Direkt zum Inhalt

15. Februar 2012

Seminar

Misery as a stepping stone: How and why armed conflicts and natural disasters accelerate diplomats' careers
Leibniz Seminar für Arbeitsmarktforschung (BeNA)

Termin

15. Februar 2012
6.30 - 8.00 pm

Ort

Humboldt Universität Berlin
Raum 21b
Spandauer Str. 1
10178 Berlin

Sprecher*innen

Klaus Brösamle (Hertie School)

Abstract: This paper formally derives and tests hypotheses on how exogenous events impact the career advancement of British diplomats. On the basis of a novel panel dataset spanning 40 years (1966-2005) of 342 British diplomats' career progression, it tests the prediction that the occurrence of major natural disasters and incidents of unanticipated armed conflict outbreak in diplomats' host countries should causally enhance their subsequent promotion chances. The results are generally affirmative, in particular for promotions to higher rank levels. The paper goes on to differentiate between two mechanisms that could drive the positive link: 1) crises may 'reveal' the so far unknown ability of affected diplomats and, if diplomats are on average sufficiently able, the positive empirical relationship between crises and promotion obtains (the talent revelation mechanism); 2) crises may provide 'training' so that when dealing with disasters or conflicts diplomats gain experience that makes them promotable in the future (the experience mechanism). When testing competing predictions derived from formalising these two mechanisms, the evidence from natural disasters clearly suggests that the experience effect drives the positive link. The results from analyzing armed conflict outbreak point in the same direction but they are not as unambiguous.

Kontakt

keyboard_arrow_up