ABSTRACT
The emerging concepts of paradiplomacy and hydrodiplomacy challenge conventional notions about diplomacy in which diplomatic relations are the business of state officials, and environmental issues such as water are “low politics.” They reflect a seemingly unstoppable rise in the participation of sub-state and non-state actors in International Relations and the prominence of environmental security, which eventually incited a revision of the concept of diplomacy itself towards a decentralized, pluralized understanding of diplomacy, in which the lines between the domestic and international are increasingly blurring. This contribution will sketch this development with the help of brief case studies, but will argue that the new actors and levels are unlikely to take the place of the central state and sovereignty, and in so doing, paradiplomacy and environmental issues continue to play second fiddle, and in so doing, uphold a rationale for diplomacy. The central state may be seeing a revival, in so doing possibly also reframing the definition of paradiplomacy.
