for this initial look at California, a useful starting observation is the fact that much of this work is focused on the activities of subnationals within a federal system. This tendency in the scholarship is generally attributed to the fact that there is more scope for action by subnational actors in these “looser” government frameworks. In terms of the powers granted to the state of California specifically, its powers go back to the very foundation of the United States and the Constitution written in 1787 (ratified in 1788, and in force since 1789). As the founders struggled to move toward a more unified structure, leaders such as James Madison and Alexander Hamilton advocated for a strong central government. However, the thirteen fiercely independent states that existed at the time, were not willing to concede all of the freedoms they had enjoyed under the Articles of Confederation of 1781. They resisted what they saw as the surrender of too much power to the central government. Thus, the idea of a system of checks and balances – particularly in the area of international affairs – was more about “push and pull” than a forgone conclusion and became a style of interaction that continues to the modern day. Part of this compromise included a specific list of “enumerated powers” set out in Article 1 Section 8 that gave Congress the power, among other things, to regulate commerce with foreign nations (crucially listing Indian Tribes separately, as will be set out in detail in Part II) and to declare war (Kincaid 1999). At the same time, and through what is called the “necessary and proper clause”, Congress was also given a broad range of powers to take actions not specifically listed, but implied by the wording of the Constitution (Eatmon 2009). However, and as a support to the power of the states, the 10th Amendment reserves “to the States respectively, or to the People”, all those “powers not delegated to the United

3

CALIFORNIA TODAY

39

States by the Constitution, nor prohibited to it by the States”. Thus, the framers of the US constitution opted for a compromise that granted states limited access to international activity and often only with the consent of Congress. The central goal, of course, was to ensure consistency and some form of overreaching frame for taking action in what was considered to be the “national interest” of the country as a newly created whole. One of the main areas of constitutional interest for the state of California, as well as the tribal interests within the state, are the stipulations around treaty-making. As will be outlined in more depth below, Article 2 Section 2 is relevant to both the state of California and the sovereignty of tribes as it gives treaty-making power – as well as the appointment of ambassadors – primarily to the President with the “advice and consent” of the Senate. Article 6 Clause 2 then reinforces this hierarchy by granting treaties the status of the “supreme law of the Land”. In terms of an individual state’s role in treaties, Section 10 Article 1 specifically takes away treaty-making power by saying: “No state shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation”. Yet, Clause 3 of the same section goes on to allow external relations at the lower level of states and, with the consent of Congress, for a state to enter an “agreement or compact” with a foreign state. Greg Craven suggests that this combination of give-and-take effectively allows for a framework in which “‘non-political’ external relations” are possible by a state, but only “subject to the supervision of Congress” (Craven 1993). Douglas Kysar and Bernadette Meyler call the outcome of this evolution a “constitutional fog” between the federal government and states in terms of foreign affairs and argue that the resulting “iterative federalism” is particularly relevant in the case of California (Kysar and Meyler 2008). Understandably, this uncertain position (in terms of the federal government’s position on international affairs) has been reflected in the traditions of American diplomacy. Geoffrey Wiseman suggests that the diplomats of the United States historically, and to the present day, operate using a kind of “anti-diplomacy”. By this, he means that while the United States acknowledges and uses conventional norms and practices, from the country’s earliest history, American diplomats were reluctant to acknowledge the use and role of diplomacy. In evidence, he points to the fact that the United States did not appoint its first full ambassador until 1893 (when Grover Cleveland appointed Thomas F. Bayard to the Court of St James’s to be ambassador to the United Kingdom) and the fact that

40

A. R. HOLMES

no president even travelled abroad until Theodore Roosevelt in 1901. In other words, it was well over a century before the United States created any kind of international infrastructure or embraced a diplomatic role (Wiseman 2011).

States vs Subnationals in International Treaties Moving up from the specific American context to the international level, it is important to note that this particular reservation of powers between the national (or in the case of the United States – the federal) level and the subnational (or American state) level of government is reflected in international law. Traditional commentators would argue that only national/state entities have ius tractatuum or the right to conclude treaties. A view that, they argue, is at the heart of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Specifically, Article 6 grants: “Every state possesses capacity to conclude treaties” and defines treaties in Article 2 as “an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related institutions and whatever its particular designation” (UN.org). However, and in common with a great deal of international law, nothing is firmly established and various aspects are regularly challenged. This structure has specific implications – particularly in relation to indigenous issues – but these questions will be addressed further below. In the specific case of paradiplomatic actors, the various means used to negotiate at the international level have generally meant that subnational entities such as states have turned to something less than a treaty. Ironically, many of the agreements organized at the subnational level have turned out to be potentially more binding, as the implementation mechanism oftens takes the form of regulation at the subnational level. As Rodrigo Taveras points out, “…US states sign a huge volume of international business and cooperation, formal and informal agreements, but there has been little federal-state conflict over such agreementmaking activity as Congress does not wish to be inundated with time consuming approval requests. Even though an unlawful act may be overruled by Congress, experience has shown that international paradiplomatic affairs reflect a legitimate interest of local communities and that the state authorities would hardly overstep their legal competencies” (Tavares 2016).

3

CALIFORNIA TODAY

41

In the meantime, creative state-level officials have created other mechanisms to avoid the danger of overstepping their bounds. These include things such as: cooperation agreements or memorandums of agreement; international loan agreements; protocols of intent (or memorandums of understanding); an exchange of letters or notes; or political declarations and statements. That said, there has been a slight uptick in more binding types of agreements as states are anxious to create more stable structures for their paradiplomatic activities (Tavares 2016). As John Kincaid points out, “…state and local international activity has rested largely on constitutional interpretation, political practice, historical tradition and intergovernmental comity” (Kincaid 1999). This pattern looks likely to continue, at least until such time as the federal government begins to formalize state/federal relations or states begin to bureaucratize their own international activities at each level of engagement.

The Legacy of Early California Returning to the discussion of space and place, it is now important to connect this evolution to the modern “idea” of California by reaching back into the state’s history to a point before written records. This may seem strange, but the persistence of the patterns of development from these earliest settlers and California’s contemporary self-narrative is crucial. California has long presented a puzzle to anthropologists and archeologists because, once “discovered” by João Rodrigues Cabrilho in 1542, the Portuguese-born sailor who sailed for, and is often claimed by, the Spanish (loc.gov/rr/hispanic/portam/cabrilho), and according to the record in terms of what we can glean from these fields, it would appear the territory was settled by its earliest peoples in much the same way it was later settled by Europeans. According to Robert Heizer and Albert Elsasser, “The population of California today is drawn from all corners of the earth. And so it was, in a slower and smaller way, in native times…what we see in this kaleidoscope of tribes is nothing more than the survivors of scores, perhaps hundreds of separate migrations…” (Heizer and Elsasser 1980). Kent Lightfoot and Otis Parish point to the fact that the 80–100 languages spoken across the vast area of modern California at the time of European incursion makes the state “one of the most linguistically diverse areas of the world”. Crucially, this linguistic diversity includes representation of most of the language stocks from right across North America

42

A. R. HOLMES

(Lightfoot and Parrish 2009). They go on to consider the fact that the patterns of governance found in California do not follow any traditional theories of anthropology, namely what most in the field had traditionally assumed to be the logical progression of political entities from “bands, tribes, chiefdoms” to the point of some form of “state”. Their alternative conclusion is that California was a “crowded landscape packed with mainly modest-sized, semi-autonomous polities each of which supported its own organization of elites, retainers, religious specialists, craft experts and commoners” (Lightfoot and Parrish 2009). Further, while these entities overlapped in various ways and were generally peaceable, the archeological record shows that displacement, assimilation via violence, and hostile take-overs were also a part of the area’s pre-European history. Similarly, and counter to much of the increasingly mainstream narrative of native life, so too were endemic disease and the over farming and hunting of natural resources to the point of malnutrition and starvation (Lightfoot and Parrish 2009). Yet there were no “recorded political confederacies or leagues of tribes” (Heizer and Elsasser). This is a vital point when the history of the indigenous people begins to intersect with the histories of other peoples arriving from entities with very different ideas of space, place, land and ownership, as well as the massive shift of power implicated by the development of the United States as a nation-state in its own right. In terms of the increasing number of encounters with Europeans, the relatively small and linguistically discrete groupings of tribes made the penetration of California a very different process than that which took place along the east coast. In that instance, the Venetian explorer Giovanni Caboto (also known as John Cabot) landed in North America in 1497 under the commission of Henry VII of England. This ‘discovery’ was followed shortly thereafter by Juan Ponce de Leon who arrived in modern-day Florida in 1513 and claimed the land for what is today called “Spain”. Thus, the determining factor of the relationship with the indigenous people along the Atlantic coast was the basic fact that these representatives had been sent on behalf of a “power” or a “crown” – but not a formal “state” as we understand them today. The first formal settlement, Jamestown, did not occur for nearly another century in 1607 and, even then, the idea that some form of sovereignty resides in the entity of the nation-state was still over forty years in the future, commonly marked as the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648 on the other side of the world.

3

CALIFORNIA TODAY

43

The natural result was that the initial means of interaction between the tribes and the new arrivals was one of entity-to-entity, but not truly one of government-to-government. It should be stressed that this was the case not because of a lack of governance structures on the part of the tribes, but because there were few unified governments on the part of the arrivals at the time of initial contact. Thus, groups of explorers, traders, soldiers and missionaries did individual deals, agreements and even treaties of various kinds though they were not on behalf of a recognizable state entity. This was aptly demonstrated by the various powers who sought the help and military support of the tribes – particularly as conflict broke out between the growing number of people arriving, all with separate claims to territory in the “New World”. Even the United States – the Declaration of Independence only two years old and the American Revolution still raging – sent representatives from the Continental Congress to negotiate and agree the nascent country’s first treaty with the Lenape (Delaware) in 1778, thus asserting its new status as a state with the power and recognition to undertake the making of treaties (ohiohistorycentral.org). The United States eventually entered into more than 370 treaties with the peoples they encountered as the country expanded (National Congress of American Indians, NCAI.org) and despite the fact the process of “drawing permanent exclusionary borders through space” was considered “strange” to those they met (Soguk 2009). Some tribes willingly entered into agreements of various kinds with the new arrivals while others consistently resisted and were willing to fight. The deeper process at work is reflected in comments made by Toohoolhoolzote (a Nez Perce spokesperson) when he said, “You white people get together, measure the earth and then divide it…The earth is part of my body, and I never gave up the earth” (Soguk 2009). Gradually, painfully and perhaps inexorably, the process of modernity displaced tribal concepts of space by denying or destroying the idea of plural sovereigns and replacing it with the idea of place based on the singular and all-encompassing sovereignty of the nation-state and a hierarchy of property and territory.

Old Sovereignties Re-emerge The link to modern-day California and the challenges it now faces in relation to both current and long-dormant forms of nested sovereignt(ies) is the result of a combination of timing and circumstance. California’s

44

A. R. HOLMES

relatively rapid evolution as a state went through many phases in terms of its territorial and jurisdictional boundaries. At the same time, national news was being made as the transcontinental railroad began to join the disparate parts of the country in the wake of the Civil War. This perceived need to reassert the centrality of the national government helps explain the fact that, in 1871, the government stopped making treaties with all tribes. Unfortunately for the peoples of California, this moment arrived just as eighteen treaties had been negotiated with tribes in the state (and another 19 in Oregon). The combination of a new mood in Washington and previous Spanish control with different legal traditions governing land ownership and property rights, meant that the California treaties were never ratified – though several of the abandoned Oregon treaties were eventually renegotiated (Hirsch 2014; Kelsey 1973; National Congress of American Indians/NCAI.org). The relevance of this fundamental shift in US policy and its impact on tribal relations in California is demonstrated by the fact that, as recently as the California 2018 Directory of Tribal Governments (the basic reference guide used by the state), the eighteen unratified treaties are included as an appendix.

States and Sovereigns Thus, the issues around sovereignty and California’s resulting diplomacy or paradiplomacy lie at the intersection of tribal interests and state interests and reveal one of the biggest challenges for California going forward. As will be explored in the following chapters, there is no escape from the obvious overlap and sharp difference in perspective between the concept of state sovereignty and inherent sovereignty as they operate along the vertical axis of action locally, at the state, and at the international levels. The Constitution, statutes, executive orders, and judicial decisions have combined to create what is today known as “Indian Country” – or the legally defined area over which the federal government and tribes share jurisdiction. The result is a “unique and legal relationship” between the federal government and the tribes in what is known as a government-to-government approach (National Congress of American Indians/NCAI.org 2018 and 2019). For California, this brings the question back to forms of practice and how the state operates along its vertical axis and coordinates with all its internationally engaged players for a more global approach. From the tribal perspective, and for Linda

3

CALIFORNIA TODAY

45

Medcalf, this means tribes must be “on the attack” and must “believe themselves to be a government and act like one. In the legal mind, sovereignty or acting like a government centers around questions of jurisdiction… Sovereignty therefore requires both political self-determination and economic self-sufficiency” (Medcalf 1999). However, tribes are not the only entities in California that may use diplomacy to seek action from other levels to address their needs. The United States has not experienced protodiplomacy, understood as the paradiplomacy of not just subnationals, but secessionists in places such as Canada, Spain, or elsewhere. This absence may be due to the fact that the history of the United States is, in many ways, antithetical to the concentrated ethnic, religious, or linguistic identities on which such groups base their demands for secession. That said, the combined and concurrent pressures of globalization and localization are beginning to erode the particularly American concept of a combined or blended national identity. This has created more space for states as separate entities or subnationals, as well as the inherent sovereigns of tribal nations to find voice on a global stage. Similarly, other entities such as counties and cities are also becoming more engaged – and increasingly coming to the attention of scholars interested in subnational diplomacy as they all begin to assert their own form of identit(ies) and issues of concern. While not tracing this fractured identity back to its origins, Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California recognized the challenge presented by the deeply divided regionalism of California in 2000 when he argued the state was “at a critical juncture”. He suggested that while all states have distinct regions and tensions, in California the “distinctions and tensions are intensified by the state’s unique geography” (Baldassare 2000). Further, given the state is so large, there is little consensus on the regions themselves or the criteria for how the state should be divided, compounded by the fact that different functions, even from the state government, are not based on the same configuration. He argues, “The history of the state has exacerbated the regionalism” and “made it difficult for California to develop a sense of oneness” (Baldassare 2000). Almost more worrying for Baldassare is the underlying lack of faith (perhaps even distrust) Californians have in the political process, as historical wrongs and ongoing inequalities between peoples and regions have damaged the political process. Baldassare made a number of recommendations, some of which were picked up in spirit, if not in specifics, nearly a decade later by Abe Lowenthal, president emeritus of the Pacific Council

46

A. R. HOLMES

on International Policy. The size of the challenge is surely reflected in the fact that nearly another ten years on, many of the same issues and questions remain unanswered.

California’s Diversity of Peoples California’s diversity logically extends beyond the histories of its people and regions to include its economy. Ironically, presciently, or perhaps tragically, Spanish was the second official language of the state in its first constitution of 1849, but by the time of the second constitution in 1878 the language was dropped completely. Still, as of 2004 the Los Angeles Unified School District may be a useful indicator of the persistence of the city’s global reach as it reported 92 languages in use by its student population. Interestingly, if the Mexican population of LA were a city in Mexico, they would form the second largest city of Mexico. Similarly, if the Angelenos from S Korea, Armenia and Ethiopia were cities back home, they would also be some of the largest cities in their home countries. Such statistics may be hardly surprising given that, as of 2015, 27% of California’s population was foreign-born, about twice the US percentage (Public Policy Institute of California/PPIC.org). According to the United States Census Bureau in 2016, Hispanics are the largest single ethnic group at 38.9% (Hispanic or Latino of any race) and 61.1% are non-Hispanic (of any race) while the overall population of California self-identifies (alone or in combination) (Fig. 3.1). Fig. 3.1 California’s demographic breakdown (Source Community Survey 2019, US Census Bureau) Overall Breakdown 63.6% 17.1% 7.0% 2.0% 0.8% 14.9%

White Asian Black or African American Nave American and Alaska Nave Nave Hawaiian or Pacific Islander Some Other Race

Hispanic/Lano 39.4 Hispanic or Lano (of any race) 60.6 Not Hispanic or Lano

American

3

CALIFORNIA TODAY

47

With 39.5 million people as of 2019, California has 12% of the country’s residents and is the most populous state in the United States. To put these statistics in context in terms of total numbers; California has the largest population of White Americans with an estimated 22,200,000 residents; the fifth largest population of African Americans at 2,250,000 and a third of the total number of Asian Americans with 4.4 million. Given the overall decline of immigration from Latin America, the Asian–American community also constitutes the fastest growing racial/ethnic group; a shift precipitated by growth in immigration from China, India, and the Philippines. Finally, of the 558 federally recognized tribes in the United States, 226 are located in Alaska while the remaining tribes (nations, bands, pueblos, communities, and native villages) are spread across the country (Johnson et al. 2000). In California specifically, there are approximately 109 federally recognized tribes and 78 petitioning for recognition (courts.ca.gov/ 3066), making California’s Native American population the largest of any state in terms of total numbers with 285,000 (US Census/Census.gov).

California’s Diverse Economy Economically speaking, California’s diversity is just as impressive. At approximately $2.7 trillion per annum, California’s economy is behind the United States, China, Japan, and Germany, but in 2018, pulled ahead of the United Kingdom to become the fifth largest economy in the world and was, prior to the pandemic, ahead of the United Kingdom, France, India, Italy, and Brazil. The state is also ahead of its largest trading partners Canada – which stands at 12th (behind Texas) – and well ahead of Mexico at 18th (imf.org 2018b). The five largest sectors in California are: trade, transportation, and utilities; government; professional and business services; education and health services; and leisure and hospitality. In terms of output the largest include: financial services, then trade, transportation, and utilities; education and health services; government and manufacturing, but it is estimated that over half (58%) of the state’s economy is based on finance, government real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and business services. These figures are significantly boosted by having some of the largest and fastest growing companies based in the state such as Chevron,

48

A. R. HOLMES

Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Google, Facebook, and Wells Fargo. Interestingly, while agriculture is only 1.5% of the California economy, it still has the highest output in the country (ca.gov 2006). Closely related to the industries of California, and by way of connecting the state’s economy to the rest of the world and to the targets previously outlined for this study, are the state’s trading partners. The United States Trade Representative’s report indicated that, as of 2017, California was the second largest state exporter (just behind Texas). These goods represent 6.3% of California’s GDP and support just under 700,000 jobs. The state’s largest export market by far was Mexico, worth $26.8 million (16% of the state’s total), while Canada was second and represented $16.8 million. Canada was followed closely by China with $16.4 million, then Japan at $12.8 million and Hong Kong with $12.1 million. Meanwhile, as of 2015, Japan and the United Kingdom were major sources of foreign investment into the state (USTR.gov and calcha mber.com). In terms of investment into California, the top countries are Japan, the United Kingdom, China, and the Netherlands. Foreign affiliate employment accounts for over 700,000 jobs in California and the state has one of the largest concentrations of international banks, foreign consulates, and bi-national chambers of commerce in the United States (business.ca.gov). However, the process of turning these massive trade and investment relationships into a strategic approach for the governance of California has not been straightforward or consistent. California, like every other state in the union, has almost no infrastructure to oversee and maintain international activities. That said, Governor Gray Davis did create the post of Secretary of Foreign Affairs, first held by Michael Flores who organized the first trip by a Mexican President (President Ernesto Zedillo) to Sacramento. The governor also hosted leaders from China, Japan, and Singapore in his first year in office (McMillan 2008). The new Secretary of Foreign Affairs was also credited with organizing the governor’s overseas meetings with “British, Israeli and Greek ministers and Irish, Scottish and Palestinian leaders” and travelled to Mexico over 40 times during his four-year tenure (McMillan 2008).

Paradiplomacy and Trade Unfortunately, this infrastructure did not last, highlighting John Kline’s point that the development of international state activity has been uneven,

3

CALIFORNIA TODAY

49

though, as he goes on to argue, where such activity does happen, it is often on the basis of natural geographic interests (Kline 1993). This tendency has been described by scholars as “regional” and “transregional” diplomacy and considered to be two dominant types of paradiplomacy. Logically, subnationals reach across their closest borders to discuss common issues with their neighbors, or extend their reach to those with a specific link to their region through cultural or economic ties that could be dealt with through some subnational agreement. Kline offers the illustration of links between states on the eastern seaboard with Europe and Canada, or Texas and Arizona reaching out to Mexico and Latin America while the Pacific coast often deals with Canada, Mexico and on to Asia. Andrew Cooper agrees with this pattern, but also points out that California “lacked much of the ‘me-tooism’ associated with other non-central actors with regard to foreign economic activity” (Cooper 1993). California, Cooper suggests, seems to take a more relaxed attitude given its size, as investors, states, and countries were likely to come to the state regardless of their own effort. However, and whatever the background, Cooper points out, “California lagged behind many other states including Illinois and Iowa which had opened up a variety of foreign offices and sister-state arrangements (Brussels, Osaka, Hong Kong, Sao Paulo, Shen-Yang, Liaoning Province, China: and Frankfurt Hong Kong respectively). Organizationally, California relied heavily on outside consultants and on the work of the California World Trade Commission, a non-profit corporation, rather than a state agency” (Cooper 1993). This reticence may help explain why, in a 2002 survey, McMillan found that, despite nearly all US states saying that, “trade and investment promotion” is the “main motivation for overseas missions” (only two states claimed that “tourism promotion” was their top priority) California officials said it was important to “develop political relationship first, and then build on these relationships to generate trade and investment opportunities” (McMillan 2008). This different perspective and rather checkered history of international activity comes through in a brief timeline of California’s activities in this area (see Chart C.5). Chris Whatley and Brian Hocking found rather different explanations for this stop-start approach. The explanation offered by the state officials these authors spoke to, suggested a “push-pull relationship with Washington” because they felt that while the federal authorities were “anxious to see the state increasingly involved in trade promotion” they were much less keen on involving states in the process of trade policy

50

A. R. HOLMES

(Hocking 1993). Whatley’s discussions with officials revealed the much more pragmatic political explanation in that “several staff members in both chambers identified term limits as one reason why legislators are not working together more on international issues” (Whatley 2003).

Conclusion The opportunities for subnational activity have grown exponentially in recent years. To use a popular example, and as the brief timeline of California’s international activity (and particularly the list of business initiatives and climate change activities) makes clear, there has been a steady increase in activity around California’s work on the environment and climate change. However, as much as California would like to claim to be in the vanguard of this, and other issues, there is ample evidence that California is one part of a much wider trend. Other subnationals – some with far more constitutional powers than those held by a single American state – have been engaged in paradiplomacy, including what has been called “climate diplomacy” (Tavares 2016) for years. Looking at the entities with which California has been doing business (and negotiating on issues such as climate change) both large subnationals and middle powers – or those who are not super or even “great” powers but with influence and recognition for their international work – regularly appear on the list. One explanation for this pattern may be found in a recent briefing from the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London (Chatham House) by Roland Paris that posed the question: “Can Middle Powers save the Liberal world order?” Paris’s argument is that, as major powers such as the United States, China, and Russia chip away at the foundations of the liberal world order, middle powers have the knowledge and expertise if not to stop, at least to slow the “erosion” currently underway (Paris 2019). This idea has also been recognized by other authors – especially on issues such as climate change – and they suggest the idea that entities such as California and Germany should “lead from between” as they now effectively occupy the same political space despite their differences in official standing (Sivaram and Livingston 2015). The argument here is that the paradiplomacy of subnationals – especially the larger ones regularly dealing with the national governments of other states – are increasingly stepping into what was traditionally the “middle power arena” and perhaps these entities can (and should) be looking to organize

3

CALIFORNIA TODAY

51

their diplomacy in a way that is flexible enough to be locally aware while globally active. Unfortunately, California has been unable (or unwilling) to take on such a task. In 1993 James Goldsborough argued that California’s “best hope” is to “pursue aggressively its own foreign policy” (Goldsborough 1993). Other scholars, including Baldassare (2000), Shatz (2003), Lowenthal (2009) and more recently, Huijgh (2010), Smurr (2010), and (Moore 2013) have joined that call for a clear strategy and structured implementation. To date, and as Ellen Huijgh has observed, “California…develops public diplomacy somewhat unsystematically… Efforts are often disjointed and implementation is not centralized” (Huijgh 2010). Douglas Smurr is more direct when he accuses the state of being “adrift internationally” and pleads for “an international program that is integrated, coordinated and strategically oriented” (Smurr 2010). Scott Moore simply argues that subnational diplomacy “should be viewed as an integral part of foreign relations in the interdependent twenty-first century” (Moore 2013). Certainly, this volume would be largely redundant if California had already developed a global strategy and marshalled its human and financial resources in a more interconnected way. On the other hand, the fundamental processes of globalization are not easy to navigate and even if California is not doing substantially better than its peers, it is arguably doing no worse. Thus, on a more hopeful note, it appears the voices arguing for the need to step up globally have not been lost on Governor Newsom. As he indicated in an early interview with the Economist, he is aware that California has not done enough to pursue an economic strategy of its own. “I think we rested on our laurels…We put up our feet and talked about the old days” (Economist 2019a). The argument here is that Governor Newsom will not be able to tackle the challenges he faces without also appreciating the fact that something much deeper is at work. To develop a truly global approach will require California to develop an overarching strategy and to coordinate the activities of every entity along its vertical axis of diplomacy. However, to achieve that goal, a grounding in the theoretical issues and background concepts is needed to enable the creation of the practices necessary to deal with the challenges ahead. These essentially theoretical questions will be the focus of the following three chapters.

52

A. R. HOLMES

References Baldassare, Mark. 2000. California in the New Millennium: The Changing Social and Political Landscape. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cooper, Andrew. 1993. Towards a Typology of Non-central Foreign Economic Behavior: The Case of Agricultural Trade. In Brian Hocking (ed.) Foreign Relations and Federal States. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press. Craven, Greg. 1993. Federal Constitutions and External Relations. In Brian Hocking (ed.) Foreign Relations and Federal States. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press. Eatmon, Thomas D. 2009. Paradiplomacy and Climate Change: American States as Actors in Global Climate Governance. Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research 1 (2): 153–165. Goldsborough, James O. 1993. California’s Foreign Policy. Foreign Affairs (Spring): 88–96. Hayes, Joseph. n.d. Just the Facts—Immigrants in California. Public Policy Institute of California. https://www.ppic.org/. Heizer, Robert F., and Albert B. Elsasser. 1980. The Natural World of the California Indians. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hirsch, Mark G. 2014. 1871: The End of Indian Treaty-Making. Magazine of Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian 15 (2). https:// www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/1871-end-indian-treaty-making. Hocking, Brian (ed.). 1993. Foreign Relations and Federal States. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press. Huijgh, Ellen. 2010. The Public Diplomacy of Federated Entities: Examining the Quebec Model. In David Criekemans (ed). Regional Sub-state Diplomacy Today. The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Johnson, Susan, Jeanne Kaufmann, John Dossett, and Sarah Hicks. 2000. Government to Government: Understanding State and Tribal Governments. Washington, DC: National Conference of State Legislatures and National Congress of American Indians. Kaiser, Robert. 2005. Sub-state Governments in International Arenas: Paradiplomacy and Multi-level Governance in Europe and North America. In Guy Lachapelle and Stéphane Paquin (eds.) Mastering globalization: New Substates’ Governance and Strategies. New York: Routledge. Kelsey, Harry. 1973. The California Indian Treaty Myth. Southern California Quarterly 55 (3): 225–238. https://scq.ucpress.edu/content/55/3/225. Kincaid, John. 1999. The International Competences of US States and Their Local Governments. In Francisco Aldecoa and Michael Keating (eds.) Paradiplomacy in Action: the Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments. London: Frank Cass.

3

CALIFORNIA TODAY

53

Kline, John M. 1993. Managing Intergovernmental Tensions: Shaping a State and Local Role in US Foreign Relations. In Brian Hocking (ed.) Foreign Relations and Federal States. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press. Kysar, Douglas A., and Bernadette A. Meyler. 2008. Like a Nation State. UCLA Law Review 55 (6): 1621–1673. Lightfoot, Kent G., and Otis Parrish. 2009. California Indians and their Environment: An Introduction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lowenthal, Abraham F. 2009. Global California. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. McMillan, Samuel. 2008. Subnational Foreign Policy Actors: How and Why Governors Participate in US Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy Analysis 4: 227–253. McMillan, Samuel Lucas. 2012. The Involvement of State Governments in U.S. Foreign Relations. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Medcalf, Linda. 1999. The Quest for Sovereignty in John R. Wunder. Native American Sovereignty. New York: Garland Publishing Inc. Moore, Scott. 2013. California’s Subnational Diplomacy: The Right Approach. The Diplomat. October 11. https://thediplomat.com/2013/10/californiassub-national-diplomacy-the-right-approach/. n.a. 1969. Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. https://legal.un.org/ilc/ texts/instruments/english/conventions/1_1_1969.pdf. n.a. 2006. Cal Facts. Sacramento: Legislative Analyst’s Office. https://lao.ca. gov/2006/cal_facts/calfacts_economy_2006.pdf. n.a. 2018a. Cal Facts. Sacramento: Legislative Analyst’s Office. https://lao.ca. gov/Publications/Detail/3905. n.a. 2018b. International Monetary Fund. “Report for Selected Country Groups and Subjects”. World Economic Outlook. https://www.imf.org. n.a. 2019a. A Tale of Two States—Special Report: California and Texas. The Economist. June 22. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/06/20/tex afornia-dreaming. n.a. 2019b. California Tribal Communities. California Courts—The Judicial Branch of California. https://www.courts.ca.gov/3066.htm. Paris, Roland. 2019. Can Middle Powers Save the Liberal World Order? Briefing. June. London: Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House). https://www.chathamhouse.org/publication/can-middlepowers-save-liberal-world-order#. Shatz, Howard J. 2003. Business Without Borders? The Globalization of the California Economy. San Francisco, CA: Public Policy Institute of California. Sivaram, Varun, and David Livingston. 2015. Leading from Between: How California and Germany Can Fix the Climate Agenda. Foreign Affairs. June 23. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2015-06-23/leading-between.

54

A. R. HOLMES

Smurr, Douglas. 2010. California Adrift Internationally: Resetting Course for the 21st Century. Journal of International Business and Cultural Studies 3: 1–24. Soguk, Nevzat. 2009. Communication/Excommunication: Transversal Indigenous Diplomacies in Global Politics. In Marshall Beier (ed.) Indigenous Diplomacies. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Starr, Kevin. 2005. California: A History. New York: Modern Library. Tavares, Rodrigo. 2016. Paradiplomacy: Cities and States as Global Players. New York: Oxford University Press. United States Census. 2016. Quick Facts. Washington, DC: United States Census Bureau. United States Trade Representative. 2017. California Trade Facts. Washington, DC: Office of the Trade Representative. https://ustr.gov/map/state-benefi ts/ca. Whatley, Chris. 2003. State Official’s Guide to International Affairs. Washington, DC: Council of State Governments. Winkler, Matthew. 2019. The California Economy Isn’t Just a US Powerhouse. Bloomberg. April 24. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/california-economyisn-t-just-090021109.html. Wiseman, Geoffrey. 2011. Distinctive Characteristics of American Diplomacy. The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 6: 235–259.

PART II

The Theoretical Challenges to Subnational International Affairs

Part II provides an overview of the foundational theory relevant to the development of any subnational’s global profile. This includes a discussion of the key background concepts found in International Relations and Indigenous Studies of Sovereignty, Inherent Sovereignty, Diplomacy, and Paradiplomacy. The goal of this section is to offer a theoretical basis for the questions being asked about the role of subnationals in international affairs and a conceptual frame for potential policy outcomes.

CHAPTER 4

Old Sovereignty

sovereign (n.) late 13c., “superior, ruler, master,” from Old French soverain “sovereign, lord, ruler,” noun use of adjective meaning “highest, supreme, chief”. (see sovereign (adj.)) sovereign (adj.) early 14c., “great, superior, supreme,” from Old French soverain “highest, supreme, chief,” from Vulgar Latin superanus “chief, principal”. (etymonline.com)

Shifting Sovereignty---Down and In or Up and Out? “Sovereignty” is not a word commonly used in casual conversation and hardly typical even in political debate. However, over the past few years, the term has become inescapable across political divisions and around the world in a process that accelerated through the first half of 2019. The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry “hope[s] that Canada will soon recover sovereignty over its foreign policy” (rt.com 2019). The European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, released a statement “on behalf of all 28 union states saying the EU ‘does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights’” (Landau 2019). In the United States, the White House declared that President Trump “is defending our sovereignty and constitutional rights from the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty” © The Author(s) 2020 A. R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3_4

57

58

A. R. HOLMES

(White House 2019). The Shinnecock Indian Nation has “asserted its sovereignty” over an advertising billboard and will “continue to fight against the most recent attack on their tribal sovereignty” (Chisholm 2019) while the Mille Lacs Band of the Ojibwe are investing in a program they hope will protect their “food sovereignty” (Mizner 2019). In California, there is a continuing legal battle that centers around the concept of interstate sovereign immunity in a case with Nevada and, at last count, the state has brought, or is a party to, 60 cases against the federal government. Most of these deal with states’ rights and questions of federal power (Kasler 2019) aptly summed up by the Sacramento Bee in the headline “Trump sues to undo California’s climate change pact with Canada, calls it rogue foreign policy” (Irby and Kasler 2019). As with the term “globalization” in the late 1990s, the word sovereignty is suddenly everywhere – but with a distinct difference. In the 1990s and early 2000s the globalization debate focused on the question of human rights, government intervention, and the responsibility of the international community to step into deal with failed states (Stokes 2019). Today, the discussion around sovereignty has taken what many view as a downward turn, captured in what John Fonte asserts are the fundamental “two words” in the debate: “who decides?” (Fonte 2018). The dramatic increase in the use of the language of sovereignty can be attributed, at least in part, to the fact that President Trump has regularly used the term to frame his foreign policy. Yet, for some time, it has been clear that very different conceptions of self-determination, selfgovernance and identity politics have been conflated under the banner of so-called “sovereignty” in different places, at different levels, and in the hope of achieving very different ends. The focus of this volume is ultimately on the impact of shifting ideas of sovereignty on the state of California. However, Stewart Patrick’s observation that “Sovereignty is one of the more frequently invoked, polemical and misunderstood ideas in American politics” (Patrick 2017) is an observation that could be made about many other places around the world today. In the American context, some have offered the idea of a broad “Trump Doctrine” (Anton 2019) as one reason for the increase in its use, while others identify the issue as a much broader question about the concept of sovereignty itself. Still, many observers agree that the president’s ire is directed more at the idea of “globalism” or some “transnational, supranational dimension beyond or above the nationstate” (Fonte 2018) rather than internationalism per se. Whatever the

4

OLD SOVEREIGNTY

59

catalyst, the forces of globalization have brought the issues of ‘the sovereign’ and the “nation-state” system specifically, to the fore, particularly the intrinsic tension between independent sovereign states and shared governance. Thus far, the president has dealt with this ambiguity by asserting his role as the one “who decides” so strongly that he has arguably stripped the concept of its fundamental and systemic function. The original, underlying objective of sovereignty – particularly in its territorial form – was to bring “stability” as expressed through “balance of power, reciprocal recognition…[and] respect for international law” to the international system (Bronner 2017). These systemic needs produced shifts in models of governance – albeit very slowly and at different points in time around the world – from clans and tribes to the ideal-type of “nation” as a coherent and homogenous entity. The most recent shift from “nation” to “state” has been the most difficult, as few states have ever been as uniform or as unified as this framing suggests. History is basically a long story of overlapping peoples and powers claiming territories or resources in a search for survival and security. Thus, the idea of a “nation-state” became a useful way to capture the fact that many, if not most, nations have been conquered, surrounded, or simply absorbed by an entity eventually but increasingly recognized by the system as a state. In the policy world, the idea of “responsible sovereignty” has been recently proposed by scholars at Brookings as a way to incorporate the obligations of states to other entities beyond their boundaries as well as their responsibilities to their own people (Chhabra 2017). However, this stands in stark contrast to the attitude and positioning of those now using sovereignty to support a wide range of causes. Arguably, one result of the aggressive use of sovereignty that is becoming common in the globalized world is that it opens the door for a host of actors and entities to assert what they deem to be their “sovereign rights”. Some entities, including tribes and subnational units such as California, have a long history of operating at a variety of levels given their constitutional responsibilities and remit. However, other actors are now increasingly seeking to use the mantle of sovereignty to engage in international activities well “above” the level assigned them in the more traditional, hierarchical frame of the nation-state. Meanwhile, even those with accepted roles are beginning to seek new avenues to the international arena.

60

A. R. HOLMES

For example, The Embassy of Tribal Nations in Washington, DC (so named in 2009) is headquarters to the National Congress of the American Indian and has represented what is known as “Indian Country” to the federal government since 1944. This form of representation of tribal interests may soon be followed by the Navajo (Diné) Nation who are considering the option of opening their own embassy (Denetclaw 2019). In a distinct contrast of approach – but in pursuit of the same ideal – the Oklahoma-based Cherokee Nation (with nearly 370,000 enrolled members) has indicated that it will pursue the terms of the 1835 Treaty of New Echota by appointing a delegate to the United States House of Representatives (Kaur 2019). Elsewhere, there is a renewed campaign led by Louis Marinelli for what he calls “sovereign California”, arguing that his movement is not an “1860s breakaway”, but the expression of a desire to have the state of California “recognized as a nation within a nation, like Scotland in the United Kingdom. We feel California is more than just a state” (Morrison 2015). To that end, in 2016, the campaign opened its own “embassy” for the “Independent Republic of California” – in Russia (Myers 2016). All of these initiatives clearly reflect very different understandings of the term sovereignty (and of the workings of embassies and subnationals in other countries such as the United Kingdom). That said, these efforts share the desire for the representation of identity and self-governance and adopted the language of sovereignty to achieve those aims.

Conjugating Sovereignty The fact the term “sovereign” can be used as both a noun and an adjective is perhaps a sign of its complex nature and, more deeply, that its use and application depend almost entirely on context. As Stewart Patrick bluntly suggests, “Sovereignty is fundamental, but it is also contingent” (Patrick 2017), a contingency that is argued here to be related not only to circumstance, but to a specific moment in time. As R. B. J. Walker suggests, “…the principle of state sovereignty codifies a historically specific answer to historically specific questions about political community” (in Kalmo and Skinner 2010). Hent Kalmo and Quentin Skinner similarly argue, “without a tinge of paradox” that, “sovereignty does not have a history, it is a history” (italics added) and remains a concept with a “multi-layered semantic sediment”. Thus, they argue, the confusion we see in the use of the term is not the result of a concept that has no content, but evidence

4

OLD SOVEREIGNTY

61

of the different interpretations or layers of content that were relevant to specific moments and places, but that remain simultaneously visible over time. As will be discussed, this is particularly relevant in the case of different entities within the United States. Beyond parts of speech and context, sovereignty also presents as both theory and practice, effectively creating a closed loop between the concept and the referent. The term becomes both an argument and a claim to authority. Kalmo and Skinner build on Fonte’s fundamental point by arguing, “Answering the question as to what sovereignty is cannot be separate…from the question as to who is thought to be its proper bearer. Similarly, where sovereignty is to be found is not a question that can be given a right answer, over and above its history…sovereignty is not a property that can be analyzed in the abstract” (Kalmo and Skinner 2010). This is why, Denis Baranger suggests, sovereignty has been approached in two ways. The first is to understand meaning (or the theory), while the second is rooted in practice as one looks for the “consequences from the fact that a certain community, or institution, can be said to be sovereign” (Baranger 2010). From this perspective, sovereignty suffers from the “substantialist” tendency of international relations scholars identified by Patrick Jackson and Daniel Nexon, who argue there is a conflation in the field between the object and the outcome of its actions – leading academics to a focus on an entity (such as the state) rather than its processes or interactions. They use the simple analogy that the “the wind is blowing” to observe that the statement seems to suggest that the wind could somehow exist separately from its effects, or that the wind existed first, or was fully formed as an entity before engaging with the rest of the world. They go on to argue that, by focusing on the wind (or in the case of international relations, the preoccupation with the entity of the state) there is little room to consider the possibility that the entities involved were also being created and recreated by the process of their interaction (Jackson and Nexon 1999). This quality will be relevant in the following discussion of the “layers” that make up the concept of sovereignty and the exploration of what is called here nested and intersecting sovereignties, as they change over time and are changed through their interaction. Raymond Williams’s consideration of the rise and fall of keywords as a cultural dialectic is useful when considering this layering process – particularly as it concerns other terms directly linked to an understanding of sovereignty. For example, “international” is beginning to be considered out of date or old-fashioned, or what Williams would call a “residual”

62

A. R. HOLMES

term, while “global” is now “dominant” in the discourse, despite the fact we are still trying to discern the qualities or features of ‘globality’. Looking to the future, some suggest the “emergent” term is “planetary” as an updated way to express an even more holistic understanding of the world (keywords.pitt.edu/). This chapter will briefly outline the more mainstream definitions of the concept of sovereignty as understood in the field of International Relations in an effort to surface what is perhaps the main “background idea” of the field. However, rather than focus on the vast literature, attention will be directed to the critiques of the Western/Westphalian concept of territorial sovereignty. This will be followed in Chapter 5 by an exploration of what amounts to an existential critique of the more traditional uses of this concept (at least in the American context) and the reality and assertion of inherent sovereignty as understood and used by Native Americans. The argument of this text is that both the traditional hierarchical perspectives and the ancient plural versions of sovereignty are crucial to the position of California as both mainstream state interpretations and inherent forms of sovereignty are core to the vertical axis of diplomacy and thus to the state’s global role and profile at the heart of this examination.

