This book provides a unique perspective on and approach to trade missions and how to make them more successful. By combining research and practice-based insights from international business and international relations it proposes an approach to trade missions focusing on preparation, visiting and the follow-up stage.

The role of a trade representative is not only varied and stimulating, covering a fascinating range of activities, but is also important and very worthwhile. The service that the trade representative provides is of value both to the individual companies they help and to the economy of the country they represent. This publication offers practical guidance that will help trade representatives do their job to the highest level, whether they are organizing a trade fair, hosting a visiting minister or pitching to an inward investor.

Business diplomacy involves developing strategies for long-term, positive relationship building with governments, local communities, and interest groups, aiming to establish and sustain legitimacy and to mitigate the risks arising from all non-commercial or exogenous factors in the global business environment.

The book presents an overview of the general aspects of trade uncertainty, a central element in the analysis of economic diplomacy, illustrating that some instruments, such as sanctions (both positive and negative), increase trade uncertainty, whilst others - multilateral trade policy, for instance - aim to reduce this uncertainty. Commercial policy and bilateral economic diplomacy are explored, and economic sanctions analysed. An extensive review of the literature and empirical investigations of 161 sanctions and the commercial relationships of 37 countries provide topical and empirical perspectives on how international diplomacy may both be a cost and a benefit of the key drivers of productivity growth. Finally, policy conclusions are drawn, and a future research agenda presented.

Fully revised and updated, this comprehensive guide to diplomacy explores the art of negotiating international agreements and the channels through which such activities occur when states are in diplomatic relations, and when they are not. This new edition includes chapters on secret intelligence and economic and commercial diplomacy.