Publication

Diplomats, like the dodo, face evolutionary extinction, unless they are able to adapt to changes in international relations. Careers devoted to promoting the interests of a single nation state, couched in rituals practiced behind closed doors, were created for a preglobalisation era. Advocates of a ‘new diplomacy’ propose the abolition of traditional diplomacy’s elite stuffiness, and a focus on universal values rather than statist interests. In practice, few diplomats contemplate anything so radical and must be content with modifying the margins of their art. However, the European Union has a chance to design a new type of foreign service with a blank canvas, and use it to support a different approach to foreign policy.