Old-School Sovereignty The concept of sovereignty is inescapable here because, as Jüri Lipping points out, “The state is still at the center of the political landscape” but is also swept up in a “vicious circle” in that the “territorial state…claims to be the bearer of sovereignty while sovereignty in turn is an essential attribute pertaining to the state” (Lipping in Kalmo and Skinner 2010). Neil MacCormick identifies the same problem when he says, “Sometimes sovereignty is regarded as an attribute primarily of the state itself. A ‘sovereign state’ is one that is fully self-governing and independent of external control, and this condition is the sovereignty of the state”. Thus, as he points out, sovereignty is the aggregate of the state’s powers as well as a reference to the power-holder, be it king, president, dictator, or parliament – a situation, he argues, that is made even more complex when also considering the idea of “sovereignty of the people” or “popular sovereignty” (MacCormick in Hent and Skinner 2010). Well beyond the state or its qualities, Stephen Krasner points out that sovereignty can be the basis of the “analytic assumptions” used by the neorealist or neoliberal

4

OLD SOVEREIGNTY

63

political scientist who understands the state “to be rational, unitary and independent” or the “normative principles” of nonintervention found in the English School of International Relations (Krasner 2001). Interpretations of the term therefore range from the more abstract idea that sovereignty is one of many “myths”, to being an “emergent form of authority grounded in violence that is performed and designed to generate loyalty, fear and legitimacy from the neighborhood to the summit of the state” (Hansen and Stepputat 2006). They also include Pierre Bourdieu’s idea that the state is not a structure, but “a ‘field of power’ in which some actors are blessed with the authority to speak on behalf of an abstract body, the state (a performative operation Bourdieu calls ‘the mystery of the ministry’)” (Mérand and Forget in Adler-Nissen 2013). The multiple links between sovereignty and the state – or crucially the nation – is at the core of what sociologist John Boli calls the “script” of sovereignty “whose most important line is that the state has the legitimate right to exercise authority” (in Krasner 2001). Michael Keating may seek separation of the ideas of nation, state, and sovereignty (Keating 2004), but the prevailing conflation of these ideas has become impossible to unravel, and it is no wonder that Hent Kalmo calls sovereignty a …“liminal concept” that “inhabit[s] the frontier territories between law, ethics and political science” (Kalmo 2010). These “frontiers” are key, but it is useful to also briefly explore what becomes the “heartland” of sovereignty – if one could frame it that way. The work of Stephen Krasner is particularly helpful given he has offered a number of analyses of the concept of sovereignty (while concluding that it amounts to “organized hypocrisy”). Krasner’s most succinct definition suggests: Conventional sovereignty has three elements: international legal sovereignty, Westphalian/Vatellian sovereignty and domestic sovereignty. The basic rule of international legal sovereignty is to recognize juridically independent territorial entities. These entities then have the right to freely decide which agreements or treaties they will enter into. In practice this rule has been widely but not universally recognized. (Krasner in Mingst and Snyder 2016)

Krasner regularly offers these three elements – though sometimes in a different order – but to briefly explain each here, it is perhaps logical

64

A. R. HOLMES

to begin by setting out the historical background and what is meant by Westphalian or Vatellian sovereignty. The Treaties of Westphalia of 1648, mentioned above, are considered a touchstone in the field of International Relations. These three treaties, negotiated in Germany (Osnabrück and Münster) between the dominant powers of Europe at the time, brought the wars of religion, including the Thirty Years’ War and the Eighty Years’ War, to an end. The importance of this as “the moment” of creation for the modern state is rightly contested given that the systemic changes it is credited with had begun long before in the form of challenges to papal authority in Europe. However, these treaties did help codify some rules of engagement (Constantinou and Der Derian 2010). For that reason alone, these treaties marked a step change in the direction of European governance. Thus, 1648 is routinely identified as the foundation of the modern nation-state, including the ideas of balance of power and the norm of noninterference between state entities. Over one hundred years later, in 1758, Emer de Vattel wrote The Law of Nations. This seminal work effectively consolidated the legal case for formally equal sovereigns or states by asserting that these entities would be the primary (if not exclusive) actors in the international arena. Crucially, given the prevailing political structures at the time, this status accreted to both the political entity and the person representing the body. With this step, sovereignty became a status and a role that carried rights as well as obligations – including the most basic right of the sovereign to enjoy freedom from interference. Thus, Westphalian (or Vattelian) sovereignty conveys a sense of the “absence of submission to external authority structures” (Krasner 2010) including the restrictions that have been created by the state itself. Ultimately, this became legal international sovereign status granting states the right to enter into contracts or treaties with other states as well as full membership in international organizations. In the international arena, this is known as “recognition” and will be a vital factor when considering other forms of sovereignty. The third element, domestic sovereignty, is the “organization of public authority within a state” as well the “effective control exercised by those holding authority” (Krasner 2001) and the ability to “regulate trans-border movements” (Krasner 2010). Krasner has also identified a fourth element or use for the term sovereignty that he calls interdependence sovereignty. This newer aspect refers to the “ability of public authorities to regulate the flow of information, ideas, goods, people, pollutants, or capital across the borders of their

4

OLD SOVEREIGNTY

65

state” and evolved as communication/technology has altered the state’s ability to control such influences on its behavior (Krasner 1999). The key to Krasner’s framework is his discussion of the dichotomous relationship between sovereignty and authority/control. His argument is that these different elements can combine in different actors in very different ways. As he points out, legal and Westphalian sovereignty is about authority, but not control. Domestic sovereignty involves both authority and control, while interdependence sovereignty suggests control, but not authority. The importance, Krasner argues, is that the “…various kinds of sovereignty do not necessarily co-vary. A state can have one but not the other” (Krasner 1999). As part of this argument, Krasner also outlines what he calls the “logics of expected consequences” and “appropriateness”. This, in turn, links back to the idea that the state is framed either by a rationalist calculation of the outcomes of actions taken, or by the rules and roles that constrain action across different circumstances (Krasner 1999). As Krasner concludes, the “organized hypocrisy” of sovereignty is the recognition of the reality that states may follow the rules because the rules enable both states and rulers to gain what they need (including the ability to stay in power), while at other times, sovereigns violate the rules for exactly the same reason. This view helps to explain why and how states can appear to compromise their own sovereignty. As Krasner goes on to explain, erosion is commonplace as states can have their sovereignty undermined in four ways: “conventions, contracting, coercions and imposition” (Krasner 1995). However, the first two are also expressions of their sovereignty. States enter conventions or contracts that limit their sovereignty, but in so doing they are still expressing their power. Jüri Lipping calls this a “vicious circle” but observes that this circle has served as an “absolute center of political thought and political practice” and helps explain how “sovereignty as such has by no means disappeared, but simply changed its form” (Lipping in Kalmo and Skinner 2010).

66

A. R. HOLMES

Challenging the Old Thinking--History and Practice This brief tour of the traditional concept of sovereignty is really designed as an introduction to more recent challenges to this approach. International relations scholars are not so set in their ways as to entirely ignore new thinking. Indeed, such shifts are often not “new” thinking as much as the mainstream coming to value different perspectives and voices that existed in the discourse for some time. Krasner recognizes these fissures and suggests that sovereignty is “not an organic whole…having one attribute of sovereignty does not mean having others” (Krasner 2001). Michael Keating makes a similar point when he asserts that sovereignty is “not an absolute concept vested exclusively in states…there can be multiple sites of sovereignty or ‘normative order’ below and above the state” (Keating 2004). This idea is particularly relevant here as it helps to avoid reinscribing the old thinking, but rather to build the groundwork for a better understanding of California’s global actions. This also requires some understanding of the changing ideas of sovereignty and the role of the entities operating in the sphere of the state. The goal is to not reify the state and its sovereignty at any level, but to set these two ideas in their context. This is all part of a process that opens new avenues of inquiry by combining historical awareness with a “practice approach”. As suggested in the introduction, this volume deliberately seeks to examine the background ideas at the point of convergence of theory and practice. In that light, the most “active” form of the “practice of sovereignty” is the institution of diplomacy (discussed later). However, at this theoretical stage of the discussion, important critiques of traditional ideas of sovereignty are suggested by looking at the idea of its practice over time. As Krasner rightly says, “The rules and practices of sovereignty did not begin at any particular point in time. Rather, they evolved over several centuries. The Peace of Westphalia…was, in fact, only one of the many way stations” (Krasner 2010). He further argues, “It is historically myopic to take the Westphalian model as a benchmark that accurately describes some golden age when all states exercised exclusive authority within their own borders” (Krasner 1995). Thomas Heller and Abraham Sofaer take up this point and assert that “…sovereignty should be understood as more performative than normative” (Heller and Sofaer in Krasner 2001) and that, while sovereignty

4

OLD SOVEREIGNTY

67

denotes a list of “legal capabilities, privileges and obligations”, its real power is in the functional purpose in the area of diplomatic practice. They explain that the list of what are considered to be the duties and rights of the sovereign, is the foundation for state action at the international level. They do concede that states may be perceived as losing their salience to other entities or nongovernmental organizations in the face of globalization, but, like Krasner, they assert that this is actually part of the state’s sovereign power. The granting or “surrendering” of some policy control in areas of the state’s choosing is, they suggest, simply evidence of how widespread the agreement is on what constitutes sovereignty. Further, as imperfect as they recognize this system may be, they point to the fact that much has been achieved as states both lean in and pull back from their “rights” in a constantly evolving choice that can be to the benefit of the common good. “States are far from ‘perfect equals’. Their autonomy has always been subject to conflicting obligations and their territorial integrity has never been guaranteed” (Heller and Sofaer in Krasner 2001). Thus, a key challenge to the more traditional, absolutist, or substantialist way of thinking about the state and sovereignty is historical perspective. Looking at the reality of sovereignty “in action” over time puts the lie to the notion that sovereign states have been somehow inviolable. The myth of sovereignty and the idea that statehood brings security is demonstrably flawed if we take a long-term, global perspective. Returning to Keating, his ideas of “plurinational” democracies are particularly useful in this discussion about California. His theory building includes the identification of four such states (the United Kingdom, Spain, Canada, and Belgium) and their development through what is usually seen as purely linear stages of state development. Keating reframes this narrative by describing what he calls the “competing historiographies” of these states and intentionally pulls the nations away from these multinational states to examine their parallel development. For Keating, there are mainstream or “state historiographies” that, he suggests, are presented as a teleological progress toward unity “with the sovereign state representing its final expression” (Keating 2004). Keating argues that the history of the state, writ large (or as the multinational entity) is presented as universal and as the only narrative with a claim to legitimacy or as the one that includes all human experience. Keating contrasts this with what he calls the “peripheral historiography” in which there is often

68

A. R. HOLMES

…a myth of primordial innocence and primitive democracy before the alien intrusion of the modern states. Historians may present the incorporation of their territory into the state as an act of conquest, in which case it is illegitimate and was never accepted by the people. The resulting counter history is the mirror image of state history, postulating a united people living in primitive independence and enjoying precious, if anachronistic, sovereignty. (Keating 2004)

Keating did not use the United States as one of his case studies – presumably because it would not “qualify” as plurinational – though he does identify the United Kingdom as the most plurinational state in the world today. However, the comparison is clearly relevant as we begin to look at the different actors in the context of California. Krasner calls on readers to stop thinking of the Westphalian model as “some ideal or historical reality” (Krasner 1995) while Keating argues that his goal is to “present the territorial state as historically contingent” and even goes on to suggest that the process of integration is “at least potentially reversible” (Keating 2004). All of which leads to one of the largest questions in terms of this study of California: if sovereignty or state-hoodness is both socially and historically contingent, who gets to participate in the development of its international persona and at what level of governance does this “performance” of sovereignty occur? If space and place have been compressed and globalization has undermined the traditional hierarchy, what now constitutes what scholars have called “thing-ness”, “actor-ness”, or “entity-ness”? Finally, does this approach open the way for the possibility of not only different forms of the sovereign, but fundamentally different approaches to sovereignty in California?

“Thing-Ness” Most people would recognize the phrase ‘it’s a thing’ and assume that it entered popular culture somewhere in the mid-00’s. Actually, the phrase has a much longer pedigree and has been in colloquial use from as early as 1600, while the idea of something being “a thing” (such as a fashion trend) is recorded as early as 1762 (etymonline.com/search?q=thing). Interestingly, to “do your own thing” was used as early as 1841 (as well as in the 1960s). This may seem to be a rather fanciful detour, but the question of what it is to be a “thing” is significant in the context of what it is to be sovereign, and what it is to be “California” (or any other

4

OLD SOVEREIGNTY

69

nation, subnational, tribe, or actor) seeking to act on the international stage. Further, as Quentin Skinner points out in his “genealogy” of the term sovereignty, even Vattel had conceded that the state is not capable of action in itself, but must have some agreed public form of authority to speak and act on its behalf. Thus, and to give “thing-ness” a more formal terminology, the notion of the persona ficta, or the non-human legal actor, became “entrenched in English as well as continental theory of public and international law” (Skinner in Kalmo and Skinner 2010). In today’s world, this has almost come full circle as Denis Baranger points to a shift as “the analytical school of constitutional theory has insisted that sovereignty does not exist as a ‘thing’ belonging to the real world, and is only a feature of legal discourse” (Baranger in Kalmo and Skinner 2010). On the other hand, Kalmo and Skinner observe, “The vague conclusion that sovereignty is alive and well is no less vulnerable than the unqualified announcement of its demise: both assume that there is such a ‘thing’ as sovereignty” (Kalmo and Skinner 2010). Others have also grappled with the idea of how the collective takes action and, more directly, they have examined the way subnationals take diplomatic action on the international stage and what they “need” to perform at a level ‘above’ them in the system. For example, Manuel Duran has looked at the actions of what he calls a “lesser known subnational entity”, the French region Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur (PACA). Duran’s focus is specifically on the “international agency” of PACA, and suggests this as a way to frame the diplomacy of the region in its effort to manage relations between “self and other” (Duran 2011). Duran’s discussion is useful not only as a prelude to a more in-depth discussion of diplomacy and paradiplomacy, but also because he explicitly lays out the challenge of “actor-ness”. For Duran, and for Gunnar Sjöstedt who coined the term in 1977, the quality of actorness is essentially the “ability to make one’s presence felt internationally” and based largely on the capacity of the entity to behave “deliberately” in relation to other actors. Various scholars have built on the idea of the actor to include the concept of “presence” as a way to include elements they felt were important to the process, particularly the ability to be recognized by others as acting appropriately in the international space.

70

A. R. HOLMES

The Boundaries of “Things” and What Lies Between Andrew Abbott’s examination of “entity” and his question as to what constitutes “entity-ness” uses a very different approach, but arrives at a closely related idea. Abbott’s consideration of what he calls “Things of Boundaries” moves away from the presumed concrete nature of the state (or any entity) by positing the idea that, “…it is wrong to look for boundaries between preexisting social entities. Rather we should start with boundaries and investigate how people create entities by linking those boundaries into units” (Abbott 1995). Abbott’s work was not directed at states or even governments, but focused instead on social arrangements and organizing structures such as professions. His idea did not use the individual human as the main unit or actor (for which the state is the corollary at the international level), but the social human or the social actor as the center of study. Abbott’s example is the evolution of the profession of social work as he sought to understand how it became a “thing” or an “entity”. As he explains, social work became an entity as those working in the field began to connect “sites of difference” and effectively to create “boundaries”. Through this process, some people were deemed to be inside, while others were ruled outside the boundaries of the evolving profession. “This brings us to the issue of thingness, entity-like quality, endurance or whatever we wish to call it. In the processual ontology…the central quality of an entity is endurance…it acquires, somehow, a coherence or internal autonomy” (Abbott 1995). Kevin Bruyneel takes the idea of boundaries and the formation and importance of collectives and applies it directly to the question of sovereignty – specifically what he calls the “third space” of US-indigenous relations. He highlights “another form of boundaries…Specifically…spatial boundaries around territory and legal and political institutions and the temporal boundaries around the narratives of economic and political development, cultural progress and modernity” (Bruyneel 2007). Agreeing with many authors, Bruyneel takes the basic premise that sovereignty is a “social construct”, but goes on to argue, “The productive work of sovereignty politics involves the continual construction of the power, the space and the time of collective autonomy and this deeper theoretical drive pertains as much to dominant-colonial as it does to nondominant-colonial collectives” (Bruyneel 2007).

4

OLD SOVEREIGNTY

71

Robert Jackson agrees that the colonial experience has deeply affected traditional concepts of sovereignty and discusses what he calls the “quasistates” created by the process of decolonization in the Third World. He argues such states are entities in their own right, but are caught between the classical or legal element of sovereignty. He frames this by what he calls “positive” sovereignty or a state’s freedom to (be their own masters, enjoy rights of nonintervention while providing for its citizens). He then contrasts this with “negative” sovereignty or the freedom from and a very thin conception of sovereign power. He observes that, while traditional states are able to claim both forms and be productive on the international stage, for quasi-states, these forms have been separated, effectively hollowing out the state in substantive ways and disabling the state and preventing it from functioning as fully active in any meaningful or practical way. While Jackson focused exclusively on postcolonial states, the notion of a quasi-state, and positive and negative sovereignty, will be particularly important in terms of Native American notions of sovereignty.

Conclusion Thus, the argument comes back to the “frontiers” and “boundaries” of sovereignty, the struggle between space and place, and ideas of the individual vs collective governance. For all the hype (and hope for some people) that the idea of sovereignty has a concrete form and permanence of meaning, it is clear that this is not – and has never been – the case. Keating draws on Georg Jellinek who originated the phrase “fragments of state” in the nineteenth century to argue against what he saw then as the growing tendency at that time to see states as the only unit of value or importance (Keating 2004). Jellinek and Keating both recognize the variety of entities, all with varying degrees of power in any given context, but all still considered as part of the governance structure. As Krasner points out: States exist in specific territories…A Westphalian state system is different from an empire, in which there is only one authority structure; it is different from tribes, in which authority is claimed over groups of individuals, but not necessarily over specific geographic areas; it is different from European feudalism, where the Catholic Church claimed authority over some kinds of activities regardless of their location; and it is different from a system in which authority structures over different issues are

72

A. R. HOLMES

not geographically coterminous, one possible description of the European Union. (Krasner 1995)

The sovereign nation-state is thus only one of a huge range of governance choices, options, or entities that have been created, allowed to decay or been destroyed over the centuries. Today, the historical and gradual reification of this particular entity is under considerable pressure by an equally wide range of processes including decolonization, globalization, and modernity. Keating suggests that we use this observation as a starting point and begin to view the nation-state as an “exception or interlude rather than an end point”. He suggests we are moving to a “postsovereign order” in which states must learn to share – and this volume will strongly argue to coordinate through diplomacy – the duties and privileges of sovereignty with others across the sub-, trans-, and supra-state systems. The next chapter will deal with what is perhaps the single biggest challenge to the traditional Westphalian model – the concept of inherent sovereignty as understood and used by Native Americans.

References Abbott, Andrew. 1995. Things of Boundaries. Social Research 62 (4) (Winter): 857–882. Anton, Michael. 2019. The Trump Doctrine. Foreign Policy. Spring. https://for eignpolicy.com/2019/04/20/the-trump-doctrine-big-think-america-first-nat ionalism/. Baranger, Denis. 2010. The Apparition of Sovereignty. In Hent Kalmo and Quentin Skinner (eds.) Sovereignty in Fragments: The Past, Present and Future of a Contested Concept. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bronner, Stephen Eric. 2017. Trump the Sovereign. Jacobin Magazine. November 2. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/11/trump-foreign-pol icy-un-sovereignty-america-first. Bruyneel, Kevin. 2007. The Third Space of Sovereignty: The Postcolonial Politics of US-Indigenous Relations. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Chhabra, Tarun. 2017. Why Trump’s “Strong Sovereignty” Is More Familiar Than You Think. Brookings. September 20. https://www.brookings.edu/ blog/order-from-chaos/2017/09/20/why-trumps-strong-sovereignty-ismore-familiar-than-you-think/. Chisholm, N. Jamiyla. 2019. Shinnecock Indian Nation Erects Billboards to Assert Sovereignty. Color Lines. May 28. https://www.colorlines.com/art icles/shinnecock-indian-nation-erects-billboards-assert-sovereignty. Accessed 6 June 2019.

4

OLD SOVEREIGNTY

73

Constantinou, Costas M., and James Der Derian (eds.) 2010. Sustainable Diplomacies. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Denetclaw, Pauly. 2019. A Native Embassy Row? Indian Country Today. March 18. https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/news/a-native-embassy-rownavajo-nation-is-looking-for-a-dc-home-mYTKMERKCUeHnWFnmrnx9A/. Duran, Manuel. 2011. French Regions as Diplomatic Actors: The Case of Provence-Alpes-Côtes-d’Azur. French Politics 9 (4): 339–363. Fonte, John. 2018. Trump Explains Sovereignty. Hudson Institute. October 31. https://www.hudson.org/research/14651-trump-explains-sovereignty. Hansen, Thomas Blom, and Finn Stepputat. 2006. Sovereignty Revisited. The Annual Review of Anthropology 35 (May): 295–315. Heller, Thomas and Abraham D. Sofaer. 2001. Sovereignty: The Practitioners Perspective. In Stephen Krasner (ed.) Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities. New York: Columbia University Press. Irby, Kate, and Dale Kasler. 2019. Trump Sues to Undo California’s Climate Change Pact with Canada, Calls It Rogue Foreign Policy. Sacramento Bee. October 23. https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/cap itol-alert/article236556968.html. Jackson, Patrick, and Daniel Nexon. 1999. Relations Before States: Substance, Process and the Study of World Politics. European Journal of International Relations 5 (3): 291–332. Kalmo, Hent. 2010. A Matter of Fact: The Many Faces of Sovereignty. In Hent Kalmo and Quentin Skinner (eds.) Sovereignty in Fragments: The Past, Present and Future of a Contested Concept. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kalmo, Hent, and Quentin Skinner. 2010. Introduction: A Concept in Fragments. In Hent Kalmo and Quentin Skinner (eds.) Sovereignty in Fragments: The Past, Present and Future of a Contested Concept. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kasler, Dale. 2019. California Files Its 60th Lawsuit Against Trump. This Time: Protecting State’s Clean-Car Rules. Sacramento Bee. September 20. https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/articl e235299752.html. Kaur, Harmeet. 2019. The Cherokee Nation Wants a Representative in Congress, Taking the US Government Up on a Promise It Made Nearly 200 Years Ago. CNN Politics. September 25. https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/25/politics/ cherokee-nation-congressional-delegate-treaty/index.html/. Keating, Michael. 2004. Plurinational Democracy: Stateless Nations in a PostSovereignty Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Krasner, Stephen. 1995/1996. Compromising Westphalia. International Security 20 (3): 115–151. Krasner, Stephen. 1999. Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

74

A. R. HOLMES

Krasner, Stephen. 2001. Problematic Sovereignty: Contested Rules and Political Possibilities. New York: Columbia University Press. Krasner, Stephen. 2010. The Durability of Organized Hypocrisy. In Hent Kalmo, Hent and Quentin Skinner (eds.) Sovereignty in Fragments: The Past, Present and Future of a Contested Concept. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Krasner, Stephen. 2016. Sharing Sovereignty: New Institutions for Collapsed and Failing States. In Karen A. Mingst and Jack L. Snyder (eds.) Essential Readings in World Politics (6th edition). New York: W. W. Norton. Landau, Noa. 2019. EU States Unanimously Announce: We Do Not Recognize Israeli Sovereignty Over Golan Heights. Haaretz. March 27. https://www. haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-eu-states-we-do-not-recognize-israeli-sov ereignty-over-golan-heights-1.7062664. Lipping, Juri. 2010. Sovereignty Beyond the State. In Hent Kalmo and Quentin Skinner (eds.) Sovereignty in Fragments: The Past, Present and Future of a Contested Concept. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MacCormick, Neil. 2010. Sovereignty and After. In Hent Kalmo and Quentin Skinner (eds.) Sovereignty in Fragments: The Past, Present and Future of a Contested Concept. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mérand, Frédéric, and Amélie Forget. 2013. Strategizing About Strategy. In Rebecca Adler-Nissen (ed.) Bourdieu in International Relations: Rethinking Key Concepts in IR. London: Routledge. Mizner, Lynn. 2019. Food Sovereignty Takes Root. The Mille Lacs Messenger. June 9. https://www.messagemedia.co/millelacs/community/features/foodsovereignty-takes-root/article_6c2c6512-8944-11e9-9c11-73961b9d3bd7. html. Morrison, Patt. 2015. Meet the Man Who Wants to Make California a Sovereign Entity. Los Angeles Times. August 26. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/oped/la-oe-morrison-marinelli-20150826-column.html. Myers, John. 2016. California Secession Organizers Say They’ve Opened an Embassy—in Moscow. Los Angeles Times. December 20. https://www.lat imes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-ca-essential-politics-updates-calexit-organi zers-say-they-ve-opened-1482187671-htmlstory.html. n.a. 2016. The California Secessionist Movement Has Its Own Foreign Embassy, in Russia of All Places. Atlas Obscura. n.d. https://www.atlasobscura.com/ places/independent-republic-of-california-embassy-in-moscow. n.a. 2019. Venezuela Halts Service at Consulates in Canada Until It ‘Regains Sovereignty in Foreign Policy’. RT News. June 9. https://www.rt.com/news/ 461410-venezuela-closes-consulate-canada/. Patrick, Stewart. 2017. Trump’s Sovereignty Doctrine: What the President Gets Right and Wrong About the Right to Self-government. U.S. News and World Report. September 23. https://www.usnews.com/opinion/world-report/ articles/2017-09-23/what-donald-trump-got-right-and-wrong-about-sovere ignty-at-the-un.

4

OLD SOVEREIGNTY

75

Stokes, Jacob. 2019. Does China Really Respect Sovereignty? The Diplomat. May 23. https://thediplomat.com/2019/05/does-china-really-respect-sov ereignty/. White House Fact Sheet. 2019. President Donald J. Trump Is Defending Our Sovereignty and Constitutional Rights from the United Nations Arms Treaty. April 26. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-don ald-j-trump-is-defending-our-sovereignty-and-constitutional-rights-from-theunited-nations-arms-trade-treaty/.

CHAPTER 5

Globalized Spaces and Places of Sovereignty

Settler-state boundaries are just one way – a colonialist way – to map out a people’s relationship to time and space in North America…the third space of sovereignty [can offer]… a politically and discursively locatable alternative. (Kevin Bruyneel 2007)

Interpretations of Sovereignty---Mingle or Clash? As discussed in the previous chapter, one of the most common attributes of sovereignty is represented by the idea of recognition – exemplified by what Denis Baranger calls “manifestations” and “marks” of sovereignty. These are the practical expressions of status and can range from the recognition by a people of their own sovereign or crucially, as we turn to the status of Native American tribes, the recognition conferred on – or withheld from – an entity by outside powers either locally, nationally, or internationally (Baranger 2010). Unfortunately, there has been relatively little intersection between the scholarship of international relations and native studies. Reasons for this could be as simple as the tendency for academics to operate within a limited radius of their “home” discipline. Alternatively, some may see native studies as a domestic endeavor rather than an international or global field. Thus, both groups may not see their work as overlapping. However, it does seem strange, given that both fields are interdisciplinary and both have concepts of sovereignty at their core, that there © The Author(s) 2020 A. R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3_5

77

78

A. R. HOLMES

has not been more of a shared agenda on questions of mutual interest. The different ideas of recognition found in each field may be the largest stumbling block to shared research, but generally, and far from sharing common ground, scholars on both sides of the fence have regarded the other as “missing the point”. The suggestion here is that both disciplines have much to gain from working together and expanding their understanding of their shared concepts. Mainstream international relations have, broadly speaking, held to the classic Westphalian template of sovereignty, statehood, independence, and territory. That said, many within the discipline are uncomfortable with the constraints placed on the overall study of international affairs by what they see as the “straightjacket” of traditional sovereignty. Meanwhile, native studies scholars begin in a different place. The argument of this text, grounded in the discussion of sovereignty above, is threefold. First, the classic sovereignty template has never been fully descriptive of different forms of sovereignty, or of states, and nothing about even what some consider the “core elements” of sovereignty should be viewed as guaranteed or permanent. Second, given that sovereignty is socially constructed and contingent, the corollary is that sovereignty is, in effect, a “local” answer to the problem of governance and therefore a common human challenge that has been addressed over time by peoples all around the world. Thus, it becomes possible and necessary to talk about sovereignties – and always in the context of time and of location. This shift allows for a comparison of the Westphalian model, only roughly “European” in origin, with other systems operating in other places and at different times. These attributes were helpfully delineated by Adam Watson of the English School of International Relations who identified ten ancient “states systems” including India and China (Watson 1992). These historical versions – largely lost to mainstream international relations – are important because they support the suggestion that the Westphalian model was only one of many different “local” solutions to the issue of governance. For example, and in stark contrast to the idea of bounded territories as the sole or primary unit of authority, other approaches operated as centers of power with radiating spokes, a suzerainty, or a mandala (expressed as a circle to convey the universe and the interconnections between different locations and types of power). This visual also conveys the idea that “friends” and “enemies” can be both in front of, and behind the leaders of an entity, i.e., those seen and unseen or known and unknown to the central power (Fig. 5.1)

5

Fig. 5.1

GLOBALIZED SPACES AND PLACES OF SOVEREIGNTY

79

Traditional mandala of power

• Enemy of Friend of Friend • Friend of Friend • Enemy of Friend • Friend • Enemy

King/State

• Rear Enemy • Rear Friend •

Friend of Rear Enemy

•

Friend of Rear Friend

In the context of the Americas, the European model was historically “lucky”, arriving with a number of technological advantages, while the inhabitants of the new world were biologically “unlucky” as they were tragically unable to fend off the weaponry, and even less the diseases, of the explorers, missionaries, and conquerors who arrived on their shores. This combination created a more “global” reach and wider impact for the European system, but the assertion made here is that, for all the assimilation and/or annihilation that took place, these prior interpretations of sovereignty did not entirely disappear. On the contrary, even if other alternative worldviews and approaches did not become the metanarrative or super-story of governance globally, they struggled against, and often managed to survive and even co-exist with, the more “western” or “European” approach in many places around the world.

80

A. R. HOLMES

The third line of argument is that, while the first movement toward a more “global” world was manifested in the “age of exploration” and first contact pushed aside concepts of space (or ideas of inherent sovereignty, more below) in favor of the infrastructure and rules of place and bounded territories, the story did not end there. The most recent stage in the process of globalization has indeed compressed levels of governance but this compression has effectively forced (or enabled) the (re)emergence of the other types of “thing-”, “actor-”, and “entity-ness” now operating on the global stage.

The Horizontal Axis Over Time The chronological (or horizontal) axis of state development is often assumed to be a single narrative. Yet, despite the dominance of this version and as illustrated by Keating in terms of plurinational states, there is nothing to suggest it is not possible to imagine parallel histories of political development. Each internal entity has a frame of reference for power and legitimacy and exists alongside the more commonplace understanding of the Westphalian/Vattelian system. What is important to bear in mind is that the horizontal axis as used here not only goes back in time, but it also stretches into the future. A chronological look at the development of states is useful, but international relations tend to assume all of history has brought the world to the modern nation-state in its current form and stops there, forgetting that the process continues. The modern nation-state is not an end-state, but as posed by Krasner, a staging post as evidenced by an examination of two models that have relatively recently emerged from the European “root stock”. The first model has been called “Transatlantic” and is identified with advanced, democratic, and enmeshed states that still remain distinctly separate or sovereign. This model is illustrated and thus named for the “special relationship” between the United Kingdom and the United States given they are allies with links of language, history, and culture, but are connected, theoretically, in a much deeper way as two states at similar points in their development. The other “post-Westphalian” model is called “Community”, so named because it is in reference to advanced, democratic states seeking to “share” their power in some way. Rather than rigid ideas of sovereignty, community states share a notion of pooled sovereignty that recognizes,

5

GLOBALIZED SPACES AND PLACES OF SOVEREIGNTY

81

but is not hindered by, the sovereignty of separate states. Based on normative ideals of governance, this model is identified with the European Union. In other words, while both of these models are clearly historically rooted in Watson’s frame of the European states system, these states have shifted in response to modern concerns and ideas of sovereignty more relevant to their needs in the present day. More applicable here is yet another distinct and parallel model called “Relational”. This third approach has its own horizontal history of nonwestern systems that have persisted and continued to evolve, albeit arguably in the shadows of western structures. Based on an idea of sovereignty where power is not delineated by territories and external borders, this model uses centers of power and overlapping areas of territorial influence, with very different ideas of control (Holmes 2016). On the global scale, these stories of the development of governance are found alongside the traditional chronological/horizontal axis and help to explain the “rise” (and differences) in diplomatic approach used by, for example, those more “relational” states such as China and India vs hierarchical states such as the United States. Interestingly, and despite the fact Watson and his English School colleagues did not identify any civilization of the Americas as one of the original ten “ancient” states systems, there is archeological and anthropological evidence to suggest that the features of these relational states systems could be applied to what was to become the “new world”. Finally, and bringing this theory back to the position of California, is the fact that, as states have become more porous, and subnational (and non-state) actors have become more internationally active. Thus, these very different systems with their own understandings of sovereignty are now more prominent and regularly come into direct contact with each other at the international level. The argument is that the Westphalian system is not collapsing so much as that pre-existing cleavages are becoming more visible. Subnational units of various kinds are asserting themselves and a new range of entities have been enabled to operate, not only in terms of their place, but increasingly on behalf of their own ideas of space. Thus, the concept of inherent sovereignty becomes a fundamental challenge to the classic interpretation of sovereignty and statehood. The pursuit of “globality” requires a better understanding of thing-ness, actor-ness, and entity-ness, particularly as California develops a local/global governance strategy.

82

A. R. HOLMES

Inherent Sovereignty Federal Indian law in the United States is complex and generally seen as a specialist topic. This assessment is largely due to the long and changing nature of the relationship between the United States and the tribal nations within its territorial boundaries. Angela Riley, on the other hand, suggests that “Indian law” is not a “niche” but a massive “horizontal subject”. This is because, as she points out, every aspect of the legal canon has a component relevant to tribes (Riley 2017). At the most basic level, these complexities are caused by conflicting and changing concepts of sovereignty over a relatively short period. California is perhaps the best example of the need for a broader or nonsubstantialist understanding of the “state” as the story is not about successive, fully formed states or nations arriving to take control. The more correct version of California’s history is of unformed powers and representatives from a huge range of “actors” shaping and being shaped by their clashes with others over territory and resources. Europeans very broadly defined arrived from the south and the east, but most came to California’s shores from entities that were still a long way from their final “Westphalian” form while their domestic political circumstances “back home” often determined their actions in California as much as events on the ground. Whatever their origin, these early immigrants were met by a vast number of tribes with an equally vast array of claims to power in terms of size and “actor-ness”. Even as “California” struggled toward statehood within the “United States”, it was clear that the terms of negotiation had shifted. Settlers were no longer the ill-prepared religious refugees of first contact meeting well-organized and politically structured tribes of the east coast. They had become representatives of a new and ambitious nation-state that had survived the existential threat of a Civil War. In the same way, as the process unfolded, it was clear the latest arrivals in the territory no longer saw indigenous people either as a falsely singular power understood only as the “Other” (as was often the case on the east coast), but nor did they take the time to develop an understanding of the multiple, diverse and often conflicting entities they encountered. By the time the vast number of peoples arrived at the Pacific, “Americans” were fast becoming convinced of their “right” to claim all they surveyed. Between the various groups – indigenous peoples, prior waves of settlers, or the latest “newcomers” – the battle to convert space into place became

5

GLOBALIZED SPACES AND PLACES OF SOVEREIGNTY

83

one of all against all – though well over a century later, the weight of power was now stacked in favor of the new “country”. For tribal claims to sovereignty, there remains a keen desire to frame the relationship between the settlers and the tribes in the West in the original, less asymmetrical form of the first contact. In other words, the modern-day discussion of treaties and rights often seeks to put all indigenous tribes and nations on an equal footing as if they had not been affected by new arrivals at different points in the development of the United States. This “moment of first contact” approach helps explain why Kirke Kickingbird et al. argue, “From time immemorial the governments of Indian nations have been meeting the varied needs of their people by passing laws, by enforcing those laws, and when necessary by resolving conflicts” (Kickingbird et al. 1983). Elsewhere, Kickingbird and a different group of co-authors assert the definition of Native American sovereignty in its most “basic” form. Sovereignty is a difficult word to define because it is intangible, it cannot be seen or touched. It is very much like an awesome power, a strong feeling, or the attitude of a people. What can be seen, however, is the exercise of sovereign powers. Sovereignty is also difficult because the word has changed in meaning over the years. For our purposes, a good working definition of sovereignty is: THE SUPREME POWER FROM WHICH ALL SPECIFIC POLITICAL POWERS ARE DERIVED (caps original). Sovereignty is inherent; it comes from within a people or culture. It cannot be given to one group by another. Some people feel that sovereignty comes from spiritual sources. Other people feel that it comes from the people themselves. (Kickingbird et al. in Wunder 1999)

Taking perhaps a more practical approach, while still stressing the inherent quality of sovereignty, the National Congress of American Indians defines the term as …a legal word for an ordinary concept – the authority to self-govern. Hundreds of treaties, along with the Supreme Court, the President and Congress, have repeatedly affirmed that tribal nations retain their inherent powers of self-government. These treaties, executive orders and laws have created a fundamental contract between tribes and the United States. Tribal nations are located within the geographic borders of the United States, while each tribal nation exercises its own sovereignty. (National Congress of American Indians, NCAI.org)

84

A. R. HOLMES

There are two key points here. The first is the term inherent which claims a form of sovereignty that is not granted by others and does not require external recognition, but is located within the people themselves. The second is the vital link between sovereignty and its expression. The power of sovereignty is in its practice. This is the heart of the disconnect between different theoretical conceptions of sovereignty (and potentially the core reason for a lack of engagement between international relations and native studies).

Internal vs External Sovereignty As James Casey explains, the handbook of Federal Indian law lists “three fundamental principles” that “demonstrate the anomalous and restricted nature of tribal sovereignty”. These principles include the assertion that, while Indian tribes possess all the powers of a sovereign state, conquest has rendered them subject to the “legislative authority” of the United States in relation to a tribe’s external power; and finally, that a tribe’s powers are subject to qualification by treaties and legislation. As he points out, these principles reflect the fundamental separation of the internal from the external sovereignty exercised by tribes (Casey 1994). More importantly, this internal/external divide creates an immediate challenge to the more classic international relations concepts of sovereignty because international legal sovereignty is fundamentally based on recognition by other sovereigns (even if granted inconsistently even among traditional nation-states). Thus, the application of a Westphalian/Vattelian notion of sovereignty to tribes is tenuous given the fact the US federal government retains the ability to limit tribes through what is called Congressional “plenary power”, largely through the Constitution but also through other mechanisms of state power. This process draws attention to Perry Dane’s argument that sovereignty is socially constructed and, as such, “is tied to power, cohesion, identity, culture, faith, community and ethnicity, among other things. But, it is more than the sum of those parts. Moreover those other variables are themselves, as often as not, socially constructed, in part out of the language of sovereignty” (Dane 1990). Dane’s point is that what has become an external construction of sovereignty (i.e., shaped and altered by external forces such as the courts or the federal government), should not disqualify tribal sovereignty from some form of recognition given that, as he points out, “All claims to sovereignty arise from a union

5

GLOBALIZED SPACES AND PLACES OF SOVEREIGNTY

85

of self-assertion and external perception. Legal communities, much like people, constantly construct each other as they construct themselves” (Dane 1990). The undeniable reality of a social construct is that it, too, is part of a cultural identity. In this case, an identity was created and shaped by the interaction of tribes with each other and each group that arrived, while the entity that eventually became a nation-state with the most profound impact on tribal sovereignty, was the United States. As Amanda Cobb points out: Sovereignty is…cultural continuance. Certainly, cultural or national identity is a part of the United States’ understanding of its own sovereignty. However, for the United States, tribal cultural integrity is viewed not as a natural part of an inherent sovereign but instead as a criterion, a quality that Native nations must prove for their sovereign status to be recognized. (Cobb 2005)

All of which points to the changing social context of tribal sovereignty or what Cobb calls the “inter-sovereign” relationship.

The Shifting Frame of a Social Construct Having recognized that “Indian law” is complex, there is no attempt here to reiterate the long and tumultuous evolution of the relationship between the United States and Native American tribes. To call it a patchwork would be to give the different approaches to Native American policy by the US government too much credit for pattern and order. A tangled skein may be a more accurate description of the abrupt changes in approach by the different groups and powers that arrived in what was to become the United States. These “powers” were namely the British, French, and Spanish, whose very different strategies and laws regarding trade, settlement, and property rights created new and overlapping layers of complication as they sought tribal trading partners and military allies (Wilkins and Lomawaima 2001). Even after the United States was more formally constituted, the country showed little skill and a great deal of cultural ignorance when dealing with the diverse range of tribal structures as the country expanded across the continent and claimed sovereignty over the land and resources. The argument here is that other types of governance and concepts of

86

A. R. HOLMES

sovereignty did not disappear, and are now reemerging as these older entities and nations increasingly seek action or redress in the global arena. Further, California not only has a role, but perhaps a unique opportunity to reshape these forms of governance. Thus, at least a brief overview of some of the key points in the evolution of this relationship becomes relevant.

Tribes and the Constitution Perhaps the first point to make is what is considered the constitutional basis for tribal sovereignty. Many scholars argue that, since tribes had occupied the territory long before new settlers arrived, their sovereignty is older and “more mature” than that of any newcomer. Similarly, the fact that tribes entered into treaties with a number of arriving powers and entities, the treaty powers of the tribes (at least those of first contact) predate the foundation of the United States and its Constitution. On that basis, some argue that tribes should assert they are “extra-constitutional” and that none of the laws of the new country even apply (Riley 2017). However, for many others, the Constitution is generally seen as a foundational document, even though it mentions Native American tribes only twice and they are not mentioned at all in what is called the “treaty clause”, Article II, Section 2, seen as the touchstone of tribal sovereignty claims. This key clause says, “the President shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur”. The reason this is so important is the fact that the first “national” powers to arrive, early American leaders, states, and later, the United States itself all made treaties with the tribes they encountered. The argument is simply that, through these actions, tribes had already been “recognized” as sovereign entities for treaty-making purposes. This assertion is further supported by the “commerce clause”, Article I, Section 8, Clause 3, “Congress shall have the power…to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes ” (emphasis added). Those claiming tribal sovereignty point not only to the separation of tribes from the federal government, the state, and other foreign nations, but also to the fact that Article 6 Clause 2 declares treaties – prior and future – to be the “supreme law of the Land”. Combined, these shore up the claim that tribes are a separate category and give Congress – not individual states – the authority to deal with tribes. Thus, the argument goes, tribes are not “subservient to state government, and retain the right to create laws that are stricter or more

5

GLOBALIZED SPACES AND PLACES OF SOVEREIGNTY

87

lenient than state laws” (Johnson et al. 2000). In this light, many support the idea that tribes are recognized sovereigns with a position “above” that of the states that make up the United States. In the same vein, Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 says, “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States…excluding Indians not taxed”. Most commentators agree this status was logical at that time given Indians were members of independent communities with their own systems of governance rather than citizens (which only happened in 1924); taken together, this becomes the foundation of all federal–tribal relations. These include: territorial sovereignty and the plenary power doctrine as well as what are known as the Marshall cases (just over 40 years after the constitution was ratified) which evolved into the “trust relationship”. The underlying theme became the idea that the federal government has a “duty to protect”, and thus effectively recognized tribes, but only as what were called “domestic dependent nations” (Casey 1994; Kickingbird et al. 1983).

Tribes, Policies, and Treaties This Constitution-centric view of national–tribal relations, is dominated by shifts in the pursuant policies that can also be broken into discrete phases or eras. Dates vary by author, but it is clear that the general approach of the federal government tended to lurch from recognition to assimilation – interspersed with tragic periods of destruction, both physical and cultural. Stephen Pevar’s list is relatively common (Pevar 2012) (Fig. 5.2). Fig. 5.2

Phases in US Government Policy toward Tribes

1492-1787

Tribal Independence with generally lile or limited contact

1787-1828

Agreements Between Equals

1828-1887

Relocaon

1887-1934

Allotment and Assimilaon

1934-1953

Indian Reorganizaon

1953-1968

Terminaon of tribes and relocaon

1968-Present

Tribal Self-Determinaon

88

A. R. HOLMES

As treaties remain the bedrock of the tribal assertion of sovereignty, it is also important to note there are phases in treaty-making between the government and the tribes, and further, that these phases in treaty-making are particularly relevant to California’s story of tribal relations. Wilkins and Lomawaima identify three specific phases: pre-1812, post1812, and post-1865, highlighting the influence of the Civil War on the attitude of the United States toward tribes in that the US government stopped making treaties with any tribe in 1871 (Wilkins and Lomawaima 2001). Thus, the importance of the Civil War as a milestone in the evolution of the United States as an entity with political will and the military might to enforce both its external and its internal sovereignty cannot be overstated. In terms of California, given that much of California’s history as a “state” begins at the very end of treaty-making, it is not surprising that John Wunder described this moment as “marking the end of ‘Old Colonialism’ and the beginning of ‘new Colonialism’” (Bruyneel 2007). Bruyneel goes on to suggest that what Wunder means is that the American federal government fundamentally shifted its view of the tribes over time and increasingly viewed them as purely domestic rather than foreign entities. As Bruyneel suggests, tribes became “collections of individuals to be assimilated rather than as sovereign governments to be recognized” (Bruyneel 2007). In some ways, the most recent era or phase of federal policy has returned to the idea that tribes can operate as more independent entities based on ideas of “self-determination”. Emma Gross suggests this approach “should mean considering the tribes a third unit of government within the federal system of states and the national government” (Gross 1999). She goes on to acknowledge that while this “governmentto-government” approach is “not as radical as the historical idea that tribes are separate nations, the view that tribes should be thought of as having the same sovereignty as states and local governments” explains why there was opposition to this approach from a number of sources (Gross 1999).

