A word of gratitude.
Hereby I would like to express my gratitude towards the people without whom I would not have been able to write this thesis.
First of all, I want to thank my supervisor, Joost Berkhout, for providing essential feedback and guidance during the half year. His enthusiasm, support and insights were greatly appreciated.
Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to my parents, brother, boyfriend, friends and colleagues. Without their support, and love, this process would have been a lot more difficult.
Lastly, the kind people prepared to participate in the interviews played a crucial role in carrying out my research. Therefore, I would like to thank all of the (former) ambassadors who were willing to talk to me. With this, I would also like to thank Boy Frank for putting me in touch with some of the (former) ambassadors.
Abstract.
In this paper, the main research question is: ‘why do Dutch ambassadors succeed or fail in
bilateral agenda setting?’ To get to an answer on this question, six hypotheses are set up that all have
to do with different factors possibly influencing the agenda setting process of Dutch ambassadors. Four characteristics of the issue to be influenced are analyzed in this context: the subject and the political sensitivity of the issue, the issue origin and the issue saliency. Besides these issue specific characteristics, two country characteristics will be taken into account: the democratic level of the country of stationing and the perceived economic dependence of the country on the Netherlands. The data to test the formulated hypotheses will be gathered both trough existing data and original data. Existing data will be extracted from the database constructed by the Economist Intelligence Unit titled the ‘Democracy index’. Conducting semi-structured interviews with Dutch ambassadors will create the original dataset. In the end, eleven ambassadors were interviewed with a variety amongst them concerning time of stationing and the democracy levels of the related countries. The paper derives at the conclusion that not all the variables that were expected to have a relationship with the amount of influence have an actual relation in reality. Saliency of an issue for the Dutch government or Dutch ambassador does not lead to more agenda setting influence, neither does the perceived economic dependence of the country of stationing on the Netherlands. The other four hypotheses were (partially) supported. The findings of this research implicate that there is a difference in how much an ambassador can achieve in his or her period of stationing, and which factors need to be kept in mind when talking about the effectiveness of the diplomatic network.
Table of contents.
1. Introduction. ... 51.1. Context. ... 5
1.2. Scientific, normative and social relevance. ... 6
1.3. Structure of the research. ... 7
2. Theoretical framework. ... 8
2.1. Theory and hypotheses. ... 8
2.1. Assumptions. ... 14
3. Design of the research. ... 16
3.1. Research design. ... 16
3.2. Case selection and justification. ... 18
3.3. Conceptualization. ... 19
3.4. Operationalization. ... 23
4. Data analysis (left out intentionally for anonimity reasons)... 27
4.1. Analyzing the data. ... 30
4.1.1. Hypothesis one. ... 30
4.1.2. Hypothesis two. ... 33
4.1.3. Hypothesis three. ... 35
4.1.4. Hypothesis four. ... 37
4.1.5. Hypothesis five. ... 38
4.1.6. Hypothesis six. ... 41
4.2. The factors explaining agenda setting influence on a bilateral level. ... 43
4.3. Other findings. ... 44
5. Conclusion. ... 47
5.1. The conclusion of the research. ... 47
5.2. Discussion. ... 48
5.3. Recommendations. ... 49
Bibliography. ... 51
Appendix 1. Issues and characteristics (left out intentionally for anonimity reasons)... 54
Appendix 2. Democracy levels of the population (left out intentionally for anonimity reasons)... 58
Appendix 3. Interview protocol (Dutch). ... 61
1. Introduction.
1.1. Context.
“Venezuela has declared the German ambassador persona non grata. According to the Venezuelan government, [he] has interfered with domestic affairs. That is a clear violation of the diplomatic rules
and therefore he is no longer welcome”
(NOS, 2019).
More than a hundred Dutch diplomats are stationed abroad to promote the Dutch agenda and the interest of the Netherlands elsewhere (de Rijksoverheid, n.d.) (de Rijksoverheid (1), 2017). The current Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Stef Blok argues: “Diplomacy is a profession and, moreover,
real people work. Individual diplomats make the difference at important moments. Because they know the right people, know local customs, come up with creative compromises and always keep a sharp eye on Dutch interests” (de Rijksoverheid (3), 2018). In order to carry out this job description in an effective
way, an ambassador furthermore needs to be “a strong leader—a good manager, a resilient negotiator,
and a respected representative” (Baas, 2014).
To increase the effectiveness of the Dutch diplomatic network, the Dutch government invests an extra ten million euros into the network. The question, however, arises whether there are any specific conditions and characteristics that influence the amount of effectiveness of the diplomatic network. Which topics can be addressed more comfortably than others in bilateral meetings? And which topics are, comparable with the situation in Venezuela and the German ambassador, a step too far for bilateral relations and will therefore not be discussed? Perhaps some countries are more suspectable to the influence of ambassadors than other countries. The main research question of the paper will therefore be: ‘why do Dutch ambassadors succeed or fail in bilateral agenda
setting?’ In this thesis an attempt will be made to answer the research question on the basis of six
hypotheses. These hypotheses concern both the nature of the pursued issue itself as well as the characteristics of the country of stationing.
This thesis eventually leads to a better understanding of the role of ambassadors in bilateral agenda setting. Moreover, new insights are gained on the effects of external factors on the effectiveness of ambassadors in bilateral agenda setting, as some of the expected relations between variables will be confirmed.
1.2. Scientific, normative and social relevance.
The dependent variable that will be analyzed in this thesis is the influence of a Dutch ambassador on the bilateral agenda setting process. The agenda setting process in general has been analyzed numerous times by several scholars, especially concerning actors such as lobbyists, political parties and the media in the ‘leading roles’. In this context however, ambassadors and diplomats have been rarely analyzed. As Eytan Gilboa writes in ‘Searching for a Theory of Public Diplomacy’, there is a gap of literature within the diplomatic research field and little knowledge concerning the public diplomacy instruments (Gilboa, 2008, p. 73). This research could be a start to close the gap in the research field regarding this topic and an initiation to put ambassadors on the named list of agenda influencers as one of the main actors. Furthermore, describing when ambassadors are successful in their agenda setting goals naturally leads to information about the instruments available to this group. These two insights will therefore increase our understanding of outcomes of policy processes and might be helpful for researches in the future. Moreover, a first step will be made into establishing a theory in international agenda setting concerning differences amongst countries and issues.Secondly, an overall ‘vagueness’ exists about bureaucracy and government officials and therefore also about ambassadors and diplomats. Various articles have been published in an attempt to explain what ambassadors actually do on a day-to-day business (Palmer, 2014). The task description of a diplomat or ambassador also differs amongst cultures: in Germany, for example, the prime task for an ambassador is a messenger between German politicians and diplomats. This is also why the German word for ambassador is Botschafter, which literally translates to ‘messenger’. In contrary, there are also diplomats who see their roles more as an active one, with the current American ambassador in Germany as an example: “he sees himself as a “player” who has a role in influencing policy decisions—and a
portfolio extending beyond just Germany to Europe more broadly” (Schultheis, 2018). This rubbed
Germany in the wrong way: the former German ambassador to the United States and current chairman of the Munich Security Conference stated that “Germans are eager to listen, but they will resent
instructions” (Schultheis, 2018). Because of this, this thesis also is relevant in political science terms.
