ABSTRACT
Recent years have seen an increasing involvement of regional governments in the international arena, a phenomenon sometimes known as paradiplomacy. The reasons lie both in changes at the level of the state and international system, and in political and economic developments within regions themselves. Globalization and the rise of transnational regimes, especially regional trading areas, have eroded the distinction between domestic and foreign affairs and by the same token have transformed the division of responsibilities between state and sub-national governments and pitched regions into competition in the international market. To these functional reasons are added political reasons, where territorial elites are engaged in a process of region- or state-building.