Sovereignty Is Practice Returning to the importance of a practice approach, tribes have centuries of experience with the intersection of theory and reality in terms of sovereignty. While they have been forced to adapt to a more western concept of sovereignty, they have also lived it as a practical function of

5

GLOBALIZED SPACES AND PLACES OF SOVEREIGNTY

89

governance. This is due to the fact that tribal jurisdiction granted by Congress, largely stemming from some form of sovereignty, has been a key feature of every era of tribal policy – often to the detriment of the tribe itself. While self-determination or the “government-to-government” relations approach has addressed and corrected issues in some areas, the practice of Indian law or tribal sovereignty remains contested and precarious. Kickingbird et al. make the link from jurisdiction to sovereignty abundantly clear by pointing out that it is one of the main powers of an authority over its people (Kickingbird et al. 1983). Linda Medcalf makes the link even more explicit by examining legal practice and its connection to both sovereignty and power. She argues that it is through the lawyers’ activities “in pursuit of sovereignty” that “reveals power as the ability to control and to act in vital areas”. In the legal frame, she presents “sovereignty as control over people through jurisdictional authority” and crucially makes the connection that this control must be both internal and “against others”. She asserts that tribal sovereignty is illuminated “by how it is practiced” (Medcalf 1999). Joseph Kalt and Joseph Singer make a different legal point – though still closely tied to the practice of sovereignty – when they observe that tribes know all too well the differences between de recto, de jure, and de facto sovereignty. The first, de recto (sovereignty by moral principle), is difficult to assert against the dominant Westphalian system, whereas sovereignty de jure (by legal decree or legislative act) has been possible for tribes, but is still not very effective. Returning to Bruyneel and the frontiers of sovereignty while expanding Kalt and Singer’s point, Bruyneel argues that language is an important practice “in the sense of being both practical and real” (Bruyneel 2007). Kalt and Singer focus on the de facto: Tribes and their supporters can compellingly and articulately assert the first, and petition and lobby for the second, but what ultimately matters is the last form of sovereignty – the de facto exercise of sovereignty powers…armed with fierce commitment to the propriety of their de recto claims, the frontier for many tribes in today’s legal and political environment lies in building the institutional and economic capacity to exercise self-rule even where its de jure foundations may be ambiguous or even absent. That is, many tribes increasingly embrace the Nike strategy of ‘just do it’ when it comes to matters ranging from the enforcement of environmental codes…to the regulation of foster care placements for their citizens. They are exercising sovereignty. When they do this, they create facts on the ground that can give tribes’ sovereignty a firm foundation: at

90

A. R. HOLMES

the same time, the de facto exercise of sovereignty creates a backlash that may threaten these newfound gains. (Kalt and Singer 2004)

Conclusion Revered native scholar, Vine Deloria Jr., has observed that sovereignty is “dynamic and evolutionary” (in Wunder 1996). However, there is a tension as Deloria also recognizes the time-bounded and specific nature of the concept in relation to tribal sovereignty when he notes, “In the technical language of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, sovereignty was the absolute power of a nation to determine its own course of action with respect to other nations”. This, he explains, is the basis for the international criteria by which the nascent government of the United States entered into international treaty relationships with tribes (Churchill 1999). However, the challenge as identified by Wilkins and Lomawaima is the particularly “fluid” nature of tribal sovereignty in the face of Congressional plenary power which, they argue, is more traditional and “often considered static and absolutist, that is, an investing of all political power in the federal sovereign” (Wilkins and Lomawaima 2001). Tribes must, therefore, live in both worlds; the dynamic and fluid world of theory, as well as the practical and often rigid world created by a Constitution that had, according to Wilkinson and Miklas, assumed that tribes would be assimilated, die out, or otherwise disappear. As they suggest, “…the Framers of the Constitution who were so seldom wrong on structure, were wrong about Indian tribes. The tribes did not die out”. As a result, they go on to argue, “…the modern presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court continue to squarely acknowledge this third source of sovereignty in the United States” (Wilkinson and Miklas 1988). It is this third source of sovereignty or, returning to what Bruyneel identifies as, and calls for, a third space for a sovereignty that recognizes what both “esteemed scholars and prominent jurists” agree as common: “…indigenous tribes and their citizens are neither fully foreign nor seamlessly assimilated into the American political system”. Bruyneel goes on to outline what he calls the “dilemma” that this presents for scholars of native American politics: “…it leads them to attempt to somehow resolve this awkward positioning, to move in one direction or the other – toward either a more internal or a more external location for indigenous people and tribes – so that the boundary will no longer vex indigenous political identity, expression and objectives” (Bruyneel 2007). His point is that

5

GLOBALIZED SPACES AND PLACES OF SOVEREIGNTY

91

this dilemma cannot be reconciled so it must be problematized. Medcalf seeks instead to create a different category or a subset by suggesting that tribal sovereignty as a concept “is actually ‘quasi-sovereign’, because the federal government has the power to alter Native American status should it so desire” (Medcalf 1999). For some International Relations scholars, the idea of inherent sovereignty is incommensurate with their own ideas of state-ness. The exclusive and absolutist nature of a territorial entity understood to have coercive and complete internal control and external recognition is so ingrained in state-centered notions of governance that the idea of quasi, fragmented, or layered sovereignty is not possible. However, if we expand our concept beyond the powers listed by Wilkins and Lomawaima of “selfgovernment, self-definition, self-determination and self-education”, and further take their point that “limited sovereignties” exist everywhere, a more global concept of sovereignty emerges and creates space for subnational entities such as California and for tribes. As they go on to argue, “The connections and interdependencies of the modern world deny the possibility of a self-contained, unfettered sovereignty…”. For the purposes of California’s global identity, the idea that sovereignty can form around multiple entities at many levels simultaneously is particularly important given that the entities making up the United States both at the state and tribal level are, as they suggest, “bound together by a complex web of overlapping jurisdictions, contested boundaries, reciprocal obligations, unilateral power plays, greed, generosity, self-interest, common goals, competition, cooperation, occasionally hideous violence and occasionally glorious celebration” (Wilkins and Lomawaima 2001). To understand California as a global diplomatic actor requires a recognition that traditional ideas of sovereignty reflect a specific time and location, but not necessarily the practice of governance currently in use. Inherent sovereignty as espoused by tribal advocates presents a critical perspective and serious challenge to these more hierarchical ideas, but it does not go far enough. The third space of sovereignty, as presented, is also narrowly construed as relevant only to indigenous issues. The argument here is that to define what it means to be truly global is to create a better understanding of the multiple sovereignties being demonstrated by the array of subnational entities now actively taking back from the hierarchical place to (re)create a global space.

92

A. R. HOLMES

References Baranger, Denis. 2010. The Apparition of Sovereignty. In Hent Kalmo and Quentin Skinner (eds.) Sovereignty in Fragments: The Past, Present and Future of a Contested Concept. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bruyneel, Kevin. 2007. The Third Space of Sovereignty: The Postcolonial Politics of US-Indigenous Relations. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Casey, James A. 1994. Sovereignty by Sufferance: The Illusion of Indian Tribal Sovereignty. Cornell Law Review 79 (2): 404–450. Churchill, Ward. 1999. Implications of Treaty Relationships Between the United States and Various American Indian Nations. In John R. Wunder (ed.) 1996. Native American and the Law: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives on American Indian Rights, Freedoms and Sovereignty. New York: Garland Publishing. Cobb, Amanda. 2005. Understanding Tribal Sovereignty: Definitions, Conceptualizations, and Interpretations. American Studies 46 (3/4): 115–132. Dane, A. Perry. 1990. The Maps of Sovereignty: A Meditation. Faculty Scholarship Series. Paper 392. http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/3992. Gross, Emma R. 1999. The Origins of Self-determination Ideology and Constitutional Sovereignty. In John R. Wunder (ed.) Native American Sovereignty. New York: Garland Publishing Inc. Holmes, Alison (ed.) 2016. Global Diplomacy: Theories, Types and Models. Boulder: Westview Press. Johnson, Susan and Jeanne Kaufmann, John Dossett, Sarah Hicks. 2000. Government to Government: Understanding State and Tribal Governments. Washington DC: National Conference of State Legislatures and National Congress of American Indians. Kalt, Joseph P., and Joseph William Singer. 2004. Myths and Realities of Tribal Sovereignty: The Law and Economics of Indian Self-rule. Cambridge: Native Issues Research Symposium. Harvard University. www.ksg.harvard. edu/hunap. Kickingbird, Kirke, Alexander Tallchief Skibane, and Lynn Kickingbird. 1983. Indian Jurisdiction. Washington, DC: Institute for the Development of Indian Law. Kickingbird, Kirke, Lynn Kickingbird, Charles J. Chibitty, and Curtis Berkey. 1999. Indian Sovereignty. In John R. Wunder (ed.) Native American Sovereignty. New York: Garland Publishing Inc. Medcalf, Linda. 1999. The Quest for Sovereignty. In John R. Wunder (ed.) Native American Sovereignty. New York: Garland Publishing Inc. Pevar, Stephen L. 2012. The Rights of Indians and Tribes (Fourth Edition). New York: Oxford University Press.

5

GLOBALIZED SPACES AND PLACES OF SOVEREIGNTY

93

Riley, Angela R. 2017. Native Nations and the Constitution: An Inquiry into “Extra-Constitutionality”. Harvard Law Review Forum 130 (6) (April): 173– 199. Watson, Adam. 1992. 2009 Reissue with New Introduction by Barry Buzan and Richard Little. In The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis. London: Routledge. Wilkins, David E., and K. Tsianina Lomawaima. 2001. Uneven Ground: American Indian Sovereignty and Federal Law. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Wilkinson, Charles, and Christine Miklas. 1988. Indian Tribes as Sovereign Governments: A Sourcebook on Federal-Tribal History, Law and Policy. Oakland CA: AIRI Press. Indian Lawyer Training Program; Indian Resources Institute (U.S.). Wunder, John R. (ed.). 1996. Native Americans and the Law: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives on American Indian Rights, Freedoms and Sovereignty. New York: Garland Publishing.

CHAPTER 6

Diplomacy and Paradiplomacy in California

Diplomacy is the mediation of the sources of social power (military, economic and cultural) and the systems of organization and mechanisms for communication (specifically dialogue, negotiation and representation). (Holmes 2016)

Diplomacy is the second “background concept” of international relations under examination in this volume as it is effectively the sister to sovereignty and central to the evolution of California’s global role. In this case, it is perhaps more accurate to describe diplomacy as a “background institution” that is somehow everywhere and nowhere at the same time. As a formal institution, few people would say they personally know many diplomats or that they have been engaged in any diplomatic activity. Yet communication between groups and societies goes on at every level and through an abundance of people – individually or through some form of collective. We increasingly use the term “ambassador” for people in business, the arts, sports promotion, or humanitarian work. Still, relatively few people have much in-depth knowledge when it comes to describing what diplomats “do”. This pervasive quality is indicative of the importance of both the intent and the outcomes of diplomacy, though it can also present a challenge as to how best to study such a chameleon. Many scholars have lamented that there is not a “theory” of diplomacy and it is true that, to date, much of the canon has focused on memoirs, typologies, and lists of the activities of diplomats. Some have attempted © The Author(s) 2020 A. R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3_6

95

96

A. R. HOLMES

to create a theoretical basis for the field (Sharp 2009; Der Derian 1987). Alternatively, the role and purpose of diplomacy in the international system of states (Watson 2002) has been argued to be so important to the international system that diplomacy determines “the making of world politics” (Neumann et al. 2015). The processes of globalization have continued to drive change in the international system, presenting a fundamental challenge to the Westphalian concept of sovereignty while ideas such as inherent sovereignty are irrevocably altering the parameters of the field. The purpose, goal, and function of diplomacy have not changed, but technology and customs have certainly altered the activities of the diplomat and the way we approach the study of the field. The (re)appearance of more entities, including non-state actors, on the international stage has precipitated a “practice turn” in the field. Scholars have begun to examine specific “sites of diplomacy” (Neumann 2013) as the place where, it is suggested, the theory (or mythology) of sovereignty meets practice. Diplomacy (along with military might or economic suasion) has always been among the basic mechanisms of implementation for power and authority, which, in turn, requires rules of jurisdiction and recognition. This whole system, at least in the Westphalian landscape, has been intricately linked to boundedness and territory. However, if the case study of California demonstrates anything, it is that the growing number of actors on the international stage has done more than challenge our ideas of what diplomats do. California’s actions reflect a fundamental reshaping of the essence of our mainstream understanding of the concept of sovereignty and with it, the institution of diplomacy. In effect (and recalling the horizontal axis of diplomacy) forms of diplomacy have always followed the form of the prevailing political entity, currently the nation-state. As a governing entity changes, so too do the institutions that seek to represent it. These shifts have opened the study of diplomacy to a more “networked” approach to include the study of other actors who, to this point, had been rendered nearly invisible by the dominance of the state-centric narrative. This appreciation of the multitude of actors, organizations, and state entities – both formal and informal – navigating the international stage effectively created the subfield of para- or subnational diplomacy central to this volume. As Costas Constantinou and James Der Derian suggest, “…a worthy goal of diplomacy is the hope of mediating difference in ways that remain sensitive to the Self as well as to the Other (however these are defined)”

6

DIPLOMACY AND PARADIPLOMACY IN CALIFORNIA

97

(Constantinou and Der Derian 2010). This sentiment will be particularly important in terms of exploring the changes in diplomacy as a reflection of different sovereignties and California’s global development. Again, the task is not to attempt a discussion of the entire literature or history of diplomacy, but to point to the shifts in our understanding of diplomacy as an institution of statecraft. This will first require a brief outline of the study of diplomacy and the effects of globalization on our ideas of the state, before turning to the subfield of paradiplomacy as background for the discussion of California’s activities and its audiences as well as a potential structuring of its future global profile.

The Study of Diplomacy In the past, theorists of international relations generally perceived diplomats as just one of the mechanisms of state. The field of diplomatic studies (itself a subfield) has consisted largely of the memoirs of practitioners. The traditional division between domestic politics (national governments and policy) and international (foreign policy) left diplomats in a lonely and often awkward position of straddling a gulf between what was deemed to be “inside” or “outside” – “above” or “below” their purview. Rebecca Adler-Nissen ascribes what she calls this “estrangement” between diplomats and international relations theorists to a basic difference of perspective. This disconnect, in her view, happens “because international relations scholars generally subscribe to substantialism, whereas diplomats tend to think in terms of relations” (Adler-Nissen 2015). She goes on to explain that most IR scholars have taken a substantialist view of the state and focused on its activities to the point of reification, blinding many scholars to the actors left out by such a relatively narrow focus. Keith Hamilton and Richard Langhorne agree to the extent that they suggest traditional ideas of diplomacy are “wedded to grand strategy and often seemed as though it were no more than an extension of war by other means. And like warfare in the twentieth century, diplomacy became total in its objectives and subject matter” (Hamilton and Langhorne 2000). Thus, diplomacy begins to take a shape much like the concept of sovereignty, that Nevzat Soguk argues “…is enacted always historically through a profitable administration of territories and bodies, politically, it is presumed to be extrapolitical – transcendental of all politics. It figures as a totalizing form of sovereignty. It recognizes no legitimate alternatives; it is imperial” (Soguk 2009).

98

A. R. HOLMES

This totalizing tendency is reflected in the fact that, while we know that diplomacy has existed for millennia and long before the entity of the modern-day state (Hamilton and Langhorne 2000), the post-Westphalian state system has embraced the institution of diplomacy and made it part of its own deep structure. A key part of that process is the exclusion of other models, actors, and worldviews. As with sovereignty, states have built a hierarchy designed to claim exclusivity over diplomats and their activities, a point particularly important when viewed from the perspective of indigenous diplomacies. As Marshall Beier points out “contemporary diplomacy encloses a set of privileged practices, performed in exclusive places, well-resourced and imbued with power” (Beier 2009). This, he argues, is an attempt to “define other diplomacies out of existence” despite the fact those other communities and peoples have sustained the social practices of diplomacy that are as durable as any created by the Westphalian form of state governance. As entities have changed, ideas of sovereignty have shifted, and technologies have evolved, scholars have regularly declared a “new” diplomacy. Constantinou and Der Derian offer a useful summary of four relatively common points in time often designated as turning points in the history of the institution. They return to 1648 and Westphalia when, they suggest, raison d’etat – or the concept of the state as a singular power – replaced medieval universalism. In short, the many separate or collective types of representational diplomacy were effectively taken over by the central state. The French Revolution marks the next significant change when, they suggest, “the people” staked a claim for representation against the interests of the aristocracy. President Woodrow Wilson ushered in the next “new” phase, in the aftermath of World War I as the demands for decolonization and self-determination created a renewed interest and enthusiasm for international organizations. Finally, the most recent “new” diplomacy, the two authors suggest, arrived with the creation and recognition of more sites of diplomacy and the increase in the number of multilateral forums and single issue concerns (Constantinou and Der Derian 2010). However, it is important to note that most, if not all, of these declarations of the “new” have also been associated with some kind of crisis of identity or dispute as to the relevance of diplomacy. They often took place at points in time when changes in technology were thought to be rendering diplomats redundant. Yet, as Brian Hocking reminds us, such

6

DIPLOMACY AND PARADIPLOMACY IN CALIFORNIA

99

calls have been over-blown and tended to confuse diplomatic process with diplomatic structures. In other words, the needs for, and basic functions of, diplomacy have not changed, even if the methods used to achieve these functions have altered (Hocking 2012). At the most fundamental level, these essential and concrete tasks include: information gathering, negotiation, and communication. Or, to put these in a slightly wider frame, the specific type of social interaction understood to be diplomacy has specific outcomes and results that include: “generating agents (e.g. states), objects (e.g. treaties, embassies) and structures (e.g. sovereignty)” (Neumann et al. 2015). In a similar social relations frame, another, more inclusive definition of diplomacy – and the one used here – is “the mediation of the sources of social power (military, economic and cultural) and the systems of organization and mechanisms for communication (specifically dialogue, negotiation and representation)” (Holmes 2016).

Globalization and Diplomacy Much of the current literature on diplomacy explores the constantly evolving effect of globalization on the institution and the impact of the increased number of actors involved in the practice. Thus far, such discussions have tended to take either a very broad or a very narrow approach. Broader in the sense that there is a great deal of consideration of the systemic changes in the types and number of actors involved, and narrower in that many people are exploring specific “sites” and the interactions of different actors in what has been called the “practice turn” in the field – and as used for this study. Logically, the terminology used to describe these two tendencies differs accordingly. Commentators examining the systemic or wider perspective see diplomats moving from “gatekeepers” to “boundary spanners” (Copeland 2005) and suggest that “networks have replaced hierarchies” (Hocking 2012). They are posing the idea that, as governance becomes more diffuse, diplomats are not able to maintain their exclusive position in these elite centers or to control the flow of information to those outside these circles – and are subsequently losing a great deal of their power and cachet in the process. The “flattening” caused by globalization has apparently shifted the role of the diplomat to that of curator of information and political “bundler” of people and issues. Comments range from the observation that “…the relative certainties of a bipolar states system

100

A. R. HOLMES

have given way to a disorderly, confused multipolarity” (Hamilton and Langhorne 2000) to the idea of “heteropolarity” (Constantnou and Der Derian 2010) or what is called the “pluralization of the diplomatic realm” (Cornago 2010). At the narrow end, and in an attempt to define diplomacy in light of these new “sites”, Sending, Pouliot, and Neumann begin with what they see as the foundation of all diplomatic interaction. They point out “…an actor’s identity is defined by its relationship with other actors” and “…the social world as a whole is made up of relations”. In their frame, this means that to study diplomacy is to explore the processes by, and through which, these relations are created and recreated to form what has eventually become a “durable set of social practices” in the “making up of an entity or thing” (Neumann et al. 2015). They go on to assert that the basic task of a diplomat is to make “a claim to represent a given polity to the outside world”, creating three “dimensions”. These dimensions begin to sound familiar from the discussion of sovereignty in that they reflect the idea that diplomats are representatives of the state, but simultaneously are the state. Thus, the first dimension is that diplomacy is a process for the claim to jurisdiction and authority. Second, diplomacy is relational given that it occurs at the edges and boundaries of a specific place and between one entity and another. Finally, they suggest diplomacy is political in that it is about both representing an entity as well as governing entities (Neumann et al. 2015). This emphasis on relations and interaction has been slowly shifting the focus of the field of diplomatic studies as “interdependence” causes “line ministries to interact directly with the counterparts in other countries”. Non-state actors challenge (if not completely undermine) the traditional hierarchy of foreign ministries through a redistribution of power. As Sending, Pouliot, and Neumann point out, “Nongovernmental organizations have become more visible in world politics through delegations and indirect rule, thereby opening new state-society interfaces at the global level” (Sending et al. 2011). This development is evident in what is called the practice approach used for this study, and focuses on “that part of everyday social life that goes into dealing with representatives of other polities…a function of social life” (Neumann 2013). Similarly, as Jérémie Cornut and Vincent Pouliot suggest, the practice approach is the process of disaggregating the practices of the state as a way to understand how the state sustains and

6

DIPLOMACY AND PARADIPLOMACY IN CALIFORNIA

101

maintains its place in international society (Cornut and Pouliot 2015). As Cornut argues elsewhere, diplomats operate on the basis of a collective and shared understanding to the point their “positions and dispositions are entwined”. Thus, to understand them, their work, and their institution, is to understand their role as “knowledge producers” who “use their craft to understand and represent a situation” (Cornut 2015).

Territory, Sovereignty, and Diplomacy As scholars examine both the broad and specific changes in diplomacy more closely, the defining feature of relevance here is the deterritorialization of representation – perhaps more accurately understood as a (re)recognition of the constant-ness of change. This awareness highlights the dangers of the substantialist tendency in the field of international relations in its approach to the state. As Adler-Nissen argues, “…states are not born into this world as fully developed states that then ‘exist’; states are made in continuous relations with other states and non-state actors. The development, consolidation, weakening (or even disappearance) of states can only be understood in terms of continuous processes that play out in relation to other social processes” (Adler-Nissen 2015). Thus, a unique feature of globalization is the increasing number of entities that have no territory in the traditional sense, but are actively engaged in international affairs on specific issues. At the same time, some formal territories are not able to assert their authority consistently within their territorial boundaries or abroad. The breakdown in representation is effectively undermining the strict, more traditional, sense of the diplomat as one who is (and must be) recognized by others as the literal and symbolic face of a specific place (Sending et al. 2011). Neumann identifies this as a “cascading of sites” in which the traditional sites of diplomatic work are either disappearing or becoming less important while new sites begin to include non-territorial representatives, or sites are created by other forms of social interaction. As he points out, this is inevitably a challenge to the traditional understanding of the diplomacy of states as a “bounded hierarchal entity”, given what was seen as the unbreakable bond between place and space, representation and recognition in the Westphalian approach (Neumann 2013). As potentially chaotic as a shift away from the states system structure may be (or as undermining as it may be to the older concept of sovereignty), the main beneficiaries of this shift will be those who already

102

A. R. HOLMES

have a different view of space vs place. Neumann suggests, “Humans turned space into place and place into sites [of diplomacy]. Some sites are claimed to be originary” – by which he means the Europeans and the powerful spread of the Westphalian states system (Neumann 2013). Once again coming back to the theme of a shift from space to place, adding Neumann’s concept of diplomatic “sites” is particularly important as it opens diplomacy to systems and concepts that are not based solely on the territorial or bounded state. As Nevzat Soguk argues, “Columbus and succeeding ‘explorers’ wandered into indigenous spaces already shaped as places in political and cultural terms” (Soguk 2009). There were norms and protocols associated with the messengers and representatives of other polities as they entered new territories. As Ravi De Costa points out, early civilizations also created durable practices of interaction i.e., diplomacy was very much a part of their governance. However, these nontraditional systems – often indigenous governments in the American experience – were denied formal sovereignty and effectively “banned from the political realm and flattened into the cultural landscape” (Soguk 2009). Noé Cornago quotes Mark Franke who proposed the idea that this process was inevitable in some ways as the “western” sovereigns needed the idea of the “indigenous” to establish their own sense and shape of what it meant to be sovereign. Cornago goes so far as to argue that not only are these “diverse constituencies” an ancient and common part of diplomatic practice around the world, they were “quite crucial in the shaping of the modern sovereign state which later sought to suppress its plurality of voices, depicting it as mere cacophony and diplomatic liability” (Cornago 2010). Yet, as Constantinou and Der Derian, among many others, point out, “…sovereignty has never had complete control over the modern diplomatic system. Sovereignty has been ‘perforated’ in various and complex ways, meaning that all kinds of non-state and sub-state actors have found ways to practice diplomacy” (Constantinou and Der Derian 2010). The important point to bear in mind is that this accelerating process of perforation is a reflection of the rising recognition of the persistence of different approaches and practices. Scholars such as Robert Cooper, Hocking, Sending, Pouliot, and Neumann have all recognized the fact that even this most recent “new” diplomacy is not truly new, but a progression by which the concerns of “balance, sovereignty and the separation of foreign and domestic overseen by a centralized state with claims to total control” have been moved from the center stage.

6

DIPLOMACY AND PARADIPLOMACY IN CALIFORNIA

103

Meanwhile, the diplomatic practices and methods have been “layered” as diplomats have absorbed and adapted the features of previous systems and premodern diplomacy in a kind of “dialogue of the old and new” (Hocking 2012). However, even if the activities of non-state actors are not new and need not undermine traditional diplomacy, the “diffusion of power” does require that diplomats respond to the current environment. As Soguk recognizes, “…the Indigenous universe exists and works side by side, under and above, in and through the prevailing statist system yet it preserves a certain transformative, even transgressive autonomy” (Soguk 2009). The challenge, of course, is that while the functions of diplomacy have remained fairly constant over time, and indeed many of the practices are familiar – albeit changed by the development and use of various technologies – there is an element of both the universal and the local about the institution itself. Whether “estranged” or not, Pouliot and Cornut argue, “diplomacy matters to international relations theory because, as a bundle of practices, it constitutes the key element of world politics …diplomatic practices have a ‘generative force’” (Cornut and Pouliot 2015). However, diplomacy is also, and must be, situated in time, space, and place. Neumann suggests three layers in which “myths constitute the basic layer of diplomacy and a second layer may be thought of as narrative sociabilities, the third, top layer of discourse are practices, which have given shape to diplomatic events” (Neumann 2013). Thus, what Neumann calls the “emergent phenomenon” of diplomacy will be addressed by turning to the development of paradiplomacy.

Paradiplomacy A discussion of the development of the subfield or specialization often called paradiplomacy could be repetitive or even redundant following this brief overview of the institution of diplomacy. However, in much the same way that the concept of inherent sovereignty builds on, even as it departs from and challenges, the Westphalian view; para- or subnational diplomacy can also be seen as a critique of the ideas of state-ness or diplomatic action. Indeed, authors such as Cornago argue that, until recently, paradiplomacy was seen as “non-relevant” or “disturbing and intrusive of diplomatic routine” while most “mainstream” writing on diplomacy only rarely addressed paradiplomacy (Cornago 2010).

104

A. R. HOLMES

Similarly, McMillan suggests that even though scholars of foreign policy analysis widened their scope to include the cabinet, officials, bureaucracy, NGOs, and interest groups, their gaze remained steadfastly horizontal, whereas “the vertical dimensions” (the focus of this text) “have been predominantly ignored” (McMillan 2012). Further, there is a concern that more actors at different levels in the system would create a situation in which there is both “horizontal fragmentation” and “vertical disintegration” if foreign policy was no longer reliably created or executed at a some “single level” (van der Pluijm and Melissen 2007). Upon further examination, it becomes clear that many subnationals deem themselves to be not only national but, as already demonstrated in the discussion on sovereignty, as fully sovereign in their own right (Aldecoa and Keating 1999). There has been some debate as to the specific origin of the term “paradiplomacy”. Some suggest it emerged in the 1980s (Tavares 2016), whereas others tend to agree it was Rohan Butler who coined the term in 1961. Alexander Kuznetsov sets out Butler’s definition as “the highest level of personal and parallel diplomacy, complementing or competing with the regular foreign policy” (Kuznetsov 2015). The intention, at that time, was to qualify traditional diplomacy through the use of the Greek prefix “para” for “beside, near, alongside or subsidiary” and as a way to indicate “direct international activity by subnational actors supporting, complementing, correcting, duplicating or challenging the nation-state’s diplomacy” (Tavares 2016). However, a multitude of other terms and phrases has also emerged to describe these other actors or “sites” of diplomatic action (Fig. 6.1). Fig. 6.1

Other terms for “para-diplomacy”

James Rosenau: two worlds of world poliƟcs – state and non-state actors (Lecours, 2002) André Lecours: the “third world” of world poliƟcs: regions (Lecours 2002) Brian Hocking: “mulƟlayered diplomacy” (Hocking, 1993) Hans Michelmann: consƟtuent diplomacy (over paradiplomacy) (Criekemans, 2010) David Criekemans: micro regional group (groups of states) vs macro regional (big groupings) (Criekemans, 2010) Noé Cornago: meso-level governments (Cornago 2010)

6

DIPLOMACY AND PARADIPLOMACY IN CALIFORNIA

105

Phases in the Evolution of Paradiplomacy As part of this development, at least three (if not four or more) “phases” have been identified in what has become the distinct field of enquiry of paradiplomacy. Crucially, this area has evolved during the same time that California has become increasingly active on the international stage. Therefore, a brief look at the development, types, layers, and motivations of paradiplomacy will help illustrate the point that California is not so much in the vanguard, but moving with a much wider and deeper shift in the nature of the state as an entity and diplomacy as its institutional manifestation. Understanding this evolution also supports the argument that such background concepts are crucial context for California’s current diplomatic position and future actions. Not surprisingly, these phases have been largely determined by the location of the activity and the point in time at which they took place. For John Kincaid, who studies the United States, the international actions of specific US states are rooted as far back as the foundation of the country when each state was indeed a separate national/governmental entity. Of course, as the country consolidated and its power solidified, state competencies – much like tribal relations – became defined through both the Constitution (as discussed above) and typical practice. Kincaid explains that these powers were exercised “in varying degrees, by a number of states during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century”. However, he argues these powers were “dormant” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries until they “began to be resurrected during the late 1950s” as states, particularly those in the South, attempted to attract more foreign investment. This was done, he points out, with active encouragement from Washington and President Eisenhower (Kincaid 1999) (thus making it logical that Butler recognized and named the phenomenon in the early 1960s). The post-industrial states of the Northeast followed in the 1970s, again with encouragement from Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Carter. Indeed, it was President Carter who suggested that the governors set up a standing committee within the structure of the National Governors Association (more on this group later) on International Trade and Foreign Relations. Kuznetsov even calls the 1970s the “genesis of paradiplomacy studies” while scholars such as Ivo Duchacek and Panayotis Saldatos point to President Nixon’s “new federalism model” that handed power back to local and state government as a major turning point in the field. Clearly,

106

A. R. HOLMES

regional actors were on the rise, particularly in the economic realm – perhaps explaining why a great deal of this initial work was done in the United States and Canada. David Criekemans and Alexander Kuznetsov differ slightly in terms of their timing of the second phase of development in paradiplomacy. Kuznetsov suggests the 1980s were focused more on the higher level and the creation of a “narrative of international activity” with more attempts to build theories of paradiplomacy. Meanwhile, Criekemans focuses on the practical aspects and suggests subnationals were working toward more recognition for their activities (Kuznetsov 2015). Whatever their differences, both scholars agree that the events of the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s encouraged even more subnational activity, as well as the creation of a more stable structure for the process of “parallel” diplomacy. The 2000s have been centered on a consolidation of scholarly work, as well as a spread of such ideas around the world. Criekemans makes a particularly interesting observation that the most recent phase has been about the “verticalization of the organizational structure” with “attempts to integrate the external instruments of a sub-state foreign policy into a well-performing whole” (Duran 2016). These phases provide a chronological backdrop for the development of paradiplomacy and a frame for the types of paradiplomacy that have evolved as well as a useful starting point for a discussion of the overlapping motivations and approaches taken by subnational actors and their different patterns of paradiplomatic behavior – all particularly relevant in the context of California’s global profile.

Types and Motivations of Paradiplomacy Ivo Duchacek and others have looked at paradiplomacy in the United States and beyond to identify three common types of paradiplomacy or paradiplomatic activity. These include: 1. cross-border regionalism, or regional paradiplomacy, is most commonly found between bordering regions who come together for shared interests and issues; 2. transregional paradiplomacy, where noncentral and not geographically neighboring governments come together on specific issues of concern or promotion (e.g., Quebec and Louisiana); and finally,

6

DIPLOMACY AND PARADIPLOMACY IN CALIFORNIA

107

3. global paradiplomacy, the biggest “reach” for noncentral governments in that they engage with noncentral, and with central governments in other countries (Duchacek et al. 1988). These types are closely related, but do not entirely coincide with André Lecours’s presentation of what he call the three “layers” of paradiplomacy and that offer a bridge to what others have called the motivations of subnationals in their paradiplomatic efforts. Lacours includes: (1) economics (issues not explicitly political or cultural); (2) cooperation (the most diverse category including cultural education and technical and technological sharing, but not necessarily for economic gain); and, (3) political considerations (about the affirmation of identity and cultural distinctiveness) (Lecours 2008). Lacours’s list closely resembles what Kuznetsov and Keating call the “motivations” of paradiplomacy that they have simplified to: economic, political, and cultural. Kuznetsov does, however, also suggest a fourth motivation that brings the typology full circle. This additional motivation is originally John Kincaid’s category of “cross-border house-keeping”, or what might otherwise be called regional paradiplomacy (Keating 1999; Kuznetsov 2015). Keating goes on to make the key point that subnational diplomacy is not the same as constitutional state diplomacy, in that subnational diplomacy is not about “national interest” but generally geared to a specific issue or concern. Regions or subnationals are “more functionally specific and targeted, often opportunistic and experimental…”. However, the paradiplomacy they practice is “not functionally determined, and political considerations play the main role in deciding on strategy and initiative” (Keating 1999). Interestingly, much of what was originally understood to be the study of paradiplomacy was focused on secessionist states. Only later, as an increasing number of entities undertook a more collaborative approach or worked in parallel to their central government, was a distinction required between entities seeking to break away from their central authority and those simply seeking to operate on a global scale. The point remains that the term “protodiplomacy” was developed to reflect the more narrow and distinctly secessionist motivation of some subnationals undertaking global diplomatic activity (Tavares 2016; Cornago 2010). This is particularly important in the discussion of California as a state given it has, to date, remained steadfastly “subnational” in its paradiplomacy. Yet, as

108

A. R. HOLMES

indicated in the Introduction, there is a group interested in the idea of secession for the state (and some for the further break-up of the state into smaller units). Thus far, this idea has not become part of the state’s mainstream activities. The idea of protodiplomacy is also important in that it effectively creates a range of activities for the field as a whole. Protodiplomacy becomes one end of the range of options as the approach most incompatible to the “host” state goals, while paradiplomacy moves to the center of the field as an increasing number of actors seek to operate on the global stage. In this way, the impact of globalization, namely the compression in levels of governance, has been given a shape by a subfield seeking to understand that activity. For example, writing from the perspective of State Legislatures, Timothy Conlan and others have argued that globalization has made it increasingly difficult for states to carve out areas of policy that are untouched by international affairs, thus creating what Bayless Manning and others have called “intermestic” politics – the area between international and domestic realms (Conlan et al. 2004). Brian Hocking has called this same process the “localization” of foreign policy as “local groups and government agencies perceive themselves to be affected by events outside their national setting, and have the motivation, resources and opportunities to respond by projecting their interests at both the national and international level” (Hocking 1993). Hocking goes on to argue that foreign policy is not a distinct policy area, but “is about ‘something’ and that ‘something’ has to embrace an increasingly large number of issues once presumed to be the preserve of domestic politics…producing a complex web of interactions” (Hocking 1993). This point is well summarized by Lecours when he suggests that the sources of paradiplomacy are located in both domestic and world politics (Lecours 2008).

Operating Along the Diplomatic Frontier All of these authors recognize that paradiplomacy – or the activities of subnationals on the international scene – is not new (Aldecoa and Keating 1999). At the same time, they understand that the continuing erosion of the boundaries between what was once held to be a clear distinction between foreign and domestic concerns requires the examination of other diplomatic actors and many sites of diplomatic activities. Understanding

6

DIPLOMACY AND PARADIPLOMACY IN CALIFORNIA

109

these interactions “is a crucial factor for understanding those problems related to the interpretation of sovereignty and processes of centralization/decentralization that are taking place within modern states today” (Kuznetsov 2015). Hocking calls this a new “frontier” where domestic and foreign policy can become a “seamless web” and where, once different entities have established their “actor-ness”, they are able to make the necessary claims to jurisdiction and authority in what he calls “frontierland” – regardless of their ability to make claims to territory or even a form of sovereignty. Hocking concludes, perhaps counterintuitively, that “the local is not the antithesis of the global” but that the “frequent failure to recognize the nature of the global-local dialectic” continues to create a sense of a zerosum game between states and other entities (Hocking 1999). This process of compression inevitably creates a constant tension between the goals of the state and those of the subnational actor. Panayotis Soldatos has identified four patterns of engagement between the national and subnational levels. The first pattern is cooperativecoordinated which, as the name suggests, indicates that the subnational and the national are able to coordinate and cooperate in areas where the subnational seeks international action. The second pattern is cooperative-joint behavior, which includes the formal or informal inclusion of regions or subnationals in the creation and implementation of national policy at the international level. The third pattern is parallel-harmony, which indicates that the subnational acts on its own, but largely in harmony with the overarching government. The fourth and final pattern is parallel-disharmony, where the subnational is actively pursuing its own goals – despite the fact they are not aligned with the federal or national structure (Kuznetsov 2015). As Manuel Duran points out, however, the study of paradiplomacy thus far has tended to focus on one pattern or another, depending on the subnational being studied. This narrow approach, he argues, fails to truly appreciate the multi-layered nature of subnational diplomacy (Duran 2016) or the fact that subnationals could be “opponents of national objectives; but equally, they can serve as allies and agents” (Hocking 1993). The challenge, as we will see in the case of California, is identified by Hocking as not about the reconciliation of the interests of different levels of governance, but the fact it is a “multilevel problem spanning, cities, regions, national governments” (Hocking 1993). André Lecours evocatively suggests that paradiplomacy “involves a ‘slice’ of

110

A. R. HOLMES

domestic politics projecting itself onto the international scene without the medium of the state…In this sense, it blurs the external-internal dichotomy rather than just connecting them” (Lecours 2008). He goes on to argue that all of these layers (or patterns and motivations) are cumulative and that, while nearly all paradiplomacies reflect economic considerations, paradiplomacy can also be a “multifunctional vehicle”, adding other concerns and layers over time (Lecours 2008). Rogier van der Pluijm makes a similar point, but uses the term “competitive cooperation” to describe what he sees as the push/pull of subnational to national relations. The result, as suggested by the latest phase of paradiplomatic development, is a focus on the mechanisms of communication between central and noncentral governmental entities (Hocking 1993) and the means for cooperation so that officials can “link up powers, resources and opportunities” (Keating 1999). This would ideally be done through an official channel or an “effective consultative body composed of federal, state and select local officials that would meet on a regular basis” as what is perceived as the growing incoherence or disconnect in terms of foreign policy continues to rise (Fry 1998). Interestingly, while paradiplomacy could be posed as a critique of the structures of state-centered diplomacy, various scholars have identified a trend in non-state and subnational actors that suggests they are effectively replicating the behaviors of their state-based counterparts (Hocking 1999; Cornago 2010). Just as state diplomacy evolved by adapting and absorbing the traditions and customs of previous systems, it would appear that the latest “new” actors are adopting the structures and “reproducing [the] rhetoric, rigidity and formalism” of the system they are, in many ways, trying to challenge. As David Criekemans points out, “Diplomacy should not be approached as a segmented process of the different actors within a state, but rather as a system in which the different actors in a state are entangled, both inside and outside their national settings, to embrace a diversity of interests – a multilayered diplomacy” (Criekemans 2010, 62). Cornago adds the idea of a web that has gradually extended far beyond the economic issues, but now includes “normative issues such as ethno-political claims, human rights advocacy or international solidarity” (Cornago 2010).

6

DIPLOMACY AND PARADIPLOMACY IN CALIFORNIA

111

Conclusion This discussion of diplomacy and paradiplomacy has deliberately separated the two deeply linked and intricately related arenas of scholarship and the process of evolution for two reasons. First, like inherent sovereignty discussed previously, the argument is that paradiplomacy offers a powerful critique of the prevailing state-centered model of both diplomatic studies and diplomacy in practice. If globalization altered our perceptions of sovereignty and thus the practices of diplomacy (as seen in much of the literature), the visibility of paradiplomacy suggests a simultaneous shift in the evolution of diplomacy as an institution of international society. Jan Art Scholte presents a fascinating discussion of what it means to be “global” in which he recalls Manuel Castell’s idea of a “network society” where a “new ‘space of flows’ exists alongside the old ‘space of places’”. He argues that today’s world is both territorial and supraterritorial, though neither has completely overwhelmed the other. Scholte posits “globality” as a term that “resonates with spatiality” but in the sense that it identifies the planet as “the earthly world as a whole – as a site of social relations in its own right”. He sees this single space world as having two qualities. The first is what he calls “transplanetary connectivity” which, he suggests, has existed for centuries. On the other hand, the characteristic of “supraterritoriality” is relatively new in that it represents a “break with the territorialist geography that came before”. His point is that relations are always located in a place or a domain, but “a social condition is not positive or negative because it is local or global, since the situation is generally both local and global at the same time. It is the particular blend of local and global that matters”. His overarching conclusion is simply that “space matters” (Scholte 2005). In this, Scholte makes a crucial point of direct relevance here: our foundational concepts and institutions in the area of international relations and diplomatic studies have been fundamentally altered by the increasing pressure both downward and upward along the vertical axis. These interactions have shifted our understanding of space and place by blurring the reified and often false distinctions made between global and local while at the same time creating new sites and forums of engagement. California, as a subnational actor, is therefore not in the vanguard of this change, but it is a significant actor and actively engaged at the “intermestic” level. The size and diversity of this specific subnational entity puts

112

A. R. HOLMES

it on the cutting edge of the increasing simultaneity of the local/global realm of world politics.

