(a comparative study 1994/2004 on two groups of Foreign Affairs Ministry officials)
Dr. Ruxandra Rascanu
PhD
University of Bucharest
Abstract
Foreign Affairs – as a practical activity, science or/and a form of arts – ask for solid interdisciplinary knowledge, as well as a series of inter-relationship abilities that are to be displayed inside and outside the country. The author has created some tests (answer/response) that she has used in 1994 and 2004, on two groups of subjects working for the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Romania. Their answers have been decoded „in mirror” (for comparison purposes). Some other tools have been used: VAT, a semi-structured interview, brainstorming etc.; their purpose was to re-direct the options, decisions, motivation and abilities for team-work; they are all self-projections for two groups of specialists-actors who try to help in Romania’s efforts toward adhesion to the EU and NATO.
Keywords: preventive diplomacy, globalism and Europeanism, „condense-items”, exteriorized projection.
Introduction
Human society – continuously growing more complex as structure, role and group projection – is nowadays intrinsically linked with phenomena of security, globalization, adhesion, geopolitics, integration, protection, federalisation, ethnicity, terrorism, significant minorities, public education, identity and so on. All this could constitute virtual challenges for some deep investigations from a managerial psychology perspective, as they could also be considered „invented notions”. Only the future developments of society will prove their realism and, eventually, their legitimacy, as well as their global implications.
The evolution of our society usually determines deep changes in the structure of national and international systems and institutions, but also in some concepts, ideologies, philosophies that underlie the phenomenological perspective. A series of problems as those regarding national and international security, boundless war, with diffuse, hardly identifiable and unpredictable aggressors, have long ago stopped being of a solely military nature (apud Mihailescu, 2002, p.7).
Even since the 50’, the Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjold (former Secretary General of ONU) introduced in a political science dictionary the term of “preventive diplomacy”, considering that, after the end of the Second World War, it would be convenient if states, nations and the humankind in general had started preventing conflicts instead of waiting for misunderstandings – even minor – to appear and then starting wars in order to solve them. It may be possible that, starting with the period of the Cold War, but especially today, when some socio-political changes can influence peaceful decisions and treaties, psychologists and sociologists could be the most likely people to positively change and influence behaviours, attitudes and decisions.
Even if the Cold War had ceased and the great powers of the world perceive the present as a period of detention and mutual relaxation, we also witness the appearance of new and sophisticated ways of understanding democracy, systems and norms that regulate the relationships between states. Likewise, we see the manifestation of influences that bring about conflicts degenerating into wars because of a raw interpretation of religions and cultures that create internal conflicting identities (which is Nigeria’s case, just to give one of many examples).
One can nowadays hear the voice of politicians talking of a “total war” that they describe as an outcome of the ethnic factor prevalence in internal strategies aimed at “ethnical purification”. The necessary ingredients for this total war are readily available: mixed civil populations, the apparition of military actors from “non-states”, extended conflicting areas, the diversification and multiplication of all types of weaponry in almost all regions of the world. More than 10 million civilians in the world have been afflicted by this kind of internal conflicts since 1990 (Rascanu, 2003, p. 158).
When confronted with this kind of changes of political and diplomatic views, the traditional methods targeted at softening the crises are ignored; instead, we are now talking of crisis management. The voices of psychologists should make themselves better and more distinctly heard when it comes to conflict prevention, which tends to become a practical problem and not just a puzzle to solve in the classroom.
A broad and adequate vision in politics and diplomacy could facilitate the anticipated perception and understanding of the future. Considering this aim and the current international context, the political and diplomatic goals should be made up of a set of organisational (governmental) objectives that would effectively help to carry out missions, to design strategies in a way that goes beyond large departmental or social processes, and is backed up by lines of activities specified at an individual and behavioural level. The professionals’ work, including psychologists, should be directly targeted at the accomplishment of such objectives.
Consecrated authors – diplomats, politicians, sociologists – are unanimous in accepting that we should place on the same level these objectives and those concerning the development of human resources.
