Political Ambassadors
US Embassy, Paris, France (official photo)
Brian Knowlton for the New York Times takes a look at the practice of appointing political favorites, typically donors, to ambassador posts in fun countries. His specific focus is our new ambassador to France, Charles H. Rivkin, a major Obama fundraiser:
Mr. Rivkin can certainly find France. A graduate of Yale (international relations) and Harvard (M.B.A.), he spent years as a youth studying, traveling and working in France — he did an internship at Renault — and is fluent in French. Business interests have taken him to Paris or Cannes every year for the past 20 years, he said.
One measure of an ambassador’s effectiveness can be how well-connected he is in Washington. Here, a political appointee like Mr. Rivkin can enjoy a significant advantage.
One thing to note here is that as a general matter this is a much bigger deal for US foreign service officers than it is for foreign governments as such. Because the United States is such a large and influential country, it’s simply in the nature of things that Spain’s ambassador in Washington will be a more senior figure in Spanish policy circles than America’s ambassador in Spain is in American policy circles. Which is to say that whether or not we appoint career professionals, government-to-government contacts that need to be run through an embassy will almost certainly be run through embassies located in Washington, where most countries are represented by very senior officials. And as the article notes, in terms of access and influence you may be better off with a political appointee. A major fundraiser and longtime personal friend like Rivkin will have an easier time getting a message to Obama than would any career person who might possibly get the job.
At the same time, for American foreign service officers heavy reliance on political appointees is extremely demoralizing. Foreign service professionals do extremely important, often overlooked work and it’s not as if they’re getting rich doing it. Declining to use career FSOs for the top diplomatic positions devalues the work of the entire foreign service. The Obama administration is nominally committed to the view that the United States needs to rebalance its international agenda toward less reliance on the military and more reliance on our civilian capabilities. The foreign service is integral to that idea, and moving to curb the use of ambassadorships as patronage positions would have been an excellent signal of seriousness about elevating the status of the foreign service.
16 Responses to “Political Ambassadors”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
August 17th, 2009 at 9:20 am
It’s fine when the people are the type of people you’d want in there anyway. But it can also lead to the Bush administration putting in industrialists from the Midwest to Germany and non-French speakers to France. This is obviously not good especially during a war where you might want someone who could write op-eds or go on television and explain the American position.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:21 am
I don’t think that is the biggest negative–anyone less than 150 years old in today’s US Foreign Service knew what they were signing on for. They weren’t going to be US Ambassador to France or Israel or Japan. Nor are those the most interesting jobs in the world–precisely because they are the countries we deal with the most on a regular, multifaceted basis, far more of the work goes on “ministerially” or through other channels that aren’t Ambassador-centric. Or do you really think the US Ambassador to Japan hashes out trade agreements?
The bigger negative (and frankly it doesn’t seem too big to me) is that it’s demoralizing to countries that don’t get political appointees as US Ambassadors! While they might value the expertise and tact of a real Foreign Service professional, it’s a constant reminder that they’re no UK or Japan.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:22 am
It’s kinda the nature of the beast in the State Department that various competent, hardworking professionals in US embassies abroad do good work and come up with good ideas, but then they have to run those ideas by the ambassador and the ambassador is usually an idiot who doesn’t know anything about the country but was a big donor during the election. This can be especially damaging in a small country where the US ambassador basically runs the place.
That said, an ambassador who actually speaks the local language and knows about the country and even lived there once upon a time–that’s a damn sight better than what you usually have. So it is a big improvement. But, Matt’s point still stands.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:29 am
At the same time, for American foreign service officers heavy reliance on political appointees is extremely demoralizing.
Really? Since this has been the practice since long past living memory, any FSO who was not aware it was part of the deal from the very beginning of his or her career is probably not perceptive enough to be appointed an ambassador in the first place.
Since the advent of modern communication (and by this I mean the telegraph) allowed any important policy decisions to be made back in the home capital and communicated to diplomatic personnel in country virtually instantly, ambassadors have become pretty much spokesmodels.
This may be a perpetual gripe among FSOs, but it’s been such a given for so long it’s hard to believe it has much impact on morale.
August 17th, 2009 at 9:29 am
That’s the least of an FSO’s troubles. There’s also the fact that the defense attaches and CIA station chief have more power than even the most senior Foreign Service officer.
Under the last Administration, a FSO just back from a tour in a Mideast embasssy tour told me that their directions were– as long as the Washington Times didn’t complain, DC didn’t care what they did. Now that’s demoralizing.
)
August 17th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Declining to use career FSOs for the top diplomatic positions devalues the work of the entire foreign service.
