Call for Paper Proposals | Special Issue: Paradiplomacy and the Transformation of Diplomacy in a Multi-Level World
Deadline: 26 June 2026.
Over the past decades, paradiplomacy has evolved from a marginal phenomenon into a significant dimension of contemporary international relations. Cities and regions increasingly participate in transnational cooperation, climate governance, development assistance, migration management, post-war reconstruction, and international advocacy. Yet despite the growing empirical relevance of subnational diplomacy, paradiplomacy research often remains isolated from broader debates within diplomacy studies.
This Special Issue of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy seeks to move beyond treating paradiplomacy as a niche subfield and instead explore its analytical potential for understanding wider transformations in contemporary diplomacy. Rather than treating paradiplomacy as an exceptional or peripheral phenomenon, the Special Issue examines how the growing role of subnational actors reshapes diplomatic authority, representation, legitimacy, and practice in an increasingly multi-level world.
The Special Issue particularly welcomes contributions that engage directly with broader theoretical and conceptual debates in diplomacy studies and build interdisciplinary bridges between International Relations, International public law, political geography, urban studies, public administration, and global governance scholarship.
Possible themes include, but are not limited to:
- Multi-level diplomacy and the fragmentation of foreign policy
- Paradiplomacy and changing diplomatic authority
- The role of cities and regions in trade or climate diplomacy and global trade or environmental governance
- Development diplomacy beyond the state: decentralised development cooperation and humanitarian action
- Paradiplomacy in times of war and geopolitical crisis
- Urban and regional actors in migration and refugee governance: diplomacy, contestation, and resistance
- The relationship between national foreign policy and subnational international agency
- Transnational municipal networks as diplomatic actors
- Pluralisation of diplomacy and the transformation of diplomatic practice
- Interdisciplinary perspectives on diplomacy beyond the state
The Special Issue seeks both theoretically oriented and empirically grounded contributions, including comparative and case-study approaches. Contributions focusing on the interaction between subnational actors and national or supranational diplomatic structures are particularly encouraged.
The issue will be guest edited by prof Tomasz Kamiński (University of Lodz, Poland) and prof Stephan Paquin (ENAP, Canada).
Please send an abstract of max. 300 words and a short biographical note to tkaminski@uni.lodz.pl or stephane.paquin@enap.ca by 26 June 2026.
Full paper submission deadline: first half of 2027, to be confirmed after acceptance of a special issue proposal by the editors of the Hague Journal of Diplomacy. Panels will be organised during the World Congress of Political Science in Rome from July 24 to 28, 2027, to present the drafts.
We welcome contributions from scholars at different career stages and from diverse geographical and disciplinary backgrounds.