47. Identify the types of record.

A chronological record is where each substantive part of the discussion is captured in the exact sequence in which it took place. This is used for meetings of high importance where it is essential to place each set of words in its precise context. Naturally, such records tend to be long. In the case of a very important meeting, it may take the shape of a near-verbatim record; it represents the best way the record keepers have captured the exact words used and the sequence of the conversation.

A thematic record, where all important points are grouped together, regardless of the sequence in which the conversation took place. It is a summarized record, always shorter than the chronological one, ideal for working discussions. This is the format most frequently used.

An action point summary, which concentrates only on the substantive points on which action is to be taken. This is highly summarized and brief.

48. Explain the role of 'representational fund'.

Optimal functioning of the embassy depends partly on well-organized outreach. Another reason is that in our age of openness and public accountability, the media and those connected with the international affairs community pay considerable attention to how embassies entertain and socialize. It is part of the champagne and caviar image of diplomacy.

49. Tell about advocacy in diplomacy. Give examples.

Advocacy is a craft skill, where observed experience and the circumstances of the given situation are part of one’s store of accumulated wisdom.

If the set of arguments you present to the other side has elements that appeal to their self-interest, the case becomes so much more attractive. Example: The United Kingdom’s negotiations with China on the future of Hong Kong that stretched out over several years before the July 1997 formal handover of this British colony to China, under an agreement that created a “Special Autonomous Region,” under Beijing’s ingenious “one country, two systems” formula that Deng Xiaoping had originally proposed to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984; this involved the two sides in locating congruence of interests, even while they had completely different starting points.

Advocacy is helped by the principle of reciprocity. If the help or understanding you seek in a foreign capital can be linked, in a reasonable way, with some past action where you helped the other side, a moral case is built for returning the favor, even if no such condition was initially stipulated.

In the early 1950s, soon after Independence, India gave away choice tracts of land in New Delhi, some even in huge lots of 10 and 5 hectares, to foreign embassies, at the peppercorn rent of one rupee per year, valid for 100 years; no demand for reciprocity was even mentioned at the time.6 A few countries understood well a moral obligation; in Tokyo, Japan sold at a low price a valuable site for the envoy’s residence. In Germany in 1992–95 the Indian Ambassador invoked the reciprocity principle to request a good site at Berlin, after that country’s unification and its decision to shift the capital to Berlin. The German Foreign Office was sympathetic, but pleaded inability, also gently pointing out that no reciprocity condition existed.

Reciprocity principle does not refer to situations where economic or national interests are touched.

50. Justify why the diplomat needs to “win the support for the viewpoint”.

Little Change in Public Support for Obama’s Islamic State Plan after Speech, Survey Finds.

President Barack Obama’s nationally televised speech on his plan to combat Islamic militants did not significantly boost public support for U.S. military action, and it did not change many people’s minds about his own leadership or his handling of foreign policy, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll has found.

The survey was based on interviews with the same individuals before and after Mr. Obama’s Wednesday night address.

Before the speech, 65% of voters interviewed said it was in the U.S. interest to attack Islamic State, the militant group also known as ISIS and ISIL. After the speech, 68% of the same group said military action against the group in Iraq and Syria was in the national interest.

51. Choose the most important part of the resolution, and justify your choice.

One might think that the most important part of the resolution is the operational segment, since it deals with actions. That is partly true, but the preamble is far from unimportant, in that it sets the stage for the actions that are proposed in the latter section. For instance, in the case of the famous Resolution 242 of the UN Security Council covering the consequences of the 1967 Arab-Israel War, it is the preamble that stipulates the principle of non-acquisition of territory by force; for the Palestine and Arab protagonists that is the element that underscores Israel’s obligation to vacate all the occupied territories. In that same resolution, in the substantive part, the word “the” was dropped from the phrase “occupied territories”; Israel has interpreted that to justify its position that not all territories are to be vacated.