The Economic and political components of diplomatic discourse: State actors in Morocco-UK Free Trade Agreement as a case study

Abstract

Morocco is the UK’s 58 th largest trading partner (ONS, 2019). Based on this fact, a new perception of the state actors’ role in diplomacy should be brought into play and transformational force of economic actors may be the appraiser and monitor of international relations. Diplomatic and economic actors’ effective performance lies on their capacity to go beyond the usual standards of the main institutional narrative and reshape their own narrative. What are the real contours of the state actors’ instrumentality under the pressure of institutional directives? And how are institutional pressures constructed and the extent to which they shape the state actors’ discourse? We have conducted a textual analysis of political discourse based on the interventions made by three interveners to understand and analyse the interests of the UK and Morocco as determined by their institutional logics. State actors’ effective performance on a diplomatic scale seems practicably incapable to go beyond the usual standards of the main institutional narrative and reshape their own narrative. State actors are indeed far from bringing about change and consolidate a more harmonious standpoint vis-a-vis the official diplomatic and economic perspective.