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.
Historical Lessons for State Department Reform
Sophia Brown: The Rogers Act, which turns 100 next year, paved the way for the American diplomatic service to become the world’s most influential. Yet many of the problems that the Rogers Act sought to address a century ago have reawakened in today’s State Department: struggles with meritocracy, worrisome politicization, and a siloed personnel system. The history of the Rogers Act offers lessons for how today’s reformers may succeed or fail.
Congress Orders Changes for State Department in New Authorization
Dan Spokojny: The new State Department Authorization recently passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden includes some meaningful changes for diplomacy and international relations. The legislation advances new authorities and requirements across training, workforce issues, hiring and promotions, and internal security issues. Let’s take a closer look:
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.
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.
Three concrete steps to improve the relationship between Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom
Ryan Dukeman: For years, scholars and policymakers alike have bemoaned American diplomacy’s less-than-diplomatic approach to the first branch of government – a distrust that often cuts both ways, with legislators and staff conferring a degree of deference to the military and intelligence agencies they seldom accord to State. I propose three concrete steps Congress and the executive branch could take to improve them going forward: integrating legislative diplomacy; turning annual reports into interactive dashboards, and; strategically produce diplomatic data.