‘Free gift’ or ‘infiltration’?: Negotiating the Fulbright Agreement

2019 ◽  
pp. 12-29
Author(s):  
Alice Garner ◽  
Diane Kirkby
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Educational Exchange ◽  
Party Government ◽  
Labor Party ◽  
The Us

The Australian Fulbright program began in a period of deepening Cold War tensions. US suspicions of the Australian Labor Party government and Australian negotiators’ suspicions of US cultural diplomacy shaped the negotiations which began as early as 1946. The Australians sought more equality of representation in the administration of the program of educational exchange than the US was initially prepared to allow. After a protracted period of discussions and much delay the Australian Agreement was signed into existence in 1949 with equal representation and better terms than other countries had achieved.

‘A steady stream of new problems’: Politics and teething issues

2019 ◽  
pp. 30-48
Author(s):  
Alice Garner ◽  
Diane Kirkby
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Career Advancement ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
University Staff ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Educational Exchange ◽  
Party Government ◽  
The Us ◽  
Sound Foundation

The Australian Fulbright program was implemented after the election of the Menzies’ Liberal Party government. As Australia’s Cold War deepened the Menzies government signed other treaties with the US, establishing the ANZUS Alliance. Administration of the program of educational exchange had to be established amid attempts at political influence and resistance from university staff who still looked to England for prestige and career advancement. The terms of the Australian Fulbright agreement ensured a sound foundation, more autonomy meant the appointment of Australian staff to administer the program and who understood how to reach the Australian university researchers to participate.

The Accidental Political Advantages of a Nonpolitical Book Program

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria M. Grieve
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Written Word ◽  
The Cold War

In the early years of the Cold War, the US government devoted substantial energy and funds to using books as weapons against the Soviet Union. Books and the principles they represented were to counter Soviet accusations of American materialism and spread American ideals around the globe. Founded in 1952, Franklin Books Program, Inc. was a gray propaganda program that operated at the nexus of US public–private cultural diplomacy efforts. USIA bureaucrats believed Franklin successfully carried out diplomatic objectives by highlighting the positive aspects of American culture and those who ran Franklin emphasized the “nonpolitical” aspects of cultural diplomacy, many of which directly targeted children. Franklin’s textbooks and juvenile science books cultivated a literate population friendly to the United States, reaching out to foreign young people through books, which like art, seemed to transcend the written word and represent abstract ideals of freedom and democracy.

Educational Exchange and Cultural Diplomacy in the Cold War

1999 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
LIPING BU
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Educational Exchange ◽  
Exchange Programs ◽  
Us Government ◽  
World Opinion ◽  
Containment Policy

The United States after World War II experienced symbiotically the fear of the Soviet threat and the belief in its own system as the ultimate choice for the world. In the confrontation with the Soviet Union, cultural relations programs began to be organized and designed in accordance with national security interest. George F. Kennan, the architect of US containment policy, urged: “let us by all means have the maximum cultural exchange.” The mission of cultural contact, according to Kennan, was “combatting the negative impressions about this country [USA] that mark so much of world opinion.” The US government made new cultural policies in terms of Cold War political concerns and relied extensively on private resources for the implementation of cultural diplomacy via educational exchange. It mobilized the American society for the achievement of “total diplomacy” with political rhetoric, legislative measures, and financial support. Private institutions, which pioneered and dominated US cultural interactions with other nations before the war, now began to play a new but supportive role for the state. Because of their expertise and their unique roles in a democratic society, American philanthropies, professional organizations, and universities became indispensable in delivering the multitude of exchange programs.

‘Meeting [our] domestic Communism problem’: Cold War governance and the public university

2019 ◽  
pp. 87-108
Author(s):  
Alice Garner ◽  
Diane Kirkby
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Asia Pacific ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
Party Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Government Interference ◽  
The Cold War

During the Cold War the Fulbright program was considered an effective arm of US ‘soft power’ and cultural diplomacy. The US saw Australia as strategically valuable in the Asia-Pacific region of the world and under the Menzies Liberal Party government, Australia shared the US military and defence agenda. How could the Fulbright program maintain its independence from government interference in the powerful force of Cold War geopolitics? Australia’s Fulbright Board held strongly to the importance of independence and the role of academics to ensure that.

