Governance Strategies for Egyptian Businesses in Economic Diplomacy

Abstract

In an ever-expanding and interconnected globalized world, businesses find themselves engaging with a diverse and broad spectrum of both governmental and non-governmental entities. This trend leads to a broader and more diverse range of influences on economic policies, including bureaucratic, economic, and ideational factors. This paradigm holds particularly true for businesses operating in newly industrializing countries (NICs) that often face challenges due to limited political and administrative capacity when conducting their economic diplomacy abroad. However, it is worth noting that there is a scarcity of in-depth studies that specifically focus on businesses, particularly those operating within weak states, as the primary actors involved in economic diplomacy. The majority of existing studies tend to concentrate mainly on internal ministries, merely incorporating the private sector as one of many stakeholders of the state, rather than recognizing it as a distinctive and influential category of actors. When it comes to the role of business, there are inconsistencies in how the business community is treated in the literature. A majority of accounts seem to assume that the business sector, no matter what type of capital and how it operates, shares the same goal in making the state move in favor of their economic pursuits. A conflation of business with the private interest is present where it is argued that the domestic business community may play a role by framing policy debates in a particular way – in terms of its particular interest – that policymakers have no choice but to respond to. Some theoretical accounts acknowledge instead that the business community is not homogeneous in terms of demands and roles but do not provide the nuances about either the complexities within the business sector or the different roles businesses may play. The study also considered a number of essential subsidiary supportive strategies, both in the framework of programs and institutions, with the need to unify the conscious national minds.