In case you’re interested in more information about the trend in ambassador selection, I ran across an article on Lawfare by the researcher who put together the chart concerning recent ambassador selections, Professor Ryan Scoville. He notes that evaluation of the proficiency in the ambassador corps is difficult:
Are political appointees less effective in office? How do their backgrounds compare to those of career ambassadors under accepted metrics of competency, such as experience in organizational leadership and basic familiarity with the language and government of the receiving state? What is the role of money in the selection process? Do any tendencies emerge with respect to specific bilateral relationships? And have any patterns evolved across recent administrations?
Evidence to answer these questions has been in short supply. With a few noteworthy exceptions, commentators have not attempted to collect information in any sort of systematic way. Instead, they have relied heavily on anecdote and impression to critique or defend political appointments.
But Scoville does what he can:
Two findings carry overarching significance: First, since 1980, the average political nominee has been materially less qualified than the average career nominee under a number of standard measures, including language ability, knowledge of the receiving state and its region, and experience in U.S. foreign policy and organizational leadership.
Take, for instance, the issue of language. The certificates suggest that while 66 percent of career nominees possessed a degree of prior aptitude in the receiving state’s principal language, the same was true of only 56 percent of political nominees, as shown in Figure 1. Upon excluding ambassadorships to English-speaking states, the gap was even larger (56 percent versus 28 percent). In short, a sizable portion of nominees have been completely unable to communicate in the most relevant foreign tongue—and this is particularly true of those who come from outside the foreign service.
And I’d say both of those numbers are scandalous. We’re a big country – is it that hard to find qualified diplomatic personnel and train them in the appropriate language?
But the gap is interesting, and telling.
It’d be interesting to partition the nations receiving ambassadors along criticality lines. I mean, the ambassador to Liechtenstein is probably not a critical posting, while the ambassador to Russia is of the highest priority. When we break them out this way, how do the numbers work out? Does the influence of campaign contributions endanger proper diplomacy even more?
Scoville puts some of the blame on Congress:
… Congress could enact statutory measures to further enhance the transparency of the appointments process, including by simplifying financial reports, mandating information on a broader set of qualifications and requiring the administration of periodic performance surveys to embassy personnel, followed by the disclosure of survey results. These measures might help discourage the nomination of relatively unqualified donors—and, in doing so, bolster the effectiveness of U.S. representation in an era of seemingly waning American influence.
As the Senate remains under the control of the Republicans, who continue to exhibit lap dog tendencies towards Trump, I do not expect any positive reactions in the near future. McConnell is a thoroughly political creature whose leadership skill are, at best, impaired.
