As the last event in a series of engagement with its focus topic on Subnational Diplomacy, the Academy hosted a Webinar on Paradiplomacy during Global Crisis. Organised by Associate Fellow Debora Prado, the debate featured her, Anja Jakobi, Joanna Ciesielska-Klikowska, and Associate Fellow Summar Iqbal Barbar. With a focus on the role of paradiplomacy in responding to such different crises as the Covid 19 pandemic, the climate emergency and environmental disasters, the talks highlighted how subnational actors such as federal states or cities act.

In spite of remarkable differences in size and economic power, some similarities could be identified. Whether it is City Networks or big players like California, questions of domestic political opposition, decentralisation in democracies and norm entrepreneurship seem to matter in all of the cases. Paradiplomacy can even at times counteract the decisions of national governments, like the Brazilian regional political action to help further the Covid-19 vaccination or cross-border cooperation between Indian and Pakistani actors on solving environmental problems together.

The Webinar was concluded with an insightful discussion in which the parallels but also regional differences in the ways regional actors behave were highlighted.