A New Framework for American Foreign Policy Planning is Needed to Account for State and Local Government Diplomacy
The United States government uses a multi-level strategic planning process to construct a hierarchical system of foreign policy plans. While this system promotes the achievement of horizontal and vertical alignment of foreign policy plans at the national level, it is not designed to promote diagonal alignment with the international engagement plans of state and local governments. This gap in strategic planning represents a serious deficiency that is likely to frustrate the achievement of the full potential of subnational diplomacy. The Office of the Special Representative for City and State Diplomacy is in a unique position to provide the leadership needed to address this policy problem. It could start by advocating for the extension of the integrated strategic planning process to the state and local government levels.
Current System
The United States Department of State has a hierarchical system of foreign policy plans. The primary plans in this system are the Joint Strategic Plan (JSP), Joint Regional Strategies (JRS), Functional Bureau Strategies (FBS), and Integrated Country Strategies (ICS). The JSP represents the corporate strategic plan that sets the departmental goals and objectives that are to inform strategic planning at the lower levels in the system. The JRS and FBS are situated immediately below the JSP. They set the regional bureau and functional bureau goals and objectives, respectively, within the system. They are supposed to be horizontally aligned with one another. The ICS rounds out this system. Each ICS sets the coalface goals and objectives for engagement within a given country.
Subnational Diplomacy
The United States government recognizes that the goals and objectives set by the JSP cannot be realized without state and local government diplomacy. A Special Representative for City and State Diplomacy was recently appointed to lead and coordinate this effort on behalf of the federal government. On the State Department’s website, the Office of the Special Representative for City and State Diplomacy is situated under the Office of Global Partnerships (OGP). Note, the OGP publicly emphasizes that its mission is to advance the department’s priorities through private sector engagement. This institutional reality promotes the orientation of state and local government diplomacy toward the promotion of foreign investment and higher education partnerships. Such a narrow application carries domestic political implications. While it is unlikely to be welcomed by progressives on the left, it helps to mitigate against opposition from conservatives on the right.
Whole of Governments
The current strategic planning system was designed to improve interagency coordination and collaboration on overseas missions and activities within the federal government of the United States. It was never designed to improve coordination and collaboration on international engagements by state governments, local governments, and local communities. Such national-subnational alignment requires more than a whole of government approach. It demands a whole of governments approach. The status quo fails because too few state and local government officials are aware of the foreign policy plans produced by the federal government, nor do they understand how to effectively integrate those goals and objectives into their own strategic planning for international engagements. The Office of the Special Representative for City and State Diplomacy could help to address these deficiencies by providing standardized templates and training certification programs that would help to lower the barrier for integrated strategic planning on international engagements by subnational actors. These standardized templates could include: 1) State Government Plans (SGPs); 2) Local Government Plans (LGPs); 3) Local Community Plans (LCPs).
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