How the World Staffs Its Diplomats

At State, Foreign Service careers ran on a system most people never saw from the outside: enter at the bottom, get promoted on a clock, or leave. I mapped how thirty-six diplomatic services around the world handle the same three questions — who gets in, who moves up, and who has to go.

The short version is that almost everyone uses an entrance exam, and almost nobody uses a promotion clock. The United States runs the only complete one on the map. Mexico runs a partial, forgiving version. Hover any country for its details, and read the full table below the map.