Bureaucrats, career and diplomacy: a trajectory analysis of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs elite

Abstract

How the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) elite diplomats design their careers? Considering  that  Brazilian diplomats’ institutional turnover is central to the ministry administrative and political functioning, this investigation aims to answer this question. On the one hand, analyzing these dynamics collaborates to understand how one of the closest ministries of the national public civil service works. On the other, the article advances in the institutional trajectory patterns of the actors that operate, systematically and from the top, the Brazilian foreign policy. Therefore, the diplomatic elite career, being second ministers and ambassadors, throughout more than three decades on average, is described as the political appointments within the Department of State (DoS), as the turnovers in diplomatic posts, national institutions, and international organizations. The results point out to a similar behavior between the two hierarchies in which the most political appointments in DoS are to intermediate-level positions (DAS level 4). The primary trajectory frequencies outside DoS, aims to diplomatic posts, “A” and “C” class types, followed by international organizations and diffusely to national institutions.