References Adler-Nissen, Rebecca. 2015. Conclusion: Relationalism or Why Diplomacy Find International Relations Theory Strange. In Ole Jacob Sending, Vincent Pouliot, and Iver B. Neumann (eds.) Diplomacy and the Making of World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Aldecoa, Francisco, and Michael Keating (eds.). 1999. Paradiplomacy in Action: The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments. London: Frank Crass. Beier, J. Marshall (ed.). 2009. Indigenous Diplomacies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Conlan, Timothy J., Robert L. Dudley, and Joel F. Clark. 2004. Taking on the World: The International Activities of American State Legislatures. Publius 34 (3): 183–199. Constantinou, Costas, and James Der Derian (eds.). 2010. Sustainable Diplomacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Copeland, Daryl. 2005. New Rabbits, Old Hats: International Policy and Canada’s Foreign Service in an Era of Reduced Diplomatic Resources. International Journal 60 (3): 743–762. Cornago, Noé. 2010. On the Normalization of Sub-State Diplomacy. The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 5 (1–2): 11–36. Cornut, Jérémie. 2015. To Be a Diplomat Abroad: Diplomatic Practice at Embassies. Cooperation and Conflict 50 (3): 385–401. https://doi.org/10. 1177/0010836715574912. Cornut, Jérémie, and Vincent Pouliot. 2015. Practice Theory and the Study of Diplomacy: A Research Agenda. Cooperation and Conflict 50 (3): 297–315. Criekemans, David (ed.). 2010. Regional Sub-State Diplomacy Today. Leiden, The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Der Derian, James. 1987. On Diplomacy. Oxford: Blackwell. Duchacek, Ivo D., Daniel Latouche, and Garth Stevenson (eds.). 1988. Perforated Sovereignties and International Relations: Trans-Sovereign Contacts of Subnational Governments. New York: Greenwood Press. Duran, Manuel. 2016. Paradiplomacy as a Diplomatic Broker: Between Separating Differences and Engaging Commonalities. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill NV. Fry, Earl (ed.). 1998. The Expanding Role of State and Local Governments in U.S. Foreign Affairs. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press. Hamilton, Keith, and Richard Langhorne. 2000. The Practice of Diplomacy: Its Evolution, Theory and Administration. New York: Routledge. Hocking, Brian. 1999. Patrolling the “Frontier”: Globalization, Localization and the “Actorness” of Non-Central Governments. In Francisco Aldecoa and

6

DIPLOMACY AND PARADIPLOMACY IN CALIFORNIA

113

Michael Keating (eds.) Paradiplomacy in Action: The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments. London: Frank Cass. Hocking, Brian. 2012. (Mis)Leading Propositions About 21st Century Diplomacy. Crossroads Macedonian Foreign Policy Journal 3 (2). Hocking, Brian (ed.). 1993. Foreign Relations and Federal States. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press. Holmes, Alison. 2016. Global Diplomacy. Boulder: Westview Press. Keating, Michael. 1999. Regions and International Affairs: Motives Opportunities and Strategies. In Francisco Aldecoa and Michael Keating (eds.) Paradiplomacy in Action: The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments. London: Frank Cass. Kincaid, John. 1999. The International Competence of US States and Their Local Governments. In Francisco Aldecoa and Michael Keating (eds.) Paradiplomacy in Action: The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments. London: Frank Crass. Kuznetsov, Alexander S. 2015. Theory and Practice of Paradiplomacy: Subnational Governments in International Affairs. London and New York: Routledge. Lecours, André. 2008. Political Issues of Paradiplomacy: Lessons from the Developed World. Discussion Papers in Diplomacy. Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’. Neumann, Iver. 2013. Diplomatic Sites: A Critical Enquiry. London, UK: C. Hurst & Co. Ltd. Neumann, Iver, Vincent Pouliot, and Ole Jacob Sending. 2015. Diplomacy and the Making of World Politics. USA: Sheridan Books Inc. McMillan, Samuel Lucas. 2012. The Involvement of State Governments in U.S. Foreign Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Sending, Ole Jacob, Vincent Pouliot, and Iver B. Neumann. 2011. The Future of Diplomacy: Changing Practices, Evolving Relationships. International Journal 66 (3): 527–542. https://doi.org/10.1177/002070201106600301. Scholte, Jan Art. 2005. Globalization and the Rise of Super Territoriality. In Guy Lachapelle and Stéphane Paquin Mastering Globalization: New Sub-States’ Governance and Strategies. New York: Routledge. Sharp, Paul. 2009. Diplomatic Theory of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Soguk, Nevzat. 2009. Communication/Excommunication: Transversal Indigenous Diplomacies in Global Politics. In Marshall Beier (ed.) Indigenous Diplomacies. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Tavares, Rodrigo. 2016. Paradiplomacy: Cities and States as Global Players. New York: Oxford University Press.

114

A. R. HOLMES

van der Pluijm, Roger, and Jan Melissen. 2007. City Diplomacy: The Expanding Role of Cities in International Politics. The Hague Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael. https://www.uclg.org. Watson, Adam. 2002. The Evolution of International Society: A Comparative Historical Analysis (reissue). London: Routledge.

PART III

California: Multi-layered Diplomacy in Action

Part III is a case study of California’s international activity as understood by the foreign diplomats sent to the state to represent their national interests, and the state officials, and organizations who represent California’s interests to the world. This chapter also includes organizations representing other entities such as cities, counties, and tribes as they are increasingly active and working to present their interests along the vertical axis.

CHAPTER 7

Consuls General: From Alta to American California

Thomas Oliver Larkin was born in Massachusetts in 1802…the young man of twenty-nine…reached the tiny village of Yerba Buena on San Francisco Bay in 1832… The following year he removed to…Monterey, the capital of Mexican Alta California, and was…a general trader and merchant in hides and tallow… Larkin received his letter of appointment as United States consul in California on April 2 1844. (Hawgood 1970) Consulate of the United States of America, Monterey California April 20, 1846 Upper California is situated between the 32nd and 42nd degrees of north latitude, and the part which borders on the Pacific is between 117 and 123 degrees of west longitude. Its boundaries on the east have been considered the Rockey Mountains although the part that has hitherto been settled is a very narrow strip of land on the shores of the Pacific, not exceeding twenty leagues in width. The first mission settled was in San Diego, the south west of upper California, which took place in 1769. San Carlos de Monterey was settled one or two years afterwards, and gradually the rest amounting in all to twenty-one. The last San Francisco Solano was established in 1822… The missions are now almost entirely destroyed. Some that had formerly from two to three thousand Indians have not now above one hundred, others none… Many foreigners now hold land under the expectation of being under the flag of the United Sates. This idea already enhances the value of the land… The present Inhabitants of California are naturally

© The Author(s) 2020 A. R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3_7

117

118

ALISON R. HOLMES

very hospitable and have good natural abilities… Again many Foreigners of different Nations are Married in this country…(sic) Most respectfully submitted to the Hon James Buchanan Secretary of State By his Most Obedient Servant – Thomas O. Larkin (Hammond 1951)

Changing Face of Consular Diplomacy The idea that the United States had a consul representing its interests in California seems strange enough, but there were, in fact, two representatives. The first and main consul was Thomas Larkin based in Monterey while his Vice-Consul, William A. Leidesdorff, a Danish West Indian and former sea captain, was appointed by Larkin in 1845 and based in Yerba Buena (the original name for the settlement that later became San Francisco). Interestingly, the British consul in Yerba Buena was hostile to Leidesdorff and made a point of ignoring or dismissing his authority by refusing to recognize his jurisdiction. Larkin repeatedly had to encourage Leidesdorff to ignore such petty behavior, though he was worried about what he saw as the British designs to acquire the evolving territory for itself (Hawgood 1970). Such intrigues between consuls are less common in the modern context, but the role of consul remains largely unchanged. Larkin reported on the local conditions of business and trade and monitored business trends and transactions – particularly of larger partners or in key sectors. He also tended to the issues of Americans in the territory (sailors kept him particularly busy) and generally observed the rapidly changing politics of the state. In this endeavor, Larkin and Leidesdorff were only two of many from around the world representing the interests of their respective countries in the territory – first to Mexico then the United States. However, all consuls of the day had to operate without much direct support from their superiors and certainly without the regular communication that might have clarified at least some of the issues facing consuls working in the rapidly changing environment of the nascent state. For example, Leidesdorff’s appointment was not received or formally agreed by Mexico City before the war between the United States and Mexico broke out – going some way to explain the behavior of the British consul – by which point, the status of all diplomats in the contested space was permanently altered. Despite the pervasive use of the consular function and its impact on the day-to-day relations between entities, relatively little formal study

7

CONSULS GENERAL: FROM ALTA TO AMERICAN CALIFORNIA

119

has been done on this aspect of diplomatic interaction. As indicated in previous chapters, the study of diplomacy is bifurcated between diplomatic studies (with a focus on diplomats as actors) and international relations theorists who focus on the state as an actor. The separation of the strands is reinforced by the totalizing nature of territorial sovereignty. Halvard Leira and Iver Neumann are an exception, as they outlined the history of the consular function and its operation long before the creation of any kind of formal diplomatic service. As they point out, “Consuls have tended to be seen as the poor cousins of ambassadors and ministers”. Given that consuls often deal in the “grey area between diplomatic history, commercial history, and international law”, Leira and Neumann argue this role has been of particular importance at times and in places that lacked “formal/recognized external sovereignty”. These include places such as, “…the Barbary regencies from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, Ottoman territories in the Balkans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and Norway while in its union with Sweden in the nineteenth century” (Leira and Neumann 2011). As a direct consequence of the spread of the Westphalian/territorial nation-state, consuls gradually lost their privileges and immunities over the course of the seventeenth century. This was, in part, due to the fact that many (like Larkin) were merchants themselves and increasingly mercantilist states did not want foreigners to take a share or have special trade privileges. Yet perhaps the strongest reason for the shift against consuls was the fact that, up to that point, consuls had enjoyed a broad jurisdiction in both civil and criminal cases. This situation became antithetical to the all-consuming nature of sovereignty as expressed by the evolving form of the nation-state (Leira and Neumann 2011). Jan Melissen, in particular, makes a strong argument that the long history of consular affairs suggests that the division between what constituted “foreign” or “domestic” was “entirely alien” to consuls. Their work required them to engage with all kinds of people at all levels in their host country and resulted in a deep connection with the “societal dimension of world politics and diplomacy” (Melissen 2011). Melissen calls this the “intermestic habitat” or “hybrid environment” and suggests this is the where “practitioners of consular affairs should be perfectly at home” (Melissen 2011). However, as state sovereignty became more rigid and more formal, the imprecise and fluid role filled by consuls became increasingly difficult to accommodate. Gradually, foreign ministries around the world created

120

ALISON R. HOLMES

a system of hierarchy and structure that meant consuls became mere extensions or outposts. The real power, as projected by the state, was centralized into the embassy, while consuls were the primary point of care for citizens abroad and adjuncts in the pursuit of what has been seen as the “low politics” of business and trade rather than the “high politics” of statecraft and state-to-state representation and negotiation. As Kevin Stringer argues, the core function of diplomacy in the past had been to influence another government by making formal representations via ambassadors and embassies in the capital. In this approach, consuls “exist primarily to offer a geographic augmentation of the embassy’s reach in limited core functions”. As he goes on to argue, this idea assumes that a country’s needs can be entirely met in the capital, or dealt with only at the level of the national government. This assumption is “factually invalidated…by empirically observing any number of states today in the international system. Regions as diverse as Catalonia, Andhra Pradesh and California are quite autonomous from the national governments” (Stringer 2011). Perhaps ironically, globalization has “re-scripted consular diplomacy” (Hocking 2012) by blurring the lines between areas of work and expertise. Economic issues – historically the core of international and diplomatic work – were gradually pushed down the agenda, whereas globalization has brought them back to the forefront as they have been recognized as integral to the political agendas and the ideologies of different actors. In the terms previously discussed, entities such as cities and regions have gained the “actor-ness” of small states or even “middle powers” (Melissen 2011). As such, they are engaging at the international level and using economic opportunities as leverage for their normative values on issues such as the environment and human rights (Stringer 2011). Thus, cultural and social aspects of economic and political action have been reinforced in terms of diplomacy while creating more demand for, and highlighting the “intermestic” work of consuls. As Melissen observes, “Consular business has always been more deeply entrenched in domestic affairs than any other aspect of MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] work and in recent years this development has been reinforced by the various side-effects of globalization” (Melissen 2011). Further, this shift in the way diplomacy operates creates a necessary change in the role of individual diplomats as they adapt to an environment in which they no longer have the authority of a presumed hierarchy

7

CONSULS GENERAL: FROM ALTA TO AMERICAN CALIFORNIA

121

to pursue their state’s agenda. The “new collaborative modes of diplomacy practice” (Melissen 2011) require the creation of broad networks as diplomats become facilitators of the “coalitions of actors in the attempt to manage problems which are beyond the capacity of government alone” (Hocking 1999).

The Next “New” Diplomacy?: Consulates and Subnationals Thus, what could be considered a niche area of diplomatic studies is central to this investigation as Consuls General are a primary audience for California’s international personality. Their interactions with the state are an excellent example of the growing tendency of consulates to be “domestic and international at the same time” (Leira and Neumann 2011) while reflecting their own perceptions of the larger trends and changes in the institution of diplomacy. Interviews with Consuls General conducted for this research confirm Stringer’s view that “consulates, more than embassies are…becoming the lifeblood of modern diplomacy” (Stringer 2011). This trend could even be argued as the next “new diplomacy” in the evolution of diplomacy as an institution as globalization continues to shift perceptions of what is “local” or “global” and to push the concept of sovereignty down from the top and out from the center. For example, and from a more theoretical perspective, Michael Howells, the United Kingdom’s Consul General in Los Angeles, perceives, “an erosion of government autonomy over international activity and…[the] government’s ability to affect international issues of concern to people and companies…so there’s a general – in relative terms – diminution in the power of governments relative to other actors…I think that’s changed the paradigm…it’s about a continuum of influence. It’s no longer a hierarchy of influence…so therefore you need to be able to engage with as many components of that continuum as you can, using as many different tools as you have available” (Howells 2018). Alternatively, and in a more practical vein, the Canadian Consul General in Los Angeles, James Villeneuve, observed that “…we’re living in a global world…You need to be very politically savvy in terms of what this means. So the old formal way of doing things – personally I think those days are gone. You still have a certain level of decorum that you

122

ALISON R. HOLMES

manage…but the whole capital flows, the technology, artificial intelligence…you need to think in global ways in terms of how that affects local” (Villeneuve 2018). Similarly, and commenting specifically on the impact of these new tools, one Chinese diplomat suggested, “Traditional diplomacy is there, but because of social media and information everybody can turn to…the people at the subnational level, the government agencies, also the companies, universities, play a more important role…[it is] a changing of the tide”. In California, and despite the fact this is clearly a global trend, the national context – particularly the election of President Donald Trump in 2016 – has had very specific consequences in terms of diplomatic practice. A current example would include the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. In 1994, during the process leading up to the first agreement, both Canada and Mexico used lobbyists to make their case and to create a “NAFTA coalition” to argue for passage in Washington, DC. While this group was diminishing in influence even before President Trump’s election, the combination of a national government that is perceived to be “tone deaf” to the concerns of international partners and the rise of subnational entities has effectively shifted the action away from the “Washington Beltway” (economist.com). The result was much more “local/global” or “networked” diplomatic strategy. Consuls General are leading the charge by bringing governors, state lawmakers, business groups, chambers, and others into the information loop in the hope they would, in turn, become influencers on the US national government. Interviews with California diplomats suggest that this trend is perceived to be not only the latest development in diplomacy at the subnational level, but that it is likely to outlast this presidency as many countries indicated they have changed the way they operate to be more locally connected and responsive. For example, Hans-Ulrich Südbeck, Consul General for Germany in San Francisco, explained: Of course we have focused a lot on [Washington] DC and…the two coasts. But we sort of forgot about looking precisely into the feeling in the ‘flyover country’ or…other federal states here. So there is…interest in more reporting…on a subnational basis. We are being…asked to report more…[of what is] going on in our regions…there’s also an understanding that in a situation in which…we disagree on a federal political level with

7

CONSULS GENERAL: FROM ALTA TO AMERICAN CALIFORNIA

123

the president or the administration on certain issues…we have to intensify the discussion with other decision makers at other levels on a state level. (Südbeck 2018)

From the other end of the country, this increased interest in subnational activity is also expressed by Mark Bailey, Deputy Head of Political Section at the UK Embassy. As he explains why the British Ambassador is traveling outside Washington more and using the consulate network to communicate with other levels, he indicates, “…it’s a top priority and it matters what California thinks as well as what the public thinks…” (Bailey 2018). Put another way, but still reflecting a more “local” orientation, Shoichi Nagayoshi, Deputy Consul General in San Francisco for Japan points out that ministers coming from his country to the United States may be less likely to go all the way to Washington on every visit. Depending on the issue and circumstance, some choose to stay in a specific region (in his case Hawai’i, San Francisco and Los Angeles) to talk to the political influencers and businesses relevant to their concerns (Nagayoshi 2018).

California’s Closest ‘Allies’: Mexico and Canada As the NAFTA example makes clear, Mexico and Canada have a deep, specific interest in California’s “foreign policy” that (according to the diplomats interviewed) has grown more complex in recent years. These two countries are also – in diplomatic terms – particularly relevant, as they are examples of the most common type of paradiplomacy previously discussed (i.e., cross-border regionalism). This makes a brief look at the approach used by California’s closest allies (to borrow a term more commonly associated with foreign policy) a useful place to start. As indicated, Mexico is California’s largest export market and second largest import market. The shared border and huge Mexican diaspora within the United States – both legal and illegal – help explain the kind of intimate terms used by Carlos Garcia de Alba, Consul General for Mexico in Los Angeles when he calls the relationship “a privilege” and likens it to a “honeymoon”. This is, in part, because he feels that, as California has become more distant from its own national government, the relationship between Mexico and California has become even closer. He concludes, “…Mexico and California were always friends. Not just neighbors and partners and allies, but now politically speaking, Mexico and California

124

ALISON R. HOLMES

are so close. And that makes it a special time in the bilateral California and Mexico relationship…” (de Alba 2018). Using perhaps more pragmatic terms to express similar thoughts, James Villeneuve, Consul General for Canada in Los Angeles, points out that, for Canada, when the US government is paying less attention or becomes a challenge at the national level, “…you work the program at the subnational level on the economic side of things to ensure that the subnationals are articulating how they feel about trade with Canada and other countries…what they see as important, what they would like to have move forward… It’s not some abstract thing in Washington…[we] are working the subnationals to ensure that they are participating in the discussion” (Villeneuve 2018). Ambassador José Antonio Zabalgoitia, Mexico’s Deputy Chief of Mission in Washington, DC, also recognizes the unique aspects of the relationships between Mexico, Canada, and California and, like many of the Mexican diplomats interviewed, makes a strong case for the idea that “Mexico is different from any other case – with the exception of Canada” (Zabalgoitia 2018).

Mexico: More like Family Mexico has a population of 129.2 million and a GDP of over $1.15 trillion as of 2017. In 2019, Mexico had the 15th largest economy in the world by GDP (worldpopulationreview.com) and maintained an annual average growth rate of 2.9% in 2016 and 2% in 2017. Structurally speaking, the United Mexican States form a democratic federation within a presidential system based on a Constitution written in 1917. Within that federation, Mexico has three levels of government: the federal union, the state governments, and the municipal governments. The federation consists of 31 free and sovereign states that, constitutionally, must have a republican form of government – each with its own three branches: an executive, represented by a governor and an appointed cabinet, the legislative branch constituted by a unicameral congress, and a judiciary. The states are, in turn, divided into municipalities with elected mayors. Mexico City is a special political division that belongs to the federation as a whole, and not to a particular state. Constitutionally, Mexico is similar to the United States in terms of its strictures on subnational activity. There is no explicit permission given to the federal states in terms of direct participation in foreign relations, nor

7

CONSULS GENERAL: FROM ALTA TO AMERICAN CALIFORNIA

125

is there any specific prohibition. Also in parallel to the American system, Article 124 of their Constitution puts the weight on Mexican states by stating that “the powers not defined in the Constitution…are reserved for the states” (Tavares 2016) while the power to make treaties is reserved to the central authority and, according to Article 117.1, “states cannot in any case enter into alliances, treaties or coalitions with other States or foreign powers” (oas.org). Interestingly, in 1976 the Congress of Mexico approved the Organic Law of the Federal Public Administration that, in addition to setting out the basis for public administration, also asserted that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores or SRE) should coordinate the external work of all agencies and ministries of the federal executive and subnational governments. At the same time, the Organic Law included “inter-institutional agreements”, allowing for subnational governments to have a greater international profile. The SRE also published a non-binding “Guide for the Conclusion of Treaties and Inter-Institutional agreements” which sets out the process for such negotiations. This guide reiterated the prohibition on treaties, but it also allowed for foreign interinstitutional agreements where the subnational government had competence (Tavares 2016).

Cross-Border Relationships to the South In terms of Mexico–US economic relations, Mexico has been the United States’ second largest export market since 1995 with a total value of $265 billion in 2018. The country is also the first or second largest trading partner for 27 US states. Over the past twenty-five years, the two-way trade in goods between Mexico and the United States has increased from $81.4 billion in 1993 to $611.5 billion in 2018 (calchamber.com). Mexico continues to be California’s largest export market, purchasing 17% of all California exports, amounting to $30.7 billion in 2018. More specifically in Southern California, Mexico is the 14th largest source of foreign direct investment and provides more than 6500 jobs through 250 firms (calchamber.com). In terms of personal exchange, Mexico sends more visitors to California than any other country by a wide margin. According to Visit California, nearly 7.7 million people visited California from Mexico in 2017 and spent over $3.1 billion (visitcalifornia.com). On the Mexican side, there is an office known as the Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME)

126

ALISON R. HOLMES

that started in the late 1980s. This office works (particularly through the consulates) to identify not only where Mexicans live in the United States, but their interests and concerns, and works with them to invest in their American communities. Eventually, this grew into a Hispanic Affairs Office located in the Mexican Embassy in Washington, DC (Silva 2018). The outcome of this overall framework has been the relatively active engagement of Mexican governors in international travel to promote exports and foreign direct investment – particularly in the United States, but also to Latin American presidents, and even leaders in the European Union. Some of Mexico’s states have followed the pattern of creating institutional agencies for trade and investment connected to the governor’s office, but most of their paradiplomatic activities are limited to economic issues and are not nearly as active as many US states or Canadian provinces (McMillan 2012).

Mexican Diplomacy and Diplomats in California: Coordination and Structure In specific diplomatic terms, the value placed on the connection between the United States and Mexico is reflected in the fact that, in California, there are five Consulates General: Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, and San Jose (of a total of 21 in the United States). They also maintain 5 Consulates: Calexico, Fresno, Oxnard, San Bernardino, and Santa Ana (of a total of 30 in the United States). In other words, California is the base of operations for approximately 20% of Mexico’s diplomatic relationship with the United States. When asked how this large presence was organized, a Mexican diplomat explained that all the consulates are organized by Mexico’s embassy in Washington, but that there is also local coordination within California. Thus, while the “Ambassador…is the one who coordinates the whole consular network…all the consulates, based on their location…have different strategies”. Offering the view from Washington, DC, Deputy Chief of Mission, Ambassador Zabalgoitia set out four different models that, in his experience, have been utilized by Mexico over the years. The most basic of these models operates with the Embassy in Washington acting as the “center of gravity of the whole bilateral relationship” and is based on the “political vision…that the consulates should support actions taken by the embassy at the federal level”. The other three options include:

7

CONSULS GENERAL: FROM ALTA TO AMERICAN CALIFORNIA

127

having a foreign minister supported by a deputy foreign minister of North American Affairs; using the Deputy Foreign Minister to set the political objectives and provide political guidelines for the consulates and coordinate their work; and finally, having a strong Consul General in a key city and giving that diplomat authority over all the other California consulates, including Sacramento. A long-term career diplomat, he explained that the structure must be “very flexible” and depends “on the circumstances…in Mexico’s Foreign Ministry, in the US-Mexico relationship, or even what kind of person you have at the embassy” (Zabalgoitia 2018). Interestingly, and in what became a point regularly made by a number of the countries interviewed (even federal states such as his own), he explained that it took Mexico some time to engage at the subnational level with the same intensity as at the national level. As he explains: …we Mexicans tried to think (or liked to think) that the US worked like our own country… It took us very long to find out what is now obvious – that the US is very decentralized – that the US has multiple layers of power – nationally and regionally and locally. This very simple precept – ‘all politics is local’ – in Mexico was totally the opposite. All politics was central, was federal, and then everyone at the local level obeyed the directives from the center. We tried to think that the US worked like that…we finally understood when negotiating the first NAFTA…that we needed to engage the US first locally and then nationally. (Zabalgoitia 2018)

Yet, as all the diplomatic representatives from Mexico made clear, they work as a close-knit team. For example, the Los Angeles consulate, while recognized by Zabalgoitia as, “the most important consulate of Mexico in the whole world – not just in the US – not just in California” he added that even the LA consulate, “cannot do the job that Sacramento [consulate] does. Sacramento is with the governor’s office every day, with the legislature every day. And that is strategic and that is fundamental…” (Zabalgoitia 2018). This sentiment was closely echoed in both Los Angeles and Sacramento. Consul General de Alba explained that his job was not to deal with Sacramento, but the specific senators and state assembly people representing the areas in his jurisdiction. “I’m more in charge of the authorities of the county, cities (the 88 cities of the county of Los Angeles)…[and] 18 of the 58 counties of California are part of my jurisdiction” (de Alba 2018). Meanwhile in Sacramento, Consul General Liliana Ferrer framed

128

ALISON R. HOLMES

her job as representing Mexico to California, an, “important and interdependent relationship”, based on a the key fact that “for one, our community is the largest diaspora that any country has living in one country alone…[Hispanics] are now the minority-majority…with over 36 million. Most of them – almost 80 percent…[are] Mexican” (Silva 2018). The point consistently made in interviews at every level was that, while different perspectives are crucial, so too is coordination. Ambassador Zabalgoitia summed it up, “With a very decentralized political system…sometimes you can get support that is energized locally by the consulate that impacts a decision…at the federal level…[but] from the embassy you get a perspective that you don’t get from anywhere else – not even from Mexico City” (Zabalgoitia 2018).

California–Mexico Diplomacy Writ Large California’s mutual relationship with Mexico is clearly demonstrated by the large diplomatic contingent in the state, and by the time and resources put into the coordination of these different levels of engagement. While globalization has created new opportunities for subnational activity, the national context is also a constant concern and refrain from the team. A Mexican diplomat makes this connection by arguing: California is truly important for us…and given the current context…we believe that is a counterweight – a very important counterweight – to the narrative that we have seen… I believe that what is happening is…a process of adaptation. Like a natural adaptation to the environment… So the consulate has mainly dedicated its resources…to serve the community… We really believe that Mexico has a very privileged position. Not only for the…geographic proximity, but also because [of] many other things that are aligning… On top of that, Mexico is a very committed global player I would say – at the UN level, at many other levels…

As to the future, de Alba agrees both on the idea of Mexico as a global player and Los Angeles as a prime location from which to continue that process of adaptation through Mexico’s soft power and into the next generation of diplomats. …on the one hand, Mexico has been very active…historically speaking, in the multilateral arena….it’s part of the DNA of Mexican public diplomacy…and we understand the importance of using…public diplomacy [and]

7

CONSULS GENERAL: FROM ALTA TO AMERICAN CALIFORNIA

129

soft power. Mexico has a lot of soft power… We have…culture, history, arts, food…there are many tools that we need to use much more effectively… Mexican diplomacy…is learning more and more the necessity of public diplomacy and the use of the wonderful tool of soft power. We have a much better prepared new generation of diplomats…young people are more and more educated, more capable, skillful. But again, the whole world is changing and Mexico is not an exception in the way its own diplomacy is improving and learning the new world. (de Alba 2018)

Canada: The Middle Power Next Door Geographically, Canada is the second largest country in the world. It has a population of 36.7 million and a GDP of $1.65 trillion (worldbank.org). As of 2018, the International Monetary Fund ranked it as the tenth largest economy in the world (imf.org). Canada’s parliamentary system was created as a constitutional monarchy that forms the foundation of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Queen Elizabeth II is the reigning monarch across all of Canada’s provinces, though she appoints a governor-general to carry out her royal duties. However, direct participation by the monarch and the governor-general is limited as executive powers are held by a Cabinet whose ministers are responsible to the elected House of Commons consisting of 338 members elected by simple plurality in their districts (called ridings). The Constitution of Canada is considered to be the supreme law, with both a text and unwritten conventions dating back to 1763 (cia.gov). The Constitution Act of 1867 created the initial four provinces. The Act also ensured a parliamentary process while dividing powers between the federal and provincial governments. Canada was granted full autonomy from the United Kingdom by the 1931 Statute of Westminster, while the Constitution Act of 1982 ended all legislative ties. The Constitution Act also added a formula for the process of its amendment as well as the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms setting out all the rights that cannot be overridden. In an important contrast to the United States, the Canadian Indian Act (as well as some treaties and case law) established the relationship between Europeans and Canada’s native peoples. These include what are known as the “numbered treaties” (eleven treaties signed between 1871 and 1921) but all reaffirmed in the Constitution Act of 1982. There have

130

ALISON R. HOLMES

been a number of recent changes to federal-native relations. For example, work is continuing at the highest levels on a Canada-Métis Nation Accord (signed in 2017) to develop policies between the national government – as opposed to the provincial government(s) – and the Métis Nation on relevant issues (metisnation.ca). The ten provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Québec, and Saskatchewan) are unicameral and also operate on a parliamentary basis. Canada’s three territories (Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon) have legislatures, but they are not sovereign and have fewer constitutional responsibilities and powers. The major difference between a Canadian province and a territory is that a province receives its power and authority from the Constitution Act of 1867 whereas a territorial government’s powers are delegated by Parliament. Unusually for almost all federations in the world, one consequence of Canada’s structure is that provinces collect more revenue than the federal government, giving them considerable power in the system. As Colin Bird, Minister–Counselor (Trade and Economic Policy) at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC points out: I think we’re the only federation in the world where more of the government spending is done at the provincial or state level versus the federal, so we are much more decentralized than, for example, Switzerland. In [the] practical allocation of tasks between the federal and the state…provinces play a significant role particularly in trade agreements and particularly on environmental issues… They have an office of intergovernmental relations and a minister of intergovernmental relations in almost every province…(Bird 2018)

In terms of subnational international activity, Canada’s constitution is usually interpreted to mean that the federal government makes international treaties and agreements, but that any agreement covering areas of provincial competence will rely on the provinces for implementation, allowing provinces to “exercise the external attributes of the functions it exercises internally” (Tavares 2016). Given the fact that provinces are responsible for a considerable number of areas – natural resource management, health, education and culture, municipal institutions, and private

7

CONSULS GENERAL: FROM ALTA TO AMERICAN CALIFORNIA

131

law – they have interpreted their international powers in a “decentralist” way and have taken, and continue to take on, an expanding range of activities.

Cross-Border Relationships to the North Canada and the United States (the second and third largest countries by area in the world (worldatlas.com) share the world’s longest undefended border and are each other’s largest trading partner. They also boast the largest bilateral trade and investment relationship in the world. In 2018, two-way trade in goods between Canada and the United States topped $617.18 billion. Exports to Canada were $298.7 billion, making it the largest export destination for the US overall, and the top export destination for 35 US states. As a result, more than 8 million US jobs are dependent on Canadian trade and investment. According to the Canadian government, nearly $2 billion worth of goods and services crosses the Canada–US border every day. In an interesting note regarding Canada’s broader relations in North America (and given the importance of the connections to Mexico discussed previously), beginning at the end of the 1980s Canada has taken a more proactive position in the hemisphere. Until then, and despite the fact that Canadians have done business and had various types of exchange in Latin America and the Caribbean, diplomatic contacts only became more formalized during World War Two. As Gordon Mace and JeanPhilippe Thérien suggest, “…for a long time relations with countries south of the Rio Grande remained sparse”. Thus, the political decision by Ottawa in 1990 to join the Organization of American States was a significant departure and intended as “a signal meant to assure Latin America and Caribbean countries that Canada, no longer satisfied with maintaining only commercial relations in the regions, sought full-fledged membership in the hemispheric community” (Mace and Thérien 2012). Specifically in terms of California, Canada has maintained its position as the second largest export market since 2006, with a total value of over $17.75 billion in 2018 and including $9.2 billion in services (nearly 10% of all California exports) and Canadian imports are worth $27.1 billion. Combined, these investments support over 1.2 million jobs in California (calchamber.org). Canadian visitors are harder to gauge given the special travel arrangements through the NEXUS program that grants preapproval to Canadian

132

ALISON R. HOLMES

citizens and results in a significant difference from California’s relationship with Mexico. As James Villeneuve points out, at least in this regard, “Mexico is a bit different from us…while they’re clearly dealing with trade…they have consular issues that are ten times ours, which is part of the reason they have as many consuls as they do…”. Yet, as he points out, even though Canadians are perhaps more spread out and integrated into the communities in which they live, California is also host to Canada’s largest diaspora (Villeneuve 2018). Diplomatically, the Canadian federal government maintains 12 Consuls General in the United States: Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New York, San Francisco/Silicon Valley, and Seattle and three further trade offices in: Houston, Palo Alto and San Diego. However, listing Canada’s consulates alone paints an incomplete picture given Canada’s constitutional structure and the fact that many provinces have their own, very active international profile. Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario have been internationally engaged since the 1970s and expanded their efforts in the 1980s, while Québec’s international involvement dates all the way back to the late 1800s (when they sent a general agent to London and Paris in 1882 and then to Brussels in 1915) (McMillan 2012; Québec on the World Stage 2017). Québec and Ontario in particular stand out from this list and are particularly relevant when discussing a potential structure for California’s international activity.

Protodiplomacy of Subnationals: Québec Québec is predominantly French-speaking, Canada’s largest province by area, the second largest administrative division, and second most populous province, providing over 20% of the total GDP of Canada. Separately, it ranks as the 37th largest economy in the world and 28th in terms of GDP per capita. Based on Québec’s linguistic/cultural distinctiveness, there has been an ongoing debate around its provincial status, evidenced by the strong secessionist movement that has developed over time. Most of these efforts have been unsuccessful, though in 2003 the National Assembly of Québec voted unanimously to affirm “that the people of Québec form a nation” while in 2006 the House of Commons passed a symbolic motion (moved by Prime Minister Harper) “that this House recognize that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada” (cbc.ca).

7

CONSULS GENERAL: FROM ALTA TO AMERICAN CALIFORNIA

133

Over the years, Québec has been a leader in Canada’s trade promotion and paradiplomatic outreach, maintaining more offices than the other nine provinces and supporting more international staff than all of the US states combined (McMillan 2012). As of 2017, Québec had 26 offices in 14 countries. As Christine St-Pierre, Minister of International Relations and la Francophone, made it clear in her review of Québec’s foreign policy in 2017, the province’s goal is, …to exercise strong leadership in areas such as climate and northern issues, and to draw on the energy and global aspirations of its youth, entrepreneurs, artists and researchers in conducting its international relations… The government remains committed to making Québec’s voice heard ever further afield so as to occupy its place on the world stage. Québec has its own special international role to play. As a credible and responsible actor, Québec is guided in its action by a central principle: its jurisdictions at home are also its jurisdictions abroad. (Québec on the World Stage 2017)

In terms of a diplomatic structure and coordination, the same review calls for not only better communication and coordination, but a more “thematic approach” as “global issues know no boundaries”. Thus, the intention was to implement a “consultation mechanism targeting cities, regions and civil society actors that are active on the world stage” (Québec on the World Stage 2017). The result has been the creation of what is effectively Québec’s own equivalent of the US State Department with 33 offices in 18 countries [8 general delegations; 5 delegations; 12 bureaus; 5 trade offices; and 2 areas of representation in multilateral affairs] (mrif.gouv.qc.ca). In North America, there are general delegations – offices with the most power, led by a delegate appointed by the government – in New York and Mexico City. Delegation offices are also led by a government appointee, but generally on a smaller scale, and located in Atlanta, Boston, and Chicago. There are 2 bureaus in Houston and Washington, DC and finally a trade office in Philadelphia. In California, there is both a delegation in Los Angeles (inaugurated in 1970 and serving the western United States) and a trade office in Silicon Valley (international.gouv.qc.ca). For the most part, the national or central government of Canada has accepted the paradiplomacy or protodiplomacy of Québec insofar

134

ALISON R. HOLMES

as it does not challenge or oppose most of the province’s considerable international relations efforts (Lecours 2008). Frédéric Trembley, Director of Québec Government Office in Washington, DC, explains this in paradiplomatic language: …I use the example of the government of Stephen Harper, the Conservative government… They didn’t want to prioritize the environment and we decided to do it…[as] this is a provincial jurisdiction… We decided to act and to be vocal on the international scene… So that’s where we can be complementary or we can totally occupy the space (emphasis added). It’s more difficult when we don’t have the same objectives… It really does depend on which government…it depends on the relations governmentto-government…and if they’re in a cycle or out of sync with each other… (Trembley 2019)

Paradiplomacy of Subnationals: Ontario Perhaps a lesser known Canadian subnational – given it does not seek a protodiplomatic or secessionist profile, is the province of Ontario, though arguably more similar to California for that reason. Ontario is the second largest and most populous province (with over one-third of the overall population of Canada). More relevant here is the fact Ontario is also the leading manufacturing province and generates roughly 40 percent of Canada’s GDP. Given Canada’s unique federal/Constitutional/stateto-national relationship, Ontario “occupies a position in the Canadian federation that has no equivalent in any other advanced federal system” (Courchene and Telmer 1998). In terms of Ontario’s changing role and current paradiplomatic approach, Thomas Courchene and Colin Telmer make a very interesting argument. They suggest that Ontario is “North America’s premier region state” as it has basically evolved from being the “Canadian ‘heartland’ to a North American ‘economic region state’”. They suggest that this process is all the more significant because it was not very long ago that Ontario was “so linked politically and economically with Ottawa that it was never even considered a ‘region’”. However, by using Kenichi Ohmae’s conception of “region states” (based on the idea of economic regionalization produced by globalization) Ontario became a region state by virtue of the fact the province does not try to “solve all problems locally but

7

CONSULS GENERAL: FROM ALTA TO AMERICAN CALIFORNIA

135

rather makes it possible to solve them by harnessing global resources” (Courchene and Telmer 1998). When compared to other federal or decentralized states, Courchene and Telmer also recognize that Ontario has “far more in the way of legislative power than does New York or California” putting it in an unusual diplomatic position. The United Kingdom may be a useful comparison here as England has similarly been associated with London in that it has not “used” its paradiplomatic power in any substantial way – despite the fact other British subnationals (nations like Scotland or cities like London) are increasingly active.

Canadian Diplomacy and Diplomats: Coordination and Structure Diplomatically, and unlike Québec, and despite their considerable constitutional provincial powers, Ontario (and Alberta and some other key provinces) have operated from within Canadian diplomatic missions. Again, a process of “compare and contrast” with the United Kingdom is striking. That said, Ontario does maintain Trade and Investment representatives in Washington (a relatively new office), Chicago, Dallas, New York, and San Francisco, as well as in Mexico City (investinontario.com). The lessons for California will be interesting because, as Chris Whatley suggests, there are lessons to be learned from our northern neighbor given that “…Ontario alone has more staff capacity dedicated to international trade policy than all 50 [US] states combined” (Whatley 2003). However, the election of Donald Trump and the renegotiation of NAFTA has prompted a perceived need for change and closer cooperation among Canadian diplomats that echoes the shifts made by those on the Mexican side. As Villeneuve observed, “For Canada…the relationship is so deep across the board…[there has been] a lot about outreach with state governments over the last two years”. This has, “escalated dramatically after the 2016 election….”, but the tide has changed as both the federal and the provincial governments realized that, “[US] governors…have much more direct access to the administration…” (Villeneuve 2018). On a very practical basis, this meant biweekly calls between the US consuls, the Canadian ambassador in Washington, and the team back in Ottawa, “because we take a lot of direction clearly from the federal government – that kind of maps out priorities and those things change

136

ALISON R. HOLMES

in terms of things that are happening”. Interestingly, the call was often joined by Canada’s ambassador to Mexico, “because of NAFTA and some of the trade-related issues…” (Villeneuve 2018) in an effort to coordinate Canadian activity in the United States as closely as possible. From the Washington perspective, Colin Bird explained that while there are layers of complication in managing provincial premiers and state governors, as well as national or federal issues, each one is taken on a case-by-case basis and can often work to great effect. Some provincial efforts may be supported by the embassy, but others are done directly, particularly, “if they have an office here in Washington…that office will be…organizing their premiers”. In an instructive example of coordination also pertaining to NAFTA, there was a,“very strong Ontario-to-New York lobby” and even, “tit-for-tat legislative proposals coming up at the provincial and the state level”. This included provincial employees going, “alongside the Canadian consul general in New York – to Albany – to say this is the federal perspective, and ‘this is your next door neighbor’s perspective’…” (Bird 2018). More broadly, Rachel McCormick, Head of Energy and Environment at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC, offered at least two general models of organization for provincial international activity. The first one that is commonly used by the powerful provinces is an independent office led by a political appointee. The second is the use of firms (often law firms) held on retainer to represent key interests. In keeping with the observations made by her Mexican counterparts, the jury is out as to whether one system works better than the other. As she notes, “…there are pros and cons of both approaches…there are different ways that you can sort of engage at the subnational level in world capitals” (McCormick 2018). In light of the changed atmosphere in Washington, Bird suggested that they had, “a bit of a rethink…this is a different political dynamic where there’s…a certain antagonism to the trade relationship federally”. As he explained, this prompted the cultivation of “new allies”, as the deputy ambassador took on a more significant role with consuls general, and even the Prime Minister took on a more strategic role in terms of the US and regional outreach. Again, in a sentiment that echoes his Mexican colleagues, “I think if more embassies had a sense of their national interaction with the US as going beyond Washington, you would start to see more coordinated activity… it’s not just about what you perceive as the Canada-California relationship from Sacramento…you have to take into

7

CONSULS GENERAL: FROM ALTA TO AMERICAN CALIFORNIA

137

account the national agenda… To do that, you need some sort of central coordination” while at the same time expressing the view that it’s, “cross cutting…you have to be a little flexible in your approach” (Bird 2018).

Conclusion Consuls General have not historically been the focus of diplomatic studies. There is relatively little in the way of literature, and even less in terms of memoirs or diaries – but perhaps there should be. The diplomats found at this level have a fascinating perspective on local, national, and global issues and are able to make vital connections between the different layers. Additionally, and by including their colleagues in Washington, a much fuller account of their countries’ work overall and a more nuanced awareness of the subnational activity becomes possible. Beginning this investigation of California’s international profile with the diplomats sent to this specific US state to represent their countries’ interests opens a unique window into the way the connections and interrelationships between national and state policy operate, as well as helping to explain how and why diplomatic institutions are responding to those changes at home and abroad. The specific challenges faced by, and the approaches adopted by California’s two biggest partners, Mexico and Canada (and as seen on both coasts), add dimension and authority to the “intermestic” role of the consul. If the election of President Trump caught some people off guard, it also precipitated some adjustments or even a makeover of systems and processes on the ground. On the other hand, the national organizations interviewed as part of the next chapter make it clear that a trend to shift away from the center and toward the subnational had been going on for some time. Thus, the argument remains twofold as the international/national context is a significant influence and globalization continues to create a more crowded international space. On the other hand, the national/local context is changing to meet the day-to-day needs of the system and the actors involved.

References Bailey, Mark. 2018. Deputy Head of Political Section at British Embassy, Washington, DC. Interview with author. October 29.

138

ALISON R. HOLMES

Bird, Colin. 2018. Minister-Counsellor (Trade & Economic Policy), Canadian Embassy, Washington, DC. Interview with author. October 30. Courchene, Thomas J., and Colin R. Telmer. 1998. From the Heartland to North American Region State: The Social, Fiscal and Federal Evolution of Ontario. Monograph Series on Public Policy Centre for Public Management. Toronto: University of Toronto. de Alba, Carlos García. 2018. Consul General for Mexico in Los Angeles. Interview with author. September 17. Hammond, George P. (ed.). 1951. The Larkin Papers: Personal, Business, and Official Correspondence of Thomas Oliver Larkin, Merchant and United States Consul in California. The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley 4: 303–334. Hawgood, John A. 1970. First and Last Consul: Thomas Oliver Larkin and the Americanization of California. Palo Alto, CA: Pacific Books. Hocking, Brian. 1999. Patrolling the ‘Frontier’: Globalization, Localization and the ‘Actorness’ of Non-Central Governments. In Francisco Aldecoa and Michael Keating (eds.) Paradiplomacy in Action: The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments. London: Frank Cass. Hocking, Brian. 2012. (Mis)Leading Propositions About 21st Century Diplomacy. Crossroads Foreign Policy Journal. April. https://www.thefreelibrary. com/(Mis)Leading+propositions+about+21st+century+diplomacy.-a03167 96860. Howells, Michael. 2018. Consul General for the United Kingdom in Los Angeles. Interview with author. September 19. Lecours, Andre. 2008. Political Issues of Paradiplomacy: Lessons from the Developed World. Discussion Papers in Diplomacy No. 113. The Hague: The Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’. Leira, Halvard, and Iver Neumann. 2011. The Many Past Lives of the Consul. In Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernandez (eds.) Consular Affairs and Diplomacy. Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Mace, Gordon, and Jean-Philippe Thérien. 2012. Canada and the Americas: Making a Difference? International Journal 67 (3): 569–582. McCormick, Rachel. 2018. Head of Energy and Environment at Canadian Embassy, Washington, DC. Interview with author. October 30. McMillan, Samuel Lucas. 2012. The Involvement of State Governments in U.S. Foreign Relations. New York: Palgrave Mcmillan. Melissen, Jan. 2011. Introduction. In Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández (eds.) Consular Affairs and Diplomacy. Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Métis Nation: Office of the President. Newsletter. 2018. Métis Nation Leaders and Federal Ministers Push Ahead on Priorities under the Canada-Métis Nation Accord. www.metisnation.ca.

