The Growing Influence of Business in U.K. Diplomacy

Abstract

Editor’s Note: The following is the second instalment of ISP’s Policy Forum, and we hope for more instalments in future issues of the journal. This Policy Forum focuses on the apparent rise of commercial diplomacy in recent years. Though not a new phenomenon in global politics, each of the following articles highlights new aspects in this area of global interaction. Each article also brings with it a perspective based in experiences from a particular country’s interactions. We hope that this cross-national flavor will provide diverse insights into the issues surrounding commercial diplomacy and the policy implications those issues generate. Before moving on to the articles, the editors of ISP would like to thank Donna Lee, University of Birmingham, for her excellent work in soliciting these articles and coordinating their production for the editorial process. We sincerely appreciate her initiative and her work on the editors’ behalf. Mark A. Boyer For the Editors of ISP Since coming to power in 1997 the Labour government of the United Kingdom (U.K.) has renovated the diplomatic system so that the planning of commercial diplomacy has been centralized, the commercial activities of diplomats have been extended, and business interests have been formally integrated within the diplomatic systems. The changes to the institutions and practice of U.K. diplomacy now under way have created a diplomatic practice in which the balance between the commercial and political elements of commercial work has swung very much in favor of the former. In some Foreign and Commonwealth office (FCO) quarters these new practices are seen as an attack upon diplomacy; diplomats are thought to be reduced to “selling socks for Britain” and diplomacy is dubbed a “profession in peril.” Neither the changes to diplomacy nor the gloomy professional reaction to them is exceptional to the U.K. As this forum shows, …