ABSTRACT
This final chapter is intended to pull together the record of economic diplomacy, as expounded in this book. It will not offer detailed predictions about future developments. Economic diplomacy constantly changes in unforeseen ways. In the last edition of this book we noted, with some regret, that the steady growth and low inflation prevailing in the early 2000s had reduced the pressure for the difficult decisions needed to advance economic diplomacy. Just as the book appeared in 2007, the worst financial and economic crisis for 80 years began to take hold, which, like others, we had not foreseen. That crisis introduced a turbulent period in the world economy, which is not yet over. There have been some notable innovations in economic diplomacy, but the system has not yet regained a durable equilibrium. Thus forecasting is more than usually hazardous. Even so, our aim will be to pick out some of the dominant trends in the new economic diplomacy which have emerged over the last two decades and which appear to be taking root. These trends will be illustrated from the case studies set out in the practitioner chapters.