To what extent do, and should, ambassadors (and therefore countries) have influence in the country of stationing? This, in the end, contributes to the question of who actually governs.
Lastly, the information gathered in the research might lead to insights that are useful for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Stef Blok underlines that “in
today's turbulent world, a strong foreign policy is indispensable. And that is impossible without an effective diplomatic service “ (de Rijksoverheid (3), 2018). As this thesis is about under which
circumstances ambassadors can carry out their task more effectively, this thesis will include recommendations for the Ministry concerning the effectiveness of the diplomatic service, ambassadors
1.3. Structure of the research.
The research will be organized as followed. To get a sufficient overview of the gap in the literature and to frame the theory that will be used in the research itself, chapter two will include a theoretical framework. This will include a view on research concerning the agenda setting process. The six hypotheses will be formulated illustrating the expected relations between the dependent and independent variables: agenda setting influence, issue character, issue saliency, issue origin, issue sensitivity, the perceived economic dependence of the country of stationing on the Netherlands and lastly the democratic level of the country of stationing. Furthermore, a causal diagram is drawn up and the assumptions made in order to conduct the analysis are illustrated.
The way the data will be collected is presented in chapter 3. In this chapter, the research design will be laid down as well as the conceptualization of all the variables. Moreover, the pros and cons of using expert surveys to gather data will be weighed against each other, the interview questions will be illustrated per hypothesis, and the operationalization of the variables is also included. Lastly, the ideal sample selection will be displayed.
The extracted data will be analyzed in the fourth chapter. A combination will be made of the proposed theory, the hypotheses and the collected data. This data will exist of both the information gained from the expert surveys as well as already existing data. Attempts will be made to either find support or to reject each of the six hypotheses. On the basis of these hypotheses’ analyses, an answer will be formulated on the main research question. Lastly, information is included that does not relate to the hypotheses but that was deemed interesting, nonetheless.
In the fifth and last chapter a conclusion will be drawn. An answer to the main research question will be formulated, and the outcomes of the analysis will be summarized. A discussion will be included as well to see what could have gone differently and to what extent there is reliability and internal- and external validity. On top of this, recommendations will be made about how future researches could improve upon this paper or how they could build further upon this research. Lastly, recommendations will be constructed aimed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
2. Theoretical framework.
As stated in the introduction, not an extensive amount of scientific literature is written about success factors in the workings of ambassadors. In this chapter, an overview is given on the research conducted until now on the agenda setting process. Furthermore, six hypotheses tested in this thesis are presented together with the theory used to base these hypotheses on. A causal diagram is created in order to illustrate the expected positive or negative relations between the independent and dependent variables. Lastly, two assumptions need to be made in order to construct this research due to lack of research. These will be portrayed in the last sub-chapter.
2.1. Theory and hypotheses.
Let us begin with looking at the research conducted on the agenda setting process thus far. The concept of agenda setting is a topic that has been researched extensively with a variety of main actors, as illustrated in the introduction (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993; Kingdon, 1984; Walker, 1977). The question however arises why agendas need to be influenced? As Shepsle argues, it could be that consultation partners such as ‘civil servants in a bureau, legislators on a committee or members of a faculty’ would like to achieve the same things together, but do not own an infinite amount of resources. Some of these decisions are already made due to activities mandated by others or different factors (such as rules, certain events or agreements), but for the rest of the space, decisions need to be made about what to devote their attention and other scarce resources to, and what not (Shepsle & Bonchek, 2010, p. 451). These decisions and choices could be seen as discretionary agenda decisions. In order to fill in the gaps of the agenda, influence needs to be exercised.
Influence however is a concept that in the history of research concerning the topic has often been labeled as difficult to conceptualize and operationalize. There is therefore an extensive amount of varieties on the meaning of the word itself. James G. March wrote about the concept in 1955 and described 'influence’ as a concept that is inseparable of decision- making studies. “Influence is to the
study of decision- making what force is to the study of motion-a generic explanation for the basic observable phenomena” (March, 1955, p. 432). March finds that most of the conceptualizations and
approaches of the operationalization of ‘influence’ are formulated in a rather ad-hoc way, and that these conceptualizations tend to be divergent and vague at best. The scholar however discussed some approaches for the measurement of influence: ’measures of attributed influence, measures of opinion change, and measures of influence attempts’ (March, 1955, pp. 445-448).
of political pluralism’, Dahl, wrote a major contribution to the research field in 1957 (Munro, n.d.). He defined power as the following: “A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something
that B would not otherwise do” (Dahl, 1957, p. 202). This kind of power is a more direct kind of power,
as A directly influences the behavior of B. Critics argued that in this definition, Dahl does not include all of the spectrums of power. For example, in 1962 Bachrach and Baratz argued that Dahl missed the possibility that person A can also prevent certain issues from arising (Bachrach & Baratz, 1962, p. 948). The scholars argue that there is therefore a ‘second face of power’ that is described as followed: “power
is also exercised when A devotes his energies to creating or reinforcing social and political values and institutional practices that limit the scope of the political process to public consideration of only those issues which are comparatively innocuous to A” (Bachrach & Baratz, 1962, p. 948). This form of power
is argued to be more subtle, and more about setting the agenda which leads to the decisions to be made rather than only the decisions self.
To gain more insights in the research conducted thus far, six hypotheses were formulated. More information about the operationalization and interpretation of the included variables can be found in chapter 3. Four of the formulated hypotheses are focused on the nature of the issue to be put on the bilateral agenda. The analysis of these hypotheses will indicate whether the characteristics of the pursued issue affect the amount of influence an ambassador has in the bilateral agenda setting process. The last two hypotheses are both concerning the nature of the country of stationing and will demonstrate whether some countries are more susceptible to the influence of ambassadors than others.
