International Education: The Neglected Dimension of Public Diplomacy
Read advance praise for International Education: The Neglected Dimension of Public Diplomacy Strengthening Exchange and Volunteer-Service Programs
During the post-World War II era, it has been impossible not to be struck by the remarkable ability of the world's most humble people to separate America from its policies. The reputation of the United States—what people see as "the real America"—has been able to survive periods when some of America's policies have been intensely unpopular. One productive way to think about public diplomacy is that public diplomacy is what nurtures that idea of the real America, and thus helps get us through times when our policies are unpopular. And one of the most worrisome aspects of the current situation is that America's reputation has declined so dramatically that people may be starting to question not just our policies, but their concept of what the United States really stands for.
What explains the hold that the idea of America has on people, which enables us to survive our sometimes-unpopular policies? Those who argue that all we have to do is sell our policies better, or do a better job of explaining to the world all the good things we do, miss the mark. First of all, policies do matter; our public diplomacy cannot indefinitely survive policies that violate our values. But more fundamentally, people know what the real America is not because we tell them what it is, but because they know real Americans. That, in a nutshell, is the genius of our exchange programs. When Congress began to downgrade these programs at the end of the Cold War, deeming them no longer a priority, it was excising the connective tissue that binds the American people to the world's people. We now see that this was a mistake, and exchange programs are making a comeback. They need to come back a lot farther. Two things need to be done. First, exchange programs need to be expanded, better funded, and more appropriately regulated.
Although there has been considerable—and welcome—growth in exchange programs since 9/11, much of the growth has occurred in the area of exchanges with the Middle East. That is surely necessary, but it is important to remember that the payoff of exchange programs is often long-term. We cannot know how the friends we make today will benefit us tomorrow—in part because we cannot know where tomorrow's crises will come from. We cannot wait until some other region of the world replaces the Middle East as our biggest trouble spot to begin to strengthen exchange relationships with that part of the world. The United States is a global power with global interests. Politically tempting though it may be, it is ultimately self-defeating to use our exchange programs to respond to today's crises. If we aim to have robust exchange relationships with the entire world, we will not have to jump-start them after the crisis occurs.
For this to happen, the next administration must maintain the growth curve for funding for exchange programs that we have enjoyed over the past few years. The administration must also move to address the issue of the regulation of exchange programs. Exchange programs continue to be hampered by a federal regulatory regime that has lacked consistency and predictability, and exchange-program participants have suffered from the same visa and monitoring problems that have
plagued international students. Although appropriate checks and controls are necessary, the next president should instruct the State Department that exchange programs serve important national interests and should be encouraged, not unnecessarily restricted.
The other thing that must be done is that voluntary service opportunities for Americans abroad—particularly the Peace Corps—must be expanded. The Peace Corps is arguably the most effective public diplomacy program ever invented, and it is so precisely because people in communities around the world have formed their impressions of the real America through Peace Corps Volunteers they have known. It is possible to visit communities that haven't had Peace Corps Volunteers for a decade or more and to meet people there who still have affection for America because of their affection for Peace Corps Volunteers that they knew years ago. We cannot buy that result with any information program.
Now nearing 50, the Peace Corps remains one of America's most popular and effective programs abroad—an astounding statement for a federal bureaucracy. This success results from the uniqueness of the Peace Corps' mission, and from the Peace Corps' ability to change with the times without losing sight of that essential mission. The Peace Corps provides trained volunteers to live with the people of poor communities and help them work toward development objectives defined by the communities themselves. Volunteers share their skills with their communities, but also learn from and are enriched by their communities, and they bring their experiences back home to enrich Americans' understanding of other peoples. (Hence the near-universal refrain that one hears from returned Peace Corps Volunteers: "I gained more than I gave.")
It is impossible to overstate the importance of the concepts of reciprocal learning and responsiveness to local communities for public diplomacy. The America that people learn about from Peace Corps Volunteers is not an America that sells itself to them, has all the answers, or gives them things. It is an America that respects them, listens to them, shares with them, and learns from them—and that is an America that people can love. These concepts are absent from much of today's public diplomacy conversation; that conversation would benefit greatly from focusing on what has made the Peace Corps successful.
Given this success, it is a mystery that the Peace Corps, with 8,000 volunteers and trainees, remains smaller today than it was in its first years of operation, unable to serve many countries and communities that would welcome volunteers. We endorse the National Peace Corps Association's call to double the Peace Corps' size, although the proposed target date of March 1, 2011—the Peace Corps' 50th anniversary—is unrealistic. To maintain its sterling reputation and its public diplomacy success, the Peace Corps should grow only at a pace that enables it to continue to recruit, train, and appropriately place volunteers in excellent programs and protect volunteer health, safety, and security. In that spirit, we recommend that the next president aim to increase the Peace Corps' size by 50 percent by March 1, 2011, and to double its size by the end of his first term—and commit the necessary resources up front to enable this to happen. This would amount to 25 percent growth per year—an ambitious objective by any standard.
