Publications
fp21 is building a new culture of foreign policy that uses evidence and robust analysis in decision-making processes, learns from its successes and failures, and continually feeds lessons back into the way it recruits, trains, and promotes a merit-based staff. Explore our publications below.
The State Department Authorization Act: More than A Seat at the Grown-Ups’ Table During the Holidays
Lindsey Michele: Congress has just passed the State Department Authorization Act for the 2nd time in almost 20 years. Returning State Authorization to a yearly habit – and the requisite oversight it requires – is essential for a healthy foreign policy. The alternatively is haphazard and ad hoc oversight which contributes to haphazard and ad hoc policy.
Reflections on the American Diplomacy Project
Lindsey Michele and Dan Spokojny: When eight of the most experienced and accomplished diplomats alive write a report about how to revitalize the State Department, we must listen. Their work represents a coalescing and deepening of the recommendations from a number of the most influential State Department-focused institutions. Yet, we wonder: How can the authors both recommend that FSOs assume more authority and that State Department training is woefully inadequate?
The State Department’s New Strategy Prioritizes Evidence-Based DEIA
Rachel George and Beverli DeWalt: The State Department just announced its five-year strategic plan for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA). The strategy, led by the new Office of Diversity and Inclusion, commits to an evidence-based approach to diversity. This emphasis on evidence in the new strategy lays a necessary foundation for ensuring that diversity efforts have their intended effects, and, critically, that they do no harm.
Let's Get Serious about Research for Diplomacy: A proposal for a foreign policy-focused FFRDC
Dan Spokojny & Alexandra Blum: The Department of State has a knowledge problem. Few diplomats have the time or training to conduct serious research, nor is any office dedicated to answering central questions like, “When does U.S. diplomacy work?”. The State Department requires help answering such ambitious and vital questions. To fill this gap, we recommend State sponsor a new Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) for U.S. foreign policy.
State Department Data Requires Oversight to Avoid Digital Anarchy
Dan Spokojny: Rapid progress on data at the State Department is turning up some pain points. Data scientists struggle to access the information they need in a timely fashion. Tangled and outdated legal authorities tie the hands of analysts trying to collaborate. Valuable data sets collected or purchased by one office are not accessible to other offices. And an archaic IT infrastructure held together with duct tape makes diplomacy’s information superhighway feel more like a dirt road. To avoid digital anarchy, Congress should give State’s first-ever Chief Data Officer (CDO) oversight over all of State’s data resources.
It’s Official: All Foreign Service Officers Must Learn Data
Dan Spokojny: The State Department will now be evaluating foreign service officers on their proficiency in data collection, analysis, and decision-making following an update to the decision criteria for tenure and promotion. This change to the core precepts reflects the Department’s recognition that data skills are an indispensable part of every leader’s toolkit in today’s information economy.
fp21 Applauds Blinken’s Modernization Steps but Urges Deeper Reforms
Dan Spokojny: Advocates for a strong Department of State should celebrate the Modernizing Diplomacy Initiative. Yet, taken as a whole, the Initiative feels a bit more routine than modern. While everything in the speech was positive – there were at least 21 deliverables organized across five “pillars” for reform – the strategy may not add up to the “historic” change Blinken suggests.
State’s New Data Strategy: A (potentially) historic step
Dan Spokojny: The State Department released its first ever Enterprise Data Strategy last week, marking a potentially historic turning point in the conduct of US diplomacy. Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, calls a data-powered world a “paradigm shift” and suggests a “culture change in the Department” will be required. The strategy also suggests that if the United States cannot harness the power of data, we risk getting out-competed by our adversaries.
Dear Congress: A Big Foreign Affairs Budget Does Not Guarantee Better Diplomacy
Ryan Dukeman and Dan Spokojny: President Biden’s FY22 International Affairs budget proposes the largest increase in non-emergency funding for diplomacy and development in a decade, and some in Congress want to go even bigger. But such investments risk doubling down on existing underperforming organizational structures and processes rather than enabling new ones. What we need now is better diplomacy, not just more.
The Crisis at State is Deeper than We Admit
Dan Spokojny: An eye opening survey conducted by a team of graduate students at Harvard Kennedy School finds that about a third of foreign service officers are planning on quitting the State Department. The report should be commended for bringing renewed attention to the challenges at State, but it risks minimizing the scale of the problem and the transformation needed to save the oldest cabinet agency from further decline. I believe at least three interrelated factors are undermining morale, driving top talent to the private sector, and harming the ability of the State Department to produce exceptional management policy and foreign policy: a top heavy decision-making process that disempowers careerists, diversity challenges that undermine merit, and the questionable impact of the policymaking process.