The Unassailable Self: Freud's Image Among Post-war American Intellectuals

2017 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Jenness
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
External Force ◽  
Sigmund Freud ◽  
Human Being ◽  
World War ◽  
The Us ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Way

This paper explores the way American intellectuals depicted Sigmund Freud during the peak of popularity and prestige of psychoanalysis in the US, roughly the decade and a half following World War II. These intellectuals insisted upon the unassailability of Freud's mind and personality. He was depicted as unsusceptible to any external force or influence, a trait which was thought to account for Freud's admirable comportment as a scientist, colleague and human being. This post-war image of Freud was shaped in part by the Cold War anxiety that modern individuality was imperilled by totalitarian forces, which could only be resisted by the most rugged of selves. It was also shaped by the unique situation of the intellectuals themselves, who were eager to position themselves, like the Freud they imagined, as steadfastly independent and critical thinkers who would, through the very clarity of their thought, lead America to a more robust democracy.

Reluctant Cold Warriors

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Kontorovich
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Accurate Analysis ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Us ◽  
Comprehensive Survey ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The academic study of the Soviet economy in the US was created to help fight the Cold War, part of a broader mobilization of the social sciences for national security needs. The Soviet strategic challenge rested on the ability of its economy to produce large numbers of sophisticated weapons. The military sector was the dominant part of the economy, and the most successful one. However, a comprehensive survey of scholarship on the Soviet economy from 1948-1991 shows that it paid little attention to the military sector, compared to other less important parts of the economy. Soviet secrecy does not explain this pattern of neglect. Western scholars developed strained civilian interpretations for several aspects of the economy which the Soviets themselves acknowledged to have military significance. A close reading of the economic literature, combined with insights from other disciplines, suggest three complementary explanations for civilianization of the Soviet economy. Soviet studies was a peripheral field in economics, and its practitioners sought recognition by pursuing the agenda of the mainstream discipline, however ill-fitting their subject. The Soviet economy was supposed to be about socialism, and the military sector appeared to be unrelated to that. By stressing the militarization, one risked being viewed as a Cold War monger. The conflict identified in this book between the incentives of academia and the demands of policy makers (to say nothing of accurate analysis) has broad relevance for national security uses of social science.

History Has Begun

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Maçães
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
American Culture ◽  
Static Model ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Us History ◽  
New Model ◽  
Early American ◽  
Slow Decline ◽  
The Us

Popular consensus says that the US rose over two centuries to Cold War victory and world domination, and is now in slow decline. But is this right? History's great civilizations have always lasted much longer, and for all its colossal power, American culture was overshadowed by Europe until recently. What if this isn't the end? This book offers a compelling vision of America's future, both fascinating and unnerving. From the early American Republic, it takes us to the turbulent present, when, it argues, America is finally forging its own path. We can see the birth pangs of this new civilization in today's debates on guns, religion, foreign policy, and the significance of Trump. Should the coronavirus pandemic be regarded as an opportunity to build a new kind of society? What will its values be, and what will this new America look like? The book traces the long arc of US history to argue that in contrast to those who see the US on the cusp of decline, it may well be simply shifting to a new model, one equally powerful but no longer liberal. Consequently, it is no longer enough to analyze America's current trajectory through the simple prism of decline vs. progress, which assumes a static model—America as liberal leviathan. Rather, the book argues that America may be casting off the liberalism that has defined the country since its founding for a new model, one more appropriate to succeeding in a transformed world.

Peaceful Change in Northeast Asia: Maintaining the “Minimal Peace”

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhubhindar Singh
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Northeast Asia ◽  
Institutional Structure ◽  
Economic Interdependence ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Liberal Internationalism ◽  
The Us ◽  
Regional Order ◽  
The Cold War

Northeast Asia is usually associated with conflict and war. Out of the five regional order transitions from the Sinocentric order to the present post–Cold War period, only one was peaceful, the Cold War to post–Cold War transition. In fact, the peaceful transition led to a state of minimal peace in post–Cold War Northeast Asia. As the chapter discusses, this was due to three realist-liberal factors: America’s hegemonic role, strong economic interdependence, and a stable institutional structure. These factors not only ensured development and prosperity but also mitigated the negative effects of political and strategic tensions between states. However, this minimal peace is in danger of unraveling. Since 2010, the region is arguably in the early stages of another transition fueled by the worsening Sino-US competition. While the organizing ideas of liberal internationalism—economic interdependence and institutional building—will remain resilient, whether or not minimal peace is sustainable will be determined by the outcome of the US-China competition.

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