Author(s): Windy Dermawan, Ivan Darmawan, Mustabsyirotul Ummah Mustofa, Yusa Djuyandi
This article aims to explain how paradiplomacy is used as an instrument by the Regional Government of Aceh, Indonesia, and The Federal Government of Quebec for introducing their respective identities. Those two substate actors have distinctive identities that can be seen from the existence of other substate actors in their countries. Moreover, they have ever had vertical conflicts, that one of them was happened because of the desire to be an independent country to introduce the identity. Paradiplomacy as a conceptual framework in this paper will explain substate activities in foreign relations. The qualitative method is being used as a method to collect the data through interviews and documentation studies. This paper finds that in the era of independence and the struggle to reach self-determination, the practice of Aceh Province and Quebec’s paradiplomacy in introducing their identities was carried out through seeking support to perceive their independence based on the distinctive of identities with the societal majority in the respective countries that creating conflict with the central government. Meanwhile, after the peace and the end of the vertical conflicts with the central government, the instrument of Aceh Province and Quebec’s paradiplomacy in the effort to introduce their identities were conducted in a peaceful, persuasive manner, and introduced themselves to the global public by involving in international activities and optimizing their relations in economic and social-culture aspects. All the efforts are not separable from the government system where the two respective cities are located.