Are ambassadors irrelevant in today’s world?

Posted on 14. Feb, 2009 by Emmanuelle Archer in Blog, Expat Life
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If you are in the mood for a bit of controversy after all the Valentine’s Day saccharine sweetness, I have an interesting article for you!

Do you think it’s time to scrap ambassadors and their embassies?

In his provocatively-titled article, former British diplomat Carne Ross argues that conventional diplomacy, with its embassies and their ambassadors, has become utterly irrelevant in today’s world.

Rigid hierarchies, a stifling bureaucracy and a lack of accountability have led diplomats to increasingly operate in isolation (“diplomats speaking to other diplomats”), losing both effectiveness and credibility in the process.

A more crucial- and scarier- consideration is that embassies have fallen out of step with the current state of international affairs.

Ross describes today’s political and diplomatic landscape as much more fragmented than it used to be, due to the mounting influence of non-state actors such as paramilitary groups, NGOs and global activists. Conventional diplomacy is ill equipped to deal with these actors and is therefore losing some of its power and its relevance.

Finally, in a world where “more and more people live away from countries of their birth, and more still assume multi-cultural identities, [Ross] find[s] it less and less convincing that national governments, and thus national diplomats, can legitimately claim to speak for and act on behalf of such heterogeneity.” Many expats and TCKs will recognise themselves in these words. I know I certainly do!

So what is the solution, then? For Ross, networking and an altogether more humble and interactive approach are the way to go.
He does however warn us, tongue firmly in cheek, that this does not mean that foreign ministers or ambassadors should start blogging!

You can read the full article on europesworld.org

Emmanuelle