I believe plenipotentiality is a standard attribute of ambassadors, actually. I don't know how far it extends, though.
I, too, believe that most ambassadors have plenipotential. I suppose it probably works better when the government they represent is one body. (That's something else I should have asked: is an American ambassador plenipotent on behalf of the executive, or the entire government, or what?)
I'm afraid I can't answer those questions. Is there a diplomat in the house?
Category error. There may be a diploma in the house; otherwise you'll have to schlep to the diplomat down the street.
Diplomats are occasionally allowed into houses.
the one down the street left a stain on mine.
That's a knee-slapper, Ben. I'll send you a check when I stop laughing.
Technically, Ambassadors are the personal representatives of the executive, so they are plenipotential on behalf of the executive (this is why all Ambassadors are appointed by the president, even when they're career Foreign Service Officers, with no political aspirations). It's also why an ambassador is given the honorific "Your Excellence", even though they aren't an executive office.
The full title is simplified from what used to be "Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary."
So I'm thinking of taking the Foreign Service Exam. Thoughts?
It wasn't actually as hard as I had thought, it's just a really broad test. It covers pop culture, math, history, business management, and so on. If you're good at trivial pursuit, you'll probably do well on it. I'm guessing they cull a lot of people in the writing section, though. And it helps if you speak a foreign language.
Is it one test for everywhere, or do they give you different tests depending on where you want foreignly to serve?
I figure I'll give it a shot. Even if I pass, the process takes so long that I'll have to get another job anyway, so it's not like it'll hold me up or anything. And it's free.
One test for everywhere. Some parts are different depending on what job track you select.
And FSOs don't get much choice about where they serve, at least at the lower levels.
I'll take this thread to 20 all by myself.
Is it pass/fail, or if you just squeak over the line do they send you to Zimbabwe while if you ace it they send you to New Zealand?
don't get much choice about where they serve
Sort of. You get to submit a list of preferences, and that has some influence.
About half the test is the same for everyone, and half depends on your track (political, consular, public diplomacy, etc.)
21: Pass/fail. If you pass you go on to the oral, which is much more difficult and is somewhere between a test and an interview, and if you pass that you get put on a list to wait for openings.
The whole process takes like a year.
It's a question of intra-bureaucratic politics, too. Right now, it's beneficial to your career to serve in the Middle East. And yes, the orals are said to be far more challenging. Group-project testing, etc.
21: Pass/fail, kind of. About a third of the people who take the initial written section move on to the oral assessment, which involves a day of role-playing a bunch of mock scenarios as well as a direct interview. You're given a rinking based on your performance (as well as other factors, like foreign language proficiency) and they call people up in order as they need them. If you're not called up withing year (or so, I forget the exact time frame) you start over. They hire (I think) 400-ish people per year.
And you're applying for a job to stamp visas, until you figure out how to navigate the whole mess of it. So there's the entry-level frustration.
You can get out of heading to Iraq/Afghanistan if you come in with a different skill set that's in demand (if you speak Chinese or Spanish, for example).
Spring 2005. I didn't get past the written section.
This reminds me to sign up to take it again this spring.
Teo: my parents are both career FSOs, and while State is really frustrating, bureaucracy-wise, and it's lost a lot of the perqs it used to have, it's a really interesting career, you do get to go to some awesome places, and you'll do crazy shit you'd never even think of. It's a job where you can always be learning, and get pretty far, if you're good at gaming the system.
30: true. But someone I've met is finishing his first assignment in a Spanish-speaking country and moving on to a Middle-East assignment, with an eye to career advancement (n=1 yadda, yadda).
Thanks, mike. It certainly sounds like an interesting career and a good fit for me.
If your friend is going to somewhere in the Middle East that isn't Iraq/Afghanistan, then they've really kind of lucked out, right? The career-advancement path like that I've seen is 2 years in (say) Mexico, and then a year in the shit in Baghdad.
36: Afghanistan was on his list, but no, it's not "the shit." 33 has it exactly right. It's a great gig. That's why it's hard to get.
I believe that they pass a certain number of people based on the number of openings they have. I don't know whether this is true, but I thought that I heard that the test wasn't given for several years in the late 90's, because they didn't need--or thought they didn't need--anyone.
A plenipotentiary minister without portfolio would be a real badass.
I've known a number of people in foreign service over the years, both ours and those of the German speaking countries. (My daughter attended German school; most classmates were diplomats of one level or another). It can be pretty tough on kids, and is hell on a spouse's career. You have to really love the work, or else it's a pretty hard life.
