Smart Economic Diplomacy in the Digital Era: Comparative Insights from Singapore, Estonia, and the United Arab Emirates

The accelerating digital transformation of global trade is reshaping the practice of economic diplomacy, compelling governments to integrate advanced technologies, adaptive governance, and multi-stakeholder engagement into their trade facilitation strategies. This study develops and applies a conceptual model of smart economic diplomacy—defined as the strategic alignment of digital public infrastructure, legal policy frameworks, and stakeholder orchestration—to examine how three diverse economies, Singapore, Estonia, and the United Arab Emirates, operationalize this approach. Using a mixed-method comparative case study design, the research synthesizes evidence from policy documents, technical standards, administrative data, and expert interviews. The findings reveal that while technological sophistication is a critical driver of performance, governance quality and inclusive engagement are equally decisive in achieving sustained improvements in time and cost reduction, predictability and integrity, and inclusion and scale. Singapore’s long-term investment in integrated systems and legal interoperability yields uniformly high performance; Estonia’s secure digital identity and cross-border interoperability deliver exceptional predictability; and the UAE’s rapid, policy-driven digitalization demonstrates the catalytic role of political commitment, albeit with ongoing governance harmonization challenges. Cross-case analysis identifies three common success mechanisms: legal recognition of digital instruments, multidimensional interoperability, and institutionalized stakeholder engagement. The study concludes that smart economic diplomacy is not a static policy instrument but a dynamic governance approach that must evolve with technological, economic, and geopolitical shifts. Policy recommendations emphasize the need for foundational digital infrastructure, harmonized legal and technical standards, embedded stakeholder governance, and continuous monitoring and adaptation to maximize competitiveness, resilience, and trust in the global trading system.

کلیدواژه ها:

Smart economic diplomacy ، digital trade facilitation ، interoperability ، governance capacity ، stakeholder engagement