Wales in the World: Intergovernmental Relations and Sub-State Diplomacy

Abstract

This article explores intergovernmental relations between the devolved Welsh Assembly Government and the central UK government through the prism of two case studies focusing on examples of Welsh sub‐state diplomacy, the first being international activity aimed at promoting trade and investment and the second the ‘Wales for Africa’ programme. The article focuses in particular on the implications for Wales–UK relations of partial party incongruence brought about by the formation of the Labour–Plaid Cymru coalition government in Cardiff in the summer of 2007. The authors also examine the early indications of the impact of full party incongruence following the formation of the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition government in London in June 2010.

Cross-border Paradiplomacy in the Irish Sea: A Socio-spatial Analysis

“…It has provided new institutions and intergovernmental structures aimed at deepening cooperation between the UK constituent territories, while, at the same time, offering to the devolved governments new frameworks to develop their own external relationships in the domain of devolved functions. 54 Indeed, the international activities of the Welsh Office before devolution and those of the Welsh Assembly government afterwards have differed in their scope of action. 55 Welsh paradiplomacy, constrained by path-dependency dynamics and affected by political critical junctures, 56 has since received a significant thrust in the development of a specific foreign policy agenda.…”

The Internationalisation of Regions: Paradiplomacy or Multi‐level Governance?

“…It would seem that this is the most common way in which the relationship manifests itself, despite the fact that the terms have been used interchangeably in parts of the extant literature. For example, paradiplomacy can be used to explore the conduct of normative international activities, such as international aid programmes (Wyn Jones and Royles ), whilst multi‐level governance accounts for the activities of institutions such the Committee of the Regions (Carroll ), in parallel to one another, with very little interaction taking place between the two approaches.…”

“…However, there is certainly potential within the paradiplomatic literature for a greater focus on the role of agency in understanding and perhaps explaining the practice and its normalisation throughout the last decade (as exhibited in the work of, amongst others, Keating ; Kincaid , ; Royles , ; Wyn Jones and Royles ). Steps towards this re‐definition can be seen most clearly in the work of Lecours (, , ; Lecours and Moreno ), which explicitly allows for the politics of stateless nationalism and nation‐building, in fact pointing to nationalism as the single most important variable conditioning the prevalence of paradiplomacy (Lecours and Moreno :1–3).…”

“…This mobilisation is partially fuelled by functional imperatives, such as attracting inward investment, or shaping supranational (particularly EU) policy (Cornago :18‐19; Hocking ; Tatham ). Other, less tangible, motivations are also manifest, however, including status‐, capacity‐ or even nation‐building (Aldecoa and Keating ; Cole and Palmer ; Duran ; Kincaid ; Lecours and Moreno ; Royles ; Wigell ; Wyn Jones and Royles ).…”

Devolution and the Limits of Tory Statecraft: The Conservative Party in Coalition and Scotland and Wales

“…Some research suggests that relations between the Welsh Assembly Government have improved since the Coalition government came to power. Wyn Jones and Royles's (2012) interviews with Welsh Government officials suggested a more helpful approach was emerging in Whitehall. However, 'the explanation proffered for this was that Wales was no longer being caught in the London-Edinburgh crossfire as the new UK government adopted a less hostile position towards the SNP government than its Labour predecessor' (Wyn Jones and Royles, 2012: 265).…”