That’s the key point. There’s been a small but notable number of talented, influential people appointed to that set of ambassadorships normally off-limits to the Foreign Service. There have been a lot more quid pro quo appointments. That the top career professionals in London, Paris or Madrid have professional respect doesn’t really wash when it’s pretty clear that the top spots are closed off to them.
Obama’s been better than Bush with his political appointments, but that’s no justification for making them, and arguing the benefits of political appointees in terms of their “connectedness”, as Knowlton does, is really just making excuses for the last vestiges of the old spoils system. It’s really like justifying nepotism on account of family ties.
It’s not as if there was a process to determine that a career appointee would be more useful in Kazakhstan and a political appointee better suited to Rome: the sunny, pretty and swanky posts are cordoned off for the donors and worthies.
(Israel, curiously enough, is one of the few countries that generally doesn’t send career diplomats to DC. Make of that what you will.)
August 17th, 2009 at 9:46 am
If MY’s argument is valid, it seems like we should respond by improving the salary of top career FSO’s. That way we get the benefit of higher moral in the FSO and improved contacts with France. If this argument is valid…
August 17th, 2009 at 9:52 am
This is obviously not good especially during a war where you might want someone who could write op-eds or go on television and explain the American position.
The op-eds can be written by the career staff; the on-screen presence is harder to address. Ironically, it’s a bit like having a “weak president” system in those foreign missions: the ambassador generally does ceremonial stuff but isn’t there to speak on policy — unless the ambassador is a dick, as were Bush’s appointments to Canada.
This is less significant than it was, but there are definitely times in recent history when it gets noticed. William Farish may have been able to talk horses to HMQ, but during the run-up to the Iraq War, he was invisible.
August 17th, 2009 at 10:03 am
To be fair, about half of those new ambassadors, political appointees who raised money for Obama during the campaign, are in fact small donors (raised $200 or less); that is the change we need!
August 17th, 2009 at 10:04 am
So decisions regarding labor policy should take into account whether said policy demoralizes the workforce?
I’ll remember that the next time Matt posts about the benefits of merit pay for teachers.
August 17th, 2009 at 11:37 am
It’s my impression that the % of career FSO’s as the chief of mission (i.e. ‘the Ambassador’) has steadily risen over the decades, even during the Bush years, so any data to the contrary would be appreciated. (part of it is simply more countries. The biggest part of it though is having more than one fully accreditted “ambassador” at the mission; for example Afghanistan now has four.)
The other thing worth pointing out is one would never say that career military officers are ‘demoralized’ by having to work for political employees. One part of it is everyone knows that’s how the game is played. But the other part of it is that you need the political appointment process, even if it is a spoils system, in order to hold accountable the institution, and keep in check the inevitable institutional capture that will occur even among the best meaing people with long tenure. This is true is the DoD, the State Dept, Agriculture, whatever. And ‘professionals’ understand this.
I understand this in contrary to MattY’s platonic ideal of the civil service system, but the other thing he always forgets that senior personnel decisions even within the civil service system (or the military promotion system, or for that matter any promotion system in a large organization) are ‘political’ decisions. That is, you don’t take a test with the high score becoming boss. Or rely on any other objective measure. Rather, a boss at some level will evaluate a pool of people and make a decision on whom to promote. Because the big boss is human (at least at this stage) you can’t divorce ‘politics’ from that decision – esp because the decision will be between several overally qualified people all of whome have offsetting strengths and weaknesses. So it ultimately becomes a judgement call of ‘who you like best’ – i.e. politics.
August 17th, 2009 at 11:52 am
As a former [briefly] FSO, I’d say #2 and #4 just about nail it.
August 17th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
[...] rest is here: Matthew Yglesias » Political Ambassadors No TweetBacks yet. (Be the first to Tweet this post)AKPC_IDS += “1308,”;Popularity: unranked [...]
August 17th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
This is corrupt, outrageous, and ought to be illegal. Our ambassadors are representatives of the people and government of the United States. Using them as rewards for political fundraising is no less wrong than buying a seat on the Supreme Court.
August 17th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
How does the Ambassador situation differ significantly from putting Senators and governors in Cabinet positions rather than having career civil servants who know their department, their department’s mission and history (and the Congressional overseers and staff) much better ?
The “fair” solution would be something analogous to the British system with the “permanent secretary” (civil service) staying in place regardless of the official (i.e., politician) department head.
August 17th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
…moving to curb the use of ambassadorships as patronage positions would have been an excellent signal of seriousness about elevating the status of the foreign service.
It would appear that the formulation “doing x would have been an excellent signal of seriousness about y” will be quite useful for the next 7 years.