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Offers an account and vision of the conduct of foreign policy and diplomacy. Illustrated with episodes from the author's career, this book offers a critique of what's wrong with contemporary diplomacy and how it might be put right.
244pp Mar 2007
| Hardback | | 9781850658436 | | £20.00 | | Buy Now |
In "Independent Diplomat" Carne Ross offers a compelling new account - and vision - of the conduct of foreign policy and diplomacy from the inside. As diplomats arbitrate more and more of the world's business, we have little idea, and even less control, of what they are doing in our name. His book aims to redress this imbalance. Ross was a diplomat on the front line of many of today's most pressing issues, from Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq, over which he eventually resigned from the British Foreign Office. He contends that the institutions of contemporary diplomacy - foreign ministries, the UN or EU - often exclude those most affected by the discussions within. As a diplomat, he was encouraged and taught to see the world in a narrow and singular way: as one of states and interests, excluding more complex, sophisticated - and human - ways of understanding. Ross demonstrates how the reality of negotiation at the UN - or with warlords in Afghanistan - reveals very different forces at play, factors ignored in contemporary and reductionist descriptions or academic theories of 'international relations'. To cope with the complexities of today's world, diplomats must open their doors - and minds. Illustrated with vivid episodes from his career - from the UN Security Council in New York to Kabul - Ross offers a refreshing critique of what's wrong with contemporary diplomacy and how it might be put right. Since resigning from the Foreign Office over the Iraq war, Carne Ross has founded a unique new initiative in international relations, a non-profit global advisory network to help the disadvantaged be heard in the closed corridors of international diplomacy.
Reviews
| 'In Independent Diplomat, Carne Ross has little patience with the qualified admiration and curiosity with which ambassadors have traditionally been regarded. He tells the story of the disillusionment and rebirth-also in diplomacy-of a fifteen-year veteran of one of the most internationally respected diplomatic establishments, the British Foreign Service.'—New York Review of Books 'This is a rare and honest book about real-life diplomacy, reported from the coal-face. Ross diagnoses much that is wrong with the way diplomacy is practised today, and offers some cogent—and urgent—solutions.' —George Soros, The Soros Foundation, New York 'Carne Ross's book fills a significant need in the literature on the theory and practice of contemporary diplomacy. There have been numbers of valuable critical works on issues in contemporary diplomacy, but a limiting factor has been that they speak from the 'outside', as it were, offering analytical observations rather than recording experiences and using them as a basis for a more richly-informed critique. Independent Diplomat promises to lift the veil from practices and institutions which of their nature have been shrouded in secrecy, if not exactly in mystery.' —Professor William Maley, AM, Director, Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, Australian National University '[Ross] exposes the absurdity, the ignorance and indifference of international bureaucracies, quietly and with clear-sighted accuracy. His prose is ironic, measured and elegant. The integrity, the nuance of his account and his self-awareness make him impressive not just as a writer but as a person.' —Rory Stewart, author, The Places in Between ‘In his stunning insight into the surreal world of British diplomacy, Carne Ross, who resigned from the Foreign Office in disillusion over the Blair government’s disgraceful role in the United Nations debate before the Iraq war, writes about this emerging multilateral world in his book, Independent Diplomat. He calls for the creation of an elected UN parliamentary assembly which would initially have rights of consultation but which would eventually have to be given direct democratic oversight of the UN and its agencies. Ross draws heavily on the experience of the European Union in this context. He rightly draws attention to the increasingly important role of the directly elected European parliament in calling the EU institutions to account. However, this process has only begun.’ —The Guardian |
--- Independent Diplomat
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