ABSTRACT
Introduction This chapter examines the factors that have contributed to the increased international presence of subnational governments as they apply to Sakhalin and Hokkaido, as well as the development of relations between the two regions during the 1990s. These can be divided into systemic or external factors, and domestic factors, which are interrelated at both levels. Systemic factors include the Soviet Union’s demise and the end of the Cold War, external actors’ involvement, and the globalisation of production and economic interdependence, which have been accelerated by recent advances in transport and telecommunications technology. In a generic study, Panayotis Soldatos presents a typology of the domestic causes of subnational government diplomacy at the national and subnational levels. Soldatos’ study focuses on federal states, which are structurally more conducive to the external activities of subnational governments. Therefore, many of these factors are more relevant to Sakhalin, which is a component of a federal state, than to Hokkaido, which is part of a unitary state.1
