Volume 11, Issue 2 - Editors’ Forum: The Evolving Embassy: Changes and Challenges to Diplomatic Representation and Practice in the Global Era, Guest edited by Giles Scott-Smith

The need to maintain embassies as essential outposts of diplomatic recognition and representation has been questioned by many observers. Critics deem them increasingly irrelevant in a globalized context of multiple, more adaptable actors, whereas their advocates hold on to the ongoing role of the nation-state in structures of global governance. Both sides agree that change is necessary, although they disagree on its goals and how far it should go. This Introduction sets out the main arguments present in the debate, laying the foundation for the articles that follow which explore how embassies, diplomats and diplomatic representation have all been adapted and transformed by the changing political context of the global era.

This article explores the way in which the Spanish and the Swiss legations in Japan acted and reacted to violent change in the international environment. By looking at the period of Japanese wartime aggression in Asia and the Pacific from 1931–1945, it analyzes key moments for both diplomatic missions, when changes abroad or at home led their respective diplomats to take a stance beyond the regular representation of national interests. The article argues that violent conflicts impacted the diplomatic behavior of the legations in Japan heavily. They were shaped by new policies in reaction to the violence, while sometimes also engaging in shaping such policies themselves.

A group of recent publications have reflected on the way the diplomatic machineries of small states have adapted to recent changes, upgraded engagement with global questions, reached out to experts and private actors, and increased organizational flexibility. This article aims to participate in this discussion. We will draw on Cristina Archetti’s insights in her study of the localized practices of foreign correspondents in order to inform a presentation of changes in the Finnish diplomatic representation in Paris. The case study suggests that the drivers of local evolutions are to be looked at not only in global trends but also in the interplay between the characteristics of the Finnish diplomatic network, the specificities of the country of residence, and wider political, cultural and commercial structures. The article makes the case for a localized, contextualized, fine-grained approach to the influence of global trends.

In this article the rise and fall of the position of the labor attaché in British diplomacy during the Cold War is analysed. Experts from outside the diplomatic corps worked, and continue to work, in British embassies alongside diplomats. Labor was a prominent domain of expertise during the entire Cold War era, but this has almost disappeared today. It could therefore be claimed that British diplomacy was able to adapt to changing political circumstances. However, this is a story with multiple layers and contains not only elements of change but also continuity over the longer term of the diplomatic enterprise that, despite flexibility and increasing openness, remains a world apart.

This article investigates the relevance of consular positions, and particularly the honorary consul, through their representations in modern literature and the arts. Although the honorary consul’s official status is codified in the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963, this document clearly identifies the limits to diplomatic immunity for this position, such that the honorary consul occupies a hybrid space on the boundary between the public and the private. This hybridity opens up the possibility for ambiguity in terms of conflicts of interest and divided loyalties. Acknowledging this hybridity requires re-examining the position of honorary consul beyond formal descriptions in mainstream diplomatic studies which are often evasive on the position’s actual status. In contrast, their representation in modern literature and the arts offers a more candid insight into the ontology and practice of consuls and consular work. As a result, the article makes the claim that the honorary consul illustrates that the public/private divide in contemporary diplomacy is less stable than is generally presented, and that the rise of private entities as diplomatic actors is therefore more a question of intensity than the emergence of something entirely new.

Thomas Niles served as a United States foreign service officer from 1962 to 1998. His service included three terms as ambassador: to Canada, the European Community, and Greece. He reflects here on the continuities in the diplomatic profession, and, in particular, on embassies, during a period of notable historic change. While many of the protocols and responsibilities of embassies remained more or less the same as they had been for over a century, there were hints that those, too, were about to change in unforeseen ways, even calling into question the central role of embassies as representing and serving the nation-state, as the other articles in this issue discuss. Nevertheless, to this ambassador, at least, even dramatic changes in technology, politics, and culture rarely happen all at once; and the institutions and the people adapting to them may be more cautious or durable than they sometimes appear in retrospect.