7

CONSULS GENERAL: FROM ALTA TO AMERICAN CALIFORNIA

139

n.a. 2006. House Passes Motion Recognizing Québécois as Nation. CBC News. November 27. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/house-passes-mot ion-recognizing-quebecois-as-nation-1.574359. n.a. 2017. Québec on the World Stage: Involved, Engaged, Thriving. Québec City: Government of Québec (n.p.). https://www.mrif.gouv.qc.ca›documents ›PIQ_DocumentLong_EN-NUM. n.a. 2019. Government of Québec. Representation Abroad. http://www.mrif. gouv.qc.ca/en/ministere/representation-etranger and https://www.internati onal.gouv.qc.ca. n.a. 2019. Government of Ontario. List of Trade and Investment Offices. https://www.investinontario.com/international-trade-and-investment-off ices#TIOlist. n.a. 2019. How Mexico and Canada Are Trying to Bypass Donald Trump. The Economist. June 15. https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2019/ 06/15/how-mexico-and-canada-are-trying-to-bypass-donald-trump. Nagayoshi, Shoichi. 2018. Deputy Consul General for Japan in San Francisco. Interview with author. September 19. Organization of American States. Constitution of Mexico. https://www.oas.org/ juridico/mla/en/mex/en_mex-int-text-const.pdf. Accessed 2019. Silva, Liliana Ferrer. 2018. Consul General for Mexico in Sacramento. Interview with author. December 6. Stringer, Kevin. 2011. Honorary Consuls in an Era of Globalization, Trade and Investment. In Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernandez (eds.) Consular Affairs and Diplomacy. Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Südbeck, Hans-Ulrich. 2018. Consul General for Germany in San Francisco. Telephone interview with author. November 28. Tavares, Rodrigo. 2016. Paradiplomacy: Cities and States as Global Players. New York: Oxford University Press. Tremblay, Frédéric. 2019. Director of Québec Government Office in Washington, DC. Interview with author. October 31. Villeneuve, James. 2018. Consul General for Canada in Los Angeles. Interview with author. September 18. Whatley, Chris. 2003. State Official’s Guide to International Affairs. Washington, DC: The Council of State governments. World Atlas. Accessed 2019. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-largestcountries-in-the-world-the-biggest-nations-as-determined-by-total-land-area. html. World Economic Outlook Database. 2019. International Monetary Fund. April 2. https://www.imf.org/en/Countries/CAN. World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Accessed 2019. https://www.cia. gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/.

140

ALISON R. HOLMES

World Population Statistics. Accessed 2019. http://worldpopulationreview.com/ countries/countries-by-gdp/. Zabalgoitia, José Antonio. 2018. Deputy Chief of Mission for Mexico in Washington, DC. Interview with author. October 31.

CHAPTER 8

Locating California on the Vertical Axis of Diplomacy

We have to make sure that we’re pulling the curtain back from this really crazy state system…until you get on the inside you’re like ‘I thought it was this’ but now I’m behind the curtain and it’s a lot different. (Hostler 2018)

Consuls General are perhaps the most direct observers of California’s international activity, but the diplomats interviewed for this book often commented that the state does relatively little to actively engage with them. Further, even when the state was in discussion with their home country on a specific issue, its officials did not necessarily contact the country’s diplomatic representatives as well. Consular staff are usually left to create their own networks in the cities in which they are based and, when they want to connect politically, they are left to make the links between their Washington embassy and specific elected officials or other organizations in the state. That said, the California Chamber of Commerce was a prominent exception and consistently praised by diplomats as a responsive and dependable partner. As indicated in Chapter Two, some consulates are also elusive to the public, but the state of California’s infrastructure seems opaque even to its international interlocutors. This point will be returned to in more detail, but the goal here is to explain and explore California’s vertical axis (Fig. 8.1). As discussed, globalization has compressed different levels of governance, but the “traditional” levels of a sovereign hierarchy are indicated with bold double diamond lines along the typical flows of power. The © The Author(s) 2020 A. R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3_8

141

142

A. R. HOLMES

Fig. 8.1

Vertical axis of diplomacy International National

Diplomacy

Governor-

State

Tribes

Counties

Cities - Mayor

Tribes

“newer” international links are indicated in lighter lines, dotted lines for the roles now being played by individuals – such as the governor or mayors – who increasingly operate directly at the international level. Foreign diplomats acting at different levels are indicated as crossing over the vertical axis and into the domestic realm of internal entities at specific points. Despite the complicated process of merging and blurring boundaries, it remains useful to frame California not only on the horizontal/historical timeline (as each of these levels of governance has its own history and evolutionary process), but also to locate it along the vertical axis and place it alongside other sovereigns and levels of governance. This process not only highlights the way concepts of space have been overwhelmed by the rules and jurisdictions of place – particularly for tribal entities – but also sets the state among an increasing number of actors “above” and “below” the state level. Many of these entities have distinctly different ideas of sovereignty and/or agency, but all are rooted in the state of California and are currently seeking results on the international stage. They are also, as shall be seen, operating without the benefit of a state-level strategy or even much coordination. Using the language of “diplomatic sites” coined by Ivar Neumann, this chapter will position California in its national and international context by looking at the different levels found along the vertical axis. An examination of the organizations and the interactions of actors will provide further insight to the changing nature of subnational diplomacy and California’s

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

143

role in that change. Tribal, state, city, county, federal, and international authorities are all acting in their own interests, but they also operate within, through, and above the state of California at what are called here the “intersections of sovereignty”. The ultimate question is whether the issues found at these intersections challenge California’s leadership or could be used to create and strengthen a global role for California. The first task was to identify the relevant actors. As laid out in the research approach in Chapter Two, diplomacy is the main focus of this investigation and therefore Consuls General in the state of California (and their colleagues in embassies in Washington, DC) were the primary targets. However, to explore the wider context of California’s international profile a number of other actors are also essential. Tribes are significant actors both “within” and “above” the state, up to and including at the international level. This is reflected in this diagram by the fact tribes are listed twice – below and above the state-level line. This is a way to acknowledge the fact that tribal sovereignty is, in many ways, granted by the federal government as tribes are considered to be “domestic dependent nations”, while also honoring the inherent quality of sovereignty so often overlooked. Certainly tribes are the basis of political entities that are older than the state of California and therefore in some ways “above” the state. Tribes also act separately with different levels of governance, as their relationships at each level are not determined by the traditional state-centered hierarchy. Thus, it makes some sense to begin with what has been called quasi-sovereignty or, in this context, the co-sovereignty of tribes, though, as will be made clear, part of the challenge of this investigation is the fact that so many other actors are also acting “above” their traditional level or layer point on the axis. Interviews for tribes included state officials as well as national organizations. For California, there were conversations with Governor Brown’s (and now Governor Newsom’s) Tribal Affairs Advisor and the Office of Tribal Affairs at the California Department of Social Services. At the national level the National Congress of American Indians, Indian Law Resource Center, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs for Policy and Economic Development were also interviewed. Continuing with the other actors “within” the state, its officials and past governors are obvious starting points, but to gain a better understanding of the way these levels operate collectively as subnational actors, the organizations known as the “Big Seven” served as a useful way to frame these different levels of engagement. This group of non-partisan,

144

A. R. HOLMES

nonprofit organizations represents the interests of state and local government officials in Washington – often on the basis of their own regional membership or groupings. They include three broad levels: state government as a whole, governors more specifically, and cities and counties (sometimes separately, but also combined). On the vertical axis, these entities are represented below the state line, though it should be noted that cities and counties are at almost the same level. This reflects the fact that counties are coming together, and cities (especially large or “mega” cities) are increasingly combining their efforts with counties to become more broadly regional in their approach to the international stage. Cities are also increasingly reaching directly to the global level on specific issues such as climate change. Interviews at this level include the Council of State Governments (CSG) [also linked to the State International Development Organization – SIDO], National Governors Association (NGA), National League of Cities (NLC), National Association of Counties (NACO), and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). The National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) is not considered to be a member of the original group, but given the respondent-driven research strategy, this organization was added via recommendation. The corresponding interviews for each of these levels included former governors, state, and city officials as well as the California Chamber of Commerce, always keeping the diplomatic focus in mind, with reference to the observations of consular staff where relevant. As indicated previously, André Lecours posits paradiplomacy as a “slice” of domestic politics that “blurs the external-internal dichotomy” (Lecours 2002) while Angela Riley suggests that Federal Indian law is a “massive horizontal subject” (Riley 2017). Both observations point to the fact that California’s size and weight in terms of political, social, and economic power are important pieces of the complicated puzzle that make up this entity (and all the entities within it) as they all act on the world stage. The argument here is that a “slice” of Californian paradiplomacy is an ideal case study of the vertical axis of diplomacy and a brief look at each of these levels of engagement will help identify the issues (and possible next steps) toward a new global strategy for the state.

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

145

Co-sovereigns? As previously discussed, there is potential conflict between traditional ideas of sovereignty and the inherent sovereignty of tribes. Susan Johnson, Jeanne Kaufmann, John Dossett, and Sarah Hicks make several comparisons between tribes and states that are important at the outset. First and foremost, tribes and states “exercise many of the same sovereign powers: taxing, licensing and regulation, and making and enforcing laws. States and tribes are also responsible for governmental services such as education, environmental protection and basic infrastructure”. This, they argue, means that tribes and states have “far more in common than they have in conflict”, as their “mutual interests” lie in protecting the health and welfare of their people while advancing their economic prosperity and protecting their resources and culture. However, as these authors go on to say, these parallel sovereigns also have jurisdictional disagreements that are often been dealt with through litigation (Johnson et al. 2000). That said, a great deal of work has been done, at least in California, to begin to anticipate and mitigate those potential areas of conflict. The Office of the Tribal Advisor was created by Governor Brown in 2010 via Executive Order B-10-11, codified through AB 880, and continues to be part of Governor Newsom’s Administration. The office was set up to: • Implement effective government-to-government consultation between the Governor’s Administration and California Tribes on policies that affect California Tribal communities. • Advise on Tribal governments in California. • Serve as a direct link between the Tribes and the Governor of the State of California. • Facilitate communication and consultations between the Office of the Governor, the Tribes, state agencies and agency tribal liaisons. • Review and make recommendations on state legislation and regulations affecting Tribes. (tribalgovtaffairs.ca.gov) These tasks seem relatively straightforward, but the challenge lies in their implementation as this approach represents a massive shift in the basis of relations between tribes and every other level of state governance. Those interviewed in California and at the national level consistently identified two issues.

146

A. R. HOLMES

The first is to create a clear, fair, and transparent process of consultation – or what constitutes a “government-to-government” relationship on a day-to-day basis. As Christina Snider, Governor Brown’s (and now Governor Newsom’s) Tribal Affairs Advisor, points out, her job is to create the circumstances for “Respectful, meaningful government-togovernment consultation. Not everyone has the same understanding of what that means… I’m trying to get us in a place where the agencies across the administration understand…[and] getting consistency about what this looks like because it is fairly new – especially in state government” (Snider 2018). In the wider sense, she clearly sees her job as one of diplomacy and of recognizing the role of tribes in California and beyond. …the major role of the tribal advisor is facilitating communication between tribal governments and the governor’s office… I think…Governor Brown has been very much a supporter of recognizing the inherent rights and the autonomy and the history of the peoples here and has made it a priority – insofar as it coincides with the priorities of the rest of the state and the constituents of the state – to elevate tribal voices – to listen to tribal concerns…in a way that’s balanced… He is the governor of the fifth largest economy in the world…but also he recognizes that we’re a very diverse state. We’re almost a microcosm of the entire United States in terms of political makeup…and so he’s very…willing to defer to the locals when it comes to issues of local governance… We start with diplomacy first…we bring people together… (Snider 2018)

This view is also reflected at the state agency level, as different parts of the government’s infrastructure work to implement governmentto-government consultation. Heather Hostler, formerly in the Tribal Advisor’s Office and now the tribal liaison for the California Department of Social Services, makes the same point. …part of changing the way we work together is reframing the question…now modern day tribal governments operate as unique political entities…so I think that really helped us in moving the work that we do in a state government, because government isn’t easy… We’re trying to figure out a way forward to have better relationships with tribal governments and making sure that we’re able to work together on these important policy decisions. (Hostler 2018)

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

147

The second challenge, directly affecting the first, is the reality that tribes – particularly in California as indicated earlier – are diverse in terms of size, language, and organization. This range of difference influences their ability or even capacity to take up the offer to engage with the state. Again, Snider comments: …the governor is really concerned about tribes that don’t have the capacity. So a lot of what I do is actually go out to tribes…get an understanding of what their issues are… Sometimes they can’t exactly tell me…but they’ll tell me…‘we’re having issues with the water here’… The governor is concerned about tribes that don’t have the same kind of capacity because of largely historical reasons. Or just by choice…they don’t want to engage in economic development because it’s counter to their culture [or]…there’s only five of them… Changes under his administration have called for greater resources to be available to tribes that lack capacity. (Snider 2018)

Tribal consultation (or the state’s relationship with tribal governments overall) has not, for reasons that appear logical on the surface, generally been considered part of the state’s “international infrastructure”. However, the increasing pressure on traditional sovereignty from proponents of the idea of inherent sovereignty is reflected in the practicality of dealing with tribes as separate governments (even if not full nations), and should suggest that tribal interests need to be more integrated into the understanding of what it is to be international or global. The varying levels of capacity and the lack of coordination on the part of the tribes to date have prevented them from pursuing more access or power in state structures. However, additional problems have been possibly averted by the fact that California has tried to anticipate these issues and both Governor Brown and Governor Newsom have taken significant steps to deal with specific points. Brown’s creation of structures such as the Tribal Affairs Office and, more recently, Newsom’s apology and the creation of a Truth and Healing Council are the first steps toward a new form of relationship (Luna 2019). However, many of these kinds of solutions also keep tribal issues distinct from the ongoing business of the state and separate from the business of dealing with tribes as governments and nations. The international level will be returned to, but the previous discussion of sovereignty suggests that this intersection could be problematic in the future unless more work is done to deconstruct state systems of place and reconnect to systems of space.

148

A. R. HOLMES

States’ Power The most obvious (and discussed) subnational actor is the state – particularly states in federal systems where subnationals have more room for maneuver. Rogier van der Pluijm and Jan Melissen point to the end of WWII as a moment of shift in the number of actors taking on diplomatic roles on the international stage. For these authors, globalization has even granted actors with a non-territorial character, such as NGOs or multinational corporations, with new powers that, in turn, create specific challenges to the mainstream system. They argue this process has forced the loss of the state’s “monopolist” control over social, economic, and political activity. “Because of the rise of various transnational or suprastate regimes there is no longer a clear distinction between the national and international political sphere…” (van der Pluijm and Melissen 2007). This, in turn, creates an “apparent paradox” as well as new opportunities, not only for the non-territorial entities, but for traditional territorial entities such as states, cities, counties, and regions. In the United States specifically, this shift has been visible in the structures developed for the office of the governor. Samuel McMillan charts this American trend back to the 1930s as the role of the governor became more of a manager of the state and (in the course of the Depression and WWII) a point of coordination and direction for a specific state’s economic development (McMillan 2012). The National Governors Association (NGA) goes back even further, tracing its own history back to the turn of the twentieth century. The organization was founded in 1908 when President Teddy Roosevelt (a former governor of New York) convened the governors in Washington DC and argued they should not only come to make their case to the federal government, but that they should also engage with each other (Hunter 2018). The NGA prides itself on being the “voice of the nation’s governors and one of the most respected public policy organizations in the country”, and on having the “governors of the 55 states, territories and commonwealths” as its members. They believe its “boldly bipartisan” platform enables them to “share best practices” and to “speak with an informed voice on national policy and develop innovative solutions” for “matters of public policy and governance at the state, national and global levels” (nga.org). Others have suggested that this approach is evidenced by innovations undertaken by the NGA – such as organizing

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

149

trips to the Soviet Union as early as 1959 and to Latin America in 1960 (McMillan 2012). More recently, the focus of their work has continued to evolve in response to globalization, resulting in the expansion of their work. As Abigail Hunter, their International and Strategy Advisor, points out: …the benefit of the flattening of our societies through globalization…[has] allowed for the governors to…interact with one another in a meaningful way… We had been handling international affairs in kind of an ad hoc manner… We had an old office…that dealt with major trading partners as they…sought us out, wanting to bridge the gap at the subnational level to make sure that there was communication. We dealt predominantly with Canada, Mexico, and China – which is kind of no surprise – and Japan…it’s been interesting to see how it’s expanded…because some of the best ideas aren’t just happening in the [United] States…they’re happening…in Germany or in Japan and we’re able to…facilitate relationships with…governors or governor equivalents… We launched our global program this past February. (Hunter 2018)

The point here is that governors are coming to the NGA for training, particularly in how to effectively market themselves, reflecting the intention of subnationals to not only engage internationally, but to be more professional and consistent in those efforts. Hunter suggests “…the states are so unique in what they offer internationally” but that they still need help “when they go abroad and [when] implementing a long term strategy…and understanding the history of what it means to engage internationally” (Hunter 2018). Governors (or Lieutenant Governors) are often the face or spokesperson for a state’s international work. However, and stepping beyond the governor’s office, the Council for State Governments (CSG), founded in 1933 about a quarter of a century later than the NGA, remains the only organization serving all three branches of state government. Regionally based, the CSG “fosters the exchange of insights and ideas to help state officials shape public policy” and “offers unparalleled regional, national and international opportunities to network, develop leaders, collaborate and create problem-solving partnerships” (csg.org). This regional base is key as Andy Karellas, their Director of Federal and International Affairs points out, “…[we] look at…consensus issues…it’s basically federalism and the role of the states and state local and tribal entities…specifically the regulatory side and the consultation

150

A. R. HOLMES

process… We have four regions…that [all] have their local perspective and members…so how do the states feel about energy?… Well – each one of our regions is going to have a different perspective. So I think that’s important to have that subnational reach…” (Karellas 2019). California is active in both organizations, but not necessarily consistently. Part of the story of California’s international activity, like most states, is that the variation seen over time is often dependent on who is in office and how well the regional and central organizations work together. As a number of people interviewed pointed out, everything in this realm is “personality driven”. Diplomats, businesses, state officials, staff of different organizations, and from one coast to the other, it was clear that lots of projects were created (and lost) on the basis of personal links between individuals being in the relevant seat at the right time on each side of the various relationships. As for governors specifically, their views on international activity vary widely. Governor Wilson (in office: 1991–1999) argued that he was, and remains, a strong internationalist and is in favor of business and economic development (Wilson 2018). This assertion is supported by his “state of the state” address in 1997 in which he recommended that California open three offices abroad (Seoul, Shanghai, and Sao Paulo). Also under his watch, the State Senate established its own Office of International Affairs and also, because of NAFTA, an Office of California-Mexico Affairs (Fry 1998). On the other hand, he also expressed the view that governors have no explicitly foreign responsibilities as these issues are firmly in the purview of the federal government. It was striking that Governor Wilson felt himself to be deeply international, but – and drawing on the discussion of the evolution of the terminology in this area – he was far more inter.national. than “global” in any sense. That is to say, he saw the international space as dominated (correctly in his opinion) by the national or federal government. Business and economic advantage formed the foundation of international linkages and gaining advantage was the purpose of conversation with foreign counterparts. Connections are instrumental rather than based on relationships, shared values, or cultural dialogue. He had a hierarchical view of the actors and places of international activity, and while he was willing and interested to play his role in that context, he did not seem to see many wider/deeper opportunities for the state. The office of Gray Davis (in office: 1999–2003) did not respond to multiple interview invitations, but, as already stated, he did create a

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

151

Secretary of Foreign Affairs and hosted a number of leaders of foreign governments (McMillan 2008, 2012). Most would support the argument that a major shift in international attitude occurred when Arnold Schwarzenegger became governor (in office: 2003–2011). The “globalization debate” at the time had become pervasive, and being a foreign-born naturalized US citizen may have helped to create a keen sense of the importance and immediate relevance of international issues. On a more practical note, Schwarzenegger’s international business dealings as a body-builder and filmmaker may have also helped to produce a more global perspective. Samuel McMillan references the moment Governor Schwarzenegger called California a nation-state “because of the diversity of our people, the power of our economy, and the reach of our dream” to suggest that he, more than any governor before, “personifies the trend of being seen as a head of state rather than as the head of a state” (McMillan 2012). As McMillan points out, this engagement did not follow the more traditional economic/development path, but was based mainly on an environmental agenda while including positions on a range of other, wider international political issues. For example, in 2006, California enacted the California Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) that required the state to return to 1990 levels of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2020 (Lueders et al. 2014). In 2007, he met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and spoke to the UN General Assembly on Climate Change, but also talked about the need to take a stand against Iran through economic sanctions while back at home, he signed AB 221 into law, a bill that required the divestment of pension funds from Sudan and Iran (Melamed 2007). Schwarzenegger also engaged with his fellow governors on international/global issues as evidenced by the Governors’ Global Climate Summit he hosted in Beverly Hills in 2008 with the governors of Illinois, Florida, Kansas, and Wisconsin (Eatmon 2009). The event was attended by governors from around the world and resulted in a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between California, Illinois, Wisconsin, the Brazilian states of Amazonas, Amapá, Mato Grasso and Pará as well as the Indonesian provinces of Aceh and Papua. The agreement committed these jurisdictions to cooperate on forest and climate issues, including the preparation of a joint action plan to outline future efforts (Lueders et al. 2014).

152

A. R. HOLMES

The interview with Governor Brown (in office: 2011–2019) was, in some ways, the most surprising. A two-time, two-term governor, Brown is seen as progressive in all things and in particular a climate change warrior “…climate change is such a catastrophic threat. California is doing a lot. We have a role to play in that. And that’s why I did what I did on climate…[strategy] number one: strengthen my ability to advance climate action in the state of California” (Brown 2019). However, rather than viewing this as an international strategy per se, Brown suggested that the “singularity” of his plan was essentially about building allies and creating public awareness that other entities were doing the same in the hope that would affect opinion and elections in the United States. A political pragmatist, Governor Brown recognized very clearly that “…Governors want to be their own person…that’s number one. Number two they want to do things that will get them popularity…so they can continue doing what they’re doing… They’re getting ready for their election or getting ready to participate in somebody else’s election… The reach of…state entities is much less than maybe banks or software companies or investment firms…who are global in their efforts whereas we are – of essence – local like the city of Eureka… We are very local in our essence and in our power” (Brown 2019). Yet, at the same time and at what seemed to be a profoundly felt level, he also recognizes that, in this day and age, “localness” has an extraordinarily global reach. The direct impact that one state can have on another may be low, but as he suggests, we are in a world where we “learn from other people…whether it’s human rights…or energy efficiency or climate action…we’re not isolated. We’re not on the moon…and a lot of different initiatives and ideas are circulating and picked up…and therefore implemented…there is a connection” (Brown 2019). However, and as important as climate change has been for specific governors, a fundamental aspect of an international strategy is a wider perspective and an awareness of the connected-ness of policies. As Hunter explains, “Governor Brown is really taking that [climate change] as kind of his legacy…and former Governor Schwarzenegger also really made that a huge part of what he ran on… International partnerships…come into play with climate change and climate justice [and]…facilitate those kind of relationships: subnational-national or national-subnational and even subnational to foreign sector or to private sector… It’s something we’ve been seeing for a long time…”. Yet she goes on to suggest that one of the

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

153

more important things they have been working on is to help governors move “beyond climate change” (Hunter 2018). Putting it more bluntly, the Deputy Director of International Affairs and Business Development for California, Awinash Bawle, argued, “international trade work is not…reflexively synonymous with climate change work… Climate change…devolves very quickly to intellectual property rights protection, technology transfer, and all the high tech tools we’re going to use to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change… The way he [Trump] goes about things is…volcanic and not very well thought through, but not all of his positions on China and international trade are wrong…[if] Washington DC is going to engage in this hostile posture towards China – are we just going to do the opposite because China is so important to climate change?… You make a binary choice…but it has an opportunity cost…” (Bawle 2018). The state intersection clearly has issues even between the state officials and the office of the governor in terms of strategy and priorities. Governor Brown recognized the politician’s dilemma of needing electoral support, but had no solution for the pressure between electoral success and goals such as climate change or the benefits of a more globally connected world. There is also a natural tension in the apparent distance between the local and the global. The most important factor seems to be in identifying that the individual is part of, but not the same as, the collective – and neither the individual nor the collective has a future without considering both the short – and the long-term consequences.

Unsung Heroes of Governance – The Role of Counties Manuel Duran has suggested that, even before the idea of globalization began to dominate academic discourse, there was an “emergence of substate entities”. He argues that, since the 1970s, there was “an expression of a new form of political actorness within the framework of the global diplomatic landscape, in which numerous types of sub-state entities such as municipalities, provinces, counties and regions have increasingly gained attributes that were hitherto reserved for the state, as they carved out new and often quite considerable prerogatives, powers and even legalconstitutional competences…” (Duran 2016). He notes particularly the territorial nature of their authority in that they “represent, communicate

154

A. R. HOLMES

and act on behalf of the inhabitants of a specific territorial configuration, be it a region, a province or an autonomous community” (Duran 2016). This is important for the next intersection to be discussed, as both counties and cities are small enough to be directly in touch with their constituents, but often large enough to deal with (and are held responsible for) significant areas of social life. Brian Namey of the National Association of Counties (NACo) offered a striking illustration of the work that counties do in the governance structure. As he observed, people tend to be happy when the police put someone causing trouble (or who is in trouble) into the back of their cruiser. However, the officer literally has nowhere to take that person as the local jail, the courthouse, mental health services, social services (indeed even the dispatcher who sent the officer to deal with the incident) are all probably county-based. Today, the importance of the county is rarely recognized despite the fact that counties are one of the first forms of American government dating back to 1634 when the first counties (called “shires”), were established in Virginia. This oversight may be reinforced by the complication that the 3069 counties in the United States today vary by shape, size, population, structure, finance – and still in what they are called. As an organization representing these entities, NACo was founded in 1935 and now serves nearly 40,000 county elected officials and 3.6 million county employees. They work to: • • • • •

Advocate for county priorities in federal policymaking; Promote exemplary county policies and practices; Nurture leadership skills and expand knowledge networks; Optimize county and taxpayer resources and cost savings; and, Enrich the public’s understanding of county government. (naco.org)

Namey summarizes this list as representing three “buckets” of work: “infrastructure, justice/public safety, and economic development” (Namey 2018). Their day-to-day efforts broadly reflect the types of work undertaken by both the NGA and the CSG in that they focus on best practice, professional development of the officials (elected and professional) and the identification of the main challenges and policy issues for that respective level of governance. On the international side, the most

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

155

relevant aspect of NACo’s work is economic development – though all levels of governance have been seeking out best practice in other countries in more and more areas. In terms of economic development, counties have increasingly been working on their own, with cities in their jurisdiction and with each other, to create development packages and to represent the needs of their communities to foreign audiences. On this final element, their work also touches that of the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO), though NADO generally works at the slightly different level of the “Regional Development Organization” (RDO), an entity that combines cities and/or counties for the purposes of development. NADO’s job is to “provide advocacy, education, research and training for the nation’s regional development organizations. The association and its members promote regional strategies, partnerships and solutions to strengthen the economic competitiveness and quality of life across America’s local communities”. However, the primary difference is the fact that a Regional Development Organization is a generic term that describes “the national network of 540 multi-jurisdictional regional planning and development organizations”. Therefore, and reflecting the point made by Duran and others, territoriality is both a point of similarity and of differentiation. For NADO, their public-based members “play an invaluable role in fostering intergovernmental collaboration among federal, state and local officials. They deliver and manage various federal and state programs. Most importantly, they work to solve area-wide issues and to address the fundamental building blocks required for competitive and sustainable communities and economies” (nado.org). Put another way by their leadership team, “I can easily say that the most innovation that’s going on is definitely at the regional level… Cities and counties are bogged down a lot with…service delivery stuff… How do we change and scope our region to what it is that we want it to be? What policies can we work with our elected officials to have an impact and support them? So I’m extremely biased towards regionalism…because…that’s where the innovation is” (Burgoyne 2019; McKinney 2019; Thompson 2019). Further, in a striking point that will come back again and again in this discussion of the points of agreement or contention between levels on the vertical axis, the NADO team also lamented the fact that “the real challenge to regionalism” is essentially its voluntary nature. “When

156

A. R. HOLMES

you have communities that don’t have that bigger vision – they argue…” (Burgoyne 2019; McKinney 2019; Thompson 2019). This tension between individual entities vs the collective level or other, larger, forms of unit almost creates the task Tad McGalliard, Director of Research & Policy for the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), sees as one of their main roles. He suggests that his organization tries to “keep an eye on the Hill, the White House and the Supreme Court, and what’s happening out in the states – or what’s going on at the ballot box at the referendum level for what might ‘spill out’”. The goal for McGalliard and his organization is to identify what he calls the “policy disruptors”, ideally as they arise, but certainly before they can dramatically shift the direction of the work of cities and counties. One practical example was the work done with local government entities on how to deal with cyberattacks from overseas that shut down entire networks (McGalliard 2019). To bring the tribal aspect back into the discussion as a key part of the “slice” of subnational activity, it is worth noting that organizations such as the CSG specifically list tribal interests as part of their remit, while others do not. From the point of view of the tribes, the relationships with these levels of governance are not always smooth, as the question of authority and jurisdiction complicates many of the conversations. As Hostler explains: …When I graduated from Humboldt [State University] I worked for my tribe [Hoopa], and I remember our struggles working with local county or city governments. They acted as if we weren’t – we shouldn’t – be at the table. I remember them saying ‘well you guys are like a community services district right…why should we work with you?’…[but] we’re sovereign…And here’s this huge education piece. So that was our approach… Government-to-government matters and the approach…is a consultation. So we embarked on developing [a] consultation policy so that state agencies knew how to talk to tribal governments in an appropriate fashion…a key turning point for the state…was to get every state agency to have a tribal consultation policy. (Hostler 2018)

At the same time, and working from the tribal side, the process is effectively reversed. As Hostler explained, she also holds discussions with tribes across the state to talk about how her department could better meet their needs and about specific problems they may have with county authorities on social services issues – a long-standing and significant area of tension

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

157

for tribal cultural issues. As she points out, “…that made a difference to how we developed our tribal engagement strategy” (Hostler 2018). Thus, the counties and regions have many different stakeholders and ways to frame and divide their goals and work. This intersection is particularly complicated by the fact that some entities are specifically territorial, while others have a wider remit that requires an element of volunteerism – or at least the recognition of a common plan on a specific issue.

Cities, Mega-Cities, City-States? Of course tribes are not the only entities that have challenging relationships with their counterparts at different levels. As Abigail Hunter observes, the NGA doesn’t work a great deal with mayors “because the governors [and Lieutenant Governors] – and the mayors tend to clash heads a lot. So it’s hard for us to…facilitate” (Hunter 2018). Of course, the city is a crucial point along the vertical axis, and has recently started taking a much larger role at every level. In terms of the chronology of city development along the horizontal or historical axis, the city-state (particularly those in Italy at the time of the Renaissance) is often referenced as a particularly important point in time in terms of diplomacy as an institution, and as a pre-cursor to the modern day idea of the state. As Rodrigo Tavares reminds his readers, “Cities and towns have played a central role economically, politically and culturally in all human societies and preceded the nation-state by some 5,000 years” (Tavares 2016). Kevin Stringer suggests that we are moving (back?) toward what he calls “a post-Westphalian world” in which regions and cities vs states are once again growing in terms of their importance on economic and trade issues. He even suggests cities may need to (re)create the function of the honorary consul to represent their interests abroad (Stringer 2011). In this effort, Stringer joins a host of other scholars who have begun to investigate the role of cities – particularly what are called “mega” or “global” cities – on the international stage and as leaders not only on issues such as climate change, but on a host of other political and cultural issues. For example, Rogier van der Pluijm and Jan Melissen discuss the issues of the legal framework of cities and suggest that, despite the fact there are national and constitutional constraints on cities, many governments “increasingly permit and even encourage local government involvement in foreign policy”. Stretching this to the international level, these authors

158

A. R. HOLMES

also hint at the idea that while cities do not yet hold a “legal personality in international law…international legal rules increasingly extend over cities” (van der Pluijm and Melissen 2007) as UN agencies begin to focus their efforts on issues such as self-governance and localization of power. They go on to consider this legal ambiguity and point out that, unlike states, cities have no legal basis for international activity – which means that the challenge for cities is the fact they “operate diplomatically in two distinct legal spheres: the national and the international” (van der Pluijm and Melissen 2007). Further, this division has arguably been creating a number of tensions at all of the points along the axis where cities operate. Again, Tavares points out that “gridlock in the national capital” has meant that “mayors and governors have gone a long way toward filling the vacuum of effective decision-making…by exercising political and economic power at their level. It is the state and cities that are the engines of growth at the ground level, where the transition from policy to practice becomes most visible” (Tavares 2016). One organization operating in this transitional space from policy to practice is the National League of Cities (NLC), also founded in the early years of the twentieth century when 10 state “municipal leagues” came together in 1924 as the American Municipal Association. Today, the NLC “is a resource and advocate for the nation’s cities and their leaders” that represents “the voice of cities, towns and villages, representing more than 200 million people” and proclaims: “90+ years of dedication to the advancement of local governments”…“2K + member cities of all sizes from across the US” and “3 advocacy priorities embodying the most critical issues to our member cities” (nlc.org). Brooks Rainwater, Senior Executive and Director of their Center for City Solutions, shares his observation that cities have been “on the rise” for some time: …the political winds shifted so incredibly dramatically with the election of Trump and created such a dichotomy between…the politics of most major urban areas in America and what is coming out of Washington DC, [is] unlike anything that I’ve seen in my life or I’ve read about in political science or history books… It created this dynamic where it was no longer…policy-specific but political… First, the federal government not supporting cities and local governments enough and now because of this broad scale shift in politics…people are hungry for leaders that are thinking

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

159

in different ways than what’s coming out of Washington DC. (Rainwater 2019)

Rainwater also points to a different trend that he concedes may not be happening in California, but that is affecting a number of states across the country. This is the fact that there is often “a big split between what’s happening at the state level and what’s happening with local governments and cities – particularly around progressive policies…labor minimum wage, LGBTQ rights…and even on business issues…things like broadband” (Rainwater 2019). For the NLC, this poses a host of challenges given their members represent a huge cross-section of cities in terms of size and political persuasion. However, as he notes, as cities try to establish the kinds of issues they want to take the lead on, it has “created this kind of broad scale dynamic of mayors in particular being able to…punch above their weight…[and] shape the national conversation” (Rainwater 2019). As many of these organizations, officials, and individuals point out, these questions and innovations are not limited to the United States. The more federal the structure, the more opportunity there is for mutual learning and co-creation of new structures. Consul General Südbeck of Germany summarized the complicated network this creates from his country’s point of view: There are a great number of issues German federal states are responsible for and German federal states have an interest in communicating with California…that starts from questions of energy, climate and environmental policies. But it also goes to connected questions like ‘What does the city of the future look like?’, ‘How are services organized on the local and on a regional level?’…services such as transport – such as telecommunications – such as a health safety-net… There are millions – millions of topics where the discussion and the discourse between the various levels can be useful and we have umpteen examples of German cities and regions that are very active here and also German federal states that are very strongly interested in getting into contact and being in contact with California on a state level. On a practical level that means for us, the consul general, we support the state level almost just as much as the national level. (Südbeck 2018)

160

A. R. HOLMES

Networks in the City of Angels Nina Hachigian was appointed to the new post of Deputy Mayor for International Affairs for Los Angeles by Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2017. Though not the first such role in the country as Seattle created an Office of International Affairs in the city’s executive department as early as 1986 (Fry 1998), it was still a major innovation in the city’s international profile and activities. Whatever the origins, Hachigian has seen the development of these “split personalities” between city-state (or city-nation or even city and the international level) first hand and acknowledges the steep learning curve. She has observed that “…cities are conducting their own international relations and, in the process, learning what city diplomacy is best equipped to do, and what falls beyond their legal, technical or political purview” (Hachigian 2019). However, she is equally clear on the challenges of creating new roles and structures and has identified two in particular that bear a striking resemblance to those outlined by Snider and Hostler in their tribal liaison work. The first challenge Hachigian mentions is simply that “a lot of people within city government are not used to thinking about things in international terms, and so it takes a while to show that you are bringing value – and that’s really the key thing. If I’m not bringing value tangibly, I’m not doing my job… You know some of it can be theoretical…[being] a good ‘global citizen’ – but really it should be tangible on some level…and what’s cool about a city is it’s small enough that you can actually see that…” (Hachigian 2018). The second challenge is one of capacity and being able to “craft interventions that we can actually handle”. Thus, she points out that “part of that is getting partners, so we don’t do anything without good partners, whether it be consulates or nonprofits or businesses… We do most of what we do in partnership with others because otherwise we just don’t have the capacity” (Hachigian 2018). More striking still, is the fact that Hachigian’s views are so closely reflected by her “audience”, namely the consuls general of Los Angeles. The diplomatic practice or tradition that the most senior diplomat in a foreign capital becomes what is known as the “Dean” is currently operating in Los Angeles. The role can be very formal or informal, but the person is generally looked to, to act as a chair or administrative convener for the entire group. The current Dean in Los Angeles is the Consul General of Azerbaijan, Nasimi Aghayev who proudly commented on the

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

161

active nature of the consular corps in LA – meeting every month for lunch with speakers, briefings and holding events – not only for the diplomats themselves, but soon to include a group for diplomatic spouses. This is relatively unusual in the consular world, and again, as Aghayev observed it is, “very unusual in many places – even in New York. It’s teamwork.” More formally constituted than some similar groups, the LA corps has byelaws that were adopted two years ago “after very very long discussions… Usually in January we have an annual general meeting [and] elect our new members, the executive committee… We have around 14 people now…and of course it’s a very multicultural, very diverse executive committee” (Aghayev 2019). Diversity is a topic that came up in nearly every interview at every level. For Aghayev, it is the combination of diversity and informality that makes the esprit de corps of the LA group so collaborative. Already a strong group, their cohesion was encouraged and enhanced by the new role in the Mayor’s office. As he explains: I worked for two years at the embassy [in Washington DC]…and then seven years ago came here to California…a totally different world… Washington is very formal…but the first thing you get struck with here is informality…which is, I think, a great thing [for] establishing relationships. It’s much easier…I think it helps the work… This culture and also this…incredible diversity…when I became dean one of the first things they [the Mayor’s office] also suggested was to strengthen our humanitarian engagement and I think last year was very successful in that regard…an amazing office of International Affairs…and she’s [Hachigian] been a great partner for us (Aghayev 2019).

Of course the Dean of the Corps may be expected to promote the benefits of the group and the camaraderie in the city, but a recognition of the “global-ness” of LA (and the usefulness of the Mayor’s new office) were sentiments expressed time and again. To take two examples from California’s closest trading partners, Mexico and Canada were both clearly supportive of the initiatives, while appreciating that planning and capacity are crucial. Consul General de Alba of Mexico focused on what he saw as the necessary combination of priorities and partners: There are priorities…when you have limited resources, limited time, you need to make your own priorities…in a place like Los Angeles where Mexico is everywhere: culture, art, food, science, technology, sports, you

162

A. R. HOLMES

name it. You cannot keep track of everything – you cannot. And it’s not the right approach. You need…priorities. Obviously, you need to have a good link, a good relationship, frequent communication with the top authorities. (de Alba 2018)

Canadian Consul General Villeneuve stressed the economic importance of the city (and the response from governments in terms of the teams they send to represent their interests) …Los Angeles is… a global place…because of all the consulates here… I will go to things and hear things… I’m getting very fresh current information…[and] with the disruption that’s going on with the United States…the risk and the opportunities…for everyone in the world…you’d better have your A-level players here… When the United States is sort of retrenching…we’ve got to manage our economy with the United States as the number one priority. Number one. Nothing else comes close… (Villeneuve 2018)

He also points to diversity in the form of different communities or diasporas in the city as well as the value that the Mayor Garcetti and his office places on those communities. …the mayor is a globalist…in terms of embracing diversity, embracing trade, embracing opportunity… He’s travelled all over the world, he speaks multiple languages… I don’t think you can be mayor here…and not be a globalist…just the size of it, the diasporas here…21 of the world’s diasporas are here from major countries… When you think of…Mexico, or ourselves, Japan, China, Korea, they’re all in Los Angeles and that’s their largest external population… You become global almost by default… You’re not going to have that kind of thinking in St. Louis – and I lived in St. Louis. You come here and it’s just automatic…it wasn’t the kind of thing that I fully understood before I moved here… (Villeneuve 2018)

Returning to Consul General Aghayev, he aptly summarizes the point, not only as a consular official whose diplomatic role is the care of his country’s citizens and the promotion of its economic interests, but he frames his views in a way that almost echoes the language of the Governor’s inaugural address and a “California for all”. California of course is an extremely important state…you’ve got a fairly multicultural environment. You’ve got so many different ethnicities living

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

163

here and many of them still with passports from their originating countries and that’s why…different countries started realizing the importance of opening a consulate here to deal with their citizens and communities… And also I must say it’s not just about the huge economic potential of California. It’s also in terms of the impact California has on the United States overall – and through the United States to the world at large. So that’s why more and more countries realize the importance of having representation here. (Aghayev 2019)

The most obvious converse of such close cooperation and collaboration is the experience of the tribes at the local/county level. Interestingly for tribes, the more “natural relationship” is with the federal government. As historically difficult and potentially awkward for the state as relationships with tribes may be, the fact remains that tribal jurisdiction covers many of the same issues and responsibilities that state governments cover, creating a complicated layering of authority (or, recalling Krasner’s typology, issues for the practice of sovereignty). As Hostler points out, the system was, …made for cities and counties… That’s the way we work in the state…[but] if you don’t even have a seat at that table or in the laws or in the policies or you’re not mentioned… That’s a different level of what you need to do… Cities and counties…are American institutions that everyone is familiar with…that’s already spelled out. But with tribes it’s not…they have to fight through all of that… There is a huge learning curve that needs to happen…so that there is that understanding of what tribes’ unique political status is. (Hostler 2018)

Systemic Shift or just Another Change of Party? This tribal (dis)connection begins to reveal the way that the different levels can both interact and counteract the actions of the other. The misunderstanding of role and function, as well as the need to connect disparate groups and interests, has been significantly changed by recent political events. As mentioned, the election of Donald Trump to the presidency created (or forced) a new appreciation of the way levels of governance act and react to each other. Again, the goal here is not a political science question per se, but the consequences of the election cannot be ignored, not least as the subsequent change in political direction was mentioned by countless interviewees, albeit in a non-partisan way.

