Excuse not to work

Interesting piece in last week's New Yorker.

The Consequentalist: How the Arab Spring remade Obama's foreign policy

I found this article fascinating for a lot of reasons – the Clinton/Gates relationship, comparative look at Holbrooke’s views, semi-insider summary of dynamics between state department and White House (at one point – Holbrooke’s widow is quoted as saying after reviewing her husband’s memos and archives, she realizes that they “tell a dramatic story of a fractured relationship between the state department and the White House.” Eek political intrigue! Oh no she dinttt), etc.

In particular, I found especially curious what the article says about the role of women in the administration and in the state department and the implications for foreign policy. Much was already said on this - particularly around the initial days of air strikes in Libya - and the term "hawks" has been thrown around a bit but the excerpt below - despite its simplistic black and white take - does parallel what I often feel like I see in the development industry I currently work in (read there are ONLY women) and is consistent with what I constantly encountered among my peers as I visited IR graduate school open houses this past Spring (read the boys want to study security and anti-terrorism, the girls want to study human rights and economic development).

One suggestion that came up in interviews with Obama’s current and former foreign-policy advisers was that the Administration’s policy debates sometimes broke down along gender lines. The realists who view foreign policy as a great chess game—and who want to focus on China and India—are usually men. The idealists, who talk about democracy and human rights, are often women. (White House officials told me that this critique is outlandish.)

Slaughter, who admired Clinton but felt alienated by people at the White House, resigned in February, and in her farewell speech at the State Department she described a gender divide at the heart of Obama’s foreign-policy team. She argued that in the twenty-first century America needed to focus on societies as well as on states. “Unfortunately, the people who focus on those two worlds here in Washington are still often very different groups. The world of states is still the world of high politics, hard power, realpolitik, and, largely, men,” she said. “The world of societies is still too often the world of low politics, soft power, human rights, democracy, and development, and, largely, women. One of the best parts of my two years here has been the opportunity to work with so many amazing and talented women—truly extraordinary people. But Washington still has a ways to go before their voices are fully heard and respected.”

hmmm, all in all, I don't know what to think. I guess regardless the larger question in the article that I found interesting didn't revolve so much about the gender divide among foreign policy philosophies (which I just have to think is a questionable claim) as much as the ways in which career "experts" and technocrats serving as advisors end up influencing elected leaders (who also have to factor in constituents and re-election)...