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A state service consisting solely of consular officers, and hence distinct from a diplomatic or foreign service. In the past, the larger states even had consular services specializing in a particular region of the world. However, the rigid distinction between the consular and the diplomatic career tended to reflect social class divisions in recruitment which sat ill with the political climate of the twentieth century, as did the corresponding distinction, also now abolished, between separate commercial diplomatic and diplomatic or foreign services. It also impaired the mobility of personnel and hindered cooperation between the two branches. And it rested on distinctions in tasks which began to grow thin as diplomats (sense 1), traditionally preoccupied with high politics, were charged increasingly with consular, commercial, and economic duties as well. Accordingly, consular services were steadily incorporated into diplomatic services, and diplomats have become routinely liable to engage from time to time in consular as in commercial work. See also career consular officer; Commercial Diplomatic Service; consul; consular section; Levant Consular Service. |
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