Development of the geopolitical orientation of the Slovak Republic since 1993

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to map the development of the foreign relations of the Slovak Republic in the period 1993 – 2022. The political - geographical analysis is based on real Slovak external interactions with selected key powers (the US, Russia, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and China) in the form of three thousand government visits. Using the classical geopolitics approach, we focus on data - driven research represented by official Slovak government visits. We compare these results throughout the government periods and with the strategic official documents represented by the number of mentions of those countries. In addition, we pointed out the dichotomy between the Slovak government ’ s interaction with Russia and Ukraine since 1993. The analysis results show that while the US and Russia have a prominent position in the official foreign policy documents, the reality embedded in Slovak interactions based on government visits is focused on geographically closer countries such as Germany and France.