Diasporas as Non-Central Government Actors in Foreign Policy: The Trajectory of Basque Paradiplomacy

Today's Basque diaspora includes nearly 200 Basque communities in 22 countries around the world. This article addresses the political culture and institutional relations between regional governments and their ethnic diasporas. Quantitative and qualitative data highlight the Basque Autonomous Community regional government's laws, programs, subsidies, and voting rights granted to their diaspora community institutions and individuals. I argue that non-central government actors are flexing their formidable capacity to direct their own mutually beneficial transnational relations.

Acknowledgments

Gloria Totoricagüena is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Migration Studies at the Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno. She has conducted research with diaspora communities in 20 countries and served as Principal Investigator for numerous international projects regarding Basques abroad. Her publications include Identity, Culture, and Politics in the Basque Diaspora (2004) and a textbook Basque Diaspora: Migration and Transnational Identity (2005).

Notes

1. Brian Hocking, Localizing Foreign Policy: Non-Central Governments and Multiplayer Diplomacy (London/New York: Macmillan and St. Martin's Press, 1993), p. 36.

2. Rossi Shain and Tamara Cofman Wittes, “Peace as a Three-Level Game: The Role of Diasporas in Conflict Resolution,” in Thomas Ambrosio (ed.), Ethnic Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy (Westport, CT/London: Praeger, 2002), pp. 169–97.

3. Ivo D. Duchacek, The Territorial Dimension of Politics: Within, Among and Across Nations (Boulder/London: Westview Press, 1986). pp. 246–7.

4. Ibid., p. 248.

5. Iñaki Aguirre, “Making Sense of Paradiplomacy? An Intertextual Inquiry about a Concept in Search of a Definition,” in Francisco Aldecoa and Michael Keating (eds), Paradiplomacy in Action: The Foreign Relations of Subnational Governments (London/Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1999), p. 205.

6. For additional reading and details see Alexander Ugalde Zubiri, La Acción Exterior del Nacionalismo Vasco (1890-1939): Historia, Pensamiento, y Relaciones Internacionales (Bilbao: Gobierno Vasco Colección de Tesis Doctorales. Instituto Vasco de la Administración Pública), and La Acción Exterior del País Vasco (1980–2003) (Oñate, Gipuzkoa: Instituto Vasco de Administración Pública, 2004) and Koldo San Sebastián, The Basque Archives: Vascos en Estados Unidos (1938–1943) (Donostia-San Sebastián: Editorial Txertoa, 1991).

7. Today there are 96 Basque organizations in Argentina, and one federation of Basque associations, the Federación de Entidades Vasco Argentinas, FEVA.

8. Personal interviews with Andoni Ortuzar. November 1996, Rosario, Argentina; July 1997, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain.

9. Gloria Totoricagüena, Identity, Culture, and Politics in the Basque Diaspora (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2004) p. 11. In fieldwork, 843 Basques responded to anonymous questionnaires where they were allowed to define themselves in various combinations, and to write in any other definitions they desired. No one defined themselves according to their province.

10. To see a copy of the Memorial #114 in English see http://www.euskonews.com/0197zbk/kosmo19702en.html

11. See Gurutz Jáuregui, La Comunidad Autónoma del País Vasco y las Relaciones Internacionales (Oñati: Instituto Vasco de Administración Pública, 1989).

12. Ignacio Molina and Fernando Rodrigo, “Spain,” in Brian Hocking and David Spence (eds.) Foreign Ministries in the European Union: Integrating Diplomats (Basingstoke/New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 212–37.

13. Idaho Secretary of State and initiator of the Idaho Joint Memorial #114 favoring self-determination in the Basque Country, Pete T. Cenarrusa, has been the victim of what many have deemed “character assassination.” Articles in conservative Spanish newspapers and on internet sites have depicted him as having ties to ring-wing white supremacists, to illegal paramilitary groups in the USA, and as favoring the radical separatist group Euskadi ‘ta Askatasuna. Several have insinuated senility, and most have questioned his knowledge of politics in Spain.

14. The author was present at both of these meetings in Boise, Idaho and Reno, Nevada in 2004.

15. Luis Daniel Izpizua, “Diarreáspora,” El País, 29 Oct. 2004.

16. Gloria Totoricagüena, Basque Diaspora: Migration and Transnational Identity (Reno: Center for Basque Studies, 2005). See especially Chapter 19, pp. 449–66.

17. A Spanish copy of Public Law 8/1994 is available at http://www.euskadi.net/r48-454/es/contenidos/informacion/disposiciones_normat/es_706/l8_c.html

18. Karmelo Sainz de la Maza, Speech given to the Basque Parliament of Euskadi as quoted in Law of Relations with Basque Communities Outside the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (Vitoria-Gasteiz: Servicio Central de Publicaciones del Gobierno Vasco, 1994), p. 14.

19. Gloria Totoricagüena, p. 189.

20. Aldecoa and Keating, p. 4.

21. Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (London: University College London Press, 1997).

22. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991), p. 6.