The American way: paying for privilege

As many as a third of the country’s Ambassadors purchase their post Ambas.

Ambassadorships are explicitly for sale in the United States, where up to onethird of America’s highest-ranking diplomats are men or women who pay to be sent abroad for their country. ‘Political appointees’ become ambassadors without prior diplomatic experience or professional training in foreign affairs, and often without the ability to communicate in the language of the country to which they are posted.

The issue has been underlined by the recent appointment of Caroline Kennedy as the U.S. Ambassador to Japan despite her lack of diplomatic experience and limited knowledge of the country.

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