States and Their Foreign Services

Abstract

Whatever their size or political system, states maintain a foreign service to carry out their foreign policy. That apparatus is materialized through the institution of a Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which employs state actors called diplomats. While foreign policy typically involves competition between a host of governmental and non-governmental actors on the one hand and national, international, and transnational ones on the other hand, this chapter essentially asks two questions: What added value can a state foreign service continue to provide in creating foreign policy in the early twenty-first century? What is the meaning of the practices undertaken by actors in charge of running the state foreign service?