Title: Evaluation of the Economic Diplomacy model in the Republic of Slovenia

Authors: Gorazd Justinek

Addresses: International School for Social and Business Studies, Celje, Mariborska cesta 7, 3000 Celje, Slovenia

Abstract: Economic Diplomacy (ED) is in fact as old as international trade, just that it has been often, due to other |priorities|, pushed back. Yet, what is ED in the first place? Many diplomats, politicians, businessman and even researchers speak about it, but do we all have in mind the same thing? The existing literature shows many different viewpoints of ED, but in our opinion not the |whole picture|. With the purpose of having a clear perspective about the topic we defined our own definition of ED. However in Slovenia, a small and an open economy, the talks about ED first started in the mid 1990s of the last century, primary having in mind the Economic Counsellors (ECs) at the diplomatic missions abroad. Yet, there was no complete strategy in this field. On the basis of performed questionnaire and experiment we carried out an evaluation of the existing system of ED in Slovenia and suggested policy recommendations.

Keywords: economic diplomacy; Slovenia; international trade; diplomats; politicians; small economies; open economies; economic counsellors; diplomatic missions; globalisation; global markets.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTGM.2011.042864

International Journal of Trade and Global Markets, 2011 Vol.4 No.4, pp.405 - 419

Received: 16 Oct 2010
Accepted: 05 Dec 2010
Published online: 08 Apr 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article