164

A. R. HOLMES

At the state or gubernatorial level, Abigail Hunter of the NGA observed a sense of “uncertainty that was stirred up at the federal level with regards to our trading relationships” by the election, and indicated that the organization began to receive more contacts from embassies in Washington as they sought to increase their effort to reach out to states. She noted that many countries had started specific state-tracking programs and, while some had begun this activity well before the election, the interest increased across the board after 2016. As Hunter explains, “They’ve totally pivoted from a congressional focus to a 50-state focus” which, she explained, meant the work of her organization increasingly included not only support for embassies seeking advice, but also advising foreign governments looking for guidance on visits for their cabinet level leaders and businesses to specific states. Where visitors had once visited only New York or Washington, DC, they were now changing their approach. Again as Hunter observed: …now they realize, you go to Oklahoma City…to Columbus… They need to go where their plants actually are [and] where they’re employing the citizens to help – not only with narrative – but also building the relationships so they can grow and expand over time. Then connecting with the governors who can help pull the policy levers that allow that expansion whether that’s making sure that their workforce is aligned with what they need, or making sure that roads are there so they can get their services – their product to market…(Hunter 2018)

Interestingly, there is also a clear sense this shift was not only the result of the election, but more of a “revisiting” of trade relationships overall that has created “more room for multi-level engagement” (Hunter 2018). The Council of State Governments also received an increase in requests for guidance on how best to reach out to states – not only from political or business counterparts, but cultural and civil society contacts who wanted to create new networks among the people they suddenly saw as state-level stakeholders. Indeed, Karellas likened the “uptick” in the interest in states to the pattern of action on climate change. In his experience, while there was a moment when this issue appeared to “arrive” on the scene, it had actually been “bubbling up from the grassroots and spreading out” for some time. Environmentalists often suggest they created the networks and innovative connections, but it seems clear that

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

165

many of these networks already existed, but were now being re-purposed. As Karellas suggests …it’s been going on for a long time. I would say even 15 plus years…[and] the last couple of years have been kind of an extra catalyst…I wouldn’t say it’s a ‘Trump thing’ I’d say it’s a ‘Washington thing’. I would say it’s understanding the stalemate [and] the political divide…so they turn to the states [and] basically flipped the regular order… From the international perspective they’re finally learning…‘I can get access to the governor. I can get access to the mayor. That’s who is making the decisions’…but it’s been percolating for a long time. (Karellas 2019)

For many foreign diplomats, it was interesting to note the impression held in a number of embassies that governors effectively have more access to the White House than politicians in Washington, either through the Vice President, a former governor, or directly to the president. Explanations for this access vary, but some speculate that the President – frustrated with Congress long before the impeachment proceedings – feels more of an affinity with governors as fellow executive branch leaders as they share a kind of “chief executive-to-chief executive” relationship. For Canada and Mexico during the renegotiation of NAFTA, the strategy of reaching out to governors from Washington, but also reaching out subnational-to-subnational or to their “next door neighbors” along the entire breadth of both the northern and the southern border became a coordinated, tactical imperative. They also focused on an education given that US governors have far less authority on trade issues than their foreign counterparts as well as less information or understanding of the actual trade issues or process. The foreign lobbying effort was a combination of grassroots activism, a theory of subnational activity, and strategic stakeholder analysis aimed at pressing their agenda up from the subnational to the national level. In some important ways, the growing awareness of the need for a more networked approach also applies in California. Rather, it applies to the extent that the tribal consultation process has become the building of a two-way relationship with stakeholders. Even if the links between the federal government and the tribes are more “natural”, there is a constant fear that the federal process could abruptly shift toward a more negative interpretation which means the state remains a vital partner. As both Snider and Hostler suggest, the goal is not simply to get the right people

166

A. R. HOLMES

in the room, but also to keep the balance at the forefront of their planning and approach. As Snider points out, “We try to keep in mind the balance between the feds, this state, and the tribes. And there is not a one size fits all policy for any tribe really because they all have such different capacity issues” (Snider 2018). Meanwhile, Hostler is more focused on the practical, …we can’t go to a formal consultation every time. That won’t happen…but we need to have a mechanism to have holistic and collaborative conversations…so if I don’t have the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the room…we’re not going to make any major strides forward…we need to have them in the room… We’re [CA] a State supervised, county administered, state so we can set all the policies we want. We don’t do the actual implementation. The counties do – so that piece of it matters to have them at the table… But this is a way for us to get around the table…sovereign to sovereign… I think that California has a lot of work to do but I think that the tide is turning… (Hostler 2018)

Conclusion The world of subnationals is perhaps more complicated than first supposed. The disciplinary narratives of political science, international relations, diplomacy, or even California government and history, leave much to be desired in terms of their descriptions and explanations of the tactical interplay of levels and entities. Even if California were not the fifth largest economy in the world, it is a vast state physically, politically, and culturally. It was created by countless cultures, and continues to be shaped not only by the people living in what has become this place, but by actors hundreds and thousands of miles away, all acting in other spaces. By identifying and exploring this vertical axis, the hope is for a new kind of slice or cross-section that catalogs subnational activity while not losing sight of the larger, theoretical issues. California (or any state) does not act alone. A host of other actors can influence the discussion, the opportunities, and the obstacles at every level. Some players are attempting to direct the conversation with intention, while many are acting solely from the point of view of a single level or specific interest, even though their actions have profound implications up and down the axis. The organizations of the Big 7 provide a useful frame, but like any frame used by the artist, photographer (or scholar), a frame is designed

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

167

to bring the observer’s eye to some things – while inevitably leaving many things beyond the observer’s gaze. For California and this project, it was important to ensure both the theoretical and the practical issues are part of the discussion. This is particularly true for interpretations of sovereignty, as they affect not only tribes – the most directly impacted by a lack of education or intentional exclusion – but the issues of jurisdiction and control that pervade this discussion. Even this brief look at the multitude of organizations and people who have specific expertise on one level of governance, or even multiple levels of governance, highlights the potential for a lack of coordination, duplication and the missed opportunities and progress for California that such a situation represents. The vertical axis inevitably reveals more questions than it answers, but for California, what appears to be the deconstruction of the traditional state in favor of a multi-layered, networked system of interaction at every level could be the foundation of a new form of global politics that this state is ideally placed to build. The question will be whether California can create the forms of practice at each level along the axis of its operations to coordinate both the domestic and international or “intermestic” activities of the state as a whole. “Globality” requires an understanding of the simultaneity of the local/global connections and these have been made more visible through this vertical axis. The next step is to examine how the state can move ahead and create an intermestic “California for all” in a practical way.

References Aghayev, Nasimi. 2019. Consul General of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Dean of Consular Corps, Los Angeles. Interview with author. January 29. Bawle, Awinash. 2018. Deputy Director of International Affairs and Business Development. Interview with author by telephone. December 28. Brown, Jerry. 2019. Former Governor of California. Interview with author by telephone. June 4. Burgoyne, Mirielle. 2019. Director of Government Relations and Legislative Affairs, National Association of Development Organizations (NADO), Washington, DC. Interview with the author. April 26. Council of State Government. About Page. https://www.csg.org/about/default. aspx. Accessed January 2020. Cruz, Mark. 2018. Deputy Asst Secretary—Indian Affairs for Policy and Economic Development (DAS-PED), Washington, DC. Interview with author. October 30.

168

A. R. HOLMES

de Alba, Carlos García. 2018. Consul General of Mexico in Los Angeles. Interview with author. September 17. Duran, Manuel. 2016. Paradiplomacy as a Diplomatic Broker: Between Separating Differences and Engaging Commonalities. Leiden: Brill. Eatmon, Thomas D. 2009. Paradiplomacy and Climate Change: American States as Actors in Global Climate Governance. Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research 1 (2): 153–165. Fry, Earl H. (ed). 1998. The Expanding Role of State and Local Governments in U.S. Foreign Affairs. New York: Council on Foreign Affairs. Hachigian, Nina. 2018. Deputy Mayor of International Affairs, Los Angeles. Interview with author. September 18. Hachigian, Nina. 2019. Cities will Determine the Future of Diplomacy. Foreign Affairs. April 19. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/16/cities-will-determ ine-the-future-of-diplomacy/. Harris, Jonathan. 2018. Research Analyst, National Association of Counties (NACo), Washington, DC. Interview with author. October 29. Hunter, Abigail. 2018. International and Strategy Advisor, National Governors Association (NGA), Washington, DC. Interview with author. October 30. Hostler, Heather. 2018. Director of Office of Tribal Affairs at California Department of Social Services, Sacramento. Interview with author. December 5. Johnson, Susan, Jeanne Kaufmann, John Dossett, and Sarah Hicks. 2000. Government to Government: Understanding State and Tribal Governments. Washington, DC: National Conference of State Legislatures and National Congress of American Indians. Karellas, Andy. 2019. Director of Federal and International Affairs, The Council of State Governments (CSG), Washington, DC. Interview with author. April 25. Kincaid, John. 1984. The American Governors in International Affairs. Publius 14 (4) (Autumn): 95–114. Kuznetsov, Alexander S. 2015. Theory and Practice of Paradiplomacy. London: Routledge. Lecours, André. 2002. Paradiplomacy: Reflections on the Foreign Policy and International Relations of Regions. International Negotiation 7: 91–114. Lueders, Jesse, Cara Horowtiz, Ann Carlson, Sean B. Hecht, and Edwards A. Parson. 2014. The California REDD+ Experience: The Ongoing Political History of California’ Initiative to Include Jurisdictional REDD+ Offsets Within Its Cap-and-Trade System. Working Paper 386. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development. Luna, Taryn. 2019. Newsom Apologizes for California’s History of Violence Against Native Americans. Los Angeles Times. June 18. https://www.latimes.

8

LOCATING CALIFORNIA ON THE VERTICAL AXIS OF DIPLOMACY

169

com/politics/la-pol-ca-gavin-newsom-apology-california-native-american-tri bes-061818-story.html. Accessed January 2020. McGalliard, Tad. 2019. Director, Research & Policy, International City/County Management Association (ICMA), Washington, DC. Interview with author. April 25. McKinney, Joe. 2019. Executive Director, National Association of Development Organizations (NADO), Washington, DC. Interview with author. April 26. McMillan, Samuel Lucas. 2008. Subnational Foreign Policy Actors: How and Why Governors Participate in U.S. Foreign Policy. Foreign Policy Analysis 4: 227–253. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1743-8594.2008.00068.x. McMillan, Samuel. 2012. The Involvement of State Governments in US Foreign Relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Melamed, Karmel. 2007. Governor Schwarzenegger to Sign Iran Divestment Bill into Law. The Jewish Journal. September 29. https://jewishjournal.com/unc ategorized/16814/. Accessed January 2020. Namey, Brian. 2018. Chief Public Affairs Officer, National Association of Counties (NACo), Washington, DC. Interview with author. October 19. National Association of Counties. About Page. https://www.naco.org/resour ces/featured/counties-matter. Accessed January 2020. National Governors Association. About Page. https://www.nga.org/about/. National League of Cities. About Page. https://www.nlc.org/about-nlc. Rainwater, Brooks. 2019. Senior Executive and Director of the National League of Cities’ (NLC) Center for City Solutions. Interview with author. April 25. Riley, Angela R. 2017. Native Nations and the Constitution: An Inquiry into “Extra-Constitutionality”. Harvard Law Review Forum 130 (6 April). 173– 199. Snider, Christina. 2018. Tribal Advisor. Office of Governor Brown, Sacramento. Interview with author. December 5. Stringer, Kevin. 2011. Honorary Consuls in an Era of Globalization, Trade and Investment. In Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernandez (eds). Consular Affairs and Diplomacy. Leiden and Boston: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Südbeck, Hans-Ulrich. 2018. German Consul General, San Francisco. Telephone interview with author. November 28. Tavares, Rodrigo. 2016. Paradiplomacy: Cities and States as Global Players. New York: Oxford University Press. Thompson, Laurie. 2019. Deputy Executive Director, National Association of Development Organizations (NADO). Washington, DC. Interview with author. April 26. Tribal Government Affairs. https://tribalgovtaffairs.ca.gov/About_Us/. Accessed January 2020.

170

A. R. HOLMES

van der Pluijm, Rogier with Jan Melissen. 2007. City Diplomacy: The Expanding Role of Cities in International Politics. The Hague Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael. April. Villeneuve, James. 2018. Canadian Consul General, Los Angeles. Interview with author. September 18. Wilson, Pete. 2018. Former Governor of California. Interview with author. September 17.

CHAPTER 9

Representing All of California to the World

The “thundering wheels of time” were now rolling in California…Frémont had flown the Stars and Stripes over a fortified position on Gavilán Peak early in March 1846, but after this foolhardy gesture of defiance toward General Castro’s Mexicans, Frémont had retreated northward – in Larkin’s words “queiteley presing his way to the Oregon” [sic]. But within a month another exciting visitor arrived in Monterey, Lieutenant Archibald H. Gillespie of the United States Marine Corps, with a secret dispatch for Larkin from the Secretary of State. This famous document, drawn up on October 17, 1845 took six months to reach Larkin… The series of letters he sent to his friends and confidants among the Americans in California…indicates clearly how he meant to carry out his plans for a peaceful acquisition of California by the United States. This was to be achieved with the full knowledge and approval of its leading Mexican inhabitants, after a declaration of independence. The fear that Britain instead of the United States would be the first on the scene still troubled Larkin unduly… (Hawgood 1970)

The “thundering wheels of time” have not stopped rolling since Larkin made this observation 175 years ago – nor has the involvement of other countries in the business of California (though they are now probably less likely to make a formal claim on the territory of the state). The next question is how the state could operate more effectively in its diplomatic engagement within the state with consuls general or at any of the other intersections of sovereignty along its vertical axis of diplomacy. Given that subnational activity has been on the increase – particularly © The Author(s) 2020 A. R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3_9

171

172

A. R. HOLMES

in areas surrounding the issue of climate change – there has been a significant rise in pressure on state structures from local and regional governments to state and federal agencies and institutions. As Douglas Kyser and Bernadette Meyler point out, this “extrajurisdictional activity” has taken a variety of forms that, at the state level, are prohibited from the formality of a treaty and therefore have more often been memorandums of understanding (MOUs), joint statements, commitments to collaborate, or informal multilateral agreements. This “soft lawmaking” at the state level has been in contrast to the federal level which, Kyser and Meyler go on to suggest, is intentionally not binding (at least on the part of Republican administrations) as there is little desire to commit to executive action on some issues like climate change. The significant aspect of these different approaches is what Kyser and Meyler call a “casualness of foreign affairs activity” that works to “maximize the position of the relevant government actors”, but clearly “within the constitutional framework” (Kyser and Meyler 2008). From the perspective of California’s diplomatic profile, extrajurisdictional activity is core to California’s efforts (see again Charts C.2 and C.3). The MOUs, statements of intent, and nonbinding agreements not only at the level of the state, but up and down the axis, further demonstrate “casualness” in that many such agreements created by different levels and entities are often not recorded beyond the press release or tracked after the fanfare of the signing. Governor Brown’s administration did begin to list such documents, but other entities including cities and counties have no such archive – an issue identified by some of California’s main partners and surely an issue in the future if/when such agreements have not been met. This “casualness” is an example of what Samuel McMillan lists as one of the “hurdles” to state effectiveness as well as the lack of consistency or professionalism in state “foreign relations”. This situation is compounded by the tension that is often found between a state’s view on political and economic issues. As he argues, “…little knowledge and coordination, staff turnover, and small budgets… hurt US states’ ability to have their role institutionalized” but their ability to work on political topics can be hampered by the fact that “…states compete in the largest area of constituent diplomacy, international economic development” (McMillan 2012).

9

REPRESENTING ALL OF CALIFORNIA TO THE WORLD

173

The question for David Criekemans, and one that needs to be addressed for California, is, in his view, essentially an empirical one: “How do regions define their foreign policy? What diplomatic instruments do they employ or develop? How do they structurally organize their ‘external relations’ and how do they organize their representation abroad?” (Criekemans 2010). Of course the problem for any subnational – and particularly one with the weight of California – returns to the original core question of sovereignty: “Who decides?” Chris Whatley’s analysis, “State Officials’ Guide to International Affairs”, was written in 2003 while he was still at the Council for State Governments, but he puts the issue in terms that could have been written specifically about California. Most states have yet to develop the political consensus, coordination mechanism and leadership structures necessary to pursue an integrated strategy for international affairs. The international engagement of most states consists of a collection of unrelated activities, rather than a strategic commitment to maximizing the competitiveness of the state economy or advancing other international interests. While governors and other state leaders often make commitments to increase state trade budgets or open new overseas offices, these commitments are frequently perceived as pet projects of a single politician rather than a vital interest of the state as a whole. There is a clear need for all branches of state government, as well as business interests and public constituencies, to work together to review state interests in the international arena, inventory state programs and build consensus for an appropriate engagement strategy (Whatley 2003).

This is why, he argues, a state’s Executive has a fundamental role to play in the development of a state’s (or any subnational’s) international strategy. In his view, the Executive is crucial in terms of “building consensus and strategy, setting accurate and realistic goals, coordinating across agency lines, advancing goals abroad while leveraging resources at home and promoting staff continuity” (Whatley 2003).

174

A. R. HOLMES

International Trade and Global Lessons Douglas Smurr is now a lawyer in Sacramento, but he was also the last director of the California office in Mexico City and is married to a Mexican ambassador who (at the time of writing) is also Consul General in Sacramento. As such, few are more qualified to see this from multiple perspectives. He has written about his experience working for the state and the three “lessons” he offers are still strikingly pertinent.

Global Lesson One The first lesson Smurr outlines both captures and reinforces the idea of the vertical axis in that he argues a “narrow focus that only seeks to promote exports and attract inward foreign direct investment is too limited”. As with the idea of exploring the levels and interconnections between California’s international activities, he wants California to “take advantage of the entire range of policy items so as to fully exploit its potential.” He calls this an “all-encompassing international program” likening it to playing “with a full deck of cards, and not just with the suit of international commerce” (Smurr 2010). Nina Hachigian (a former ambassador) identifies the same problem, not from the point of view of a trade office in another country, but from the point of view of the Deputy Mayor of Los Angeles and recognizing that the city has many international “interests” to use the more traditional IR language. I don’t see us going backwards…in the past it’s been somewhat dependent on the personality of the mayor or governor…I just don’t see us having a choice anymore as a state… I don’t understand how we could not have someone doing international affairs…but there’s no question that we’re going to be doing international diplomacy and agreements as a city… I don’t think we can put that genie back in the bottle. That’s just not who California is. We are too dependent on the world to do that…it would harm our interests. (Hachigian 2018)

Hachigian is also keenly aware of the need for coordination with national actors, and ideally would like to see executive level guidance. As she goes on to say:

9

REPRESENTING ALL OF CALIFORNIA TO THE WORLD

175

If you had a functioning State Department, they would be the ones who would have the incentive to figure out what…sub-national actors are doing. Right?… If I were running the State Department I would have an office whose business it was to figure out – at least keep tabs on – what the 50 states and all the big cities were doing, because I’d want to know… [In LA] we coordinate with the State Department sometimes…because they’re here… We coordinate with the county. We do some coordination with the state legislature. I think we will coordinate with the [new] governor’s office. Interestingly Jerry Brown was sort of doing this on his own with a few people – he [didn’t] have an Office of International Affairs… (Hachigian 2018)

This is a point with which the State Department representative in LA, Christina Hernandez (referred to by the Deputy Mayor) agrees entirely. From her perspective, “…if you really want to capture what’s going on internationally, you need to work with those city mayors… First of all, what’s California’s vision for international relations?…You’ve got to work with those city mayor offices and counties and get them coordinated” (Hernandez 2019).

Global Lesson Two The need for California to have a “real” strategy was not only argued by Smurr, but continues to be seen as an issue by many of those interviewed. However, and for that to happen, Smurr argues, California must learn that its past strategy was flawed…what is needed is a balanced approach that takes into account both the positive and negative effects of trade… Developing such a strategy will be a monumental undertaking. If done properly, it will require years of legislative hearings seeking input from the best universities, think tanks, non-governmental organizations, state agencies and departments, the Governor’s office… California will also have to consider options undertaken by other states or countries in establishing and carrying out their international interests. (Smurr 2010)

Foreign diplomats agree. When asked what California should do to move forward, strategic concerns were at the top of their list – though sometimes tinged with doubt even from its largest trading partners,

176

A. R. HOLMES

Assuming that the government of California has international political goals – which is a main question…it’s a mental change – it’s a change in saying, ‘Come on guys we have ready access to the Pacific. If we were a country – which we’re not…we don’t want to be a country – we could influence these matters directly without going through Washington because it is in our interests… If we have an interest in climate change and the federal government has an opposite stance we need to work in Congress [and] with Washington getting that stance overturned. But we also need to tell the world that we can – that they can count on us…’ But that needs a shift in the mindset…and I don’t think that California is there…California needs to believe in itself as global.

A host of other partners put this point in a variety of ways. For example, the United Kingdom’s Consul General to Los Angeles, Michael Howells, believes that having a strategy is “extremely important”, but a strategy also “needs to be something which you can amend” as a “living thing”. Bringing the point back to the theme of space and place, Howells goes on, “Once you’ve got…a sense of place – a sense of what you can achieve – what you can’t – and what tools work…that’s the point from which you can begin to devise a strategy which matches an informed understanding of what you’re interested in – with an informed understanding of what you’re capable of doing” (Howells 2018). More bluntly, the German Consul General in San Francisco suggests that California needs to “decide if they want to be a global thought leader or just a state…” (Südbeck 2018) while India’s Deputy Consul General and Commercial Representative in San Francisco feels California needs a “defining of priorities” (Rathish 2019). In more formal diplomatic terms, it is not surprising that the Consuls General raise the point that the question of strategy is closely linked to the issue of identifying and utilizing the “soft power” of the state. However, they remain unconvinced that California has focused on its potential, or is doing enough. Again, from one of its largest trading partners, “California has vast amounts of soft power…they…have never…deployed. There’s soft power capabilities to a strategy. They have vast amounts of it, but they haven’t actually marshaled that in some kind of strategic framework”. Michael Howells of the United Kingdom continues this idea while putting it in the context of space rather than place by suggesting,

9

REPRESENTING ALL OF CALIFORNIA TO THE WORLD

177

California has more soft power than most countries in the world and probably the majority of American soft power actually has its apex here. If you look at the things that…most people globally associate with America, a lot of it is based in this part of the country and so I think California has probably begun to realize that…there is a space there that maybe it didn’t realize [and] that it is now able to occupy and fill. (Howells 2018)

If this were only the perception of those from outside it may be one thing, but Smurr and others who have served (or are currently serving the state) clearly suggest there is more to be done. Awinash Bawle, Deputy Director of International Affairs and Business Development, puts it in very basic terms to ask, Why go halfway and do it…with one hand tied behind our back when we’re California? We have so much to offer…[we need] almost a miniature version of the US State Department in Washington DC [to] sort of ride herd in a very coordinated way across all the cabinet level executive branch agencies to make sure that our engagement with foreign countries – and not just in trade and investment by the way – is done in a holistic thoughtful way. (Bawle 2018)

Meanwhile at the city level, Deputy Mayor Hachigian in LA explains You know, I have a document where I’ve written the question ‘What is our strategy?’… I mean I have goals, and I have missions, and I have tactics and I don’t know if I really have a strategy – but it’s basically to try to…take all this ‘globalness’ that we have in Los Angeles. All these ties, all these connections, all these relationships, all these people – and bring more value to the city and to elevate Los Angeles. Los Angeles is a voice on the international stage through a variety of city networks and other kinds of engagements…so we can share our values and our experiences in a way that helps the world. (Hachigian 2018)

Global Lesson Three These final points on strategy link directly to the third and final lesson that Smurr drew out of his experience. The problem is not only one of strategy – although that is the starting point – it is also a fundamental problem of coordination. Smurr and Bawle have effectively proposed the same solution nearly a decade apart, “Create a new agency that will have only one duty – that of managing and coordinating CA’s international

178

A. R. HOLMES

efforts. In short, create the CA Foreign Affairs Agency (CFAA)” (Smurr 2010). For Bawle, this is not just a matter of structure. “There’s a distinction between doing things right versus doing the right things [and]…in my humble view…we were not doing the right things…[we need] – for lack of a better phrase – a California Department of International Affairs” (Bawle 2018). Meanwhile, the same point is repeated further afield in Washington, where Brooks Rainwater of the NLC laments the lack of an office of municipal policy at the federal level (Rainwater 2019) and where Brian Namey of the National Association of Counties constantly seeks more coordination with the counties (Namey 2018). These proposals, from both the practitioners of California’s diplomatic activity and their colleagues and counterparts in the capitol, echo the works of scholars in the field such as Earl Fry who suggested something perhaps even more elaborate two decades ago: …what is needed is an effective consultative body composed of federal, state and select local officials that would meet on a regular basis. Each state and the federal government should create an Office of Intergovernmental and International Affairs that would be the focal point for this intergovernmental cooperation. The state and federal office would be within the executive branch but also would include a representative from each chamber of the state legislature of the US Congress. (Fry 1998)

Scholars such as Luc Van den Brande also offer advice on how to begin, and how to ensure such an entity could succeed. To paraphrase his guidelines, he suggests any such body would need to have: a clear minister and, if a region has the competence to take external actions – clearly varied based on their constitutional structures – it must use whatever power it has wisely. In other words, competence does not give carte blanche and, specifically in the case of California, straying outside the constitutional boundaries has already attracted national attention, but both staying within and challenging the existing structure can be used to good effect. Van den Brande goes on to encourage sub-state actors to establish their own representation abroad, get good staff, and have clear agreements with other levels and stakeholders in the system, all while keeping a weather eye on the trends and issues at the macro level. Finally, he recommends a strong strategic communication plan, as well as an active public diplomacy profile (Van den Brande 2010).

9

REPRESENTING ALL OF CALIFORNIA TO THE WORLD

179

Insight study – The United Kingdom: The devolution of Nation-States and the Diplomacy of Nations

Map 9.1 The United Kingdom

The constitutional structures of California’s largest trading partners were briefly outlined in Chapter 7 as part of the discussion of the ability of subnational entities in both Canada and Mexico to interact with the United States – in particular, contact between subnational neighbors directly across the border. Clearly, these interactions – as well as all of the exchanges along the vertical axis – have been changing rapidly in recent years. Further to the overall argument presented here, the processes of globalization have transformed space into place and enabled

180

A. R. HOLMES

different entities to take action on a much broader agenda and engage with a new range of subnational, national, and international actors. The Canadian and Mexican examples are important to the evolution of California’s global profile, given the size and depth of the relationship California has with them both at the national and subnational level. However, the United Kingdom and California have much in common, and the evolution of the “diplomacy of devolution” undertaken by the nations of the United Kingdom bears further examination – arguably now more than ever, as the process of Brexit unfolds. Indeed, Michael Howells the UK Consul General Los Angeles even suggested that the United Kingdom could be called the “California of Europe”. Both are located on the western edge of continents to which they have deep historical, political, and social links, where they often feel misunderstood. As he points out, …they’re basically the same size economy. The population of California is a little lower and a higher GDP per capita…but they’re basically about the same… They have very similar set of values and…have a citizenry that consumes similar media, worries about similar things… Now obviously we have different tools – different history – we’re in a different place – different politics – there are many differences, but nevertheless…we [both] have this perennial question: do we try and do a little bit of everything because [being] global you must – or do we prioritize things which we decide are going to give us the best bang for our buck?… So what does that mean for California…as a state of country scale…with the interests that it has in global trading…the values that it has – and tools that it has?… Should California try to do as much as it can or should it prioritize focus on areas where it can make the most difference? (Howells 2018)

The trade and investment consequences of Brexit are still uncertain, but as of 2016 the US–UK investment relationship was the largest in the world, valued at more than $1 trillion, creating over 2 million jobs, about a million on each side (British Consulate General – SF, 2012). In 2017, the United Kingdom was the fifth largest importer of US goods with a total value of $56.3 billion (US Department of Commerce). In terms of Europe overall, California was the top US state, exporting $31.84 billion – mainly in

9

REPRESENTING ALL OF CALIFORNIA TO THE WORLD

181

computers, electronic products, transportation equipment, chemicals, and miscellaneous manufactured commodities in 2018 – while the countries of the European Union purchased just under 20% of all of California’s exports. More specifically, the United Kingdom was California’s 10th largest export market (with a value more than $5 billion) while imports into California were approximately $5.5 billion. It is estimated that British investment supports approximately 90,000 jobs in the state (Calchamber.org). However, and whatever the next stages of the trade position, the other parallels remain useful as California works to create its global infrastructure. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is essentially a union of different kingdoms joined over centuries. Wales was defeated and annexed by England, followed by the union between Scotland and England through the Acts of Union in 1706 and 1707. In 1801, the Kingdom of Ireland was added though, in 1922, the southern portion of the island of Ireland seceded. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland now has a population of approximately 65 million and recently dropped from fifth to sixth largest economy with a GDP of $2.62 trillion as California pushed ahead to $2.75 trillion. The United Kingdom is governed through a unitary parliamentary democracy based on the Westminster system of two houses: an elected House of Commons and an appointed House of Lords within a constitutional monarchy. The system, while constitutional, has no written documentation, but governs on the basis of statute, common law and practice and furthermore, constitutional issues have intentionally not been part of any devolution agreement. The constituent countries remain: England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (England is the only one of the four that does not yet have a devolved government). However, all devolved powers are delegated from Parliament and could therefore be changed or even dismantled by that entity. The powers of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland vary from subnational to subnational, but each has its own government – or executive with a first minister (this is slightly different in Northern Ireland) and a devolved unicameral legislature.

182

A. R. HOLMES

More specifically, and useful in this context, the Scottish Government and Parliament – not unlike states in the United States – have wide-ranging powers over any matter that has not been explicitly reserved to Parliament, though secession has regularly been the subject of debate. The Welsh Government and the National Assembly for Wales have more limited powers, as the Assembly is only able to legislate without prior consent from Westminster on devolved matters through the acts of assembly. The types of subnational activity – from paradiplomacy to the protodiplomacy of secessionist entities – have already been explored, and the subsequent diplomacy of these different approaches was touched upon. California, to this point at least, has shown few secessionist tendencies (unlike Quebec with its clearly separate foreign mission and infrastructure, or Scotland that is developing a distinct foreign policy). So, in terms of patterns or templates from which to draw, this could suggest that California would be better served looking for inspiration from Ontario (like California, the dominant economy of the country) or perhaps Wales (working alongside the central operation, but beginning to design new structures). This is simply to suggest that the United Kingdom is particularly interesting, as it is developing new diplomatic structures in the present moment. The fundamental constitutional basis of the United Kingdom has been slowly shifting since 1997 largely due to the process of devolution to the nations of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Brexit will only add to the pressure within the system and increase the awareness for new networks of diplomacy at both the national and subnational level. These adaptations seem particularly useful to California as it decides how to move toward a more proactive diplomatic presence. The United Kingdom currently maintains 9 consulates general in the United States (Boston, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Denver, Los Angeles, and San Francisco) and 2 consulates (Orlando and San Juan in Puerto Rico). The value of the relationship with California is reflected in the balance of support in the state with two consulates general when compared to their spread over rest of the country. However, this also does not entirely reflect

9

REPRESENTING ALL OF CALIFORNIA TO THE WORLD

183

the new levels of representation of the devolved nations, or the growing sense that more lines of communication and collaboration are needed. As Richard Jones and Elin Royles point out in their discussion of Wales, sovereign entities often “jealously guard” their privileges of statehood, “especially in the context of regional actors within the borders of the states, who chafe at the restrictions”. Thus, they suggest “Sub-state diplomacy increased the potential for tension in central-sub-state relations” (Jones and Royles 2012). Yet, in the case of the United Kingdom, reports suggest that the new and different levels of governance have continued to adjust to the new political environment back home without causing undue harm to relations abroad. Jones and Royles offer three models of such operations: the “functional”, the “financial”, and the “summit-oriented”. As pointed out earlier, much of the effort on paradiplomacy has focused on economic development and the promotion of trade, investment, and areas such as tourism. However, as subnational entities (and particularly newly devolved nations) exercise their new competencies and develop systems of exchange and diplomacy, there is at least anecdotal evidence to suggest that the way the United Kingdom has cultivated diplomatic representation as part of their national/Foreign Office operations is producing positive results. Thus far, Scotland and Wales have opted to maintain offices within the Embassy structure and in contrast to the offices for Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland has, in fact, had representation in the United States apart from the British Embassy long before the most recent moves toward devolution for Scotland and Wales, but given the particular history of the relationship between the communities of Northern Ireland, this contrast is less helpful in this context. The most significant aspect of devolved diplomacy is perhaps simply that both a secessionist and a subnational entity have decided their interests are best served by maintaining close contact with the national government operation overseas. Moreover, the national operation shares the view that there is much to be gained from having more voices that are coordinated than disparate interests and claims being made from different directions. Arguably, this more intentionally networked or multi-layered approach is also

184

A. R. HOLMES

evidenced by the fact that the UK embassy is one among many that have hired a person in Washington to watch the activities of US states more carefully (as pointed out by several consuls general and various state organizations). In terms of practical operations, the Scottish and Welsh representatives work closely together and often find that they can “tag team” their efforts among their Foreign Office colleagues as they work on related tasks and across similar issues. Scotland tends to have more “foreign policy” than Wales, yet – and in a phrase that resonates deeply in terms of tribal relations – there was regular talk of the “government-to-government” relations between UK subnationals and the US national government as distinct from those debates within the borders of the United Kingdom. In other words, the First Minister of Scotland would be expected to have positions on current international affairs and issues while at home, but generally they are not asked (nor do they commonly offer) such comments abroad. As one person suggested, it “kind of depends on where we are whether or not it’s foreign”. Almost everyone engaged in this kind of devolved diplomacy also commented on the need to help others in the system (both in the embassy and in the US government) learn about the role of the nations in British decision-making as well as the evolving diplomatic representation. The need to “remind” colleagues of their presence or to step beyond the perception of the nations as “little brothers” was a regular observation. On the other hand, some US subnationals have been quick to reach out. For example, Scotland was invited to be on Michael Bloomberg’s International Health Policy Task Force. Ensuring a voice in day-to-day operations such as planning, scheduling, and communicating seems to be more straight forward, while combining strategic goals remains more of a challenge. Yet the simple fact of a presence for the devolving nations has begun to change the culture, and most observers see bigger changes on the way as the systems become more attuned to ways in which the individual nations can support the country’s mission and where they may need to diverge.

9

REPRESENTING ALL OF CALIFORNIA TO THE WORLD

185

For the moment, all sides agree that while the nations have benefited greatly from the freedom that devolution has brought in terms of their own interests, most agree (for now) that being a part of the United Kingdom’s diplomatic machinery remains an important part of their identity “…these four parts…are a fundamental part of what the UK is…we are not chafing against the constraints…” but they are developing new structures – particularly in the area of economic development. For example, the Welsh Assembly brought the once quasi-independent Welsh Development Agency (WDA) in-house starting in 2006. In some ways, those representing the nations of the UK in the United States are like the Deputy Mayor of International Affairs in Los Angeles. These role(s) are entirely new and there are no clear expectations as to what may develop. On the other hand, expectations are high in terms of what the people in such posts should and can deliver. In much the same way that Nina Hachigian suggested that her first task was not so much an overall strategy, but to deliver value to the people of LA those representing Scotland and Wales clearly see their job as ensuring they are connected to those with influence over the areas of interest to their respective subnational entities and that they use their influence effectively. As to the future, few anticipate a separate “foreign service” or indeed even a distinct diplomatic civil service as the current systems seemed to be making room for the needs and voices of the nations and “there are other ways to make international impact”. However, there was also some suggestion that this may not always be the case. The uncertain ebb and flow of the fortunes of different political parties and the potential for a divergence of the national vision for the United Kingdom as a whole versus its constituent nations may grow as Brexit becomes a reality. Thus, models used by Quebec – or even the idea of a type of diplomat that existed within the devolved civil services (like the roles found in Flanders) – are variations that may become more appealing to the entities that make up the United Kingdom. California would do well to study these more closely.

186

A. R. HOLMES

Regions and Tribes However, a level rarely discussed in the context of subnational entities – but particularly relevant to California – is that of regions. Mark Baldassare, associated with the Public Policy Institute of California since 1996 and its President and CEO since 2007, argued in his book, California in the new Millennium: The changing social and political landscape of California, that this is a state of regions – often to its detriment. “The north and south have struggled over political power and economic development. The coastal and inland areas have fought over the rights to the water that flows out of the Sierra mountains… Policy discussions are often fragmented and incomplete, focusing on what’s best for the regions as opposed to what’s right for the state” (Baldassare 2000). In the text, he argues a point that remains true today. What is needed is a system of local government collaboration with the private sector for an investment in “smart” regional growth. While he did not propose or even refer to the ideas of other regional/subnational advocates, it stands to reason that Baldassare’s point could be used to support a California regional policy that would not only “encourage regional cooperation in the state” that he sees as beneficial to the state, but that would dovetail nicely with a more networked California, connecting each entity and level of governance. This type of regional idea would also support a more government-togovernment style of relationship to the tribes within the state, providing a bridge back to the discussion on the theory of sovereignty and its juxtaposition with inherent sovereignty. The process of connecting the different levels along California’s axis opens the possibility of the kinds of “multiple types of sovereignties – state and indigenous – within and across state borders” that Sheryl Lightfoot discusses (Lightfoot 2016) and creates space for the type of “self-determination” that “runs parallel to state sovereignty and takes place within the body of the state” supported by Walter Echo-Hawk (Echo-Hawk 2013). Governor Newsom’s “California for all” and his commitment to diversity needs to evolve further. As Lightfoot, putting forward the argument of Anishinaabe scholar Duane Champagne, points out, “…the multicultural nation-state does not work well for Indigenous peoples”. Rather, tribes need a “multinational state that can accommodate Indigenous rights, territories, institutions, cultures and self-governance” (emphasis added – Lightfoot 2016).

9

REPRESENTING ALL OF CALIFORNIA TO THE WORLD

187

Kurt Mills calls this a “reconstructed notion of sovereignty” and suggests that “a variety of forms of political association outside of the sovereignty discourse needs to be recognized” as that is the only way to “keep communities together in one kind of association, while permitting them to pursue their ‘common lives’ in others” (Mills 1998). Ironically, once subnationals are brought in a tighter formation with a more connected structure, it seems that the state of California is no “better off” than tribes on some sovereign issues. However, if they work together, they may be able to improve their international and their sovereign standing. Vine Deloria Jr., in much the same helpful tone as that taken by Van Den Brande on subnational structures, concludes that, “the adherents of both self-government and self-determination must cooperate if the tribe is finally to reconstitute itself”. He goes on to list five key areas of work: the restructuring of tribal governing institutions with continuity between the past and the present; a sense of a determined and lasting cultural renewal; economic stability; a stabilization of relations between the federal and state governments; and to resist the tendency to “absolutize” recommendations (Deloria and Lytle 1984). Clearly, not all of these are directly relevant to California, but as with Van den Brande, there are pertinent features that can be included in a plan for the state’s global profile. As the National Congress of American Indians reported, more states are creating tribal liaison offices of various types and at different levels. In California, that has meant the creation of practical guides for sound governmentto-government consultation that are also being created based on those international/sovereign principles. As Christina Snider suggests, International or state-to-state type of relationships where – if you have issues that are of mutual interest to your states – basically you meet with the decision makers and you engage in a respectful way… where you haven’t made a decision before you enter the room, where you give people enough information so that they can meaningfully engage, and when they have comments and they have concerns that are legitimate, that you take those into account (Snider 2018).

At the Washington level, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) – External Affairs Office liaises with the National Governors’ Association particularly on economic issues and the state-federal relationships. However as Mark Cruz, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Indian Affairs for Policy and Economic Development indicated, state-level economic development officials often

188

A. R. HOLMES

don’t reach out to tribes. The systems are not connected to each other, despite the fact that the economic fate of tribes and regions are inextricably linked, as are the peoples from each community; another reminder that the problem with regionalism is the fact it’s voluntary. At the point of a tribal-global connection there is also an interesting question as to how California’s efforts stack up against the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People (or the slightly different version of the same document from the Organization of American States). When various officials were asked if there has been an assessment or inventory of any kind – much as a national government would do to ensure compliance with international obligations – it was clear none had been undertaken. Again, this is a practical site of diplomatic action that could bring more coherence to the vertical axis and mutual assurance of respect.

Insight study – Duluwat Island: Government-to-Government relations between cities and tribes

Map 9.2 Dulawat, California

“Indian Island” is the largest of three islands in Humboldt Bay, just off-shore from Eureka, CA (population~30,000) and is comprised

9

REPRESENTING ALL OF CALIFORNIA TO THE WORLD

189

mainly of tidelands. The island is approximately 280 acres, about a mile long and a half-mile wide. Until the mid-1800s, there were two Wiyot villages: Tuluwat (Toulouwat) and Etpidolh (Etpidalh Watpuroulh) located there, and the island also served as the site of the tribe’s annual World Renewal Ceremony – an event that regularly lasted seven to ten days and drew many of the 3000 Wiyots from the 20 or so villages around Humboldt Bay. The ceremony was also a main reason for the size of the shell mound on the northeast end of the island that, in 1918, was carbon dated to 900 A.D. by a University of California Berkeley professor, though the space was deemed the home of the Wiyot since “time immemorial” by the tribe. The increase of settlers in the area decimated the Wiyot population and by 1852 it is estimated that only about 800 Wiyot people remained in the area of of their traditional homeland. A particularly grisly milestone in this steep decline was an event that took place in February of 1860 when a group of militiamen from Eureka attacked the island at night during the annual ceremony. Men were away from the village, a fact supported by later accounts that determined of the 60–70 killed that night, 50–60 were women and children. A journalist, Bret Harte, documented the scene at the time: Neither age nor sex had been spared. Little children and old women were mercilessly stabbed and their skulls crushed with axes. When the bodies were landed at Union, a more shocking and revolting spectacle never was exhibited to the eyes of a Christian and civilized people. Old women, wrinkled and decrepit, lay weltering in blood, their brains dashed out and dabbled with their long gray hair. Infants scarce a span long, with their faces cloven with hatchets and their bodies ghastly with wounds. We gathered from the survivors that four or five white men attacked the ranches at about 4 o’clock in the morning. No resistance was made, it is said, to the butchers who did the work, but as they ran or huddled together for protection like sheep, they were struck down with hatchets.

The 1860 massacre was so horrific that it attracted national attention even by the violent standards of the time and deemed “one of the most notorious massacres in California history”, by the San Francisco Chronicle. However even before the massacre, locals were working to gain control of the island. In 1858, John T. Moore submitted a claim

190

A. R. HOLMES

to the Federal Land Claims Office under the Swamp and Overflow Lands Act to take ownership of the island and received a “certificate of purchase” for the property in January of 1860, which he sold to Robert Gunther the following month. The island was later diked to drain the saltmarshes and create land for cattle grazing, lumber mills were based nearby, and there was a dry dock boat-repair shop that operated on the island for 120 years – all causing environmental damage to the tidelands. In the early 1900s, the island was home to the exclusive Sequoia Yachting and Boating Club, but a fire gutted the club in 1913, and another devastated Gunther’s home on the island decades later. The city of Eureka purchased about 250 acres of the island in the 1950s from Ida Bohn Gates, and for decades, the island lay fallow, deemed “surplus property” by the City Council. The tribe began to lobby for the return of the island in the 1970s, and in a parallel case in the 1980s the tribe brought a successful lawsuit against the federal government to gain full tribal status. In 1996, when Cheryl A. Seidner began her service as tribal chairwoman, she began to work for the return of the island and made it a priority when the city put 1.5 acres of the island, a parcel that included Tuluwat, up for sale for $100,000. The tribe bought the parcel for $106,000 in 1998 and signed the transfer deed in 2000. In 2004 another parcel of 40 acres was deeded to the tribe from the city which secured a variety of grants to clean up the toxic contamination. In 2014, having become mayor of Eureka unopposed, Frank Jager read the history of the island and felt the need to write an apology to the Wiyot people. A few months later, Natalie Arroyo and Kim Bergel won seats on the Eureka City Council and also began to seek better government-to-government relations with the tribe. As a sign of the changing relationship, tribal members gathered at Tuluwat to finish the World Renewal Ceremony that had been interrupted by the massacre. In December 2018, the Eureka City Council voted to return the remaining 202 acres it held to the Wiyot people and, while there are still a few private homes on the island, the process was completed and celebrated on October 21, 2019.

