DIPLOMATIC SERVICES TODAY: BETWEEN POLITICAL DECISIONS AND ADMINISTRATIVE CRITERIA.

• Author: Naumescu, Valentin

1. Introduction: diplomacy between politics and administration

   Speaking about diplomacy as a specialized service of central administration is correct but not enough. It is however a challenging, multi-disciplinary enterprise at the same time. On the one hand, based on the general organization scheme of the government system, it is obvious that diplomacy is part of the civil service, like all other departments are, and therefore it should obey the same transparency rules and criteria of accountability as anyone else who spends tax payers' money. On the other hand, because of the very special nature of its activities, relative small size in terms of staff and budget, sophisticated issues and the unique feature of acting abroad, in considerably different political, economic, social and cultural contexts, diplomacy is not really expected to deliver the goods in the same way as police, public education system or fiscal administration do in their homeland. Almost everywhere in the world, diplomacy faces the paradox of being considered the privileged 'elite' of public administration but also being distrusted by ordinary people. How is this possible? In order to understand this 'double standard' assessment of diplomacy that stirs so much controversy on it, a definition of diplomatic service would be useful for a clear start of our analysis. According to G.R. Berridge and Alan James's consecrated Dictionary of Diplomacy (Berridge and James, 2003), the diplomatic service is 'the bureaucracy of the professional diplomats of the state, usually embracing personnel in the ministry of foreign affairs as well as those employed at foreign postings' (Berridge and James, 2003, p. 83). Various names and structures for the diplomatic services are met in different countries, such as the Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) in US. Starting with the Lisbon Treaty (2009), the European Union has developed the European External Actions Service (EEAS) led by a High Representative. In many countries, especially in Europe, the law with regard to diplomatic and consular corps also includes the political level of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (the minister and secretaries or undersecretaries of state) within the diplomatic corps, during their term. It is the case of France, Germany, Romania, Poland and other EU member states but not of the US and Canadian diplomatic systems. The result of this amalgamation in Europe is sometimes a confusing mix of politics and bureaucracy which will hallmark diplomacy in public's eyes along its entire existence. On the contrary, in the United States not only they 'exclude' the political dignitaries from the diplomatic corps but also ambassadors, who--without hypocrisy!--represent a list of 'reserved positions' for the nominees of the head of the executive branch. Beyond political appointments at designated levels, the diplomatic and consular corps remains in the 'new world' a real professional body, with very few (if any) political interferences. From this very simple perspective, at least people know what to expect from every level of diplomacy, in other words the public knows who is politically affiliated and who is a professional diplomat. In many European countries, there is a clear legal interdiction for professional diplomats (ambassadors included) to be members of political parties.

   Regarding the politicization of ambassadors' appointment, we learn from the website of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs that: 'There is such a procedure in the United States, where Ambassadors change with the President. In France, it is rare. The choice is nearly always a diplomat with a good mastery of the profession, in other words diplomats that have reached the grade of envoy or at the very least the grade of counsellor (first class)' (France Diplomatie, 2014). It is nevertheless explained that these 'diplomats with a good mastery of profession' are appointed ambassadors by the President of the French Republic in a meeting of the Council of Ministers, at the proposal of the Government (Ministry of Foreign Affairs). At the end of the day it is the same political decision in both situations, with the only difference that the French system insists that there are no other criteria than the professional ones.

   The enlargement of the list of 'diplomatic actors' in recent times, beyond classical diplomatic services run by governments, changes substantially the perspectives and shapes of nowadays diplomacy. NGOs, multinational companies acting overseas, lobbyists, media, cultural or sports personalities etc. involving for one cause or another bring their own approaches and styles and draw a different picture of diplomatic processes. We witness a spectacular 'contraction' of time and distances but a widening of the spectrum of diplomatic actors. Online communication, mobility of people and a greater access to prompt information speed up everything. Globalization changed diplomacy more than someone ever predicted. But diplomacy in its turn is having an impact on governments, through various means.

   More than any other department, the diplomatic service floats more or less skillfully on a thin borderline between politics and administration. Its specific 'job description' as well as external and internal pressures offer actually no alternative to this permanent 'ballet', with inevitable political and bureaucratic 'figures'. The subtle and effective way in which a government manages to keep the fine balance of these two conflicting paradigms gives in fact the expression of its performances, coherence and public credibility.

2. Theoretical framework of analysis

   Recognized authors in the field of foreign policy and diplomacy propose a set of concepts, theories and criteria for describing the processes related to the activities conducted by the departments of foreign affairs. Based on these analytical instruments, diplomatic services can be measured and evaluated today, at least from an administrative perspective (staff, budget, technical skills, consular services, infrastructure and logistics etc.) if not from a political one.

   The theoretical framework of this section is based on Marijke Breuning's main findings from her famous book of 2007, Foreign Policy Analysis. The author suggests that the decision making process actually looks like an iceberg, with the visible top represented by the decision-makers and the sunk bottom represented by the bureaucratic structures fuelling the decision flow (Breuning, 2007, p. 88). Usually, it is accepted (Ciot, 2012, p. 115) that there are three decisional patterns: the rational actor model (in which the government acts solely, based on the national interest), the organizational behavioral model (in which a number of agencies and organizations act on the basis of inertia and feasibility criteria) and the public policy model (in which a plurality of actors, including individuals pursue their interests based on complex negotiations). In fact, these three models are reflected in practice by the main versions of diplomacy's conduct: the very politicized, the bureaucratic-inertial and the political-administrative or pluralist model. As we shall see later on, the first is the most disposed to reforms (but also to risks), the second is the most reluctant to change while the third is an intermediate and sometimes ideal model of foreign policy and diplomacy. Christer Jonsson and Martin Hall make a useful distinction between institutional and organizational dimensions of diplomacy. 'Diplomacy [...] should be seen as an institution, understood broadly as a relatively stable collection of social practices consisting of easily recognized roles coupled with underlying norms and a set of rules or conventions defining appropriate behavior for, and governing relations among, occupants of these roles' (Jonsson and Hall, 2005, p. 25). All these ingredients act in the sense of shaping expectations, prescribing behaviors, or limiting actions, as long as diplomacy is not only about what you can do but also about you cannot do. An institution in its largest meaning may involve one or more organizations. From this perspective, the two authors affirm, diplomacy is an institution while the Foreign Ministry is an organization.

   As I have mentioned before, globalization both challenged and changed diplomacy. During the lifetime of one single generation of diplomats, so many considerable changes occurred only in the past decades. Some of them came out from new information technologies, others from increased mobility or even social and cultural mutations. But diplomacy survived, though it is not the one it used to be thirty or forty years ago. One possible description of this adjustment asserts that 'the gradual unification during the twentieth century of the bureaucracy of diplomacy, including that of the diplomatic and consular services, no doubt played its part in enabling the MFA to resist the next challenge to its positions, which came in the century's last decades, chiefly from 'direct dial diplomacy' (Berridge, 2010, p. 8). Starting with the 1960s and 1970s, the conceptualization of 'public policy analysis' came to give more structured and coherent instruments for assessing public activities of central or local authorities. At least four types of analyses have been identified: normative, legal, rationale, and empirical analysis (Pal, 2002, p. 33). Leslie Pal explains what each of them means, from the moral foundations of a public policy and its legal dimension to logical considerations and practical consequences of that policy.

   Let's take the recent example of a Western foreign policy dilemma: the military coup d'etat in Cairo, on 3 July 2013. According to any elementary political science handbook, the arrest of then-newly elected (June 2012) President Morsi by the Egyptian army and the abolishing the Constitution (adopted in the December 2012 referendum) through a simple military decree clearly...