Transformation of the role of subnational actors under predatory hegemony

Abstract

This article analyses the transformation of the contemporary international political order and its impact on the status and activities of subnational actors, including regions, provinces, and cities. The study draws on the concept of “predatory hegemony,” proposed by Stephen M. Walt in 2026, which describes a shift by leading powers from normative leadership to a transactional model grounded in zero-sum logic and the extraction of concessions from both allies and adversaries. The author argues that today’s system is shaped by tensions between two opposing trends. On the one hand, the political agency of subnational actors is increasing, driven by the limited capacity of national governments to respond quickly to local demands and crisis challenges, which stimulates paradiplomacy and reinforces network-based forms of international engagement. On the other hand, the spread of predatory hegemony changes the very meaning of autonomy: from a resource of flexibility and democratic resilience into a channel of vulnerability for the nation-state. In this logic, any external initiative by a region or city, whether a statement, campaign, contact, or agreement, can be used by the hegemon as a convenient pretext to pressure the national centre. As a result, decentralisation is no longer purely a domestic governance matter, but one that affects a state’s external vulnerability. The hegemon can exploit multi-level governance by identifying a “weak link” at the regional or municipal level and turning it into a lever of pressure on the capital. The article focuses on the “autonomy dilemma,” a situation in which a subnational actor’s right to pursue its own external activity becomes a trigger or resource for external pressure that is applied not to the region itself, but to the country as a whole. Empirically, these dynamics are illustrated through the case of confrontation between the government of the Canadian province of Ontario and the administration of Donald Trump in 2025-2026, which placed Canada’s federal government before a choice between defending the province’s democratic autonomy and pursuing pragmatic de-escalation to preserve economic stability. The study concludes that a predatory model of hegemony encourages states to restrict the internal freedom of their territories in order to minimise “entry points” for external coercion, while simultaneously pushing them toward strategic diversification of external ties and the search for new networked alliances beyond the hegemon’s sphere of dominance.