CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Reimers, Nicholas |
|---|---|
| Title | Interplay of International Trade and Diplomacy |
| Summary | This thesis adopts an interdisciplinary methodology that combines International Relations (IR) and International Business (IB), recognising that international trade and diplomacy are not two distinct fields but are fundamentally intertwined. Until 2025, trade was not widely considered a legitimate diplomatic tool; however, contemporary shifts in global politics reveal that trade has become a key instrument of great power strategy. Through historical perspective analysis and structured interviews, this study examines how trade and diplomacy evolved into differentiated domains and challenges that perception by presenting an interplay and co-existing layers model, demonstrating their ongoing interdependence. The core contribution of this thesis is the development of an interplay-based framework that reconceptualises trade and diplomacy as layered, co-existing practices. These layers, foundational, structured, and institutional, do not function as linear progressions but as simultaneously active domains. Practitioners continuously move between these layers, depending on context, purpose, and strategic necessity. The modern practitioner operates as an interplay-based agent, engages with legal systems, strategic policy, and relational diplomacy in a dynamic and non-sequential order. Supported by hierarchical and holistic decision-making models, the interplay framework reveals that international trade and diplomacy remain co-constitutive, with the foundational principles of diplomatic thinking still embedded within highly institutionalised and bureaucratic trade structures. This thesis challenges the disciplinary boundaries of IR and IB, arguing that an interplay-based methodology more accurately reflects contemporary practice and provides a critical tool for analysing the evolving complexity of international engagement. |
| Supervisor | Alexander Astrov |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/reimers_nicholas.pdf |
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