First and foremost, an explanation why the first hypothesis is constructed as no literature has been found on the possible relation between states being subjective to influence and the nature of the to be discussed issue. The thought here is that different sorts of issues get treated differently in the agenda setting process. Where compromises could be found concerning issues that are economic related, human rights- or geopolitical related issues are more binary. Due to this, government officials might be more inclined to discuss the economic issues more, as there is actually something to discuss and negotiate about. Government officials either agree or disagree with human rights related issues or with certain standpoints in geopolitical issues, and not a lot more is to be discussed after these positions are known amongst the different parties at the table. Furthermore, trying to disuses human rights related issues or geopolitical issues might cause the country of stationing to feel like their sovereignty is be affected, such as the mentioned cases in Germany or Venezuela.
Testing this hypothesis will possibly gain insight in certain types of issues that are more success in the agenda setting process. In a broader context, this could lead to insights on the difficulty- or ease- of certain issues in the (international and bilateral) agenda setting process.
The dependent variable in the hypothesis is the agenda setting influence and the independent variable is the character of the issue, which includes three categories: economic related issues, human rights related issues and geopolitical issues. The expectation is that there is a positive relationship
between how economic an issue is and the success rate of a Dutch ambassador in their agenda setting influence.
H1. A Dutch ambassador is more likely to get an economic related issue on a bilateral agenda of the Netherlands and the country in which an ambassador is stationed in, than a human rights related- or a geopolitical issue.
Secondly, it seems plausible that ambassadors would try harder to get an issue on the agenda when it is a very urgent or salient issue. In this case, saliency is how important the issue is to discuss on a bilateral level in the eyes of either the ‘Dutch side’. It could be an issue is urgent due to time limits, or because it is a policy goal of the Dutch government. Furthermore, the theory of scarce resources led to the idea that bilateral meetings only bring attention to the most salient issues and that less salient issues are less likely to get on the bilateral agenda. The opposite might however also be true: the more important an issue is, the more likely it is that not an ambassador is responsible but a higher policy officer such as a state secretary, a minister or even the Dutch Minister-President. In this case, not the ambassador would try to get the issue on the bilateral agenda but someone else from the Ministry in The Hague.
The dependent variable in the second hypothesis is, like the first hypothesis, the agenda setting influence. The independent variable is the saliency of the issue for the Netherlands and the Dutch ambassador. The prospect here is that a positive relationship exists between saliency and the agenda setting influence of Dutch ambassadors.
H2. The higher the saliency of the issue for the Netherlands and the Dutch ambassador, the higher the chance that discussing the issue is deemed successful by a Dutch ambassador.
The third hypothesis is all about who brought up the issue, and which actor wants to discuss the topic with the other actors. In this case it could be that either the country of stationing wants to talk with the Dutch ambassador about the issue, the Netherlands wants to talk with the country of stationing or both countries desire to discuss the topic with each other (illustrated in figure 1). The expectation here is that Dutch ambassadors are the least successful in his or her agenda setting influence if the ambassador is the actor who raised the issue. It would seem plausible that, because ambassadors are the ‘guests’ in the country of stationing, they have to comply with the wishes of the government officials in the said country.
The dependent variable included in this hypothesis is agenda setting success and the independent variable is issue origin.
H3. An issue originating either from the country of stationing or that is brought up by both countries is more often on the bilateral agenda than an issue that originates from the Netherlands.
The fourth hypothesis is the last of the six hypotheses that focuses on issue characteristics, and questions whether political sensitivity amongst either the population of the country of stationing or amongst the government in that country influences the agenda setting power of an ambassador. Ebring et al. also relate issue sensitivity to agenda setting influence in the context of susceptibility to media agenda-setting: “as individuals obviously differ in their issue sensitivities and preoccupations, we do not expect
the impact of issue overage by the media to occur in a blanket sweep across the entire population”
(Ebring, Goldenberg, & Miller, 1980, p. 28). The scholars found that a certain sensitivity to the issue for the individual leads to more responsiveness to the media agenda-setting effects, whereas others do not (Zhu & Boroson, 1997, p. 71) On the one hand it could be that the country of stationing would appreciate it to discuss the topic on a bilateral level to gather different insights of how they could tackle the issue, and therefore is more ‘susceptible’ to the influence of the Dutch ambassador. On the other hand, however, the case of the German ambassador in Venezuela shows that trying to discuss a certain type of delicate issues on a bilateral level could be considered as an act of mingling with domestic affairs and is therefore not appreciated. Because of this practical example, the presumption here is that a negative relationship between the political sensitivity for the country of stationing (the independent variable) and the agenda setting influence of Dutch ambassadors (the dependent variable) exists.
H4. When an issue is political sensitive in the country of stationing, the agenda setting influence of the Dutch ambassador concerning the issue is lower.
The fifth hypothesis is the first of two hypotheses that are more country-character oriented and is based on the theory of economic dependence described by Albert Hirschman and Harrison Wagner. Wagner illustrates the positive relation between asymmetrical interdependence and power, or influence. He gives recognition to Hirschman’s work that is, according to Wagner, the “most highly developed
theory of economic dependence and its political uses that we have” (Wagner, 1988, p. 462). In this
paper, the scholar argues that if one trading partner values the gains from trade more than the other trading partner, the latter will be in a stronger bargaining position than the former. The bargaining position itself is not specified by Hirschman, although he argues that “governments that have bargaining
power in this sense are able to use it to extract not only more favorable terms of trade, but also significant political concessions” (Wagner, 1988, p. 463). As Wagner states, there are a couple of factors
left out in Hirschman’s theory. An example is that some governments are much more vulnerable than other governments to pressure affected by trade, or that some governments are more willing to let their citizens suffer economic deprivation than other governments. However, he argues that “such a criticism
does not call into question the more fundamental idea that if a trading relationship is much more important to one government than to another, then the second may be able to demand from the first not only better terms of trade, but also political concessions” (Wagner, 1988, p. 464)
As the scholars argued, economic dependence could not only lead to more bargaining power in trade-related situations but also political concessions, the theory could be applied to this context. Therefore, analyzing the hypothesis will lead to more information on a possible positive relationship between economic dependence of the country of stationing on the Netherlands and the agenda setting influence of Dutch ambassadors. The independent variable here is the agenda setting influence of Dutch ambassadors and the dependent variable is the by the Dutch ambassador perceived economic dependence of the country of stationing on the Netherlands. The choice has been made to use perceived economic dependence, rather than factual economic dependence, as it could be that the numbers say something different than the perception of the country of stationing. As Wagner argued, it could be that the appreciation of the economic relationship is more than actually expressed in data.
