The Implications of State Resources And Gender. Diplomatic Networking by Male and Female Ambassadors with Limited Resources

Abstract: Networking is viewed as essential to successful diplomatic performance. Existing scholarship on diplomatic networking is nevertheless limited and therefore yet to explore and examine diplomatic networking in conjunction with fundamental structural factors, such as the financial resources of the embassy and gender. Thus, the thesis aims to explore whether resource-deprived diplomats face particular challenges when networking, and whether these challenges, and responses to them, may be gendered. Based on in-depth interviews with ambassadors and high-ranking diplomats from resource-deprived embassies in Stockholm, I conduct a pilot study to develop propositions about how state resources and gender may shape diplomatic networking. The thesis concludes that diplomatic networking appears to be complicated by structural factors, such as diplomats’ state resources, as these entail specific challenges that diplomats need to manage. Encountering these challenges, resource-deprived female and male diplomats may strategize in different ways that link with notions of gender. Interviewed female diplomats may leverage gender notions via all-female networks and gender-specific locations to overcome resource-related impediments. Interviewed male diplomats might instead be able to leverage gender roles to facilitate networking participation at post-work hours, thereby overcoming resource-related impediments. In each case, gender can take the form of a double-edged sword to resource-deprived diplomats; advantageous in some ways, less favorable in others. Thus, generally, the specific challenges themselves do not appear gendered, but responses to alleviate them nevertheless seem to be.