Human resources in the Foreign Affairs Ministry are and probably will be designed in such a manner as to allow the employees, by the very nature of their structure, to stay continuously informed, to take initiatives, to feel motivated for performance, providing at the same time objective indicators for evaluation of these organisational variables. Only such a system of evaluation could offer us the necessary basis for drawing conclusions that will help us achieve an adequate use of human resources.
Security, national identity and conflicts after the end of the Cold War (a pledge for a culture of prevention)
It is certain that conflicts between states will happen in the future as well. In trying to get in tune with changes in the international environment, specialists will focus on the “new” internal conflicts. Further on, we will name some of the general and viable norms and rules (applicable in any country on the globe), that we have selected from different opinions on which should be the priorities regarding the optimization of the relationship between diplomacy and organisational-managerial psychology in view of conflict prevention and activities specific to the 21st century (Pascaru, 2002, pp. 202-216).
a. In order to control violence, one should act in time. Every leader has always the possibility to choose before turning to violence. If external pressures from the exterior are made on due place and time, one can obtain a positive result, and maybe even one vital for the prevention of an escalating conflict.
This is what makes violence prevention imperiously necessary, which, in turn, has lead to the conception of systems able to identify signals that appear before an outburst of violence. This is the way one usually acts in case of food shortage, floods or earthquakes. Even if these signals are ambiguous, they give decision factors the possibility to avoid crises, to change their direction or to alleviate them. Governments can rely on ONU and regional organisms for consultation and the leaders of the two conflicting factions can be identified and contacted.
b. Few conflicts blow up unpredictably. Proof of imminent violence usually gathers as ‘storm clouds’ do. We now know that the genocide in Rwanda (1994) was nothing but unpredicted. ONU and nongovernmental agencies had sent rapports signalling the state of growing tension and the extremist discourses. This is why it is crucial that we initiate a learning process. The ONU rapports and those issued by different commissions dealing with the role of ONU and other external actors in the catastrophe that took place in Rwanda or in the massacre in Srebrenica (former Yugoslavia) should constitute, from a critical perspective, an important reference point for the future. The meaning of this process is learning.
Diplomats, politicians, psychologists, sociologists are almost unanimous in accepting that, at the present moment, there is a fundamental dilemma in the world linked to the answer that should be given to signals of imminent violence that are to be decoded with extreme accuracy.
Although the ONU Charter is based on the experience with interstate conflicts in the Second World War, the document does not stipulate any difference between a threat to peace and security. Therefore, this Charter has proved to be amazingly broad in its applicability to internal conflicts. Dag Hammarskjold even said that ONU represents ‘a lively organisation, capable of adapting its constitutional norms to various needs’.
If Maslow’s inspired pyramid of needs (motives) has become a landmark in social sciences, in the same way, the stipulation and observance of rules becomes the condition sine qua non in agreements, negotiations and diplomacy.
c. The importance of norms. Given the cruelty of civil wars, and the role of the ethnic factor in the outburst of conflicts, efforts to defend human rights have gained an ever increased importance. Since its beginnings, ONU has adopted the principle according to which this protection should be achieved through observance of universal systems of norms.
d. The mediation and the problem of ineffective leadership. We now again witness limitations and dilemmas in conflicts and negotiations that are linked to the fact that the characteristics of civil wars make them harder to solve than interstate wars.
First of all, some of the actors involved in local wars could obtain a profit on them; therefore, they sustain the prolongation of the war, and examples of these species of behaviour are to be found in both Europe and Africa.
Secondly, it is highly probable that parties involved in a conflict will not give up the pursuit of their incompatible objectives. Under these conditions, an ineffective leadership – that some name “pathological” (Castro, 2004, pp.17-18) based on some well-known contemporary examples – becomes a factor seriously afflicting the process of forging a compromise. This kind of leadership has sometimes raised the level of unpredictability and sufferance beyond any imagination.
e. Peace agreements must be observed. In general, there are numerous obstacles confronting the maintenance of a peaceful resolution after the negotiation of an agreement. The discourses in favour of the war and the ideas that the enemy wants to rule the country can still inhabit some people’s minds. The distance between fear and a minimum of trust seem to be insurmountable. “We” and “them” are sometimes worlds apart (Mihailescu, 2002).