9

REPRESENTING ALL OF CALIFORNIA TO THE WORLD

191

Since then, both the tribe and the city have received inquiries from other tribes, cities, and organizations such as the National League of Cities about how it was done as the process is without precedent in the United States. While there have been examples of the federal government, nonprofits, and private entities returning land to tribes, Eureka appears to be the first local municipality to have ever taken such a step – without a lawsuit as the catalyst. In terms of the renewal ceremony (and before the onset of COVID-19) the tribe was raising money in the hope of returning to the island in 2020 while others are working on the restoration of the natural habitat. The new Mayor of Eureka, Susan Seaman, who, with the current Wiyot chairman, Ted Hernandez, signed the deed of transfer, is hoping to work with the tribe to formalize a “more collaborative” relationship that will give the tribe “a stronger voice at the table” (Greenson 2019; Mukherjee 2019; Wickstaff 2019).

Practical Ideas from the Ranks Throughout the interview process, diplomats, California staff, subnational and tribal organizations were all asked for suggestions on how California could better serve them and the broader interests of the state in the international space. The responses included here came from people across the entire range of large and small consulates and from people across the country. The recommendations form five broad categories, and together create a useful starting list of items the state could consider in terms of its international engagement. Some would cost little or nothing while others might be better organized by a new agency. The first category falls under the heading of general support and includes relatively simple things such as: • A welcome packet or orientation materials for new consuls with basic information related to the city in which they are based, protocol, who to contact, etc. Apparently, some organizations or agencies do reach out, but not the state itself.

192

A. R. HOLMES

• A guide on how to engage the state – from personnel in the Governor’s office to other agencies – and, ideally, relevant contacts for that specific country, i.e., agencies dealing with issues or industries relevant to that country, e.g., agriculture or tourism. • More visits by relevant Sacramento officials to other cities to offer information and briefings – particularly Los Angeles, the largest consular corps in the country outside of New York. • Pictures with the governor (apparently Governor Brown refused selfies or even group pictures with the Consuls General who felt this to be an issue particularly in this social media age and for smaller consulates). Still in the area of information, and specifically questions of data, the second area may require more coordination and perhaps more resources. • Many consulates are small and don’t have the research capacity to do the kinds of work the state does as a matter of course in terms of economic trends, industry indicators, trade numbers, etc., but that information is not coordinated or not made readily available to diplomats. • An inventory of each state agency for its international connections (and contact people) so consulates could find relevant people more quickly. This helps ensure opportunities will not be missed by the state or again by small consulates unable to undertake this kind of work. • The creation of a database similar to that offered by the United States Trade Representative or Commerce Department, etc., but centralized and tailored to California. Going beyond a simple “download”, the information would include a strategic approach to each area, and thereby help consulates meet their own priorities. A third, more generalized category would require additional resources and staffing, as it concerns a range of issues Consuls General have encountered regarding a lack of protocol services, the small number of people in the governor’s office dealing with international activities (and the professional level of those staff), and the lack of resources and staff in all state agencies who know about and understand international issues.

9

REPRESENTING ALL OF CALIFORNIA TO THE WORLD

193

At least two partners made the case for a fourth area by suggesting that California needed to up its game in other countries through the strategic placement of offices. Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, and Korea were listed as logical options, but interestingly the point was also made that CA needs a more proactive office in Washington DC – both to lobby on issues of concern in the US government, and to connect more proactively with the embassies of the countries where they have a strategic interest (so they, in turn, could connect back to consulates in the state). This would also help resolve the point made by one Consul General who pointed out that, inevitably, Consuls in Los Angeles work in different ways with their home countries, their embassies in Washington and California’s state structures, and therefore the state working to make those connections as well would help close the loop. When asked, one responded, “Do they need a specific department? I cannot say. Should they open more trade offices in the world? I would say yes.” A related, more scholarly idea is to return to more historic notions of subnational representation and the (re)creation of the role of an honorary consul. The fifth and final area returns to the idea of a bespoke agency to deal with California’s growing global presence at every level. An observation that makes the need for more coordination on the part of the state increasingly important is the fact that, without some kind of international relations office (or at least coordinating office of some kind), consulates and partner countries have a harder time trying to follow up on initiatives such as the MOUs that California has been generating. Like the lack of a comprehensive archive of each level of government, the lack of some kind of tracking puts extra burdens on California’s partners.

Climate Change Is the Catalyst: Trump Created the Space Climate change offers a clear case of the need for more coordination and more coherence in California’s international activities. While California has assumed a leadership position on this issue, there is a question as to how our partners can interact on, or even trust, this activity without the benefit of formal treaties or agreements. Howells of the United Kingdom returns to the point about the “divergence in politics between the national level and the state level”, and suggests that the election of Donald Trump has given subnational activity on this issue a huge boost, while at the same

194

A. R. HOLMES

time increasing the gap between national and state politics. Local politicians respond to the national debate by ever more forcefully asserting their intention to defy national policy (often for their own political survival) but that split also has implications for our international guests and partners. As Howells points out, “There’s another side of it…which is how national governments like mine respond… The current post-coal alliance…is a case study in how we have essentially used quite a traditional diplomatic tool to build consensus around some common objectives and common activity, but rather than purely offering that out to national governments…we’ve done it with not just states, but with cities…in a kind of Venn Diagram approach to consensus” (Howells 2018). His sentiment is closely reflected by Deputy Mayor Hachigian who said, “I think the Trump Administration has created a lot of space for us to move. In part because it’s creating interest among our counterparts in other countries… It’s still kind of toes in the water…but I think it will [continue]” (Hachigian 2018). Still, there are some serious issues, as Rachel McCormick, Head of Energy and Environment at the Canadian Embassy, Washington DC calls to our attention, …all of these Memorandums of Understanding – and they seem to be coming up with really creative names – commissions and whatever. Some of these regional bodies… make statements [but] there’s no way to somehow track those or mark those… I’m sure somebody somewhere has a database or a spreadsheet that lists them that gets updated every year or something like that but…I’ve never seen a strategic overlay. I’d like know how all of these feed into each other. (McCormick 2018)

The point is simply that California’s international partners and allies have not only noted the boost in subnational activity—first on specific issues, and then on a whole host of topics as the division between California’s politics and national political began to widen—but they have also observed that there is little or no coordination between entities, agencies, actors, and political players. The constitutional challenge presented by the absence of binding agreements is clear to them, but so is the potential for agreements to fall away with the next civil servant or political head of an agency. The rise in activity has not been matched with an increase in infrastructure or capacity. Without a strategy, the state’s (county’s, city’s, region’s) would-be international partners cannot engage effectively.

9

REPRESENTING ALL OF CALIFORNIA TO THE WORLD

195

Without an infrastructure, opportunities are missed and there is little faith in the continuity or consistency of whatever actions are proposed. California’s economic might offers one kind of power, but it does not lend the state credibility. The absence of an integrated and interconnected strategic approach at every level of interaction along the state’s vertical axis needs to be addressed for the state to finally fulfill not only its soft power potential, but its global status. Kyser and Meyler usefully frame this dilemma by connecting the high politics issues of sovereignty to the specifics of climate change as well as the untapped soft power of the state in their article, “Like a Nation-State”: By its nature, California’s stance on climate change does not fit into a domestic-foreign construction. It cannot be characterized as one or the other, because it recognizes that much of the meaning of the climate change policy problem rests in the artificial division of human interests that is created by political territoriality. Far from being an embarrassment to the nation, therefore, California’s dissenting voice is regarded by many international observers as a primary reason for believing that climate change – the greatest tragedy of the commons the world has ever seen – might have a Hollywood ending. (Kyser and Meyler 2008)

References Baldassare, Mark. 2000. California in the New Millennium: The Changing Social and Political Landscape. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bawle, Awinash. 2018. Deputy Director of International Affairs and Business Development. Interview with author. December 28. Criekemans, David (ed.). 2010. Regional Sub-State Diplomacy Today. The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Cruz, Mark. 2018. Deputy Asst Secretary—Indian Affairs for Policy and Economic Development (DAS-PED), Washington, DC. Interview with author. October 30. Deloria Jr., Vine, and Clifford M. Lytle. 1984. The Nations Within: The Past and Future of American Indian Sovereignty. Austin: University of Texas Press. Echo-Hawk, Walter R. 2013. In the Light of Justice: The Rise of Human Rights in Native America and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing. Fry, Earl H. 1998. The Expanding Role of State and Local Governments in US Foreign Affairs. New York: Council on Foreign Affairs.

196

A. R. HOLMES

Greenson, Thadeus. 2019. ‘We’re Coming Home’: The Unprecedented Return of Indian Island to the Wiyot Tribe. North Coast Journal. January 24. https://www.northcoastjournal.com/humboldt/were-cominghome/Content?oid=12849841. Accessed 15 January 2020. Hachigian, Nina. 2018. Deputy Mayor for International Affairs, Los Angeles. Interview with author. September 18. Hawgood, John A. 1970. First and last consul: Thomas Oliver Larkin and the Americanization of California. Palo Alto, CA: Pacific Books. Hernandez, Christina. 2019. Regional Director, State Department, Office of Foreign Missions, Los Angeles. Interview with author. January 29. Howells, Michael. 2018. Consul General, United Kingdom, Los Angeles. Interview with author. September 19. Jones, Richard Wyn, and Elin Royles. 2012. Wales in the World: Intergovernmental Relations and Sub-State Diplomacy. British Journal of Politics and International Relations 14: 250–269. Kyser, Douglas A. and Bernadette A. Meyler. 2008. Like a Nation-State. UCLA Law Review 1621–1673. Lightfoot, Sheryl. 2016. Global Indigenous Politics: A Subtle Revolution. Abingdon, OX: Routledge. McCormick, Rachel. 2018. Head of Energy and Environment at Canadian Embassy, Washington, DC. Interview with author. October 30. McMillan, Samuel Lucas. 2012. The Involvement of State Governments in U.S. Foreign Relations. New York: Palgrave Mcmillan. Mills, Kurt. 1998. Human Rights in the Emerging Global Order: A New Sovereignty? Basingstoke: Macmillan. Mukherjee, Shomik. 2019. It’s Official, Eureka Formally Transfers Indian Island Back to Wiyot Tribe. Times-Standard. October 21. https://www.times-sta ndard.com/2019/10/21/its-official-eureka-formally-transfers-indian-islandland-back-to-wiyot-tribe/. Accessed 15 January 2020. n.a. Tuluwat Project. Wiyot Tribe. https://www.wiyot.us/186/Tuluwat-Project. Accessed 15 January 2019. Namey, Brian. 2018. Chief Public Affairs Officer, National Association of Counties (NACo), Washington DC. Interview with author. October 19. Perry, Mark. 2018. Putting America’s Enormous $19.4T Economy into Perspective by Comparing US State GDPs to Entire Countries. May 8. American Enterprise Institute. http://www.aei.org/publication/putting-americas-eno rmous-19-4t-economy-into-perspective-by-comparing-us-state-gdps-to-ent ire-countries/. Rainwater, Brooks. 2019. Senior Executive and Director of the National League of Cities’ (NLC) Center for City Solutions, Washington DC. Interview with author. April 25.

9

REPRESENTING ALL OF CALIFORNIA TO THE WORLD

197

Rathish, Rohit. 2019. Indian Deputy Consul General & Commercial Representative in San Francisco. Telephone interview with author. May 13. Smurr, Douglas. 2010. California Adrift Internationally: Resetting Course for the 21st Century. Journal of International Business and Cultural Studies 3: 1–24. Snider, Christina. 2018. Tribal Advisor Office of Governor Brown (and now of Governor Newsom), Sacramento. Interview with author. December 5. Südbeck, Hans-Ulrich. 2018. German Consul General in San Francisco. Telephone interview with author. November 28. Van den Brande, Luc. 2010. Sub-State Diplomacy Today. In David Criekemans (ed.) Regional Sub-State Diplomacy Today. The Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Whatley, Chris. 2003. State Official’s Guide to International Affairs. Washington DC: The Council of State governments. Wickstaff, Julia. 2019. Newsletter: Eureka Returns an Island to a Tribe Nearly 160 Years After Massacre. Los Angeles Times. October 22. https://www.lat imes.com/california/story/2019-10-22/eureka-wiyot-indian-island. Accessed 15 January 2020.

CHAPTER 10

Multi-layered Diplomacy in a Global State

Inside everyone in this great chamber today, and everyone listening all around the globe, there is the heart of a patriot that feels the same powerful love for your nation, the same intense loyalty to your homeland. The passion that burns in the hearts of patriots and the souls of nations has inspired reform and revolution, sacrifice and selflessness, scientific breakthroughs, and magnificent works of art. Our task is not to erase it, but to embrace it. To build with it. To draw on its ancient wisdom. And to find within it the will to make our nations greater, our regions safer, and the world better. To unleash this incredible potential in our people, we must defend the foundations that make it all possible. Sovereign and independent nations are the only vehicle where freedom has ever survived, democracy has ever endured, or peace has ever prospered. And so we must protect our sovereignty and our cherished independence above all.… America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism. Around the world, responsible nations must defend against threats to sovereignty not just from global governance, but also from other, new forms of coercion and domination… We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy. (Trump 2018)

© The Author(s) 2020 A. R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3_10

199

200

A. R. HOLMES

Globality Is Connectivity The idea of global governance cuts across many disciplinary domains – particularly those of International Relations and Native American Studies – and in a way not dissimilar to the vertical axis that reveals different understandings of sovereignty and sites of diplomacy along the levels of engagement for California or other subnational entities. As fields of inquiry, and like every discipline in the academy, International Relations and Native American Studies frame the world in a way they believe offers insight and perspective on a specific set of questions. However, the questions themselves are now being tested, sometimes severely, as globalization has compressed and conflated ideas of tribe, nation, country, state, or any form of governance. At the same time, ideas of identity, patriotism, nationalism, and popular sovereignty have been brought to the fore as defining features of social discourse. As Kurt Mills provocatively reminds us in Human Rights in the Emerging Global Order: A New Sovereignty?, “Regardless of what criteria one uses to describe nations, they are not ‘natural’ entities waiting to be discovered with natural inherent rights… Although having a nation has come to be seen as ‘an inherent attribute of humanity’, Gellner describes the nation as a ‘myth’… Nationalism, then, is an exercise in myth-making. And, to the myth of the nation, nationalists apply the principle of the so-called ‘nation-state’” (Mills 1998). To date, International Relations as a field has observed and described the evolution and development of an international society in an attempt to take back what it claims to be the anarchical space between states by creating the rules and order of place through the building of institutions, alliances, and norms of global governance. Today, the discipline is being called upon to predict and define the direction and forms these governance structures will take in a post sovereign/post nation-state world. Globalization has eroded the idea of the universal in favor of the national or even the individual, as devolution and identity politics undermine the established international order. “Modernity” has been found guilty of enforcing homogenization and a specific type of uniformity, with little recognition that such a charge is overblown given that many systems, cultures, and traditions of governance resonate and continue to operate – despite the dominance of the hierarchical sovereign narrative. Meanwhile, indigenous scholars have been forced to argue the case for inherent sovereignty using the language of the bounded hierarchical state. The general assumption has been that all prior types of sovereignty have

10

MULTI-LAYERED DIPLOMACY IN A GLOBAL STATE

201

been effectively assimilated – yet the entire traditional frame is antithetical to the aims and desires of inherent sovereignty. The human rights/global governance discourse helps connect the questions of disparate disciplines by cutting across the territory between them and perhaps move the conversation toward what it means to be global. Following that line of reasoning, Shahar Hameiri and Lee Jones argue that the “global” is not done on some high, remote, plane of authority, but is work that is increasingly happening at the subnational level(s). International organizations are too remote from the people they are intended to represent or protect, and thus agencies and entities need to be closer to the issues they purportedly deal with. They go on to say “…achieving this requires jettisoning the outdated concept of sovereignty” and further claim that the “unitary state” must be “disaggregated” (Hameiri and Jones 2016). Whether we use James Rosenau’s idea of “fragmengration” to indicate the simultaneity of integration and fragmentation currently happening in the system, or Ivo Duchacek’s visual of sovereign boundaries as a “sieve” (Duchacek 1986), the assertion remains the same. The idea that a “modern” state must relentlessly push toward an ideal-type of an international or global institution as being ever-larger – or that the creation of overarching authority structure will enable us to deal more effectively with the issues that affect the earth’s population – has come to a standstill. The anarchical society is no longer somewhere “out there” beyond and between the sovereign nation-states. Globalization has revealed the anarchy within. Time and the tension between the universal and the particular has exposed the roots and true colors of the nation-state. Hameiri and Jones continue, arguing, “The claim that ‘global governance is in crisis’ makes sense only if we limit our definition of the term to processes like the conclusion of formal international treaties or the emergence of supranational institutional authorities” (Hameiri and Jones 2016) and effectively suggest that we are looking in the wrong direction. Taking their ideas one step further, even if the claims made on behalf of the supranational have stalled, perhaps truly global governance will come from what they call a “transformation of domestic state apparatuses to enact international agendas” (Hameiri and Jones 2016). Perhaps to be global we must dismantle the Westphalian state and not only allow, but encourage, the “multi–layered and polyarchic networks” that are made up of NGOs, IGOS, transnational corporations, and a whole host of nonstate and sub-state entities now active on the international stage (Sending

202

A. R. HOLMES

and Neumann 2006). Thus, the language of international relations brings us directly to the intersection of global governance, sovereignty and inherent sovereignty, and the vital importance of diplomacy. Not surprisingly, indigenous studies also engage with global governance with almost identical claims by re-framing the question. For Sheryl Lightfoot, “Global indigenous politics necessarily forces an important global question to the surface: how to negotiate and redesign new plural, overlapping and multiple types of sovereignties – state and indigenous – within and across state borders, including sovereignties that may or may not be tied to exclusive authority over territories” (Lightfoot 2016). For many native scholars, the “global” is inextricably woven into the issue of self-determination or self-governance, while positing the view that such desires and recognition need not be seen as a claim to secession. As Walter Echo-Hawk explains, “…indigenous self-determination runs parallel to state sovereignty and takes place within the body of the state” (emphasis added, Echo-Hawk 2013). As Duane Champagne points out, the nation-state is not well equipped to deal with the selfgovernance needed by tribes. Further, and directly relevant to the state of California, the pervasive language of diversity or multiculturalism will not square this circle. What is needed, he argues, is a multinational state (or, as suggested by Michael Keating, a plurinational state) “…that can accommodate Indigenous rights, territories, institutions, cultures and self-governance” (Lightfoot 2016). Such an approach, Mills suggests, will require a “variety of forms of political association outside of the sovereignty discourse… selfdetermination is not a one-time thing, used once and then discarded forever”, as “different types of communities may be eligible to claim self-determination at different times” (Mills 1998). The challenge to traditional hierarchical sovereignty is clear. This fluid form of recognition and a constantly negotiated and renegotiated form of governance is, by many standards of sovereign understanding, positively dangerous. Perhaps more importantly, the idea that the current form of governance that Paul Keal calls, “The nexus between identity and difference” would have to be broken to remove the old state structures of place and regain the room for the pluralities of space. As he argues, “Difference would have to be accepted as non-threatening and as valuable in and of itself” (Keal 2003). In the specific case of tribal sovereignty, as James Casey points out, “in many locations within the borders of the United States, there exist

10

MULTI-LAYERED DIPLOMACY IN A GLOBAL STATE

203

three sovereigns – the Indian Nations, the individual states, and the federal government – all with uncertain powers with respect to each other” (Casey 1994; ncai.org) and therefore a “de-centering” and a “reconceptualizing” of state sovereignty is needed (Keal 2003). Again, the radical idea supported here is that such a form of governance need not result in states losing sovereignty, but could mean that tribes and others could gain a form of sovereignty over fundamental cultural issues.

Globality in Practice The theoretical struggles are, in some ways, not as important as the ways in which these issues are worked out in practice – as seen in the overlap of these layers around the world today. In Europe, the protodiplomatic actor of Catalonia has been identified by Keating as an “incomplete sovereign” (Keating 2004), and yet the powerful nation-state of Spain is no longer able to withstand the pressure from this region’s movement toward independence. The country’s politics have become increasingly complicated and fragmented to the point of deadlock over the issue of regional secession. In the United Kingdom, the Brexit debate has been made even more intricate by the presence of a secessionist entity (Scotland), a subnational entity (Wales), and an entity with a long history of community violence (Northern Ireland). The sovereignty over and between these “nations within” has prolonged an already thorny process and may still push these subnational units in a new and different direction. In Australia, and in more explicitly diplomatic terms of recognition, in 1972 a beach umbrella (and then a small tent) became the Aboriginal “Tent Embassy” in front of the old Parliament House in Canberra. Yet, when offered space inside, the leaders of the aboriginal movement refused. The tent had become a symbol. As Constantinou and Der Derian note, “…although the Australian government has not recognized it as a de jure embassy, it seems to have accepted it de facto, and it is now listed on the National Estate by the Australian Heritage Commission” (Constantinou and Der Derian 2010). Similarly, as indicated, tribes in the United States such as the Navajo Nation or Diné are considering the opening of an embassy (Denetclaw 2019), while the Cherokee may send a delegate to the United States House of Representatives (Kaur 2019). Elsewhere, and according to some interviewees, other groups that are heavily invested in symbolic politics – such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization – have rejected the idea of joining forces with indigenous

204

A. R. HOLMES

groups in forums such as the United Nations as they want to be fully recognized, separate, and in their own right. In the United States, some foreign representatives of secessionist nations find common ground. There is even some dialogue between Quebec, Basque Country, Catalonia, and Kurdistan (though not so much Scotland). According to some interviewees, there have even been discussions about the possibility of a grouping in Washington, DC designed to discuss the diplomatic issues they have in common – though, to date, this has not happened. In a slightly different innovation, and as of 2017, there is now a fully accredited “Tech Ambassador” named by Denmark operating in California (Horejsova et al. 2018). The point here is that subnational, tribal, and national entities of many different varieties are seeking representation – or at least a more powerful voice on both the national and international stage. However, there is no organization of these different efforts or a clear sense of direction, as each entity acts in its own interests and within its own context. Despite the fact their goals are the same, what is accepted as legitimate or accountable governance remains to be seen.

California as a Global Cosmopolitan vs an Accidental Internationalist Ivo Duchacek makes the basic observation: …the human race has lived for millennia in separate territorial compartments – local, tribal, or national – and organized its work, set common goals, and progressed toward them within geographically delineated areas, large or small. The political organization of the world is still primarily based on territorial divisions and subdivisions of the land surface and its imaginary extensions into the seas and air space. (Duchacek 1986)

The challenge of globalization is fundamentally about the difficulty of being connected locally and globally at the same time. Loyalties at every level are constantly being tested by the fact that technology has enhanced our ability to see far away while still living with and through local issues. Kwame Appiah frames this as the “task” of the cosmopolitan and presents us all with the need “to focus on both far and near”. He argues, “Cosmopolitanism is an expansive act of the moral imagination. It sees human

10

MULTI-LAYERED DIPLOMACY IN A GLOBAL STATE

205

being as shaping their lives within nesting memberships: a family, a neighborhood, a plurality of overlapping identity groups, spiraling out to encompass all humanity. It asks us to be many things because we are many things” (Appiah 2019). However, the intentional “paradox” at the heart of cosmopolitanism is the increasing juxtaposition of what it means to be a citizen and what it means to be a patriot – despite the fact that, as Appiah points out, managing the multiple identities and citizenships is “something everyone has to do”. Returning to two deceptively simple observations made over the course of this investigation, the issue of “whether or not something is foreign depends on where you are” and the question of “when is a treaty not a treaty?” together effectively sum up the practical realities of globalization for subnational diplomacy. Various scholars have called on California to look beyond its borders and embrace its international role. The state needs to move from the accidental or even default internationalist to something more intentionally connected from the bottom to the top of its axis of action – and back again. To be a global cosmopolitan is not just about economic development or outreach, although that is clearly a significant undertaking for the fifth largest economy in the world. This process needs to be about creating collaborative structures within the state, thoughtful connections to those diplomats and others in the state representing outside interests, and building a footprint in other countries – either through the State department (like other subnationals) or separately (like other protodiplomatic entities). Governor Newsom, quoted at the outset of this project, has continued to work and to build a team that is expanding the state’s vision of what it means to be locally responsible and globally connected (and vice versa). As well as the new interagency committee under his Lt. Governor, new and more staff have been hired and an ambitious work plan has been developed to build a more robust infrastructure. However, in itself, even that effort will not be enough. To be global is also a mindset, and to be a global cosmopolitan may require the state to examine its own selfconfidence at least long enough to seek advice and guidance from the many other subnational entities who have already been doing this work for decades. Governor Newsom is not wrong in saying that California has much to say to the world, but to be a credible global actor also means having a better understanding of those within the state and of the fact that California is only one of many voices in that external space. The global world requires more collaboration, not more one-party, state hegemons.

206

A. R. HOLMES

In the midst of the Brexit debate, British journalist, David Goodhart, outlined what he saw as the struggle between the “somewheres” and the “anywheres” as particularly relevant to the issues facing a number of liberal democracies today. Briefly, the argument suggests that “anywheres” (people who are educated, relatively affluent, mobile, and who value autonomy and fluidity) have effectively taken over the political structures of all parties to benefit themselves. Meanwhile, the “somewheres” (less educated people, who prioritize group identity and security) have been left behind and are accused of being less “modern”, less “civilized”, xenophobic, or even racist. Goodhart concedes there are many “inbetweeners” who Appiah essentially calls the “elsewheres”, made up of those who can see that “somewheres” and “anywheres” must ultimately live together and that many (if not most) of those making up both of these core groups actually came from “elsewhere”. In effect, our connections to the rest of the world cannot be denied, nor can the importance of the local be ignored. To recognize that entities, like people, can, and for centuries have, maintained many different identities, or even sovereignties, and that each of those identities must be respected, is no small change for a system that resists change – often with violence. However, history tells us that nations, states, and nation-states (or state-nations) as entities are not naturally occurring. Like everything else in our social world, these forms of governance were created by human need and imagination. The system of states has been undergoing seismic, almost geologic change for some time. The results of that change are now becoming more visible as countless subnational entities, tribes, cities, counties, provinces, states, länder, cantons, etc., are constantly altering their behavior on the international stage. Ironically and tragically, the current global pandemic has now forced the pace of what is effectively a paradigm shift in terms of our governance in ways that remain unpredictable and perhaps dangerous. Governors, mayors, and others have often been lauded for their actions in support of efforts against climate change and other forms of collaboration. They now find themselves struggling against each other and even against the federal government in ways that recall the realist idea of a battle of “all against all”. Governor Newsom has again called down the language of the “nationstate” as other governors talk about their need to compete as a “country” to gain the supplies they need to deal with COVID-19 and many at home and abroad resist sharing what they have. To this point, California

10

MULTI-LAYERED DIPLOMACY IN A GLOBAL STATE

207

has avoided entirely self-interested behavior, but even by partnering with neighboring states “against” the central power they reflect older modes of alliance building and counterbalancing. The direction the state will ultimately take as it prepares for the reemergence of the sovereignties of space in the midst of such turmoil and uncertainty cannot be known or even predicted at this point. However, repeating the mistakes of the nationstate or recreating the hierarchies at deeper levels or with more players involved, will not provide the multi-layered diplomacy needed to answer the issues of a global world – nor will it ultimately create a California for all.

References Appiah, Kwame Anthony. 2019. The Importance of Elsewhere: In Defense of Cosmopolitanism. Foreign Affairs. March/April 20–26. Casey, James A. 1994. Sovereignty by Sufferance: The Illusion of Indian Tribal Sovereignty. Cornell Law Review 79 (2): 404–451. Constantinou, Costas M., and James Der Derian. 2010. Sustainable Diplomacies. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Denetclaw, Pauly. 2019. A Native Embassy Row? Indian Country Today. March 18. https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/news/a-native-embassy-rownavajo-nation-is-looking-for-a-dc-home-mYTKMERKCUeHnWFnmrnx9A/. Duchacek, Ivo D. 1986. The Territorial Dimension of Politics: Within, Among, and Across Nations. Colorado: Westview Press. Echo-Hawk, Walter R. 2013. In the Light of Justice: The Rise of Human Rights in Native America and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing. https://www.northcoastjournal.com/hum boldt/were-coming-home/Content?oid=12849841. Goodhart, David. 2017. Why I left My Liberal London Tribe. The Financial Times. March 16. https://www.ft.com/content/39a0867a-0974-11e7-ac5a903b21361b43. Keating, Michael. 2004. Plurinational Democracy: Stateless Nations in a PostSovereignty Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hameiri, Shahar, and Lee Jones. 2016. Global Governance as State Transformation. Political Studies 64 (4): 793–810. Horejsova, Tereza, Pavlina Ittelson, and Jovan Kurbalija. 2018. The Rise of Techdiplomacy in the Bay Area. Diplofoundation. April. https://www.diplom acy.edu/bayarea. Kaur, Harmeet. 2019. The Cherokee Nation Wants a Representative in Congress, Taking the US Government Up on a Promise It Made Nearly 200 Years Ago. CNN Politics. https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/25/politics/cherokee-

208

A. R. HOLMES

nation-congressional-delegate-treaty/index.html/. Accessed 25 September 2019. Keal, Paul. 2003. European Conquest and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: The Moral Backwardness of International Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lightfoot, Sheryl. 2016. Global Indigenous Politics: A Subtle Revolution. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Mills, Kurt. 1998. Human Rights in the Emerging Global Order: A New Sovereignty? Basingstoke: Macmillan. Sending, Ole Jacob, and Iver B. Neumann. 2006. Governance to Governmentality: Analyzing NGOs, States, and Power. International Studies Quarterly 50 (3): 651–672. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2006.00418.x. Trump, Donald. 2018. Remarks by President Trump to the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly, New York, NY. September 25. White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarkspresident-trump-73rd-session-united-nations-general-assembly-new-york-ny/.

Charts

See Charts C.1, C.2, C.3, C.4 and C.5.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 A. R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3

209

210

CHARTS

Chart C.1

California governors 1958–2019

#

Governor

32 Pat Brown

Terms in Office

Party

January 5, 1959 – January 2, 1967 (lost election)

Democratic

1958 1962 1966

January 2, 1967 January 6, 1975 (not a candidate for election)

Republican

January 6, 1975 – January 3, 1983 (not candidate for election)

Democratic

January 3, 1983 – January 7, 1991 (not candidate for election)

Republican

36 Pete Wilson

January 7, 1991 – January 4, 1999 (term limited)

Republican

37 Gray Davis

January 4, 1999 – November 17, 2003 (recalled)

Democratic

33 Ronald Reagan

34 Jerry Brown

35 George Deukmejian

1970

1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2003 (special)

November 17, 2003 – January 3, 2011 (term limited)

Republican

39 Jerry Brown

January 3, 2011 – January 7, 2019 (term limited)

Democratic

40 Gavin Newsom

January 7, 2019 – present

Democratic

38 Arnold Schwarzenegger

Election

2006

2010

2014 2018

Source: State of California (www.ca.gov/) Note: The Governor can serve two terms of four years, with a limit of two terms. This constitutional limitation was passed in November 1990. The California State Assembly members are limited to three terms (6 years) since 1996. The State Senate members are limited to two terms (8 years) since 1998. These term limits are lifetime, not consecutive. Source: League of Women Voters (lwvc.org).

CHARTS

211

Chart C.2 California’s business agreements with other countries and subnationals Dates 10 April 2013

Type of Agreement MOU

14 April 2013

MOU

CA and Jiangsu Province, China

14 April 2013

MOU

GoBiz and Administration Committee of Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park

15 April 2013

MOU

CA and Guangdong Province, China

16 April 2013

MOU

24 June 2013

MOU

GoBiz, Municipality of Chongqing Foreign Trade & Economic Relations Commission, and Sacramento Economic Development Department CA and Osaka Prefecture, Japan

14 Oct 2013

MOU

CA and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China

26 Feb 2014

MOU

CA and Peru

5 March 2014

MOU

CA and Israel

11 June 2014

Agreement bilateral cooperation & R&D MOU

GoBiz and the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Economy, Israel

30 July 2014

Who is involved? CA and China’s Ministry of Commerce and relevant provinces

CA and Ministry of Economy, Mexico

What does it do? Established China/Provinces and US/CA Joint Working Group on Trade and Investment Cooperation to expand trade and investment cooperation, strengthen communication, enhance trust, boost economic growth, and create jobs. Promoted high-level visits/exchanges. Cooperation in energy, biomedicine, information technology & high-tech agriculture. Included the Sino-American Technological Innovation Park in Wuxi under the framework of Jiangsu-CA Joint Economic Committee. Increased cooperation in training. Promoted development of high-tech industry. Strengthened communication and cooperation. Boosted research and investment between high-tech parks, higher ed, research and development institutions and science and technology companies. Promoted transition of major industrial projects, transformation of scientific research, tech, personnel exchanges, and branding. Established sister state/ province relationship. Promoted growth of two-way trade and investment. Established joint commitment to initiatives in science and technological innovation, low-carbon development, environmental conservation, clean energy, education, training, tourism, and cultural exchange. Promoted coordination on investment familiarization and attraction activities. Developed connections between businesses in Chongqing, Sac, and other CA cities. Planned the inclusion of Sacramento and its Chongqing office in a California-China Trade and Investment Network. Supported economic and trade cooperation in areas of clean energy, environmental protection, information technology, biotech, manufacturing, and tourism. Promoted exchange programs between universities and other educational institutions. Promoted bilateral trade and investment cooperation. Furthered economic and trade cooperation, and established communications designed to promote the external investment and consultation services of both enterprises. Promoted trade and investment missions. Facilitated the identification of economic opportunities and academic/ private business partnerships. Recognized duty to protect the environment through sustainable development. Fostered cooperation on climate change mitigation/adaptation and reducing GHG emissions. Established strategic partnership for joint innovation, exchanges and cooperation in water conservation and management, alternative energy and clean technologies, health and bio-tech solutions, cybersecurity, arts/ culture, education, and agricultural technologies. Facilitated collaborations between entrepreneurs and researchers through the CA innovation hub (iHub). Encouraged cooperation in industrial research and development. Promoted joint development and subsequent marketing of products or processes to be commercialized. Established framework to expand trade and investment, foster scientific and technological collaboration for business development in emerging sectors, strengthen communication, enhance trust, boost economic development and create jobs.

(continued)

212

CHARTS

Chart C.2 (continued) 26 Aug 2014

MOU

CA and the Secretariat of Tourism (SECTUR), Mexico

Developed tourism promotion initiatives to increase bilateral tourism flows. Promoted the importance of tourism/travel economic engine. Supported the exchange of relevant experiences, statistics, information materials etc Built on the original framework in the MO Cooperation on climate change, renewable energy, trade and investment, vehicles, highspeed rail and water dated Sept 5, 2014. Promoted cooperation for study of electric vehicles in CA. Calls for cooperation on the project to demonstrate the redox flow battery (megawatt scale energy storage device). Established a sister state/ province relationship. Promoted the growth of two-way trade and investment and joint commitment on science and technological innovation, low-carbon development, environmental conservation, clean energy, education, training, tourism and cultural exchange.

14 Oct 2014

MOU

14 Oct 2014

MOU

GoBiz and the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), Japan GoBiz and NEDO, Japan

21 Sept 2014

Agreement to Establish Sister StateProvince Relationship

CA and Guangdong Province, China

6 April 2015

MOU

CA and Catalonia

Encouraged economic and trade cooperation. Announced joint trade-promotion activities and exchange programs. Fostered collaboration between universities, organizations, research centers, CA’s iHubs, and companies to develop science and technology programs that support business development. Encouraged the coordination of efforts to combat climate change and to promote the efficient management of water resources.

2 June 2016

MOU

GoBiz and state of Telangana, India

5 Sept 2016

MOU

CA and Japan

Established partnership for joint innovation, exchange and cooperation. Encouraged trade delegations and professional exchanges between CA’s iHubs and Telangana’s T-Hub. Encouraged public-private partnerships in areas of economic development, social entrepreneurship, capital formation, import/export, and research. Strengthened/coordinated efforts on climate change, renewable energy, energy storage, trade & investment, zero emission vehicles, high speed rail, and water conservation/ management.

9 Jan 2017

Letter of Intent

GoBiz and the Netherlands

Affirmed parties’ commitment to cooperate on climate change, Smart and e-Mobility, and energy innovation. Promoted info exchange on access to risk capital and debt finance. Developed venture capital program (~20 million euros) to be available for CA and Dutch businesses.

7 Sept 2018

Renewed Letter of Intent

GoBiz and the Netherlands

Promoted information exchange on use of seed capital investments in the Netherlands, and the Small Business Loan Guarantee Program in CA. Promoted the continuation of funding for the venture capital program available for CA and Dutch business in the field of Smart and e-Mobility.

CHARTS

213

Chart C.3 California’s climate change agreements with other countries and subnationals Dates

Type of Agreement

Who is involved?

What does it do?

18 Nov. 2008

MOU

CA, IL, and WI (US); provinces of Aceh & Papua (Indonesia); and states of Amapá, Amazonas, Mato Grosso, and Pará (Brazil)

Established Governors’ Climate and Forest (GCF) Task Force to advance jurisdic on-wide approaches to low emissions and Reducing Emissions from Deforesta on and forest Degrada on (REDD+). Provided founda on for coopera on on issues related to climate policy, financing, technology exchange, and research.

27 Sept. 2009

CA Air Resources Board (CARB) and Québec

17 Dec. 2009

Agreement cap&trade programs MOU

Promoted coopera on on the harmoniza on and integra on of the mandatory GHG emissions repor ng programs and cap-andtrade programs for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Resulted from the establishment of the Pacific Coast Collabora ve (June 2008), and the MOU between BC and CA on the Pacific Coast Collabora on to Protect Our Shared Climate and Ocean (May 2007). Promoted immediate ac on to address GHG emissions from the transporta on sector through the implementa on of vehicle emissions standards.

16 Nov. 2010

MOU

CA, State of Acre (Brazil), and State of Chiapas (Mexico)

CA Governor- Arnold Schwarzenegger

CARB and the B.C. Ministry of Environment, Canada

Enhanced joint efforts on environmental protec on and sustainable natural resource use. Priori zed coopera on on reducing emissions from deforesta on and land degrada on. Promoted addi onal carbon sequestra on through the restora on and reforesta on of degraded lands and forests, and through improved forest management prac ces.

CA Governor - Jerry Brown 10 April 2013

MOU

CA and the Ministry of Commerce, China

14 April 2013

MOU

CA and Jiangsu Province, China

15 April 2013

MOU

12 July 2013

Le er of Intent

CA and Guangdong Province, China CA and Mexico

14 Oct. 2013

MOU

CA and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region

Established China Provinces and US CA Joint Working Group on Trade and Investment Coopera on to strengthen communica on, enhance trust, boost economic growth, and create jobs in energy, environmental protec on, infrastructure, informa on tech, agriculture, and manufacturing. Resulted from agreement between Governor Brown Jr. and President Xi (then Vice President Xi), in February 2012. Promoted coopera on and exchanges in culture, and humani es. Enhanced coopera on in the sectors of new energy, new materials, biomedicine, new genera on of info technology, and high-tech agriculture Promoted exchange and coopera on in science and technological innova on, conserva on, and renewable and sustainable energy Ini ated process of evalua on and implementa on of mechanisms for collabora on and exchange in the area of technology transfer of Verifica on Centers’ Control Systems operated in CA, to reduce emissions of contaminants and training public officers in Mexico for the use of such systems. Built on the MOU between CA and Chinese Provinces on the Establishment of a Joint Working Group on Trade and Investment Coopera on. Expanded coopera on in trade and investment focus on industrializa on of agriculture and animal husbandry, rare earth, coal, and nonferrous metals, energy development and ecological environmental protec on, infrastructure, equipment manufacturing, and modern logis cs, biological medicine, cultural tourism, finance, informa on industry, and modern service

(continued)

214

CHARTS

Chart C.3 (continued)

24 Oct. 2013

MOU

28 Oct. 2013

CA, CT, MD, MA, NY, OR, RI, VT, and NJ

Governors of CA, WA, OR, and the Premier of B.C., Canada

26 Feb. 2014

MOU

CA and Peru

5 March 2014

MOU

CA and Israel

24 June 2014

MOU

GoBiz and the Office of the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Economy, Israel

29 July 2014

MOU

CA Energy Commission and the Ministry of Energy, Mexico

30 July 2014

MOU

CA and the Ministry of Economy, Mexico

30 July 2014

Letter of Intent

26 Aug. 2014

MOU

21 Sept. 2014

MOU

CA and the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, Mexico CA and the Secretariat of Tourism, Mexico CA and Guangdong Province, China

11 March 2015

Working Agreement

CA Energy Commission and the Province of NoordHolland, Netherlands

industry. This MOU has been inactive and should be reviewed/reevaluated. Coordinated actions to support implementation of the ZeroEmission Vehicles. States agreed to create and participate in a Multi-State ZEV Program Implementation Task Force to serve as a forum for coordination/ collaboration on program support and implementation issues to promote effective and efficient implementation of ZEV regulations. Parties agreed to lead national and international policy on climate change, to transition the West Coast to clean modes of transportation and reduce the large share of GHG emissions from this sector. Promoted investment in clean energy and climateresilient infrastructure. Created framework for cooperation in climate change mitigation/ adaptation, and the reduction of GHG emissions from agricultural and forestry. Promoted dialogue, technical exchange, and joint projects in climate change policies, air quality, forest management, water quality/management, and clean tech. Facilitated economic cooperation/development and joint industrial research/development. Enhanced business relationships and educational opportunities to promote job creation and global solutions from joint CA-Israel innovation initiatives in sectors like water conservation/management, alternative energy/ clean tech, health/ biotech solutions, cyber security, arts/culture, education, and agricultural tech. Promoted cooperation in industrial research/ development to enhance industrial competitiveness and strengthen economic and commercial cooperation. Built on the MOU signed between the Parties on March 5, 2014. Promoted cooperation in clean energies by encouraging and promoting technical/ bilateral support and joint implementation of programs and activities in low-carbon energy, clean technologies, biofuels, and energy efficiency. Established a formal/ flexible to strengthen trade and investment cooperation and communication, enhance trust, boost economic development, create jobs, and foster scientific and technological collaboration for business development in manufacturing, alternative/ renewable energy, environmental protection, information technologies, cross-border goods movement, and agriculture and agricultural technologies. Intention to cooperate in the creation of a voluntary Migrant Worker Pilot Program aimed at preventing abuses in the recruitment of Mexican H-2 temporary workers. Promoted developing/ strengthening cooperation in tourism. Built on the MOU of April 15, 2013 - agreed to push for growth of two-way trade and investment. Declared a joint commitment to initiatives in science/ technological innovation, low-carbon development, environmental conservation, clean energy, education, training, tourism, and cultural exchange. Outlined areas for information exchange and potential projects in sustainable transportation and energy innovation to meet 2050 GHG and energy goals. The Coast to Coast e-Mobility Programs will be liaison and report annually.

(continued)

CHARTS

Chart C.3

215

(continued)

6 April 2015

MOU

CA and Catalonia, Spain

19 May 2015

MOU

Sept. 2015

Joint Declaration

Founding signatories: CA, OR, VT, WA, BadenWürttemberg (Germany), Catalonia (Spain), Wales (UK), Acre (Brazil), Baja CA (Mexico), Jalisco (Mexico), B.C. (Canada), Ontario (Canada) CA and Chile

15 Sept. 2015

MOU

CA and the National Development and Reform Commission, China

15 Sept. 2015

MOU

CA and the Municipality of Zhenjiang, China

22 Sept. 2015

Governors’ Accord

The US and China

22 Sept. 2015

MOU

CA and Sichuan Province, China

29 Sept. 2015

International Alliance

Founding signatories: CA, CT, MA, OR, RI, VT, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK, and Québec

5 Oct. 2015

MOU

CA and Jiangsu Province, China

7 Dec. 2015

Joint Declaration

CA and France

7 Dec. 2015

MOU

CA and Zhenjiang Municipality, China

Promoted joint economic and trade cooperation/ support in environmental protection, water resources management, advanced agriculture/ food technologies, and clean and sustainable public transportation, high speed-trains, electric vehicles, and green ports. Under2 MOU is a first-of-its kind agreement, initially signed by 12 states and provinces, but grown into a coalition of 220 governments, spanning 6 continents and 43 countries. Parties agree to commit to and cooperate on keeping global temperature rises to well below 2°C.

