Exchange or Empire?

In 2014 the Fulbright Program will celebrate its 68th birthday. The Fulbright Program is the United States flagship educational exchange program – and the largest in the world. A don at Oxford described it as “the biggest, most significant movement of scholars across the face of the earth since the fall of Constantinople in 1453.” Since the programs conception in 1946, it has facilitated the exchange of over 325.000 people and it is currently active in over 155 countries around the world. The Program makes it possible for American teachers and students to travel to other countries, to lecture and to study there and vice versa. It is a very competitive, merit-based program. Forty-five Fulbright alumni have won Nobel prizes, eighty have won Pulitzer Prizes and twenty-nine alumni have served as head of state or government, including the current presidents of Colombia and Chile. The program is financed by the United States Department of State Bureau of Educational Affairs and last year’s budget was 177.5 million euros. Despite its age, there is a surprising lack of scholarly works regarding this immense program. The only history book solely devoted to the Fulbright Program was published in 1965, which means the last five decades have been largely neglected by historians. The contribution that the Fulbright Program has made to the furthering of American interests during the Cold War has often been overlooked. Was the Fulbright Program truly an academic program, or was it political in nature? Is it possible the Fulbright Program helps to shape an ‘informal empire’ in its host countries? In this thesis the Fulbright Programs activities in the Netherlands during the Cold War have been studied to answer the question of its political or academic nature. This question has been operationalized by researching what the targets and aims of the Fulbright Program in the Netherlands were, and if these were achieved. This is reflected in the title of this thesis: Exchange or Empire? Was the Fulbright Program an academic exchange program, or a political tool used by the United States government to manage their informal empire? This thesis concludes that it has been the goal of the Fulbright Program in the Netherlands to legitimize American leadership by showcasing American culture as well as advances in science and technology, and to create understanding for American policies. Furthermore the Fulbright Program sought approval of the Atlantic Alliance and the American leadership thereof. It tried to achieve this by targeting educators and students and influencing them to become sympathetic interpreters of American history and policies. Tangibly the Commission sought the establishment of American Studies as a prominent feature of Dutch higher education. With the establishment of prestigious research chairs in American history and culture, the Fulbright Commission had achieved these goals by 1990. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, when the respective anti-American and anti-nuclear movements gained traction, the Fulbright Program was re-evaluated in order to better achieve its aims. This confirms that the Fulbright Program in the Netherlands has been political in nature, rather than academic, and has been used by the United States government to manage their informal empire.