American Studies Abroad: Culture and Foreign Policy

Abstract

Assuming that the purpose of a cultural foreign policy is the development of international good will by an in crease in the mutual understanding of national cultures, it is possible to observe three levels in American cultural foreign policy since 1945: the informational, the exchange, and the American-studies levels. The United States Information Agency (USIA) and other cultural agencies have maintained steady progress during this period in making American princi ples and cultures better understood throughout the world. The recent tendency to curtail these programs in the interest of economy has caused alarm, but perhaps the most urgent phase of this work has passed and other forms of cultural foreign policy are taking over. The second stage—international ex change of persons—because of its unofficial or semiofficial na ture, has supplemented, and occasionally conflicted with, the informational programs. The exchange program has also, at times, seemed to be losing effectiveness, as native scholars of other countries take over its work in studying and teaching American and comparative cultures. The establishment of chairs, courses, and degrees, and of international learned socie ties devoted to American studies in most European and some Asian countries is, perhaps, the most substantial and gratifying result of American cultural foreign policy, and indicates the direction in which policy might well move more deliberately in the future.