Democracy is considered at the same time a favourable environment and an instrument in the appeasement of conflicts. However, the political and economic transition represents a veritable touchstone in the way of stability. There are numerous examples of different parts of the world that demonstrate that, in the incipient stages of democratisation, the ethnic and religious grounds are those on which political mobilization and loyalty are built (in this sense, a typical example would be the former Yugoslavia).
f. Reconciliation should be an objective on the long term and should rely on change. The long duration of conflicts is a sufficient reason for insisting on finding some strategies of reconciliation – a phenomenon that is more and more customary in our contemporary society, and also in the process of becoming a condition sine qua non of all negotiations.
In a world that is going trough a continuous transformation, there is nothing more stable than change, which is an objective process that can no longer be ignored. Therefore, it is highly important that we can predict change and act for it (apud Cornescu, Mihailescu, Stanciu, 2001), that we insure a proper leadership of the transformation process so that it will eventually be reflected in positive results. Change management at the organisational level is dealing precisely with these aspects.
For every organisation and for the “actors” in the Foreign Affairs Ministry as well, a manager’s approach to change should also include other aspects such as: trust, in oneself and in the subordinate personnel, adaptation capacity, which they should also cultivate in other members of the organisation, willingness to evolve and develop.
A management favourable to change at the organisational level is usually sensible to challenges that society, as a whole, raises at one stage or another. For example, in nowadays society, the transition to the market economy pressures organisations to undergo deep changes in order to adapt to the new environment.
The organisation and management of Romanian diplomatic activity: comparative aspects (1994/2004)
In different cultures and states, more or less explicitly, it has been customary to investigate and know in depth the requirements for carrying out various diplomatic activities (including negotiations), as well as the expectations that employees had with regard to diplomatic management.
Although already practising modern diplomacy for some time, Romania having put lots of efforts in this direction, similar to those made in developed countries, some results are still in the “experiment” phase, or, in any case, not able to claim the consistency and penetration that are currently needed.
Being well aware of the fact that, by any attempt to offer at least a “flash” into a very painstaking and important activity, we would take a great risk, we tried to approach the complex reality of diplomacy by means of investigating mainly attitudes.
As any rigid attempt to classify or to strictly rank human behaviours would be doomed to failure, we tried to compare the results of some investigations we made in 1994-1995 with those obtained through the psycho-social investigation of the same aspects in 2003-2004.
In our former research, as well as in the latter one, we had first broadly documented our research with general information so as not to “work” with emotional states or to force the given framework into the wrong direction on the pressure of our respondents’ social, professional and economic status.
Specifically, we imagined a “face to face” presentation of data obtained after using a series of questionnaires on two groups of employees of the Foreign Affairs Ministry. The whole procedure focused on the ideas, approaches and perspectives that are relevant in the Romanian diplomatic activity, which is already part and parcel of the European system of security and terrorism prevention.
The 1994-1995 study was made on a group of 100 subjects of both sexes, with an age range of 33 to 64 years. In order to carry out this investigation, we imagined and applied a questionnaire based on free answers, with a focus on the following themes:
- the ranking of characteristics necessary in the diplomatic activity;
- ways of perceiving the problems of Romanian diplomacy abroad and its possible challenges;
- team-relationships between people in the embassies, consulates, foreign partners and Romanians living abroad.
The questionnaire was answered by 25 women and 75 men, with a mean age of 47 years, all subjects having graduate education; out of these, only 6 of them were doing or had already obtained their PhD, while 12 of them had benefited from scholarships abroad.
