If it happened in Russia or any other country the U.S. Government and the western mass media would be screaming corruption, foul, nepotism, cronyism, bribes, and transparency! What I am talking about is the “selling” of top diplomatic posts by none other than the U.S. president. Although the U.S. does not “sell” such postings openly, “wink-wink,” two respected researches at the University of Pennsylvania have very carefully compiled a “price list” for diplomatic postings.
By John Robles: In their report titled: “What Price the Court of St. James’s? Political Influences on Ambassadorial Postings of the United States of America” the authors of the study, Johannes W. Fedderke and Dennis C. Jett, looked into the issues surrounding the appointment of career diplomats as opposed to political appointees to ambassadorial positions worldwide. Their conclusion is that the price for obtaining the juiciest postings, such as London U.K. or “The Court of St. James,” in terms of political “campaign” contributions is between a whopping $650,000 and a staggering $2.3 million. Other than the facts that selling diplomatic positions is an obvious act of cronyism and bribery is supposed to be illegal, the main problem here is that for the over 30% of such diplomatic postings held by current and past political appointees chosen in this manner, no experience was, nor is, necessary. That’s right. You don’t have to have had one day of diplomatic training to be the head of a US mission abroad, as long as you are a “political” appointee chosen by the president: which might explain a lot about people who are in such posts worldwide, including here. The American mass media has reported on the findings of the reports but are reporting it as if it just another normal occurrence and par-for-the-course rather than expressing outrage and calling for an investigation. According to most US mass media, this is pretty much normal and has been done by all “modern presidents before Obama”, this said the New York Times. In the report the authors state that they did not have access to all US Presidential Campaign contributions, but, and this is an important “but,” they did have access to the campaign contributions of all political appointees to diplomatic posts. It was on this data that they formed the basis for their findings. The authors stated that they could not formulate figures on over all correlations between contributions and postings, something which is worthy of further research due to this lack of “all” data. The researchers hypothesize that political campaign contributors and those who contribute “political” capital, in exchange for their support, demand a return on their investment. I think we can agree with them that it would be foolish to believe otherwise. For the individual, one such reward might be a diplomatic posting whereas for corporations for example, it might be legislation. The authors suggest the US State Department carry out oversight on the qualifications and training of such appointees, however this is unlikely to take place. As we also know many of these overseas posts are not only filled by political appointees but by CIA undercover operatives and the like as well. Something that career Foreign Service employees must find insulting and demeaning as well. According to the authors of the report the most sought after posts are in Western Europe and in the Caribbean and most of these are filled by presidential appointees. We could then assume that other postings, in countries of strategic or military interest, or “hot spots” if you will (such as Russia), are filled by CIA or other intelligence or military specialists, leaving those qualified, dedicated, trained and experienced foreign service personnel, who have worked most of their lives to obtain high level positions, to bake in places in Sub-Saharan Africa or South Asia or any other God-forsaken-hell-hole no one else would want to be posted in. Not to say certain places on Earth are hell holes, every place is wonderful in its own way, but there are places one might prefer over others. The authors argue that “standard models of rational institutional design posit that appointments to public administrative office should be on the basis of merit related to the deliverables associated with the post,” something that I am sure the American taxpayer would want as well, especially in places such as Moscow, where people have been posted who have had “no” diplomatic experience or training whatsoever. However Russia is not a location the authors would consider attractive. The report is very well laid out and the rationale behind the conclusion is very well thought out, researched and backed up with solid data and analysis. In conclusion the authors state that “… political appointees are more likely to obtain posts in high- income countries that are members of The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), that popular tourist destinations, are located in Western Europe, and that carry lower hardship allowances, than are career diplomats. We have also shown that the greater t he personal or bundled campaign contributions to a presidential campaign, the more lucrative the posting the contributor can expect in terms of per capita GDP, tourist volumes, hardship allowances, and the more likely the posting will be in Western Europe, and the less likely it will be in Central and South Asia or Sub- Saharan Africa. Finally, we have established an implicit price list for a range of ambassadorial postings. The price for the Court of St. James appears to lie between $650,000 and $2.3 million.” If this were to be said of any other country in the world the international outrage would be profound, but in America, hypocrisy is par-for-the-course and every office, including that of the President is for sale, if the price is right. The views and opinions expressed above are my own. I can be reached at robles@ruvr.ru. Source: Voice of Russia
