Columbia International Affairs Online: Policy Briefs

CIAO DATE: 11/2011

U.S. Special Envoys: A Flexible Tool

John K. Naland

August 2011

United States Institute of Peace

Abstract

While the U.S. government has long employed special envoys for occasional diplomatic missions, the Obama administration’s 24 special envoys represent an unprecedented expansion of this mechanism after the Bush administration, which generally did not use them. Use of the special envoys permitted more effort, focus and attention to be placed on a given issue than would have been the case had the position not existed, according to interviews with nine special envoys currently serving and three former special envoys.