you be d…nd! vous êtes une bête

1. you be d…nd! vous êtes une bête

2. Diplomats as cultural bridge builders February 2004 Geert Hofstede

3. Differences between countries

4. CULTURE in the anthropological sense Collectiveprogramming of the minddistinguishing the members of one group or category of people from another group/category can be nation, region, profession, organization, department, gender, generation

5. Manifestationsof culture

6. Values • Values are strong emotions with a minus and a plus pole • Like evil-good, abnormal-normal, dangerous-safe, dirty-clean, immoral-moral, indecent-decent, unnatural-natural, paradoxical-logical, ugly-beautiful, irrational-rational • Values are learned before age 10 and often unconscious

7. When you are a kid, you don’t have much variety of experience You live with your parents and that’s all you know. You grow up thinking whatever they do is ‘normal”

8. Culture is in our guts, not in our minds What is like our culture is normal, good, moral What is unlike our culture is evil, stupid, immoral perfidious Albion the evil empire the axis of evil a lack of moral fibre

9. I’ve got nothing against foreigners, some of my best friends are foreigners, but these foreigners are not from here !

10. The role of diplomats • Permanently living in, or dealing with, alien cultures • Success depends on credibility with superiors at home and access to leaders in host country • Socialize with culturally variegated diplomatic community • Opportunity to become cultural experts and bridge-builders

11. Towards a science of diplomacy Diplomats turned social scientists: • Lord Acton, Britain, 1890 “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” • Johan Kaufmann, The Netherlands, 1968 Conference diplomacy • Glen Fisher, USA, 1988 Mindsets: The Role of Culture and Perception in International Relations

12. Research into national culturesInhabitants of the world, William Darton, 1790

13. Research into national culturesCulture’s Consequences, Geert Hofstede, 1980, 20015 independent dimensions • Inequality: more or less?Power Distance large vs.small • The unfamiliar: fight or tolerate?UncertaintyAvoidance strong vs.weak • Relation with in-group:loose or tight?Individualism vs.Collectivism • Emotional gender roles: different or same?Masculinity vs.Femininity • Need gratification: later or now?Long vs.Shortterm orientation

14. Dimension scores for > 70 countries from IBM subsidiaries around 1970, and extensions • 6 major replications on different populations (elites, employees of other corporations, airline pilots, consumers, civil servants) • Results very stable – even if cultures shift, countries shift together so relative scores remain valid • Validation of dimensions against results of other cross-national studies – over 400 significant correlations

15. SMALL PD, WEAK UA LARGE PD, WEAK UA NORDIC COUNTRIES ANGLO CTRS, USA NETHERLANDS CHINA INDIA LATIN COUNTRIES MALTA, MUSLIM CTRS JAPAN, KOREA EASTERN EUROPE GERMAN SPK CTRS HUNGARY ISRAEL SMALL PD, STRONG UA LARGE PD, STRONG UA

16. COLLECTIVIST,FEMININE COLLECTIVIST,MASCULINE THAILAND, KOREA COSTA RICA, CHILE RUSSIA, BULGARIA PORTUGAL, SPAIN CHINA, JAPAN MEXICO, VENEZUELA ARAB WORLD GREECE MALTA FRANCE NETHERLANDS NORDIC COUNTRIES CZECHIA, HUNGARY POLAND, ITALY GERMAN SPK CTRIES ANGLO COUNTRIES, USA INDIVIDUALIST, FEMININE INDIVIDUALIST,MASCULINE

17. LONG TERM ORIENTATION CHINA JAPAN KOREA BRAZIL INDIA NETHERLANDS NORDIC COUNTRIES FRANCE GERMANY USA BRITAIN AFRICAN COUNTRIES MUSLIM COUNTRIES SHORT TERM ORIENTATION

18. Implications of dimensions -Significant statistical relationships Examples (out of 400) • Power Distance large: more perceived corruption • Uncertainty Avoidance strong: stress on law and order • Individualist, not collectivist: higher Human Rights rating • Feminine, not masculine: higher welfare budgets • Long term, not short term orientation: higher savings rates

19. Can research into national cultures help diplomacy ?

20. Diplomats’ professional culture • National cultures are rooted in values • Professional cultures are rooted in practices • Practices can be learned at any age • Same professional culture unites diplomats from very different countries

21. Diplomats versus politicians • Very different professional cultures • Diplomats: see two sides of a problem and withhold judgement • Politicians: hold strong opinions and express them for the benefit of their own constituency • Basically complementary roles • Ideal team is politician and diplomat listening to each other

22. The price of being a diplomat • Social isolation from home country society • Loss of identity, especially for family • Maintaining home base is essential to emotional health • “Diplomat’s children syndrome”

23. McGraw-Hill, New York 1997 New edition in press 2004 (Hofstede & Hofstede) Translated into Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish Older book in Italian New edition forthcoming in Russian Website www.geerthofstede.nl

24. Scholarly text 600 pages Sage Publications, California 2001