Built on the Chile-CA Plan for common vision for a cleaner and sustainable world & need to achieve goal established by the UNFCCC, to stabilize GHGs and keep warming below 2°C. Included commitment to common work plan on climate change. Further strengthened and coordinated efforts to combat global climate change, promote clean and efficient energy, and support low-carbon development, while protecting public health, the environment, and natural resources. Contributed to the implementation of the 2014 Sino-US Joint Declaration on Climate Change. Provided framework for carrying out practical exchanges/ cooperation with specific focus on the reduction of GHG emissions, energy efficiency, and the development of low carbon smart cities and clean technologies. Stated Zhenjiang’s intent to endorse the Under2 MOU. Accord on Clean Energy and Economic Development promoted accelerating the utilization of renewable resources and commercializing new clean energy technologies. Promoted the reduction of transportation emissions, energy efficiency in buildings/ industries, advancing smart grids, and modernizing the electrical grid infrastructure. Promoted intention to strengthen cooperation in the areas of clean energy and environmental protection. Contained Sichuan’s intent to support the subnational climate initiative and low carbon actions led by CA (Under2 MOU). Founded international alliance to accelerate the world’s adoption of zero-emission vehicles. Members will collaborate on targets to increase the number of ZEVs, share data/ technology and encourage other governments. Since the founding of the ZEV Alliance, additional governments have joined. Enhanced cooperation on low-carbon development and climate change and contributed to the implementation of the 2014 SinoUS Joint Declaration on Climate Change which provided a framework for the Participants to cooperate in the areas of lowcarbon smart cities planning, the promotion of clean energy, and the reduction of carbon emissions. Stated intention to reduce air pollutants, including carbon emissions related to port activities. Stated commitment to share and cooperate in the application of sustainable policies and practices. Mutually beneficial areas of cooperation include climate change mitigation, carbon pricing, adaptation/ resiliency, water management, transportation, clean energy, and sustainable buildings/cities. Created a Plan of Actions on Low-Carbon Cooperation including low-carbon urban planning, industries, renewable energy, ecobuilding, energy conservation, and high-efficiency agriculture. Built on previous MOU signed by parties on 15 Sept. 2015.

(continued)

216

CHARTS

Chart C.3 (continued) 28 Dec. 2015

Letter

CalEPA Secretary Matt Rodriguez to the World Bank

Confirmed CA’s endorsement of the Zero Routine Flaring by 2030 Initiative, and officially committed CA to eliminating routine and that new oil fields will not flare or vent.

16 Feb. 2016

Governors’ Accord

1 June 2016

Leadership Agreement

Governors of CA, CT, DE, HI, IA, MA, MI, MN, NV, NH, NY, OR, PA, RI, VT, VA, and WA CA, WA, OR, British Columbia, and the cities of Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Oakland, and LA

1 June 2016

Leadership Action Plan

CA, WA, OR, British Columbia

7 June 2016

MOU

CalEPA and the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, China

7 June 2016

MOU

CA and the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform, China

14 June 2016

MOU

CDFA and Baja CA’s Secretariat of Agriculture Development, Mexico

9 Nov. 2016

MOU

Cal OES and ONEMI (Chile)

10 Nov. 2016

MOU

Cal OES and ONEMI (Chile)

11 Nov. 2016

MOU

CA, IBRD, IDA, and the World Bank

Created Governors’ Accord for a New Energy Future, a bipartisan platform to collaborate on clean energy opportunities, policy and planning. Promoted collaboration on a national scale as key to energy policy progress in the US. Pacific North America Climate Leadership Agreement provides model for decisive, coordinated subnational climate action can contribute to robust regional economic growth and inspire global action on GHG emission reductions that combat climate change. Members agreed to cooperate on low-carbon development of buildings, transportation, energy systems, and waste. Designed to show leadership on clean energy policy and success of equitable low-carbon regional economies. Promoted action on climate-related changes in oceans. Promoted transitioning the West Coast to clean transport, reducing GHG emissions, investing in clean energy, and increasing climate resilience. Renewed/strengthened relationship of previous MOUs in 2005 and 2013. Focused on promoting cooperation and collaboration in science, technology, and policies in the field of environmental protection. Other areas: environmental management legislation/ policy/ regulation, air quality and water management, solid waste management/ recycling, capacity building, and public education. Commitment to the U.S.-China Joint Statement on Climate Change promoting long-term transformation to a low-carbon and environmentally protected society. Promoted cooperation on low-carbon planning, information sharing on green policies/ standards, the establishment of a clean/ sustainable smart grid, and the establishment of carbon emissions trading. Established framework to cooperate and exchange information on animal/ plant health, and food safety. Included the promotion of natural resources by maintaining the ecological and economic sustainability. Built on the Chile-CA 21st Century Partnership and Joint Declaration to Cooperate in Emergency Disasters, of April 2010. Promoted partnership and cooperation to reduce vulnerabilities and increase resilience to climate change and wildfire threats. Promoted sharing knowledge and good practices with other territories and cities to advance sustainable, low-carbon development strategies, tools, and practices consistent with the goal of limiting global warming below 2°C.

9 Jan. 2017

Letter of Intent

CA and the Netherlands

30 Jan. 2017

MOU

CA and Aguascalientes, Mexico

24 March 2017

Letter of Intent

CalEPA and Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, the Netherlands

Reaffirmed cooperation on climate change, smart/ e-mobility, and energy. Promoted the exchange of information/ understanding with respect to stimulating access to capital and finance for young, innovative companies in an effort to advance ZEV and Smart Mobility market deployment in both regions. Encouraged collaboration on clean energy policies and programs in areas such as energy efficiency, demand-side management, renewable energy development/ grid integration, integrated resource planning, grid operation/management and ZEVs. Renewed the Letters of Intent signed 2013 and 2015. Promoted acceleration of electrification of transport systems through the ZEV Alliance and the agreement to establish the Coast to Coast Sustainable Investment Finance Program on Smart and e-Mobility

(continued)

CHARTS

Chart C.3 3 April 2017

(continued) Letter of Cooperation Letter of Cooperation

CA and Scotland

1 June 2017

Climate Alliance

CA, WA, NY

4 June 2017

MOU

CA and Sichuan Province, China

5 June 2017

MOU

CA and Jiangsu Province, China

6 June 2017

MOU

CA and Ministry of Science and Technology, China

7 June 2017

MOU

9 June 2017

MOU

CA Energy Commission (CEC) and Haidian District of Beijing, China CA Energy Commission and the Huadian Green Energy Corporation, China

2 August 2017

Declaration of Intent

CA and the Ministry of Climate and Environment, Norway

19 Sept. 2017

MOU

CA and Denmark

13 Oct. 2017

MOU

CA Energy Commission and Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, China

1 Nov. 2017

Joint Investment Plan

CA Energy Commission and Jiangsu Science and Technology Department, China

2 Nov. 2017

MOU

2 Nov. 2017

MOU

CA Energy Commission and Shenzhen State High Tech Industrial Innovation Center and Clean Tech Innovation Center, China CA and Shenzhen Municipality, China

13 Nov. 2017

Climate Leaders Statement

19 April 2017

217

CA and the Ministry of the Environment and Energy, Sweden

The US Climate Alliance, Canada, and Mexico

Affirming strong commitment to take ambitious action on climate change and further the development of the low-carbon economy. Agreement to cooperate on initiatives to reduce transportation emissions, sharing best practices, and supporting the promotion development, and expansion of renewable energy. Pushed for higher global ambitions on climate change through the UNFCCC and the Under2 Coalition. US Climate Alliance a bipartisan coalition of governors founded in response to Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and committed to reducing GHG emissions, the acceleration/ deployment of climate solutions, and state-to-state cooperation. Commitment to maintain regular intergovernmental engagement through ongoing exchange of personnel, culture, and ideas. Promoted cooperation in low-carbon technologies, env protection, and clean energy development through the establishment of the CA-Sichuan Clean Energy Partnership. Developed the CA-Jiangsu Clean Technology Partnership as mechanism for cooperation in areas such as clean energy technology, GHG emission reduction, environmental protection technologies, and information technologies. Set the foundation for cooperation on innovation and technology aimed at advancing mutually beneficial low-carbon and sustainable, renewable energy development. Facilitated cooperation on research, innovation, and investment in low-carbon development and clean energy resources. Encouraged future collaboration on energy storage between Parties in areas such as energy storage/ efficiency, demand-side management, renewable energy development, and integrated resource planning. Agreement to work towards reducing GHG emissions by 80% or more as compared to their 1990 levels by 2050. Key areas: climate change policy, reduced deforestation, zero-emission transport, and clean energy. Agreement to promote a beneficial relationship in the field of water technology, management, and regulation. Enhanced cooperation on green building and low-carbon development. Established a fundamental framework for the Parties to exchange technical expertise, academic resources, policy design/ planning, and unique sustainable/ green urban development opportunities. Built on the CA-Jiangsu Clean Technology Partnership established June 2017, and focused on developing low-carbon and clean technology innovation, building/ transportation energy efficiency, renewable energy, grid modernization/ information technology, energy storage, and water-energy-food nexus. Established framework for cooperation and the establishment of the Shenzhen-CA Clean Tech Innovation Center.

Furthered the goals of MOUs from 2013 and 2015. Addressed climate change and cooperation on low-carbon and clean technology innovation to accelerate low-carbon development. Enhanced cooperation across North America in areas such as clean transportation and ZEVs, vehicle efficiency, clean technology, carbon pricing initiatives, and the reduction of shortlived climate pollutants.

(continued)

218

CHARTS

Chart C.3 (continued) 15 Jan. 2018

MOU

CA Energy Commission and Scotland

30 April 2018

MOU

12 Sept. 2018

MOU

CA Energy Commission and Denmark CA and Ministry of Ecology, China

12 Sept. 2018

Joint Statement/ Declaration

12 Sept. 2018

International Alliance

15 Sept. 2018

MOU

7 Dec. 2018

MOC

CARB and Mexicali Municipality, Baja CA

18 Dec. 2018

MOU

CA, WA, and British Columbia, Canada

26 June 2019

MOU

CARB and Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC)

CA and the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries CA, Cabo Verde, Costa Rica, Finland, France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal + various cities and companies CA and BadenWürttemberg, Germany

Built on letter signed on April 3, 2017, which focused on taking Ambitious Action on Climate Change and development of a LowCarbon Economy. Intention to continue support for these actions, and to increase efforts to reduce GHGs, expand renewable energy development, and advance decarbonization efforts. Promoted sharing of knowledge, experiences, data, and best practices relevant to the development of offshore wind energy. Promoted activities to mitigate carbon emissions, control carbon dioxide, methane and other GHGs. Promoted cooperation on enhancing air pollution control strategies for the industrial and transportation sectors, reducing short-lived climate forcers and mitigating hydrofluorocarbons, implementing carbon emissions trading systems, and increasing energy efficiency. Intention to establish the CA-China Program coordinated by the Governor’s Office and the Chinese Friendship Association, and affiliated with the US-China Governor’s Forum. The Transport Decarbonization Alliance (TDA) promotes transformation towards a net-zero emission mobility system before 2050. Part of the commitments made at the One Planet Summit, Dec. 2017. CA became the first N American member. Established a Sister-State Agreement. Promoted future cooperation in areas such as climate, energy/ environmental policies, transportation transformation, urban infrastructure development, economic cooperation, information technology, science, research, and art/ culture Aimed to improve air quality in the border region through enhanced availability of air quality data and enforcement of applicable air quality laws. Established network of 50 particulate matter (PM) air sensors in Mexicali to monitor and facilitate the exchange of information on air quality. Pledge to cooperate on preserving the natural biodiversity and health of the Pacific Coast Temperate Forests, share best practices on forest management, preservation, and conservation, and engage in scientific study, adaptive practice, improved data and modeling, and indigenous knowledge to better understand forest carbon dynamics and response to climate change.

CA Governor - Gavin Newsom Promoted cooperation on policy and regulatory measures that reduce GHGs and air pollutants from vehicles, engines, and fuels. Promoted cooperation in research, emission testing outcomes, and modeling related to ZEVs.

CHARTS

Chart C.4

219

Interviews conducted

Interviewee California Public Servants Brown, Jerry Schwarzenegger, Arnold Wilson, Pete Bawle, Awinash Chiu, Samuel Hachigian, Nina Charles Lawlor Le, Jeffrey Lee, Anka Ohlson, Brooks Samoville, Ezilda Shellenberg, Shannon Srling, Susanne T. Diplomats Australia Dicker, Jeremy Canada Bird, Colin McCormick, Rachel Sarkar, Rana Villeneuve, James Québec Tremblay, Frédéric China Junying, Shao Qian, Cao Faqiang, Ren Germany Südbeck, Hans-Ulrich India Rathish, Rohit Japan Nagayoshi, Shoichi

Title (at the me of interview) & locaon (face-to-face unless otherwise stated)

Date

Governor (2011- 2019 ), telephone Governor (2003 – 2011), email exchanges Governor (1991-1999), Los Angeles

6-4-2019 various 9-17-2018

Deputy Director of Internaonal Affairs and Business Development, (telephone) Deputy Director for Communicaons Office of Business and Economic Development, Sacramento Deputy Mayor Internaonal Affairs, Los Angeles Deputy Director of Internaonal Relaons and Protocol at California State Assembly, Sacramento Deputy Cabinet Secretary, Office of Governor Brown, Washington DC Director of Internaonal Relaons at California State Assembly, Sacramento Director of the Sacramento Regional Center for Internaonal Trade Development and the California Mexico Trade Center, Sacramento Director CA Senate Office of Internaonal Relaons, Sacramento Deputy Director CA Senate Office of Internaonal Relaons, Sacramento Vice President, Internaonal Affairs, California Chamber of Commerce, Sacramento

12-28-2018 12-4-2018 9-18-2018 12-15-2017 4-25-2019 11-13-2018 12-15-2017 12-15-2017 12-15-2017 12-4-2018

Consul, Los Angeles

9-19-2018

Minister-Counsellor (Trade &Economic Policy), Canadian Embassy, Washington DC Head of Energy and Environment at Canadian Embassy, Washington DC Consul General, San Francisco (telephone) Consul General, Los Angeles

10-30-2018 10-20-2018 9-20-2018 9-18-2018

Director of Québec Government Office, Washington DC

10-31-2018

Consul Polical Secon, Los Angeles Vice Consul for Educaon, Los Angeles Deputy Consul General, San Francisco

9-18-2018 9-18-2018 9-10-2018

Consul General, San Francisco (telephone)

11-28-2018

Deputy Consul General & Commercial Representave, San Francisco (telephone)

5-13-2019

Deputy Consul General, San Francisco

9-10-2018

(continued)

220

CHARTS

Chart C.4 (continued) Interviewee Mexico De Alba, Carlos García Ferrer Silva, Liliana Rojas Weiser, Ursula Zabalgoia, José Antonio United Kingdom Bailey, Mark Howells, Michael de Selliers, Sophie Whiaker, Andrew Scotland Smith, Joni Wales Lewis, Sioned Morgan, Gareth Consular Corps support Aghayev, Nasimi Hernandez, Chrisna Nave American Organizaons Abbas, Fama Cruz, Mark Hostler, Heather Schellinger, Jacob Snider, Chrisna Wiggins, Armstrong Think tank/ scholars Klowden, Kevin Lowenthal, Abe

Title (at the me of interview) & locaon (face-to-face unless otherwise stated)

Date

Consul General, Los Angeles Consul General, Sacramento Consul for Economic Affairs, San Francisco Deputy Chief of Mission, Washington DC

9-17-2018 12-6-2018 9-10-2018 10-31-2018

Deputy Head of Polical Secon at Brish Embassy, Washington DC Consul General, Los Angeles Polics Press and Public Affairs Officer at UK Consulate, Los Angeles Consul General, San Francisco

10-29-2018 9-19-2018 9-10-2018 9-10-2018

Scosh Affairs Counsellor to North America, Washington DC (telephone)

1-10-2019

External Affairs Manager Wales Government Office, Washington DC (telephone) Representave of Wales, Head of North America Welsh Government Office, Washington DC

1-10-2019

Consul General of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Dean of Consular Corps, Los Angeles Regional Director, State Department, Office of Foreign Missions, Los Angeles

1-29-2019

Policy Counsel, Naonal Congress of American Indians, Washington DC Deputy Asst Secretary–Indian Affairs for Policy and Economic Development (DAS-PED), Washington DC Director of Office of Tribal Affairs, California Department of Social Services, Sacramento Director of Government Affairs, Naonal Congress of American Indians, Washington DC Tribal Advisor Office of Governor Brown, Sacramento Director Indian Law Resource Center, Washington DC

4-24-2019 10-30-2018

Execuve Director Center for Regional Economics, Milken Instute, Santa Monica Professor Emeritus of Internaonal Relaons, University of Southern California, Arcata

4-25-2019

1-29-2019

12-5-2018 4-24-2019 12-5-2018 10-29-2018 1-29-2019 12-27-2017

CHARTS

221

Chart C.5 California’s international initiative timeline (Source McMillan [2012], Kaiser [2005], Lowenthal [2009], Tavares [2016], Smurr [2010], Whatley [2003], and California Chamber of Commerce: https://www.calchamber.com/) Timeline

Governor

1959 - 1967

Governor “Pat” Brown Democrat

Governor and/or State Ini a ves

California Office of Trade and Investment (COTIs) and other interna onal offices

Announced his administra on would aggressively seek interna onal customers for CA products (but generally did not agree with states having a “foreign policy”) 1960s

London, Tokyo and Frankfurt

1967 - 1975

Governor Ronald Reagan Republican

1975 - 1984

Governor Jerry Brown Democrat

1977

Created Department of Economic and Business Development including first Office of Interna onal Trade Department of Economic and Business Development became Commerce Department Assembly Speaker Willie Brown authored a bill to establish the California State World Trade Commission (CWTC) to be lead government en ty for conduc ng all program related to foreign direct investment and interna onal trade (en rely economic tack) but never able to do this because legisla on created divided structure with Secretary of State as Chair of Commission and administra on of CWTC in governor’s office Governor Courken George Deukmejian Jr. Republican State legislature passed and enacted a law crea ng the Export Finance Office that funded a commission to study the reopening of offices closed by Ronald Reagan California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) created Agriculture Export Promo on program California Energy Commission (CEC) created up program to help Californians market alterna ve energy technology overseas and Assembly created a subcommi ee on Interna onal Trade Investment and Tourism Senate created Senate Select Commi ee on the Pacific Rim Commerce Department did three things (unrelated to each other): (1) expanded their role to bring in foreign direct investment; (2) Office of Tourism launched a major push to bring in people; and, (3) Office of California-Mexico Affairs established

Governor closed last office (Frankfurt)

1980 1982

1983 - 1991 1983

1984 1985

1986

Assembly created Assembly Office of Interna onal Affairs CWTC set up office in Washington DC $700,000 requested to set up COTIs in London and Tokyo World Trade Reorganiza on Act was passed and put CWTC under governor

(continued)

222

CHARTS

Chart C.5 (continued) 1987

London and Tokyo reopened Governor issued Execu ve Order pu ng COTIs under his office Li le Hoover Commission issued a report arguing that the interna onal infrastructure was too spread out to be effec ve Office of Export Development created Senate created Senate Office of Interna onal Rela ons Mexico City and Frankfurt opened

1989 Late 1980s

The state created 14 Centers for Interna onal Trade and Development (CITDs) throughout the state that were funded through California Community Colleges and Economic Workforce Development Program

1990 1990-2001

1991 - 1999

Hong Kong opened 5 new offices: Jerusalem, Seoul, Taipei, Singapore and Buenos Ares but (CCTA’s growth mainly domes c staff) Governor Pete Wilson Republican

1991

California Interna onal Rela ons Founda on set up as 501(c)3 non profit Trade and Commerce Agency created by merging Department of Commerce, CWTC and COTIs from Governor’s office. New cabinet level Secretary was supposed to coordinate all interna onal ac vity - but Agriculture and Energy kept their own ac vi es (NOTE: in 2001 this agency was renamed the Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency but both called CTTCA)

1992

1995 1999 - 2003

Johannesburg opened Governor Gray Davis Democrat

1999 Governor appointed Michael Flores to the new post of Secretary of Foreign Affairs

2001 2002

Governor added 17 California-Mexico Trade Assistance Centers with a grant from California Community College Chancellor’s Office Governor created California House in London as a joint ini ate with the University of California Governor created California House in Mexico City as a second joint ini a ve with University of California Armenia office approved by Assembly

(continued)

CHARTS

Chart C.5 2003

2003 - 2011 Post 2003

2005 2008

2009

2010 2011

2011 - 2019 2013

223

(continued) California’s interna onal infrastructure completely dismantled in light of an inves ga on and in the face of economic troubles - Governor Schwarzenegger did work interna onally par cularly on climate change Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger Republican Eight bills were proposed to reestablish interna onal programs - 6 died in house of origin and 2 assembly bills made it to Senate and died in commi ee Assembly bill to create a 10-year strategy for CA-Mexico rela ons was vetoed by Governor Pacific Coast Collabora ve (PCC) established with MOU between Bri sh Columbia, Oregon, Washington on innova on, the environment and the economy, and ocean conserva on and coastal climate change. Governor, United Na ons Development Program (UNDP) and United Na ons Environment Program (UNEP) host global Governors’ Global Climate Change Summit First mee ng of the PCC Governor became co-founder of R20 Regions for Climate Change – a nonprofit US – China Governors’ Forum created Governor Jerry Brown Democrat Ac on plan signed with Bri sh Columbia, Oregon and Washington to reduce carbon pollu on Governor signed historic deal as the first subna onal to have an agreement with China’s Na onal Development and Reform Commission Shanghai opened – privately funded and staffed/operated by Bay Area Council

2014

2015

2018

Agreement with Mexico’s Ministry of Environmental and Natural Resources California Cap-and-Trade Program and Québec Cap-andTrade System officially linked Agreement with Ontario on investment infrastructure California Interna onal Trade and Investment Advisory Council created to advise GoBiz (agency in charge of economic development and job crea on in Gov’s office) Governor a ended UN Climate Change conference in Paris to commit California to Paris agreement Agreement with Baden-Wur emberg on Under 2MoU Agreement with Scotland on climate change Global Climate Ac on Summit hosted in San Francisco

Further Reading

Amiri, Sohaela, and Jay Wang. “Building a Robust Capacity Framework for U.S. City Diplomacy.” USC Center on Public Diplomacy. 2019. https://www.usc publicdiplomacy.org/story/building-robust-framework-us-city-diplomacy. Anaya, S. James. Indigenous Peoples in International Law. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Arambula, Juan (Chair). “California’s Proposed International Trade and Investment Strategy: Legislative Review by the Assembly Policy and Fiscal Committees.” ajed.assembly.ca.gov›files› JEDE and Sub 4 Review Trade Strategy, 2008. Bonner, Dale (secretary). “Toward a California Trade and Investment Strategy: Potential Roles for the State in Global Market Development.” 2007. http:// docplayer.net/8443341-Toward-a-california-trade-and-investment-strategypotential-roles-for-the-state-in-global-market-development.html. California State University, Sacramento. “Consular Corps Established for Sacramento.” Public Affairs Department. 2000. http://www.csus.edu/news/con sularcorps.html. Clark, Dan. “The Larkin Papers: Personal, Business, and Official Correspondence of Thomas Oliver Larkin, Merchant and United States Consul in California.” The American Historical Review 58, no. 1 (1951): 303–334. Cohen, Raymond. Negotiating Across Cultures: International Communication in an Interdependent World. United States: Institute of Peace Press, 1991. Coulter, Robert T. “The Law of Self-Determination and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs 1 (Spring 2010). Crawford, James (ed.). The Rights of Peoples. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 A. R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3

225

226

FURTHER READING

Cusick, Mat, and Carlos Alcala. Mexico’s Consul-General Values Neighbors in Curtis Park. Viewpoint. March 6, 2019. https://sierra2.org/mexico’s-consulgeneral-values-neighbors-in-curtis-park/. de Boer, Stephen. “Canadian Provinces, U.S. States and North American Integration: Bench Warmers or Key Players?” Choices: Canada’s Options in North America 8, no. 4 (2002): 1–24. Deloria Jr., Vine. Indians of the Pacific Northwest: From the Coming of the White Man to the Present Day. Colorado: Fulcrum Publishing, 1977. Dudziak, Mary, and Leti Volpp. “Introduction Legal Borderlands: Law and the Construction of American Borders.” American Quarterly 57, no. 3 (2005): 593–610. Fenton, William, and Francis Jennings (eds.). The History and Culture of Iroquois Diplomacy: An Interdisciplinary Guide to the Treaties of the Six Nations and Their League. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1985. Grimes, Katy. “Gov. Newsom names Lt. Governor Kounalakis as Representative on International Affairs and Trade.” California Globe. March 1, 2019. Hachigian, Nina. “After 100 Days the Trump White House Still Lacks a Sound Policy Process.” Foreign Policy. April 2017. Harjo, Suzan Shown (ed.). Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2014. Heizer, Robert F. “The Eighteen Unratified Treaties of 1851–1852 Between The California Indians and the United States Government.” Berkeley: Archaeological Research Facility, Dept. of Anthropology, University of California, (OCoLC)2718225. 1972. Hepler, Lauren. “California and the Rise of ‘Sub-National’ Climate Action.” GreenBiz. May 19, 2015. http://www.greenbiz.com/article/california-andrise-sub-national-climate-action. Hirsch, Mark G. “1871: The End of Indian Treaty-Making.” Magazine of Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian 15, no. 2 (2014). https:// www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/1871-end-indian-treaty-making. Hooghe, Liesbet, and Gary Marks. “Unraveling the Central State, But How? Types of Multi-Level Governance.” American Political Science Review 97, no. 2 (2003): 233–243. Hurtado, Albert. Indian Survival on the California Frontier. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988. Indigenous Peoples’ Center for Documentation, Research and Information (DOCIP). Update: Informing About the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. No. 113. New York: United Nations, 2018. Istrate, Emilia. “Strong Economies, Resilient Counties: The Role of Counties in Economic Development.” Washington, DC: National Association of Counties (NACO): Why Counties Matter Series 1, 2014.

FURTHER READING

227

Kasler, Dale. “California Economy Surges to No. 6 in Global Rankings.” Sacramento Bee. June 14, 2016. https://www.sacbee.com/news/business/articl e83780667.html. Kelsey, Harry. “The California Indian Treaty Myth.” Southern California Quarterly 55, no. 3 (1973): 225–238. https://scq.ucpress.edu/content/55/ 3/225. Klowden, Kevin. “Here’s How California Can Survive Trump’s Trade War.” Sacramento Bee. August 6, 2018. Koseff, Alexei. “Newsom Makes a National Splash: Governor Reaches Beyond State in 1st 100 Days.” San Francisco Chronicle. April 14, 2019. Kounalakis, Eleni. Madam Ambassador: Three Years of Diplomacy, Dinner Parties and Democracy in Budapest. New York: New Press, 2015. Kounalakis, Eleni. “The World Is Knocking at California’s Door, and We Welcome It.” CALMatters. March 11, 2019. Lachapelle, Guy, and Stéphane Paquin (eds.). Mastering Globalization: New SubStates’ Governance and Strategies. New York: Routledge, 2005. Lagi, Sarah. “The Formation of a Liberal Thinker: Georg Jellinek and His Early Writings (1872–1878).” Res. Publica. Revista de Historia de las Ideas Políticas 19 (2016): 1:59–176. http://dx.doi.org/10.5209. Levit, Janet Koven. “Bottom-Up International Lawmaking: Reflections on the New Haven School of International Law.” The Yale Journal of International Law 32, no. 2 (2007). https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewco ntent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1301& context=yjil. Lieu, Ted. “Reps Lieu and Wilson Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Encourage State and City International Diplomacy.” June 30, 2019. Press Release. https:// lieu.house.gov/media-center-press-releases. Lowell, A. Lawrence. “The Limits of Sovereignty.” Harvard Law Review 2, no. 2 (1888): 70–87. http://www.doi.org/10.2307/1322069. Maley, William. Global Governance and Diplomacy: Worlds Apart? New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Métis Nation: Office of the President. “Métis Nation Leaders and Federal Ministers Push Ahead on Priorities Under the Canada-Métis Nation Accord.” October 25, 2018. www.metisnation.ca. Miller, Larisa K. “The Secret Treaties With California’s Indians.” National Archives 2016. https://www.archives.gov/research/native-americans/tre aties. n.a. “Oregon’s Economic Development Districts: Creating Opportunities for Regional Prosperity.” Oregon Economic Development Districts. Washington, DC: National Association of Development Organizations (NADO). March 2009. https://www.nado.org/oregons-economic-development-distri cts-creating-opportunities-for-regional-prosperity/.

228

FURTHER READING

n.a. “State of California Business Investment Guide.” Sacramento: Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development. CA.gov. 2013. n.a. “California Export Guide: Helping California’s Companies Go Global.” ThinkGlobal.Inc. 2017. n.a. “Defining Success: Meaningful Metrics to Evaluate U.S. State International Trade Programs.” Washington, DC: State International Development Organization (SIDO). July 2018. n.a. “Expanding Opportunity: An Agenda for All Californians: CalChamber Business Issues and Legislative Guide.” Sacramento: CalChamber, 2018. n.a. “Policy Update Mid-year Conference.” Washington, DC: National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). June 6, 2018. http://www.ncai.org/resources/ ncai_publications/2018-ncai-mid-year-policy-update. n.a. “Tribal Nations and the United States: An Introduction.” Washington, DC: National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). May 8, 2019. NACO. Legislative Priorities. National Association of Counties: Washington, DC, 2018. Nisga Tribal Council. “Understanding the Nisga’a Treaty.” Nigsa’a Lisims Government website. 1998. https://www.nisgaanation.ca/understanding-tre aty. Nye, Joseph Jr. “Soft Power.” Foreign Policy 80 (1990): 153–171. Ostrow, Teddy, and Michael Feynberg. “Trump on Sovereignty: ‘Make Their Countries Great Again.’” La Voci di New York. September 25. https://www.lavocedinewyork.com/en/new-york/2018/09/25/trumpon-sovereignty-make-their-countries-great-again/. Peel, Jacqueline, Lee Godden, and Rodney J. Keenan. “Climate Change Law in an Era of Multi-Level Governance.” Transnational Environmental Law 1, no. 2 (2012): 245–280. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2047102512000052. Pettigrew, Pierre. “Canada’s International Personality.” International Journal 60, no. 3 (2005): 623–634. https://doi.org/10.1177/002070200506000302. Pillalamarri, Akhilesh. “Why Territorial Sovereignty Should be Flexible.” The National Interest. June 2019. https://nationalinterest.org. Prucha, Francis Paul. American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly. Los Angeles: University of California Press Ltd., 1994. Purdum, Todd. “California Is at War with the Trump White House.” The Atlantic. June 2019. www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/03. Rana, Sarkar. SFGate: Open Forum: Not Another Wall—Tariffs on Canada will Harm California. June 11, 2018. https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openfo rum/article/Open-Forum-Not-another-wall-tariffs-on-12985794.php. Schmidt, Ryan. “American Indian Identity and Blood Quantum in the 21st Century; A Critical Review.” Journal of Anthropology (2011): 1–9. https:// doi.org/10.1155/2011/549521.

FURTHER READING

229

Segarra, Lisa Marie. California’s Economy Is Now Bigger Than All of the U.K. Fortune. May 5, 2018. https://fortune.com/2018/05/05/california-fifthbiggest-economy-passes-united-kingdom/. Sending, Ole Jacob, and Iver B. Neumann. “Governance to Governmentality: Analyzing NGOs, States, and Power.” International Studies Quarterly 50, no. 3 (2006): 651–672. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2478.2006.00418.x. Sending, Ole Jacob, Vincent Pouliot, and Iver B. Neumann. “The Future of Diplomacy: Changing Practices, Evolving Relationships.” International Journal 66, no. 3 (2011): 527–542. https://doi.org/10.1177/002070201 106600301. Setzer, Joana. “Testing the Boundaries of Subnational Diplomacy: The International Climate Action of Local and Regional Governments.” Transnational Environmental Law (2015): 1–19. http://journals.cambridge.org/TEL. Sharp, Paul. “For Diplomacy: Representation and the Study of International Relations.” International Studies Review 1, no. 1 (1999): 33–57. https:// doi.org/10.1111/1521-9488.00140. Shatz, Howard J. Business Without Borders? The Globalization of the California Economy. California: Public Policy Institute of California, 2003. Smith, Gordon. “A Future for the Nation-State?” In The Nation-State: The Formation of Modern Politics, ed. Leonard Tivey, 197–208. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981. Stirling, Susanne. California Still a Top Exporting State. Sacramento: California Chamber of Commerce. March 12, 2019. https://advocacy.calchamber.com/ 2019/03/12/california-still-top-exporting-state/. “The American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Background Materials and Strategies for Implementation.” Washington, DC: Indian Law Resource Center. https://indianlaw.org/adrip/adrip-background-materi als-strategies-implementation. Tivey, Leonard (ed.). The Nation-State: The Formation of Modern Politics. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981. United Nations. “Training Module for Government Agencies: United National Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Facilitator’s Handbook.” New York: United Nations, 2013. Uran, Shaawano Chad. “Professor Explains Sovereignty and Its Significance.” Indian Country Media Network 2014. http://indiancountrytodaymedianetw ork.com. Weiss, Thomas G., and Martin J. Burke. “Legitimacy, Identity and Climate Change: Moving from International to World Society?” Third World Quarterly 32, no. 6 (2011): 1057–1072. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597. 2011.584721.

230

FURTHER READING

Whalen, Bill. “Is California a Nation-State Lost in Space?” Forbes. September 16, 2018. http://www.forbes.com/sites/billwhalen/2018/09/16/is-califo rnia-a-nation-state-lost-in-space/#411c932e2943. Whalen, Bill. “Gavin Newsom States His Case—And a Nation-State Lurches Further to the Left.” Forbes. February 13, 2019. http://www.forbes.com/ sites/billwhalen/2019/02/13/gavin-newsom-states-his-case-and-a-nationstate-lurches-further-to-the-left/#2f099e67423e. Wiggins, Armstrong. “Indian Rights and the Environment.” Yale Journal of International Law 18, no. 1 (1993): 345–354. https://digitalcommons.law. yale.edu/yjil/vol18/iss1/. Wolff, Stefan. “Paradiplomacy: Scope, Opportunities and Challenges.” The SAIS Europe Journal (2009). http://www.saisjournals.org/posts/paradiplomacy. Yoshiro, Ikeda. “Toward an Empire of Republics: Transformation of Russia in the Age of Total War, Revolution, and Nationalism.” In Comparing Modern Empires: Imperial Rule and Decolonization in the Changing World Order, ed. Uyama Tomohiko, 119–146. Japan: Slavic- Eurasian Research Center, 2018.

Index

A “Actor-ness”, 17, 68, 69, 81, 82, 109, 120 Advisor on Tribal Affairs, 33 Anti-diplomacy, 39

Community, 11, 30, 37, 47, 58, 60, 61, 80, 84, 128, 131, 154, 156, 188, 203 Concept of sovereignty, 16, 21, 58, 61–63, 66, 88, 91, 96, 97, 101, 121, 201 Constitution written (1787), 38, 124

C California Chamber of Commerce, 26, 31, 141, 144, 220–222 “California for all”, 3, 4, 34, 162, 167, 186, 207 California’s globality, 15 Canada, 25–28, 45, 47–49, 57, 58, 67, 106, 122–124, 129–137, 149, 161, 165, 179, 193, 214–216, 218, 219 China, 27, 47–50, 78, 81, 149, 153, 162, 193, 212–219, 222 Climate change, 8, 28, 32, 50, 58, 144, 151–153, 157, 164, 172, 176, 193, 195, 206, 212, 213, 215–219, 222 Commerce, 38, 86, 174

Consul General, 29, 121–124, 127, 136, 159–162, 174, 176, 180, 193 Conventional sovereignty domestic sovereignty, 63–65 international legal sovereignty, 63, 84 Westphalian/Vatellian sovereignty, 63, 64 Cooperative-coordinated, 109 Cooperative-joint , 109 Council of State Governments (CSG), 32, 144, 149, 154, 156, 164 Cross-border regionalism, 106, 123

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 A. R. Holmes, Multi-Layered Diplomacy in a Global State, Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54132-3

231

232

INDEX

D Davis, Gray (Governor), 5, 48, 150, 211, 221 de facto sovereignty, 89, 90, 203 de jure sovereignty, 89, 203 de recto sovereignty, 89 Deterritorialization, 101 “Diplomatic sites”, 16, 142 Director of Research & Policy for the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), 156 “Domestic dependent nations”, 87, 143 Duluwat Island, 188

Governor Schwarzenegger, 4, 6, 151, 152, 222 Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GoBiz), 32, 212, 213, 215, 222 Governor Wilson, 150 Growing trend cities, 17 counties, 17 tribes, 17

H Hachigian, Nina, 6, 30, 160, 161, 174, 175, 177, 194 Horizontal axis, 9, 12, 80, 81, 96

E “Entity-ness”, 68, 70–81

F Faulconer, Kevin (Mayor), 30 “Fragments of sovereignty”, 16 “Fragments of state”, 71

G Garcetti, Eric, 6, 30, 160, 162 Germany, 27, 47, 50, 64, 122, 149, 159, 216, 219 Global diplomacy, 9 “Globality”, 7, 18, 34, 62, 111, 167 Global paradiplomacy, 107 Global state, 22 “Government-to-government”, 25, 33, 43, 44, 89, 145, 146, 156, 184, 188, 190 Governor Brown, 4, 32, 33, 143, 145–147, 152, 153, 172, 192 Governor Newsom, 3–5, 13, 15, 32, 51, 143, 145–147, 186, 205, 206

I Ideas of state-ness, 99, 103 “Indian Country”, 44, 60 Inherent sovereignty, 16, 44, 62, 72, 80–84, 91, 96, 103, 111, 145, 147, 186, 200–202 Interdependence sovereignty, 64, 65 International City/County Management Association (ICMA), 32, 144 “Intersecting sovereignties”, 10, 15, 37, 61 Ius tractatuum, 40

J Japan, 27, 47, 48, 123, 149, 162, 193, 212, 213 Jurisdiction, 10, 37, 44, 45, 89, 91, 96, 100, 109, 118, 119, 127, 133, 134, 142, 151, 155, 156, 163, 167

INDEX

K Kounalakis, Eleni (Lieutenant Governor), 6

L Larkin, Thomas Oliver, 117–119, 171 Leidesdorff, William A., 118 “Limited sovereignties”, 91 “Localization” foreign policy, 108 Los Angeles, 13, 26, 29–32, 46, 121, 123, 124, 126–128, 132, 133, 160–162, 174, 176, 177, 180, 182, 185, 192, 193

M Mexico, 5, 25–28, 31, 46–49, 118, 122–129, 131, 132, 136, 137, 149, 150, 161, 165, 179, 193, 212–218, 222 Middle powers, 50, 120

N NAFTA, 122, 123, 127, 135, 136, 150, 165 National Association of Counties (NACO), 32, 144, 154, 155, 178 National Association of Development Organizations (NADO), 32, 144, 155 National Congress of the American Indian, 33, 60 National Governors Association (NGA), 32, 105, 144, 148, 149, 154, 157, 164, 187 National League of Cities (NLC), 32, 144, 158, 159, 178, 191 Nation-state, 4–7, 15, 34, 37, 42, 43, 59, 64, 72, 80, 82, 84, 85, 96, 104, 119, 151, 157, 186, 200–203, 206

233

Nested sovereignties, 9, 43 New sub-organization State International Development Organization (SIDO), 32, 144

O Office of the Tribal Advisor, 145 Ontario, 130, 132, 134–136, 182, 216, 222

P Paradiplomacy, 17, 38, 44, 45, 48–50, 69, 97, 103–111, 144, 182, 183 Parallel diplomacy, 38, 104, 106 Parallel-disharmony, 109 Parallel-harmony, 109 “Place”, 10–12, 14, 42, 68, 71, 102, 103, 111, 142, 176 Plenary power doctrine, 87 Political self-determination, 45 “Popular sovereignty”, 62, 200 “Positive” sovereignty, 71 “Practice turn”, 23, 96, 99 Principle of state sovereignty, 60

Q “Quasi-sovereign”, 33, 91, 143 Quebec, 25, 26, 106, 130, 132–134, 182, 185, 204, 214, 216, 222

R “Region states”, 7, 134 “Relational”, 81, 100

S Sacramento, 5, 29–32, 48, 126, 127, 136, 174, 192, 212 San Diego, 30, 31, 117, 132

234

INDEX

San Francisco, 26, 29–31, 117, 118, 122, 123, 126, 132, 135, 176, 182, 217, 222 Scotland, 25, 26, 28, 60, 135, 181–185, 203, 204, 218, 219, 222 “Self-determination”, 45, 58, 88, 89, 91, 186, 187, 202 Self-governance, 60, 158, 186, 202 “Space”, 70, 10–15, 41, 42, 68, 70, 71, 82, 101–103, 111, 176 States, 7, 8, 14, 22, 29, 32, 38–41, 44, 45, 49, 50, 59, 64–68, 70–72, 78–82, 86–88, 96, 99, 101, 107, 108, 119, 120, 127, 135, 148–150, 156–159, 164, 175, 179, 187, 194, 200, 203, 206, 207, 220 “States systems”, 78, 81, 99, 101, 102 Steinberg, Darrell (Mayor), 31 Stirling, Susanne, 31 Subnational actors, 17, 37, 38, 104, 106, 110, 143 Subnational diplomacy, 6, 21, 28, 33, 45, 51, 96, 103, 107, 109, 205 Subnationals, 8, 9, 34, 38, 40, 45, 49, 50, 60, 69, 104, 106–109, 121, 124, 132, 134, 135, 148, 149, 166, 184, 187, 205, 212–219 Substantialism, 97 T Territorial sovereignty, 62, 87, 119 “Thing-ness”, 68, 69, 81 “Third space”, 70, 90, 91 “Transatlantic”, 80 Transregional paradiplomacy, 106 Treaties of Westphalia of 1648, 42, 64 Treaty, 40, 43, 86, 90, 172, 205

Treaty-making, 39, 86, 88 Tribal sovereignty, 33, 58, 84–86, 89–91, 143, 203 Trump Doctrine, 58 Trump, Donald (President), 57, 58, 122, 135, 137, 153, 158, 163, 165, 193, 199, 218 “Trust relationship”, 87

U United Kingdom, 25–28, 39, 47, 48, 60, 67, 68, 129, 135, 176, 180–185, 193, 203 United States, 14, 21, 26, 28, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45–48, 50, 57, 61, 68, 80–88, 90, 91, 105, 106, 118, 123–126, 129, 131–133, 136, 146, 148, 149, 154, 159, 162, 163, 171, 179, 182, 183, 185, 191, 203, 204

V “Vertical Axis”, 8–10, 14–18, 34, 44, 51, 62, 111, 141, 142, 144, 155, 166, 167, 171, 174, 179, 188, 195, 200

W Wales, 25, 26, 28, 181–185, 203, 216 Westphalian, 64–66, 68, 71, 72, 78, 80–82, 89, 96, 98, 101–103, 119, 201

Z Zedillo, Ernesto (Mexican President), 5, 48