Managing Multilayered Diplomacy

Abstract

The emphasis of the foregoing discussion has been on the complexities characteristic of multilayered diplomacy. Rather than existing in different worlds, operating by distinctive rules and insulated from one another by divergent agendas, non-central and central governments are locked together in webs of relationships and patterns of interaction which reinforce the importance of linkage between domestic and international domains of political activity. This is not, of course, to deny the realities of conflict between centre and locality on issues with an external policy dimension. Certainly, conflict there is, as demonstrated by the cases of Quebec in Canada and Queensland in Australia. Furthermore, there are those in the US who see the growing interest of states, regions and localities as illegitimate and dangerous infringements of the federal government’s claims to control in the sphere of foreign relations.¹