Localizing foreign policy? Subnational governments and civil society mobilization to recognize and prevent mass-atrocities
Short description
This research project examines municipalities and regions as arenas for foreign policy issues. Foreign policy is often seen as a matter for national-level actors. However, in today's globalised world and multicultural societies, such matters are also on the agenda of municipalities and regions. This project focuses on foreign policy issues related to the recognition of genocide, the erection of genocide memorials on municipal land, and how cities and regions take stands against nuclear arms. What opportunities exist for citizens and local politicians to pursue issues that affect them but are also regarded as foreign policy? And how can municipalities and states deal with the increasingly blurred boundaries between local, domestic and foreign policy?
Aim and research questions
In today’s globalized world, international relations are not performed only by national governments. Municipalities and regions increasingly form their own diplomatic links and act globally on issues like climate action, trade, investments and city-branding. This has been welcomed as a “democratization of foreign policy” but also raised concerns about overlaps and conflicts between government levels. The pursuit of foreign policy goals at subnational level can generate conflicts between community groups, political parties and government levels – and affect inter-state relations. While a vast literature has analyzed cities and other subnational governments as foreign policy actors, we know far less about the local dynamics and conflicts that arise when civil society and politicians challenge the presumed national-level monopoly of foreign policy.
The aim of this project is to analyse how foreign policy issues are pursued and navigated by civil society and political actors at the subnational government level.
It zooms in on foreign policy issues related to past and future mass-atrocities. Public commemoration and recognition of difficult pasts have grown increasingly important in the last decades. Genocide recognition in particular has become a crucial route for harmed groups to legitimize political claims. Limited opportunities in the countries where the atrocities took place have made migrant-receiving democracies an important space for the pursuit of memory and justice, and diasporas crucial actors. However, such struggles can be opposed by states or diaspora groups who deny or wish to downplay the atrocities.
Civil society mobilization focuses not only on the past, but also on the risk of future violence. That nuclear weapons remain a threat to humanity has been underscored by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Both historically and now, civil society and local politicians have pursued nuclear disarmament through subnational governments. Both local action against nuclear arms and the recognition and commemoration of genocide locally mobilize civil society around topics of concern to local populations and both can have implications for national security – a core foreign policy matter.
The project will answer three research questions:
- How and why do political and civil society actors take up issues of past and (potential) future mass-atrocities at the subnational government level?
- What conflicts arise and how are they handled?
- What are the implications for how foreign policy is understood and performed, how civil society groups can pursue foreign policy-related issues, and the future role of subnational governments in matters that both concern local citizens and belong to the foreign policy domain?
Methods and data
The project does not use the nation-state as its organizing frame but follows conflicts that arise when civil society and/or political actors pursue foreign policy-related issues at the subnational level. It will observe closely how foreign policy contestations occur in different spheres, such as everyday life, legal institutions, mass and social media and politics.
After an initial mapping, the project will select 10-16 conflicts for in-depth study. It will be both conflicts that are particularly contentious as well as less disputed subnational foreign policy interventions. Contentious conflicts involve intense civil society mobilization, conflicts between local communities, within and between political parties and/or between government levels. They may also lead to legal contestations and/or involvement of foreign governments.
Conversely, the pursuit of foreign policy-related matters can be less controversial, e.g. when a genocide monument is built or a resolution passed without major opposition. The project will focus on ongoing and recent examples in different parts of the world.
Thousands of municipalities have taken a stand against nuclear weapons by joining Mayors for Peace, while hundreds of cities officially support the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) through ICAN Cities Appeal. Of particular interest here are subnational governments in Australia, Canada, Belgium, France, German, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Subnational genocide commemoration and recognition initiatives are more rare and often not coordinated and mapped by international organizations. Examples of genocides or mass-atrocities of interest are the 1915 genocide against Christian minorities in the Ottoman Empire, the Cambodian genocide 1975-79, the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda and atrocities against Tamils during Sri Lanka’s civil war 1983-2009. Initiatives towards their public commemoration or recognition at subnational level have been taken in countries like Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States.
In each selected conflict, the project will trace the process of civil society and/or political mobilization and study the motivation of activists and local politicians and the opportunities and constraints they experience and navigate. It will also study motivations and strategizing of opponents, processes of legal contestation and reactions by national and international actors.
A broad range of sources will be used: civil society reports and campaign material; media reports; bills, decisions and debates in subnational institutions; and documentation of legal procedures. Interviews with activists, local politicians, persons involved in court cases, national foreign policymakers and representatives of foreign governments will facilitate an understanding of motivations and strategies, trace conflict dynamics and identify additional sources. Given the study’s wide geographical scope, onsite and online data gathering will be combined.