Figure 2. Causal model.
H5. The higher the perceived economic dependence is between the Netherlands and the country, the more likely it is that a Dutch ambassador gets an issue on the bilateral agenda.
An article written by Goodman and Jinks inspires the last and sixth hypothesis. These scholars relate the type of regime of a state or institution and the type of influence a state carries out: coercion, persuasion or acculturation (Goodman & Jinks, 2004, p. 622). With this in mind, it would be interesting to see whether the type of regime or, the level of democracy in a country, also affects the level of influence the state ‘receives’. It could be that a very democratic country is more likely to be influenced by an ambassador, as democratic countries are more open to criticism or assistance. It could also be the other way around: there is a possibility that a democratic stable country likely will already have passed its developing state, resulting in it being less subjective to external influences. Considering both possibilities, the expectation remains that there is a positive relationship between the democracy level of the country of stationing and the agenda setting influence of Dutch ambassadors. In this relationship, the independent variable is the agenda setting influence of Dutch ambassadors and the dependent variable is the democratic level of the country of stationing.
H6. The lower the democratic level is of the country of stationing, the less likely it is that a Dutch ambassador gets an issue on the bilateral agenda.
Now that the hypotheses and the variables that will be analyzed in this research are known, a causal diagram can be drawn up (included in figure 2). The independent variables in this causal diagram are illustrated in relation to the dependent variable (agenda setting influence of the Dutch ambassador), where a possible relationship is illustrated with a plus and a negative relationship with a minus. The figure shows that of the six hypotheses, two are expected to have a negative relationship with the dependent variable and four a positive relationship.
2.1. Assumptions.
Some assumptions need to be made in this paper as not a lot of previous theories are written about the diplomatic network and its effectiveness, as stated earlier.
The first assumption needs to be made due to the lack of research on the structure of diplomatic networks. This gap in the research field was also underlined by Maliniak and Plouffe when they researched the structure of diplomatic networks and the formation of diplomatic ties between states. The scholars tried to remedy the two biggest shortcomings existing research on the international diplomatic network suffer. According to them, the first shortcoming is that most of the scientific work on diplomatic networks ignores the motivation behind the creation of the networks between states whilst the second shortcoming is that the structure of the network itself is ‘routinely ignored’ (Maliniak & Plouffe, 2011, p. 1). These shortcomings exist despite the fact that the study of diplomacy has been conducted since the beginning of research in international relations (Maliniak & Plouffe, 2011, p. 2). Due to this little knowledge concerning the structure of the network, one assumption in this research is that the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Dutch ambassadors have the same issues and prioritization at heart and that the ambassadors try to influence the bilateral agenda in order to gain attention for the issues. The bilateral agenda in this paper will be the list of substantive issues (to be) discussed in any form of bilateral meetings and discussions: planned visits of the ambassador to government officials of the country of stationing, (unplanned) encounters at events or the substantive issues of certain e-mails or messages sent between the two parties. We speak of a (written or not) bilateral agenda as long as the Dutch ambassador is one of the two parties and a government official of the country of stationing the other. As hinted at already, the attempt to put subjects on this bilateral agenda is the focus in this research topic, as analyzing the whole process could not be realized due to time constraints. The possible difference between the goals of the Ministry and the Dutch ambassadors will therefore not be actively researched, and the starting point is illustrated in figure 3, in which the arrows stand for the attempt to influence the bilateral agenda.
As the focus of this research is concerning the successes and failures of Dutch ambassadors in the bilateral agenda setting process, the second assumption is that ambassadors focus on the second face of power in their daily work more than on the first face of power. This assumption makes it that the main research question is valid and could be made as there is a certain restriction to the range of ambassadors in their administrative discretion. Because of this, it is assumed that the first face of power does not interfere with the act of influencing the agenda setting process as the ambassadors do not, or barely, carry out this type of power. In this case, an ambassador’s task is more to bring up certain issues in the country of stationing and on the bilateral level rather than to influence the decision-making process.
3. Design of the research.
Both previously established data and original data will be used in this paper. The research design that will be used to combine these data sources will be illustrated in this chapter. Which choices have been made and what are the pros and cons of these choices? The second sub-chapter will illustrate the criteria applied in order to get to the selection of Dutch ambassadors and how this translates to the (internal and external) validity and reliability of the research. Lastly, the operationalization and conceptualization of all the variables and concepts included in the main research question and hypotheses will be illustrated in the final sub-chapter.
3.1. Research design.
The aim for the research is to be both descriptive and explanatory. As shown in the hypotheses, possible causal relationships will be analyzed which might explain why ambassadors are sometimes successful in their agenda setting goals and other times not. The study will also be descriptive, as it will contain information on instruments available to ambassadors, how they tackle certain types of issues and the overall workings of ambassadors. The goal here is to gain more insights into the day-to-day workings of diplomats and ambassadors in order to add on the little known information concerning this field, as shown in the introduction (Gilboa, 2008).
The pros and cons of different designs need to be weighed against each other in order to determine what the research design will be in this paper. Figure 4 illustrates the types of research described in 2013 by Yin.
Figure 4. Types of research (Yin, 2013, p. 6)
In order to answer the main research question, information needs to be gathered on the successes and failures of issues on a bilateral level, and the reasons why these issues did end up on the bilateral agenda or not. There is no possibility to control the behavioral events in this context (the agenda setting
Strategy Form of research
question
Requires control over behavioral events?
Focuses on
contemporary events?
Experiment How, why Yes Yes
Survey Who, what, where, how
many, how much
No Yes
Archival analysis How, what, where, how
many, how much
No Yes/No
History How, why No No
failures of Dutch ambassadors stationed the late 90’s (1990+) to the year that this thesis is written (2019). With these factors in mind, conducting an experiment or a historical research would not be possible. As the information required to answer the main research question and to test the hypotheses is not publicly available, an archival analysis would also not be possible. Lastly, conducting a case study would mean that the focus lays more on the motivations behind certain behavior or acts. The main research question in this paper however is more focused on circumstances under which ambassadors succeed. Because of this, the choice has been made to include a survey strategy in the paper. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with elites in the field, which are in this context the Dutch ambassadors themselves (more about the case selection in sub-chapter 3.2).
