Weaponizing Federalism and Foreign Policy

The IOC did what to Utah?

There’s been some big fights in the Olympics community over doping and the role of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), with U.S. and other countries accusing athletes from the PRC of illegally using substances to improve their performance. The fight has led some in Congress to propose cutting funding for the agency and has brought about competing charges against U.S. Olympic officials.

Amid the fight, WADA and the International Olympic Committee required the organizers of Salt Lake City’s successful bid to host the 2034 Winter Olympics to respect the IOC’s position in the debate rather than that of the federal government’s. In doing so, the IOC unintentionally stumbled into a debate about the relationship between different levels of government in a federal system—specifically, who makes decisions in foreign relations. Utah and Salt Lake City (and their organizing committee) are being weaponized in an attempt to undercut the U.S. position.

This incident sheds light on some of the rather quickly evolving dynamics of federalism and foreign relations. What was once a worthy if somewhat dull area of study focused on pretty benign questions, like how states could promote trade, tourism, and investment, now appears to be a sphere in which conflict is simmering—and, in some cases, boiling over.

Even allies are recognizing how they can cultivate relationships with states and localities to bring pressure on the central government. During Donald Trump’s first administration, the Liberal government of Pierre Justin Trudeau sought to find ways to influence their neighbor to the south. Lacking direct ideological ties to Washington or many cards to play in the White House, Trudeau (and, I suspect, especially his then-foreign minister Chrystia Freeland) embraced what they called the “doughnut strategy”. As the New York Times wrote at the time,

Canada turned to courting every other level of government, forming something like a doughnut around a White House-shaped hole.

Canadian officials have fanned out across the United States, meeting with mayors, governors, members of Congress and business leaders on matters from trade to the environment.

Ministers’ schedules resemble those of rock bands on summer tours. They travel armed with data on the precise dollar amount and number of jobs supported by Canadian firms and trade in that area.

“They’re going to great lengths, going into parts of America that few cabinet ministers from Canada have gone to,” Mr. Burney said.

Hints of this network emerged when Mr. Trump announced that the United States would leave the Paris climate agreement. Canadian officials said they would instead seek climate deals with American states, many of which were already in progress.

This was, as the reporting makes clear, something of a novelty: what if we talked to the states?

To be sure, embassy officials and other delegations have long engaged with governors, mayors, and others. So too have U.S. state and local governments engaged with international affairs in areas from trade and investment promotion¹ to training Ukrainian armed forces. One 2002 study found a “substantial amount of international activity” in state legislatures, as state capitals dealt with laws and resolutions affecting international affairs.² At the time, however, most of those bills involved anti-terror initiatives, although trade accounted for approximately a quarter of the legislative initiatives. And there’s a long list of studies about how governors³ and mayors⁴ use foreign policy to enhance their careers.

Despite these studies, however, it’s fair to say that the role of subnational actors in theories and studies of United States foreign policy is relatively minimal—to the point that one survey of state governments explicitly disclaimed any role for state governments in foreign policy.⁵ But the eruption of local debates over, say, Gaza ceasefire resolutions shows that state and local governments can be focal points not only for local action but for contests between well-organized networks of national activists—and, I suspect, at least some involvement by states (you know, the Westphalian kind, not the American kind).

In sum, it seems like it’s time to start spending more time looking at how the porous and plural nature of state governments will interact with a post-hegemonic, post-globalization era of foreign policy. My guess is that it’s going to be conflictual and often silly—but good for scholarly research.

1. Wu, Chen, and Cynthia L. Rogers. "One size does not fit all: Foreign direct investment promotion policies across US states." Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy 48.1 (2017): 23-43.

2. Timothy J. Conlan, Robert L. Dudley, Joel F. Clark, Taking on the World: The International Activities of American State Legislatures, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Volume 34, Issue 3, Summer 2004, Pages 183–200, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.pubjof.a005036

3. McMillan, Samuel Lucas. The involvement of state governments in US foreign relations. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

4. Soffer, Jonathan. "Mayor Edward I. Koch and New York’s Municipal Foreign Policy, 1977–1990." Another Global City: Historical Explorations into the Transnational Municipal Moment, 1850–2000. New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2008. 119-133.

5. Barth, Jay, and Margaret R. Ferguson. "American governors and their constituents: The relationship between gubernatorial personality and public approval." State Politics & Policy Quarterly 2.3 (2002): 268-282.