2. International Activities of Sub- National Actors

3. Several general factors are promoting the international activities of non-central governments: Geographic contiguity in transborder regionalism; Imperatives of global and regional interdependence; Extension of national foreign policy into non-security issue-areas traditionally within the jurisdiction of non- central governments; Populist resentment against big and distant national government; Dwindling national resources available for regional developmental programs; Regional/municipal capacity to influence national foreign policy by means of taxation, political protests, etc; External activities as a status symbol or political patronage; Separatism.

4. Many of the most pressing contemporary global problems, such as ecology, epidemics, education, and social welfare, represent issues that remained within the competencies of provincial governments. Here, the local and regional authorities assumed increased roles in the shaping of many international issues.

5. There are two ways in which Russia's regions can interact with the international political arena: They can try to influence the decision- making process of the central state from within (informal and non-institutionalized). They can establish and develop their own networks of transitional contacts and start to develop their own foreign policy:

6. transborder cooperation between neighboring territories, sister relations between cities and municipalities, cooperation between NGOs within the framework of 'people's diplomacy' or 'global microdiplomacy' concepts. attempts to promote its own foreign policy independent of Moscow.

7. The special case of border regions. Ethnicity and internationalization.

8. Global actors in Russia's regions: 1. private international actors; 2. the programmes of foreign state organizations whose role it is to promote the foreign policy goals and commercial interests of their state; 3. the programmes of multilateral international organization.