Multilevel governance and the external strategies of subnational governments in Latin America

ABSTRACT This article examines the external dimensions of domestic conflicts over subnational prerogatives in Latin America – a place where subnational governments cannot leverage their presence in powerful supranational institutions like those of the European Union. In the wake of decentralization, subnational governments across Latin America are adopting a variety of external strategies to defend their newfound prerogatives vis-à-vis national governments. This article conceptualizes three such strategies – targeted at governmental allies at the supranational, national, and subnational scales – and examines how each has been deployed in recent conflicts between national and subnational governments in Colombia, Bolivia, and Ecuador. While domestic conflicts over territorial governance have indeed become externalized in Latin America, external strategies on the part of subnational governments do not appear to have had a decisive impact, in part because their opponents in the national government have been able to similarly identify and solicit the support of their own external allies.