The good, the bad and the ugly

The benefit of the doubt - or not

In my last post, I concluded that, for a diplomat, understanding is about taking a 360 degree view of the country you’re in (depth and breadth) while remembering who pays your salary (perspective). It’s asking the “what’s going on here?” question eloquently described in Mervyn King and John Kay’s book Radical Uncertainty. Less theory, more ciritcal observation. It’s why the “copy of the FT and a fax machine” aren’t a good substitute for an effective diplomat. So far, so uncontroversial, I hope, with all due respect to the FT (and the fax machine).

Sine we’d rather be at peace than at war, diplomats are often regarded as being at the softer, less aggressive end of the spectrum. Depending on your standpoint, you might say that makes them good people, fostering collaboration trying to save the world. Western diplomats, at least, often like to think of themselves in that way. Or you might say it makes them weak, too ready to sell out their country for a compromise. I’m sure you’ve heard that point of view. I suspect the reality is that most diploamts around the world see their job as fundamentally representing their own country’s interests, no more no less. But I’d say that, whatever motivates a diplomat, to be any good at it, you have to be quite a sceptic. If you want add value to the fax machine, you can’t afford to take anyone or anything at face value. And I mean anyone.

When the President of the country you’re in, or the opposition leader - or an activist, or a businessman you’re dealing with - tells you something, you need to ask why are they saying that? Of course, it could be because they believe it and it’s true. Don’t rule out the simplest explanation. But most of the time better to think like the scholar of ancient texts trying to make sense of a few corrupted words in the manuscript: stet dificilior lectio (“let the more difficult reading stand”).

For example (one I came across quite often in my career), imagine a mining project in the country you’re working in. As expected, there’s plenty of opposition, from politicians, to local residents, environmental groups, perhaps even an international organisation or two, sitting alongside those who are proclaim its economic benefits Maybe that mine really would be dangerous. But it’s quite likely that the politicians have their own agenda, the environmental groups may be sincere but might also be funded by a rival miner who wants to see the competition out of the way, maybe the local residents aren’t implacable but just want to raise the price for their acquiescence, and so it goes on. As to those who are supportive, are they thinking about the country or what they stand to gain personally? If one particular newspaper is always breaking the latest story about the project, ask who owns it - and what are their other business interests? The Ambassador’s job may be to advise the mining company’s executives what they should do next, or our country may be more sympathetic to the environmental arguments, or it may be a complex mixture of both. In any case, understanding the political and other motivations of the various actors, rather than just taking them at face value, will be a good start.

If you’re with me so far, this is where something curious happens. You’re a diplomat dealing with governments, business, politicians, activists and so on. You’re not taking what they say at face value, but you’re trying to see what interests they have and how they impact on the positions they’re taking. Therefore, diplomats are exponents of public choice theory. Some may not like that at all - maybe some haven’t even thought much about public choice theory, but follows logically from what we’ve said so far.

To quote Jane S Shaw in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics,

“Public choice takes the same principles that economists use to analyze people's actions in the marketplace and applies them to people's actions in collective decision making. Economists who study behavior in the private marketplace assume that people are motivated mainly by self-interest. Although most people base some of their actions on their concern for others, the dominant motive in people's actions in the marketplace—whether they are employers, employees, or consumers—is a concern for themselves. Public choice economists make the same assumption—that although people acting in the political marketplace have some concern for others, their main motive, whether they are voters, politicians, lobbyists, or bureaucrats, is self-interest.“

Now that sounds cynical, doesn’t it? We may often be cynical about politicians (perhaps, I’d say sometimes too cynical), but surely all those civil servants and activists have the public good at heart? Well, sometimes. But if you want to beat the fax machine’s performance record, you need to treat those in the public space in the same way as obviously private interests: where are they coming from, who pays their salary, what does success look like for them? And then you can work out what to do next.I’d go further. We should take the same sceptical approach not just to the politicians, but also to the “experts”. The more complicated the scenario, the more experts you are going to find. Who are they? Who do they work for? An expert on smoking who works for a tobacco company will often be thought to have a vested interest. But what about the expert working for an anti-tobacco lobby group? Or for a Government Minister implacably opposed to smoking? Some of the best experts on finance can be found at Goldman Sachs and some of the best experts on the enviroment at Greenpeace. They’re undoubtedly worth listening to. But it’s still better to be the diplomat than the fax machine when you’re deciding what to do next.

But surely we don’t have to be so sceptical when it comes to independent experts? I’ll come back to this in more detail later, but for now if you’re reading the views of someone who’s described as an “independent” expert in the Liliput Times, at the very least you should ask where he or she works. If to be a good diplomat you need perspective (“remember who pays your salary”), it’s reasonable to assume that the people you’re dealing with may also be operating in the same way.

That doesn’t mean we should always be negative - in fact, the opposite. After “don’t take everything anyone tells you (and I mean anyone) at face value”, my second principle is: “don’t assume anyone is mad or bad until you have exhausted all the other options first”.

This can be even more difficult than the first rule. We usually know which side we’re on and we very often know who the enemy is. Take the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Western countries are unanimous in blaming Vladimir Putin (he’s “bad”). It’s possible to argue that many of the steps taken by Putin’s Russia have been irrational and self-defeating (“mad”). This may be the right appraoch for Western politicians to take publicly if they want to maintain popular support for the investment they’re making to support Ukraine. But, without compromising our position (remember who pays your salary, it makes sense to make an effort to understand what Putin is trying to achieve - what does success look like? - without having one’s vision blurred by focusing on the “bad” or “mad”.

Fine if you’re clear that Russia’s invasion is “bad” as far as Ukraine, the West and world peace are concerned. But whether an action is “mad” or not depends on the rationale of the actor, and the timeframe in which he is operating. We may be confident it’s not in Russia’s interests (the country will be more isolated, its economy will suffer at least in the long term etc) or even in Putin’s interests (it’s bound to fail in the end and he will be blamed at home, his supporters will turn against him etc). But he may have other ideas. It’s very easy to get ourselves into the mindset of forcing the other person into our shoes. We can’t understand why they won’t do what’s self-evidently in their own interests…. To use a different example, we might think it’s self-evdiently in a country’s interests to open up its markets in order to enjoy the benefits of more free trade. But they may think otherwise: protecting (a certain part of) their industry now might just be more important to the decision makers achieving the (potential) benefits of freer trade in the long term.

If there might be a rationale, it’s better to understand it, even if it doesn’t make you any more sympathetic to what is going on. In fact, all the more so, because a better understanding of your opponent’s rationale will help you confront him more effectively. The moral here: don’t assume your opponent is mad or bad until you’ve tried everything else first, and don’t let your own spin get in the way of a cool-headed analysis.

The Ambassador’s report - telegram, cable, diptel or whatever you call it - should aim to distinguish between cool analysis from the country you’re in with the policy of the country you’re working for. Only then will your advice be really useful for your bosses back home. Leave the spin to your public interventions.

There is a trick, of course. Are we prepared to apply the same cool analysis to our own situation? We’ll look at that next time.