56 NOVEMBER 2024 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL FEATURE Thomas Scherer is an academic practitioner working on international crisis and intervention. Now the research director for fp21, he previously applied innovative research technologies to peace and conflict issues as deputy director of the Center for Peace and Security Studies, University of California, San Diego, and also worked at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He holds a PhD in politics from Princeton University. Dan Spokojny is a member of the Editorial Board of The Foreign Service Journal. He is also the founder and CEO of fp21, a think tank dedicated to studying foreign policy reform. He served in government for more than a decade, as a U.S. Foreign Service officer and a legislative staffer in Congress, and on the AFSA Governing Board. He is finishing his PhD in political science with the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on the role of expertise in foreign policy. New data on chiefs of mission suggests that the power and influence of career members of the U.S. Foreign Service are on the decline. BY THOMAS SCHERER AND DAN SPOKOJNY The Marginalization of Career Diplomats Anew analysis suggests the extent of political-appointee control over U.S. foreign policy—and conversely, the decline of careerdiplomat authority—is deeper than previously understood. e ambassadors who lead our embassies overseas play a vital role in shaping and implementing U.S. foreign policy. While it has been common practice for decades for presidents to ll roughly 30 percent of chief-of-mission positions with political appointees, notably including donors, this ratio obscures a worrying decline of in uence for career members of the U.S. Foreign Service. According to a di erent measure—namely, the total gross domestic product (GDP) of host nations that have U.S. ambassadors who are members of the Foreign Service—the sway of career diplomats is vastly smaller. is trend and its implications are important to keep in mind as we transition to a new administration in the coming months. A Shrinking Sphere of Influence A new analysis by fp21 shows that career FSOs have chief-ofmission authority in countries that, combined, are responsible for less than 20 percent of the world’s GDP, a portion that has steadily decreased in recent decades. In other words, if you add up the GDP of all nations in which politically appointed ambassadors lead U.S. embassies, it equals more than four- fths of the world’s GDP (excluding the United States). is percentage does not account for in uential multilateral ambassadorships also typically lled by political appointees, such as NATO, the United Nations, the European Union, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Data collected by scholar Matt Malis for the period from 1960 to 2015 shows no evidence that the trend of empowering political appointees over career members of the Foreign Service has signi cantly abated in recent years (see gure on opposite page). If anything, it may be on the rise. Data from the American Foreign
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