Paradiplomacy, Its Actors and Trends: State of the Art and Additional Contributions

Abstract The current pandemic scenario has brought relevance to the paradiplomatic activities carried out by subnational entities, insofar as it has challenged the traditional models of International Relations, pushing decentralized actors to seek solutions to their problems through external agreements. Despite its importance, scientific production on the subject of paradiplomacy is scattered. In this sense, we sought to analyse the state of the art of current scientific production on paradiplomacy, as well as whether this production is characterized by a stop-and-go trend, as seen in the empirical logic of the international activities of sub-national entities. To this end, bibliometric analysis and a systematic literature review were carried out based on 75 scientific papers available on the Web of Science (WOS), Scopus and the Scientific Electronic Library (Scielo). The main results, therefore, pointed to a stop-and-go trend in scientific production on paradiplomacy, which in turn was driven by the situation imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic (2021), and the rise of studies on paradiplomatic activities carried out by Chinese (2021 and 2020), Canadian (2019) and, above all, Latin American (2018) subnational entities. Finally, as a contribution to the literature on the subject, the use of a little-used methodology to examine the role of subnational entities in International Relations is verified, which therefore provides an alternative way to interpret the results and present new insights on the subject.