Some negatives that come with the use of elite interviews need to be kept in mind. As Berry describes, interviewees do not have an obligation to be objective and to be truthful (Berry, 2002, p. 680). In this thesis, subjects are asked to talk about their successes and failures in their work tasks possibly leading to three methodological problems pointed out by Berry. The first being that the interviewee might exaggerate the information told. Furthermore, information might be (intentionally) be left out by the interviewee. Third, the credibility of the information might be questionable. The scholar also described ways to remedy these problems: be prepared, include other participants and organizations in the questions and try to not ask impact questions (Berry, 2002, p. 681). All in all, we need to be careful with the interpretation of the results. The mentioned recommendations will be kept in mind when constructing the interview questions. (Harvey, 2011, p. 432). A way to improve upon the quality of the data collected via interviews is described by Harvey. He argues that a trustworthy relationship needs to be established between the interviewee and interviewer. To get to this level of relationship, information needs to be shared before the interview concerning possible sponsoring, how long the interview will take, the way the data will be used, whether the data will be published and whether it will be treated in an anonymous way.
Besides the negatives, there are also quite some advantage to using elite interviews. First of all, as mentioned earlier, information can be collected that otherwise would not be possible. Anecdotes concerning certain specific events and moments will most probably contain valuable information concerning both the hypotheses and main research question and will add some nuance and background information to the collected data. Furthermore, this method exclusively yields first-hand information as opposed to relying on the interpretation of other sources and scholars. Lastly, using elite interviews as a data source leads to the possibility of expanding the amount of interviews by the act of snowball sampling: “if you have established a good rapport with a particular respondent, do not be shy about
enlisting their help in getting in the door with others on your sample list” (Goldstein, 2002, p. 671).
All things considered it seems that interviewing ambassadors is the correct research design in this thesis.
3.2. Case selection and justification.
The interviews will be held with, as portrayed earlier, Dutch ambassadors. There are multiple reasons why the Dutch diplomatic network was chosen as the focus of the thesis. The Netherlands is the second largest export country of the European Union and fifth of the world (Statista, 2017). This makes that there are enough countries that are economic dependent of the Netherlands, however not too many as countries without these ties also need to be examined. Furthermore, the bureaucratic system of the Netherlands serves itself well in this context in two ways. First of all, Dutch ambassadors have to complete a foreign affairs traineeship before getting stationed. This traineeship is “a work- and
development trajectory which prepares graduates and starters to be an internationally deployable policy officer for the Dutch diplomacy” (de Rijksoverheid (2), n.d.). This minimizes the differentiation
between the competences of ambassadors, stabilizing the external factor of ‘quality’ of the diplomats in their bilateral agenda setting successes. Moreover; the Dutch ambassadorial system is non-politically biased, in contrast, to for example, the American system. Dutch ambassadors are not employed on the basis of their political preferences. Not having to function on the ratification of a political following yields a more constant approach to bilateral politics, eliminating another external factor.
The aim is to conduct at least ten to twelve interviews with Dutch ambassadors who are currently or have been stationed in another country, as this seems still feasible in the time limit but still enough to draw conclusions in the end. Furthermore, with this amount the expectation is that there is enough variation in all of the formulated independent variables. The ideal situation is to conduct interviews with a mix of the different ‘types' of ambassadors:
1. Current stationed ambassadors or former ambassadors.
2. Ambassadors stationed in countries with a high, middle or low democracy levels in the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy index.
Both interviewing currently stationed ambassadors and former ambassadors has its pros and cons. Currently stationed ambassadors might be more apprehensive to share sensitive information (which might possibly affect the analysis of the hypotheses concerning issue sensitivity, the perceived economic dependence and the issue saliency) whilst interviewing former ambassadors could lead to gathering old information or that the ambassadors do not remember the information very clearly. The expectation is that more former ambassadors will be interviewed than current stationed ambassadors, as it might be that these are more challenging to contact.
potentially have different perceptions. In this context these are the issues that the ambassador believes are important to discuss on a bilateral level. The aim is that all of the ambassadors name at least three issues which yields 30 and 35 observations in the end.
3.3. Conceptualization.
To speak any further about the variables, we need to make sure that they are defined appropriately. Therefore, independent variables as well as the depended of the hypotheses will be conceptualized in this sub-chapter.
The dependent variable is, as shown in the causal model, the agenda setting influence. The variable is a nominal dichotomous variable, as there is either success or no success. The two categories are defined as followed:
Agenda setting influence
Groups (2) Conceptualization
Success The Dutch ambassador was successful in the agenda-setting goals. This could either mean that he or she could carry out influence to put a certain issue on the bilateral agenda or influence that he or she could carry out to keep a certain issue off of the bilateral agenda.
No success The Dutch ambassador was not successful in the agenda-setting goals. This could either mean that he or she could either not talk about the issue on a bilateral level although he or she wanted to, or that the Dutch ambassador could not avoid talking about the issue although that was the goal.
Figure 5.1. Conceptualization agenda setting influence.
The variable of the issue category is the first concept that might provide information on when ambassadors are successful in their agenda setting goals or not. In this thesis, three possible
categorizations are included. The conceptualization of this independent variable therefore is as followed.
Issue category
Groups (3) Conceptualization
Economic All issues concerning trade, development aid, Dutch companies and investments. Issues that might seem related to another category at first, could possibly be categorized economic if the Dutch ambassador saw an interest for Dutch companies.
from severe political, legal, and social abuses. [Such as the] right to freedom of religion, the right to a fair trial when charged with a crime, the right not to be tortured, and the right to education” (James, 2019).
Geopolitical Issues concerning “the combination of geographic and political factors
influencing or delineating a country or region” (Dictionary.com,
2019). Figure 5.2. Conceptualization issue category.
The variable will be treated as a nominal variable. As shown in the causal model, the variable is independent and is thought to have an influence on the agenda setting influence.
The next dichotomous and ordinal variable is the saliency in the eyes of the Dutch ambassador or government of the issue. This variable is categorized into two groups and will be defined as the level of importance of the issue in in the eyes of the Dutch ambassadors and the Dutch government to do discuss on a bilateral level.
Saliency of the issue
Groups (2) Conceptualization
Number one The issue that is explicitly named by the ambassador as the most important or urgent issue.