As far as the range of qualities necessary to the diplomatic employee, the subjects that we investigated believed that this is made up of the following psychological traits: firmness, flexibility, ability to adjust to reality, ability to take responsible and deeply thought decisions, permanent and serious documentation, feeling motivated and observing codes of loyal conduct toward one’s country, proactive and peaceful attitude in the team involved in a diplomatic mission, psychological insight, patience and tolerance, general abilities for good cooperation.
As our investigation is rather more prone to become subject of a qualitative approach, we should mention that we succeeded though in obtaining statistical indicators such as ranks and means, as well as the central tendency of most relevant psychosocial phenomena. We added to the questionnaire designed in 1994 a question that has highlighted a strong appetite for the quality of human interrelationships among those involved in diplomatic activities, especially when working abroad. We should mention that this item that required a personal listing of qualities necessary in diplomatic activities was the most loaded with answers in the whole series.
It is also highly interesting the way our subjects have ranked the problems dealt with in diplomatic activities and the necessary social qualities. On the first position we find “the consistent need to deeply inform oneself” with regard to the problems confronting the given country they work in. The second was the consolidation of relationships with foreign partners, and the third – “openness” to socio-cultural and economical issues active in the region they carry out their diplomatic activity. On the fourth position our respondents placed the negotiating role, which includes general and specialised knowledge, abilities and experience in the field.
If we attempt to superpose the themes highlighted in the two questionnaires (1994-1995 and 2003-2004), we notice that we obtained answers that can be decoded “in mirror”, which in turn allows for a comparison of the dynamics of phenomena in the diplomatic activity.
In our recent study (2003-2004) we investigated 64 subjects, 15 men and 49 women, with an age range of 23 to 50 years (the mean age of the group being 32 years). We would like to underline here the personnel strategies that the Foreign Affairs Ministry applied in the meantime: in this group, the number of those that had benefited from a scholarship, as well as the number of those having post-graduate studies at the master’s or PhD level was much bigger than that registered in 1994-1995.the structure of answers to our questionnaire (completed by the semi-structured interview and a projective test of a verbal-associative test) shows us that some general problems are still to be encountered and also puts forward some new aspects.
This is why we consider the complex and general changes that took place in our country as well as those happening at the European or even international level (from a socio-economic or geopolitical point of view) are the main variables able to explain both the new attitude toward diplomacy, and the change in the employees’ motivational basis. They tend to project some of the socio-economic and political priorities in their own activity, as well as in that of the Foreign Affairs Ministry or Romania.
Globally, we noticed, after classifying the results obtained after the administration of the questionnaire on the latter group, that there appear some items of great complexity and responsibility. Synthetically, these items appear on many answers that we chose to condense as it follows:
- the link between foreign policy – internal policy;
- being aware of the “urgencies” in the external policy in 2004;
- Romania’s integration in the EU;
- the necessity for solid professional formation of people active in the Romanian diplomacy area.
We should also underline the fact that the general tone of the approach in the second investigation (2003-2004) is a more alert, more dynamic, more adequate one.
The “condense-items” that were present in both investigations refer to:
a. the series of qualities (both physical and psychosocial) necessary to diplomatic activity;
b. the “traps” in diplomatic activity;
c. the need for concrete initiatives in this area;
d. the determinant factors of Romania’s image abroad;
e. team-work, dialogue and communication:
f. inside the mission (colleagues, superiors and subordinates);
g. with the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Presidency, the Government, the NGOs;
h. with Romanians living abroad;
i. with different representatives from the country where the diplomatic activity is carried out.
Even if we had in mind a prevalently qualitative presentation of options and expectations of diplomatic employees, we can still outline some general concepts useful in the diplomatic management.
In full consensus with more or less recent studies of organisational psychology, social psychology, sociology and even political psychology, our cognitive conducts always have an emotional dimension, both at the individual and the group level. The situation is the same with the two groups we investigated at an interval of 10 years, and this allows us to say that the series of requirements in the diplomatic activity were each time projected in an ideal manner (quantitatively and qualitatively).