Children of diplomats, obviously!
This is the only one in Google, and he doesn't seem to have been all that badass.
The Nazis seemed to use a lot of plenipotentiaries and "without-portfolios", though. Presumably part of their destruction of the formal structures of government.
So Bolton is a Nazi.
We should Anglicize it and say the "Ambassador with Plenty Potential." That is what it means etymologically...
Wasn't the whole point of being plenipotent slow communications -- that there had to be someone local to speak for foreign governments because you couldn't get immediate responses from the home government? Ambassadors may be plenipotent in some formal sense these days, but not like they were before the telegraph.
Hjalmar Schacht seems to have been the main Nazi plenipotentiary or minister without portfolio, but not both at the same time.
So Bolton is specifically Hjalmar Schacht.
If "not at the same time" is enough, Henrik Kauffmann seems to have become MwP immediately after being Ambassador to the US. It seems like a poor substitute.
It's better when they're Nazis, I suppose...
'Plenipotent' may only be used in formal contexts these days, but pluripotent is a common and only semi-formal term in the biomedical community.
Everything I know about being an FSO comes from an obscure 1950s teen novel. It was explicit in describing the challenges of the exam process, quite colonialist in describing the small Middle Eastern country to which the heroine was first posted, and preoccupied with her romantic life. I remember being shocked that women FSOs were not permitted to be married (and wondering how on earth you could enforce such a thing).
As the Apostropher said the other day: Man, society changes fast sometimes.
On another note: I always understood that the primary criterion for being an ambassador was significant personal wealth, because the job entails lavish entertaining on a fairly limited (federal budget). If that's still true, I wonder what the implications are for who tends to end up in these positions.
Witt, the best way to get an appointment as an ambassador is to raise a bunch of money for the successfull candidate for President. Significant personal wealth may not be a sine qua non for meeting this goal, but I can't imagine it hurts . . .
Don't despair. I believe that normal folk can aspire to be appointed ambassador to Moldava, Paraguay, or Mali.
If I don't get this job I'm waiting on, I may think about taking the foreign service exam. My problem now is that I have some decent Arabic skills, which could be easily expanded into near-fluency with a few months' training. So, that means directly to Iraq for me. Oddly, enough, though, for some period when I was young, (I think 9 or 10), when people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say "the American ambassador to Israel." I figured that if I, an American with Arab background, could get over there, I could help sort the whole thing out.
Reach for the stars, M.
Mali isn't that bad once you get used to it.
Roughly speaking, about a third of ambassadorships go to political appointees, the remainder to career FSOs. While the political appointees do get to choose where they want to go, and so get posted to Luxembourg, Lisbon, and the like, there are plenty of nice posts for FSO ambassadors. Hungary in particular is one I think is overlooked.
It can be pretty tough on kids, and is hell on a spouse's career.
For the kids, it's like homework or chores - while it may not be all fun and games at the time, there are very few (that I know) that look back on it and say they hated it. Spouses are limited in their career options to pretty much being an FSO, teacher, or stay-at-home. But State is surprisingly flexible in helping both members of a couple advance in their careers - there are two ambassadors who are married to each other, having come up in the foreign service together.
Andrew Marvell's "Last Instructions to a Painter" is the only iambic-pentameter-based poem I know of with a two-word line:
"Plenipotentiary ambassadors"
"O Sophonisba! Sophonisba O!" comes close.
I think there was one year in the mid- to late '90s when the written exam was not given. This was an artifact of the Gingrich Congresses which thought (I use the word loosely) that if America had to conduct relations with other countries, the resources necessary to do that were best funneled through the Department of Defense. Many predictable things have resulted.
Hiring has increased again since Powell got later Congresses to cough up more money, but it is still woefully short for America's place in the world.
The ratios that I was familiar with were on the order of 10,000 people take the writte, of which ca. 1000 are invited to take the orals, of which ca. 100 wind up on the list each year, almost all of whom are hired. It's been three years since I last failed the orals, though, so things may have changed.
The system of political appointees is not completely stupid; having a direct (or semi-direct) line to the president's ear is a good thing, and people with significant achievements in other walks of life have often been good representatives of the US. (There are plenty of egregious counterpoints, too, of course.) Pamela Harriman, for instance, charmed tout Paris back in Clinton's time. Japan likes to receive venerable politicians; in recent times, they've had Walter Mondale and Howard Baker.