Evolution of professional diplomacy

To recapitulate, according to international relations parlance, professional diplomacy refers specifically to negotiations conducted between two or more sovereign independent states, and in general, the conduct of a country’s external relations. This important responsibility in statecraft, conventionally, has been the vocation of career diplomats.

Ambassador Dato’ Dr. G. K. Ananda Kumarasiri

Dr. Kumarasiri was a distinguished career ambassador of 30 years standing. He joined the Malaysian Foreign Service in 1966 and had many interesting and challenging diplomatic postings, including Assistant High Commissioner in Madras (1966-1972), Counsellor in New Delhi (1972-1975) and Counsellor in Tokyo (1975-1978).

The professional mode and methods to be observed in fulfilling this vocation, developed over centuries of conducting inter-state relations, constitute an integral and distinct pre-requisite for the diplomatic profession.

In executing his or her task, the diplomat is to function in accordance with instructions received from the Government and carry himself or herself in a manner which is in keeping with the long-established standards and exalted prestige of the noble profession.

Thus professional diplomacy calls for not only specialised knowledge and skills but also a familiarity with its mode and methods. It requires the diplomat to possess the art and craft so to speak, of conducting the country’s external relations. So by definition the vocation of a diplomat may be taken to encompass the technique of state action to protect and advance a country’s interests in the international environment.

This is to be realised through the development of a country’s diplomatic machinery and the method and means of promoting and safeguarding the country’s national interest in the international environment.

In addition, this entails the acquisition by its diplomats and other concerned public officials of expert knowledge on diplomatic procedure and practice as well as the skills necessary for the proper conduct of official relations among nation states, international organisations and global enterprises.

Concept of professionalism

There is no precise definition of professionalism in the body of literature on international relations regarding the vocation of a diplomat similar to that understood in the medical, engineering, accountancy and other technically orientated professions.

There is, however, a general understanding and notion in the literature as well as in the practice of statecraft of certain established methods, means and machinery, developed from the time of early civilisations such as the Greek city states, in conducting diplomacy and managing foreign affairs.

Traditional qualities of tact, negotiation skills, communication skills (both written and oral), an ability to understand and appreciate other societies and cultures, knowledge of statecraft, sociability and the power of persuasion are some of the personal qualities that are vital as ever for a diplomat to posses.

Early European setting

In addition, the diplomatic profession demands expertise on a wide range of subject-matters relating to international relations, the possession of specialised work skills and a positive attitude towards cross-cultural understanding and integration.

These professional qualities are to be realised through various processes that include proper selection, training in career development and experience acquired while working on the job and learning the ropes so to speak of the challenging profession.

Briefly, the notion of an organised and professional craft of diplomacy developed in the 13th and 14th centuries in Europe. This largely acrose out of the need for the early European states to negotiate constantly against a background of frequent conflicts, power rivalries and changing alliances that persisted between as well as among them. The unsettled situation these states encountered in this politically volatile period, resulted in the emergence of a sophisticated diplomatic profession.

The diplomatic vocation then was a political function, essentially confined to conducting and monitoring the nature and state of political relations between and among nation states with which classical or conventional diplomacy is generally associated.

Revolution

With the emergency of the agricultural and industrial revolutions in the 18th and 19th centuries and the arrival of steamship navigation, relations among states expanded appreciably. professional diplomacy branched out from the confines of its traditional functions of negotiation, representation, reporting and its essentially political motive and motivation, to include a whole range of activities and transactions in economics, social, cultural and other diverse fields.

The international environment which underwent dramatic changes after World War II brought about a profound transformation of professional diplomacy. Also, the advancement of communication resulted in the diplomat coming under closer scrutiny and control than his European predecessors.

Post-World War II transformation

However, although the diplomat now did not have the authority as his or her European predecessor, he or she nevertheless began to assume a wide and more demanding range of duties that were being dictated by the vastly more complex situation that prevailed in the world. Several significant developments helped to bring about this major transformation in professional diplomacy.

A most important development was the increase in the number of nation-states that emerged as the result of the process of decolonisation.

The international community broadened dramatically to include a large number of developing nations from Asian, latin American and Africa. Another major development was the entrenchment of a new plane of professional diplomacy, better known as multilateral diplomacy.

This new plane or platform of diplomacy spawned as a result of the establishment of several international organisations such as the United Nations (UN) and its specialised agencies and the birth of political groupings such as the Commonwealth, the European Economic Community (EEC), the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Warsaw Pact, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Arab League, the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). In more recent years, a number of regional political and economic groupings have proliferated.

These groupings include international entities such as the Organisation of Oil Producing and Exporting Countries (OPEC), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the North Atlantic Free Trade Area (NAFTA), the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation Forum and South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC).

At the same time, a number of non-state actors, referred to as Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) began to play an active role in safeguarding and promoting specific interests of the international community in such matters as human rights, environmental degradation and climate change, good governance and gender. Purely to illustrate the point, in a small country such as Malaysia, there exists over 2,200 NGOs with world-wide networks such as the Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO), the Environmental Protection Society of Malaysia (EPSM) World Wide Fund for Nature Malayasia (WWF) and the National Council for the Blind.

Yet another significant development of the modern era which impacted on diplomacy was the emergency of a host of international private business enterprises referred to as transnational or multinationals. (These global enterprises expanded their activities globally in such great dimensions that they began to even influence the governments of many a Third World country.)

Modern world professional diplomacy

The net result of the entry of scores of newly independent countries as well as governmental and non-governmental international organisations was the drastic change in the character of the international political system.

As a consequence, there was a dramatic alteration of the framework of international relations. The conduct of diplomacy in turn was rendered more complex and challenging. ‘

In the wake of these profound developments in the nature and character of the international environment, new elements as well as diplomatic methods and techniques were introduced into professional diplomacy.

In a nut shell, these new features of professional diplomacy are distinctly evidenced in a number of important new features of professional diplomacy of the modern age.