These projections at the level of the self are exteriorized, in our case, through expectations toward the image Romania would have in the future, tending to colour the individual qualitative evaluations.
If the Romanian diplomacy hadn’t anticipated the difficulties that appeared in the adhesion process to NATO and UE, we should say that it is precisely from the acceptance of this level of difficulty that we are to gather the suggestions for our diplomacy in the future (one that should be of a preventive type).
The superposition of the condense-items that resulted after the two investigations opens up the possibility for some suggestions and proposals, out of which some have already been put into practice by the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
We want to stress that this listing is suggestive as long as it offers an opening toward psychosocial phenomena that are responsible for the decisions, conducts, emotions, interests of those involved in a diplomatic activity wherever it may be. This is why we argue that the future years will be rather difficult for Romania, because of all the efforts that are to be made both in the interior and in the exterior, through diplomacy.
If informal communication is easier to achieve in small organisations, one cannot state the same for larger ones. This is why the concerns of leaders in the Foreign Affairs Ministry, as well as of those engaged in diplomatic missions, could be clarified by their very experience-based proposals: well-structured objectives should be coupled with communication abilities, active listening skills, observance of decisions already made and ability to make new decisions. Thus, workshops, micro-sessions of scientific communications (inspired by practice), brainstorming, the Delphi technique etc. can effectively help forming and enhancing organisational skills, diplomatic and political abilities, whether in the ministry, or in the Romanian embassies and consulates all over the world.
Conclusions
The sociology and political psychology studies draw attention not only the necessity to continue internal and external efforts to sustain Romania’s adhesion or to continue the reforms (especially at the institutional level), but mainly to the need for a mentality change, based on the present globalising trend.
The following are the most general ideas that are to be drawn from our investigation of two groups:
a. the willingness to receive responsibilities targeted at a good insertion into the external structures of NATO, UE and other international bodies (ONU, UNESCO etc.);
b. the building up of an attitude of maturity and innovation, of interest for present activities, for the individual and institutional future of Romanian diplomacy;
c. receptiveness (as a general attitude) for current problems (economic, political, social) based on solid information gained through postgraduate education, master and PhD programmes etc.
d. trying to identify the right solutions, the present or future problems (through role-play, micro-experiments, attitude scales etc) is still an deficient area when compared with the projected area of qualities necessary for the future diplomat;
e. the relatively low level of the proposition of practical solutions for the diplomatic activity in the future should not be decoded as mere self-censure, but as a deficiency in shaping solutions and decisions likely to be put into practice or to have a theoretical impact;
f. the persistence of an old-fashioned mentality, even among young people, that assumes that one should prefer not to get involve in the Romanian political life;
g. the presence of some kind of disgust or disappointment among the young generation (students or graduates of humanist studies – law, history, psychology, sociology) when it comes to the perspective of making a career in diplomacy or politics.
A deeper explanation of these attitudes and social representations is that put forward by a series of psychosocial micro-studies that have highlighted a rather negative profile of the Romanian politician; this one is generally supposed to display the following characteristics: inability in social relationships, arrogance, incompetence, corruption (usually very heavily documented).
In the future, we should stress the need for the development of a system of stimulation of change initiatives regarding institutions, mentalities and, implicitly, inter-human and inter-group relationships, in areas such as health, education, defence, or external affairs.
This transformation “project” can become functional only through permanent information, multiplication of R&D activities, creation of consistent documentation, introduction of postgraduate studies, with a concentration in the socio-human sciences (such as the Master’s programme and the courses organised by the Diplomatic Academy of the Foreign Affairs Ministry), a concerted effort directed at the continuous evaluation of both employees and activities in the ministry.
On the whole, we are confronted with the evidence that it high time we implemented a macro-system for adjusting to the new and to change – a compulsory ingredient of the future, of the system that will anticipate the reforms and will make possible their adaptation to functional European, NATO and other international standards.
References
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