The paper analyses the nature and features of the Knowledge Regions and their emergence
in the international system as strategic players in the process of glocalization, strongly
anchored in the creation of dense knowledge networks and the development of an active
paradiplomacy which enables the regions to project externally their specific interests and to
reinforce their influence in the process of multilevel governance functioning as strategic
brokers between the global and the local. In this context the paper discusses the
implications of the paradiplomacy of sub-national governments to the foreign policies of
central governments and argues that not only paradiplomacy does not present a risk to the
coherence of foreign policy but constitutes a major factor for the consolidation of the soft
power of states