Not number one All the issues which were not the first priority for the interviewed ambassador, but were still important for the ambassador to discuss on a bilateral level. In this category, no differentiation will be made between the second, third or fourth issue (etc.) issue.
Figure 5.3. Conceptualization saliency.
The third independent variable titled issue origin is a nominal variable and concerns the actor that brought up the issue and the actor initiating the discussion of the issue on a bilateral level. As shown in chapter two, the variable consists of three categories.
Figure 5.4. Conceptualization issue origin.
Issue origin
Groups (3) Conceptualization
Issue originating from the Netherlands
Either by the Dutch ambassador or the Dutch government brought up the issue, as they desire to discuss the issue on a bilateral level. Issue originating from
the country of stationing
The other side of the table, the country of stationing, brought up the issue as the government wants to discuss the issue on a bilateral level. Issue originating from
both countries
The last issue specific variable is a nominal variable titled ‘political sensitivity’, Here, the sensitivity could be amongst the population of the country or the government. The choice has been made to construct the variable in a dichotomous way: the issue is either political sensitive or not.
Political sensitivity
Groups (2) Conceptualization
None The issue is not controversial amongst the population of the country of stationing, neither amongst the government officials of the country of stationing.
Present The issue is not controversial amongst the population of the country of stationing, and/or amongst the government officials of the country of stationing.
Figure 5.5. Conceptualization political sensitivity
The first out of two country-specific variables included in this thesis is the perceived economic dependence of the country of stationing. Where Hirschman solely speaks about countries being (inter) dependent concerning trade, this paper will also consider development aid or monetary dependence as economic dependence. As the variable is not economic dependence, but perceived economic dependence, it is all economic dependence that the Dutch ambassador experiences in the country of stationing. This might be different than the actual economic dependence. The variable is measured in a nominal way and is divided into four categories.
Perceived economic dependence
Groups (4) Conceptualization
None The Dutch ambassador who was interviewed did not experience any
economic dependence of the country of stationing on the Netherlands or even interdependence between the two countries during his or her period of stationing.
Mutual dependency The two countries were experienced to be interdependent, with no clear unevenness in the eyes of the interviewed Dutch ambassador
Some dependency The interviewed Dutch ambassador experienced some dependency of his or her country of stationing on the Netherlands in the period of stationing. This can be, as previously stated, a small a development aid budget, some Dutch investments in the country or a trade deficit. It is more about how the ambassador experienced it, rather than whether it actually is a fact.
Present The interviewed Dutch ambassador experienced dependency of his or her country of stationing on the Netherlands in the period of stationing. This can be, as previously stated, an extensive development aid budget, Dutch investments in the country or a trade deficit. It is more about
how the ambassador experienced it, rather than whether it actually is a fact.
Figure 5.6.. Conceptualization perceived economic dependence.
The last independent variable included in this thesis is the democratic level of the country of stationing. In the conceptualization of the ordinal variable, the definition of the Economist Independence Unit is used. The organization ranked each country on a scale from 0 to 10 in terms of electoral process and pluralism, functioning of the government, political participation, political culture and civil liberties. These are then divided into four different categories: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes and authoritarian regimes. All of the following definitions are extracted from the document called ‘Democracy Index 2018: Me too?’ (the Economist Intelligence Unit, 2018).
Democratic level
Groups (4) Conceptualization
Full democracy “Countries in which not only basic political freedoms and civil liberties are respected, but which also tend to be underpinned by a political culture conducive to the flourishing of democracy. The functioning of government is satisfactory. Media are independent and diverse. There is an effective system of checks and balances. The judiciary is
independent and judicial decisions are enforced. There are only limited problems in the functioning of democracies”.
Flawed democracy “These countries also have free and fair elections and, even if there are problems (such as infringements on media freedom), basic civil liberties are respected. However, there are significant weaknesses in other aspects of democracy, including problems in governance, an underdeveloped political culture and low levels of political participation”.
Hybrid regime “Elections have substantial irregularities that often prevent them from being both free and fair. Government pressure on opposition parties and candidates may be common. Serious weaknesses are more prevalent than in flawed democracies—in political culture, functioning of government and political participation. Corruption tends to be widespread and the rule of law is weak. Civil society is weak. Typically, there is harassment of and pressure on journalists, and the judiciary is not independent”.
Authoritarian regime “In these states, state political pluralism is absent or heavily circumscribed. Many countries in this category are outright
dictatorships. Some formal institutions of democracy may exist, but these have little substance. Elections, if they do occur, are not free and fair. There is disregard for abuses and infringements of civil liberties. Media are typically state-owned or controlled by groups connected to the ruling regime. There is repression of criticism of the government and pervasive censorship. There is no independent judiciary”.
3.4. Operationalization.
As illustrated in sub-chapter 3.1, the research will evolve around interviews with elites: Dutch ambassadors. Some of interviews will be conducted via either Skype or a call, as some of the ambassadors are still situated outside of the Netherlands. Former ambassadors mostly live in the Netherlands after being stationed abroad, and therefore these interviews can be held face to face.
The audio will be recorded to make sure that all of the given answers could be analyzed, however the interviews will not be transcribed. As the interviews will not be treated in an anonymous way, because some country related characteristics could not be anonymized, not transcribing them will ensure that the interviewees could speak more freely. Before publishing the thesis, the data analysis will be sent to the interviewed ambassadors to make sure they still stand behind their answers.
The interview protocol is structured in such a way that questions will be asked about all of the concepts and variables mentioned in the six hypotheses. This is done in a semi-structured manner, as more information could be gained with open-ended questions. Probes however are constructed to make sure that certain topics are addressed. These probes are hinted at in a responsive way. As Harvey argues,
“the combination of open-closed-ended questions enabled respondents to initially answer in their own words, but also provided me with the quantitative data that I required for my research questions”
(Harvey, 2011, pp. 434-435). In order to meet Harvey’s other requirement of establishing at trustworthy relationship, the interview protocol (excluding the probes) will be sent to the ambassador, as well as information concerning the data processing, publication, background of the author and research goals. The interview protocol, both in Dutch as well as in English, is included in the appendix. In the coming paragraphs the interview questions will be deconstructed in terms of why which choices have been made, and which kind of information is expected to gain by posing the questions.
