Bilateral and Multilateral Economic Diplomacy: A Case Study of the Republic of Benin

This research explores an alternative understanding of Economic Diplomacy from the developing nations perspective. Economic diplomacy was originally known to be an instrument developed and used by powerful states to protect and reinforce their economic interests in international politics. But in recent years many developing countries are becoming active in international economy. They also developed economic strategies to harmonize their interests with the interests of major actors in world politics. This research aims at showing that, developing nations can also set their legal and economic policies and accommodate some exogenous policies as regards to economic diplomacy under international law and their economic realities on the ground. To understand the key characteristics of developing nations’ Economic Diplomacy, the Republic of Benin will be used as a case study as it is grouped among the developing nations and shares some similarities with its peers. The developing nations in general, especially the developing nations in Africa including our case study, are utilizing two important strategies to make their economic diplomacy very effective. These strategies are continental integration, politically, economically and culturally to form a strong economic block. And the other strategy is about finding new strategic economic partners besides the established colonial and imperial powers with whom their economic relations did not yield expected results. Keywords: Benin, Economic Diplomacy, Development, Bretton Wood institutions.