Globalization and the Reorganization of Foreign Affairs' Ministries

This paper aims to provoke a discussion about the ineffectiveness and redundancies associated with current institutional arrangements for conducting foreign affairs. Our argument is made in three steps. First, we examine current institutional frameworks for foreign policy. Second, we explain how changing global conditions undermine the basic assumptions that undergird those institutional frameworks. Finally, we offer a radical alternative for restructuring the institutions responsible for foreign affairs. This alternative replaces the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with a smaller (coordinating) Bureau of Foreign Affairs, allowing professional competence to be developed within existing sectoral ministries of government. Though our argument is a general one, we illustrate it with reference to the Norwegian case.