First of all, the opening question will be asked in order to gain general information concerning the situation in which the ambassador was or is stationed in the country of stationing. It may be that certain (unforeseen) events and situations affect the independent variables. Furthermore, with this information more context could be given to some variables in addition of the ‘plane’ quantitative data. An example of this additional information could be that the interviewed ambassador speaks of a development in the economic relation between the two countries, or a humanitarian crisis, that might have happened in the period that the ambassador is or was stationed. Probes were constructed concerning the ‘type’ of developments, as sometimes it might not immediately be clear what the angle is of the interviewee concerning the issue, and whether the concerned issue affects the bilateral relationship.
1. You were an ambassador in country X from [] to []. Could you tell me about the situations in the country that you experienced as an ambassador during that period?
Questions two to five are focused on gaining information concerning the formulated hypotheses number one to four, which are the hypotheses that are all issue-related. First, the question will be asked which issues were encountered during the period of stationing. It could be that issues occurred, which were not immediately important for the Dutch ambassador to discuss. The third question therefore will be concerning the issues that are important in the eyes of the ‘Dutch side’. This question will include probes, included as well in the appendix, concerning the category of issue, whether the ambassador thinks he or she succeeded in discussing the issue on a bilateral level, and whether the issue is or was politically sensitive in the country of stationing. Question four is constructed to ask about issues which are not discussed yet but which the ambassador wishes to discuss. It might be that due to (unforeseen) circumstances, the issue has not been discussed yet on a bilateral level. The fifth question is constructed to talk about the attempt to keep issues off of the agenda, whilst the country of stationing wishes to discuss the said issue on a bilateral level. Both question four and five include the same probes as question three.
2. Could you tell me which five issues you encountered on the bilateral level?
3. Which issues did you perceive as important to discuss on the bilateral level? Could you rank them from most important to least important?
4. Which issues did you not discuss (yet) on the bilateral level?
5. Were there issues that you, or the Dutch government, would (rather) not talk about on the bilateral level, but that country X wanted to discuss?
The next three questions are all formulated in order to gain information useful for the assumption that (Dutch) ambassadors mostly exercise on the second face of power. Question six is constructed to ask about the means and or tactics used to discuss certain issues on a bilateral level, whilst question seven asks about means and or tactics used to influence the decision-making process in the country of stationing. Both questions will be asked to carefully see how the interviewee reacts on the insinuation that ambassadors either try to discuss certain issues or to influence the final decision making. The possibility exists that the interviewee already reacts in such a way, both verbally and non-verbally, that shows to what extent the population actually focuses on this possible task. However, whenever this is not the case, the eighth question is aimed to see which face of power the ambassadors focus on the most. No probes are formulated for these questions, as there are no expected problems in the interpretation of the question itself by the interviewees.
6. Which means and/or tactics did you use to discuss certain issues on a bilateral level? 7. Which means and/or tactics did you use to influence the final decision making?
8. Did you focus more on enabling the discussion about certain issues or more on influencing the final decision-making?
In order to be able to test the fifth hypothesis concerning the perceived economic dependence, the ninth question is constructed: does the ambassador believe that a certain economic dependence of the country of stationing on the Netherlands makes government officials more willing to cooperate? Like question six and seven, the aim of question nine is to not only to gain data but also to see how the interviewee reacts. Maybe the ambassador already argues that this is not the case as the country is not dependent in an economic sense of the Netherlands, or that he/she believes it does have an impact. If this however does not happen accordingly, a probe is formulated to gain more information on whether the ambassador thinks that the country of stationing is economical dependent on the Netherlands.
9. Do you think that a certain economic dependence of countries on the Netherlands makes those countries more willing to cooperate with certain proposals or issues?
Similar to the previous questions, the tenth question is posed in order to see how the interviewee reacts as well as gaining information. It is drawn up to gather data on the sixth and last hypothesis concerning the democratic level of the country of stationing. Does the ambassador experience any resilience or cooperation due to the democratic system in the country of stationing? A probe has been constructed in order to make sure that the ambassador shares some insights concerning in which ways he experiences this.
10. Do you believe that the democratic situation of country X has an influence on how much you can accomplish on a bilateral level?
As mentioned earlier, two sorts of datasets will be used. First, an original dataset that includes the data extracted from the semi-structured interviews. The ambassadors will all ‘represent’ one country, the country that they are or were stationed in. The focus of the research however, as argued in chapter 3.2, are the issues brought up by the ambassadors that either failed or succeeded in the agenda setting process. This original dataset will be combined with existing data needed for the analysis of hypothesis six: the already mentioned Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy index. In this annually published dataset that contains almost all countries and their rating in terms of democracy level. The choice has been made to use the dataset from the ambassador’s first year of stationing in the country. Any
exemptions of this decision might have to be made whenever a former ambassador was stationed earlier than 2006, as that was the first year in which a democracy index was published. More about these exemptions is explained in the fourth chapter: the data analysis.
After collecting the existing data and conducting the interviews, the data needs to be analyzed in order to be able to say something about the hypotheses and main research question. In this research, the choice has been made to analyze the data via cross tabulations and graphs without conducting a regression analysis. This decision has been made due to time constraints: the number of observations (amount of issues brought up by the ambassadors) will be too low to have enough variance between the outcomes.
5. Conclusion.
5.1. The conclusion of the research.
In this research, expert surveys were used to find an answer on the main research question: Why
do Dutch ambassadors succeed or fail in bilateral agenda setting? This thesis highlights the lack of
research conducted on the subject of international or bilateral agenda setting by ambassadors, and a start has been made to fill this gap.
Let us begin with stating that ambassadors perceive themselves to be quite successful in their agenda-setting goals. Only 17 percent of the total amount of issues brought up by the interviewees was unsuccessfully influenced on a bilateral level. Generally speaking, the interviewed ambassadors spoke positively about their influence on the agenda without them overselling their role.
After interviewing eleven ambassadors, both formerly and currently stationed, and collecting information on 29 issues, there was enough variance to conclude some statements: the research found multiple factors that play a role in the bilateral agenda setting influence of Dutch ambassadors.
The first is the political sensitivity concerning an issue in the country of stationing. Whenever an issue sensitive amongst either the government or the citizens of the country of stationing, the Dutch ambassador has less of a chance to succeed in his or her agenda setting goals. Another issue characteristic that is proven to have an effect on the amount of influence is the origin of the said issue. Due to the support found of this negative relation between the two variables it can be concluded that there is a limited success to the influence of issues of Dutch origin. The Dutch ambassadors and, as argued by the interviewees, the Dutch government do not have any issues that they do not want to discuss and avoid on the bilateral agenda. Due to this, all of the issues that the country of stationing wished to discuss on a bilateral level are indeed discussed. This is however not true for the other way around; there are some failures reported due to the fact that the country of stationing did not wish to discuss the pursued issue.
