Lessons from the Past - USC Center on Public Diplomacy

20 Public Diplomacy
Public Diplomacy also. The British Council prefers to describe
itself as ‘Cultural Relations’ agency, though its core tools are cultural
work and exchanges, and its objective falls within <strong>the</strong> definition of
diplomacy. 9
The great spenders in Cultural Diplomacy have been <strong>the</strong> French,
who have heavily subsidized an international network of schools to
sustain <strong>the</strong> French language, understanding that <strong>the</strong>ir prestige and
influence is largely tied to <strong>the</strong> survival of <strong>the</strong> francophonie.
2.4 Exchange Diplomacy
Exchange diplomacy in PD may be defined as an actor’s
attempt to manage <strong>the</strong> international environment by sending
its citizens overseas and reciprocally accepting citizens <strong>from</strong>
overseas for a period of study and/or acculturation. While this can
be conceptualized as a one way process (<strong>the</strong> argument runs: ‘My
students will go overseas and tell you how wonderful my country is;
your students will come here and learn how wonderful my country
is.’), <strong>the</strong> element of reciprocity has tended to make this area of PD a
bastion of <strong>the</strong> concept of ‘mutuality’: <strong>the</strong> vision of an international
learning experience in which both parties benefit and are transformed.
Ancient examples may be seen in inter-community child fostering
practiced in Nordic and Celtic Europe. As already noted, exchanges
often overlap with cultural work but are also used for specific policy
and/or advocacy purposes as when targeted for development or to
promote military inter-operability with an ally. When housed within
a cultural diplomacy agency <strong>the</strong> aspect of mutuality and two way
communication within exchange has sometimes been subordinated
to <strong>the</strong> drive to project national culture. 10
While <strong>the</strong> United States has invested heavily in exchange through
<strong>the</strong> Fulbright Scholarships, this work never displaced <strong>the</strong> centrality
of advocacy in its PD. Japan, in contrast, has always emphasised
exchange as an organizing concept for its PD. This attitude dates back
to <strong>the</strong> Meiji period of nineteenth century modernization when <strong>the</strong>
government swiftly learned to make use of <strong>the</strong> readiness of foreigners