Minju Kim

@jkertzer.bsky.social, @ericmin.bsky.social, Tyler Jost, Robert Schub, @doncasler.bsky.social, @rickyclark.bsky.social, @noahzucker.com, @mirkoheinzel.bsky.social, Kate Weaver, and more.

Our paper shows that bureaucrats as individuals can shape foreign policy outcomes, which is in dialogue with fascinating work on bureaucratic politics in IR. Have a close look at the work by Shannon Carcelli, @lindsayrdolan.bsky.social, @sabrinabarias.bsky.social, @svanhildur.bsky.social,

There is a ton of great work on ambassadors (by @mattmalis.bsky.social @calvin-thrall.bsky.social, Ahmed Faisal, David Lindsey, Eric Arias, Alastair Smith, Michael Goldfien). However, we know much less about how the export promotion benefits created by ambassadors are distributed domestically.

The home-state effect is particularly apparent in countries where the US exports the most in dollar values, and in industries that export final goods. We find that the past career path and future career aspirations of ambassadors can shape how the benefits of diplomacy are distributed domestically.

Leveraging the biographic information of 164 ambassadors and US state-level exports to 30 major export destinations from 2002 to 2020, we find that the home states of politician ambassadors, compared to other states, on average enjoy a 10 percentage point increase in exports to host countries.

In the United States, a substantial number of ambassadors are former governors or legislators (“politician ambassadors"). We argue that politician ambassadors are particularly equipped with knowledge and incentives to promote exports from their home states to host countries.

My ambassador paper with Shu Fu is out in @worldpolitics.bsky.social!

Ambassadors promote domestic exports to a host country and represent the interests of their home country at large. However, are trade benefits equally distributed domestically? 🧵
muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...