The Role of the Government of West Java as a Sub-National Actor in Increasing Local Economic Development Through Paradiplomacy Economic

Abstract

In this era of globalization, the competition between non-state actors has become more obvious; the local government can take a role in the international realm by supporting the central government to achieve national development through trade diplomacy. Indonesia put economic diplomacy as the backbone in implementing its foreign policy and put the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) in the front line. Therefore, Indonesia’s Economic diplomacy is represented in five directions of Indonesia's foreign policy set by the president at the beginning of Jokowi’s leadership. Strengthening economic diplomacy means utilizing international political instruments to achieve economic goals through various cooperation, such as trade and investment cooperation, to support national development. Qualitative methods were used in this article. The literature studies is used in this article in order to support the required data. This article aims to look at the role of local government (sub-nation), particularly the West Java Province by analyzing the trade data of West Java with foreign entities during 2013-2019 and also seeks to examine the involvement of subnational actor in increasing local economic development through trade diplomacy, which then focuses on understanding how trade diplomacy concept that has been practiced by the government of west java province. Based on the result of data analysis, this research finds out that trade diplomacy conducted by the government of west java province contributes to increasing local economic development.