Furthermore, the category of the issue also plays a part in how successful the ambassador is, although it is in a different way than expected. An issue of economic nature does give a higher amount of influence to the ambassador than human rights related issues, however, geopolitical issues seem to give the most agenda setting influence. A country character that also has a relationship with the amount of influence of a Dutch ambassador is the democratic level of the country of stationing. The more democratic a country is, the higher the amount of agenda setting influence of Dutch ambassadors. Bilateral agendas between the Netherlands and less democratic countries are harder to influence than those with more democratic countries.
Two characteristics that were expected to affect the amount of agenda setting influence of Dutch ambassadors, but that were not supported by this research, were the perceived economic dependence of the country of stationing on the Netherlands as well as the saliency of the issue. The interviewed ambassadors mostly argued that it would be logical to have more influence in a country that is economic dependent on the Netherlands. The collected data however did not show any kind of relationship between the two factors. The theory of economic dependence is therefore not valid in this case. Neither did a high level of saliency of an issue lead to more success of ambassadors, as concluded in this research. There is however no reason to believe that this is due to the possibility that ambassadors are surpassed for the most important issues by other Dutch government officials. Multiple ambassadors placed more than one issue on the first place when ranking from most important and urgent to -still important but- less important and argued that there is no particular order in the importance of the issues. Their prioritization was more determined by current events and what was important in that specific period.
5.2. Discussion.
The validity of the paper does seem to be good to a certain extent. The external validity within the realm of Dutch ambassadors is good: the eleven interviewees were, as proven in chapter four, a good sample of the entire population. Because of this, the expectation is that the findings will be suitable for other Dutch ambassadors as well and not only the ambassadors who were interviewed. The question arises whether the external validity will be good enough to also apply the findings on ambassadors of other countries. To state something about this, more research needs to be conducted on possible differences and similarities between the tasks, responsibilities and the ways of approach of Dutch ambassadors and the ambassadors of other countries.
There are however some concerns to keep in mind when analyzing the data and drawing up the conclusion. The first being that there is a probability that the ambassadors did not fully express themselves, as the interviews are first or all not treated anonymously. Statements made about certain countries could influence the bilateral relationship between the countries, and therefore the transparency about the sample could lead to ‘softer’ reactions than when the countries in the sample would not have been called by name. Furthermore, because of the lack of anonymity, it could be that the ambassadors could exaggerate their levels of influence and their accomplishments. If the conclusion of the paper would have been that Dutch ambassadors do not have, or merely, any influence or that they have the wrong kind of influence on the agenda setting and decision making processes, their position in the eyes of the department of foreign affairs will be negatively affected.
although they were not successfully influenced in the eyes of the ambassadors: they were more judicial than needed. Furthermore, politically sensitive issues were discussed extensively which leads to the belief that the interviewees were not avoiding certain subjects.
5.3. Recommendations.
The first recommendations are addressed to scholars in the future who want to conduct research on this topic as well. Although the semi-structured interviews with the ambassadors provided helpful insights in this research, the conclusions and answers on the proposed questions would be more reliable when the number of observations (issues in this case) would be bigger. The found insights were crucial to get a start on with filling the gap of the research and now make for an interesting breeding ground for more researches with diplomats in the leading role.
Therefore, the next recommendation is to conduct research on the relationship between the Dutch ministries and the Dutch ambassadors, as there is enough evidence that diplomats also try to influence the Dutch government. Although there is a sufficient amount of research to be found on leaders and how their ‘employees’ lobby for their interests, it would make interesting research to put these researches into this context. To what extent do ambassadors make use of their discretionary space to influence not only the bilateral agenda but also the Dutch government? Researching the specifics of this relation however could, sadly, not be done within this research due to time constraints. Conducting more research on this relation also fulfils Maliniak and Plouffe’s request to gain more knowledge concerning the structure of the diplomatic network, as shown in chapter two.
Furthermore, the conclusion that ambassadors not only focus on the agenda setting process but also on the decision-making process, makes it that it would be interesting to see how effective they are in this. Could ambassadors really carry out influence during the decision-making process in the country of stationing, without it evolving into a situation such as in Venezuela and Germany?
The last recommendation for scholars is to conduct researches on the differences between diplomats of different countries. Could it be that there is a difference in ‘styles’ and tactics of diplomatic work between different countries? And to what extent do these possible differences have an influence on the effectiveness amongst the different ambassadors?
Some recommendations could also be formulated aimed at the Dutch ministries and government. As the current Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stef Blok, argued: these eventful times ask for an even stronger diplomatic network with a high effectiveness rate (de Rijksoverheid (3), 2018). But how should the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs improve upon the effectiveness of this diplomatic network? This would depend on some political choices, the type of issue and the type of country where the effectiveness is needed. The recommendation here is that the Dutch government should take the different factors into account when drawing up a cost-benefit analysis. Let us, for example, imagine that
the Dutch government wishes to carry out influence in order to improve the human rights situation in an authoritarian country. Choosing whether this would be a sensible choice would lead to putting the advantages (an improved human rights situation in the country and because of this perhaps better economic opportunities) against the means that it will cost (manpower, time, money). With the information extracted from this research, the number of means increase when it is concerning a country with a low democracy level and the issue is human rights related. Depending on the political regime in the Netherlands, the choice can then be made in a strategically way whether the government thinks it is worth it.
Furthermore, with the information from this research in mind, it could be stated that political acts on a bilateral level are often based too much on current issues, and in the end do not contain enough long-term vision. Although this is in line with the argument of Shepsle portrayed in chapter two, who argues that some ‘activities’ of a group are mandated by others, this paper shows that the room for non-ad-hoc issues on the bilateral agenda is too little. This could be due to the fact that there is no clear prioritization in the issues brought up by the ambassadors. Especially when there are scarce resources, more defined instructions concerning the priority of certain issues could potentially lead to more effectiveness amongst the Dutch diplomatic network.
With the knowledge gained in this thesis, together with future researches that this paper might encourage, more strategically choices can be made by governments in their bilateral agenda setting goals. Political sensitivity concerning an issue in the country of stationing, the democratic level of the country of stationing, the issue origin and the category of the issue have an effect on whether the ambassador succeeds in his or her agenda setting goals, and therefore affects the effectiveness of the ambassador.
