Abstract:Bertelsen, Rasmus G. (2012) Private Foreign‐Affiliated Universities, the State, and Soft Power: The American University of Beirut and the American University in Cairo. Foreign Policy Analysis, doi: 10.1111/j.1743‐8594.2011.00163.x
This article contributes to the understanding of the soft power of private foreign‐affiliated universities and the interaction between such universities and the state for university soft power and national soft power. The analysis shows university soft power in their Middle East host… Show more
“…Western education could help in this, with the United States developing into the strongest partner. Educational institutions in the Middle East thus became important arms of American soft power (Bertelsen 2012;Ment 2011;Smith 1973). This American global role also had its limits as its support of the Mandates system and the Zionist movement discouraged many Arab intellectuals (Hanna 1979, p. 25).…”
Section: International Agendas and Local Manifestations 81mentioning
This article traces the influence of international networks in three Middle Eastern universities from the 1920s onwards: the American University of Beirut, the American University in Cairo and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. It shows how American, internationalist, imperial and religious actors competed and how the universities were placed in these often overlapping or interconnected networks. It illustrates the complicated process of institutionalizing the new universities, for instance in financing them or validating degrees. The article also looks at the role the universities played in the attempt to transform local societies, as they devised outreach programmes and language policies that aimed to spread English, to simplify Arabic, or to modernize Hebrew.Keywords American University of Beirut Á American University in Cairo Á Hebrew University Á Internationalism Á Outreach programmes Á Elite formation Á Language policiesIn the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, the Middle East hosted a plethora of educational initiatives. Colonial institutions were established; missionaries of different denominations launched various projects, often working with benevolent societies and American foundations; traditional institutions of learning were transformed to meet international standards; and educators experimented with different forms of indigenous education. Such efforts coexisted in Beirut,
“…Western education could help in this, with the United States developing into the strongest partner. Educational institutions in the Middle East thus became important arms of American soft power (Bertelsen 2012;Ment 2011;Smith 1973). This American global role also had its limits as its support of the Mandates system and the Zionist movement discouraged many Arab intellectuals (Hanna 1979, p. 25).…”
Section: International Agendas and Local Manifestations 81mentioning
This article traces the influence of international networks in three Middle Eastern universities from the 1920s onwards: the American University of Beirut, the American University in Cairo and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. It shows how American, internationalist, imperial and religious actors competed and how the universities were placed in these often overlapping or interconnected networks. It illustrates the complicated process of institutionalizing the new universities, for instance in financing them or validating degrees. The article also looks at the role the universities played in the attempt to transform local societies, as they devised outreach programmes and language policies that aimed to spread English, to simplify Arabic, or to modernize Hebrew.Keywords American University of Beirut Á American University in Cairo Á Hebrew University Á Internationalism Á Outreach programmes Á Elite formation Á Language policiesIn the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, the Middle East hosted a plethora of educational initiatives. Colonial institutions were established; missionaries of different denominations launched various projects, often working with benevolent societies and American foundations; traditional institutions of learning were transformed to meet international standards; and educators experimented with different forms of indigenous education. Such efforts coexisted in Beirut,
“…These assumptions take away from more nuanced questions about how a contemporary U.S. university is made into a modular and transportable commodity—literally and metaphorically how the networks and branches get laid to build a globalized university. Following from postcolonial studies about the entanglements between Western educational models and colonial contexts, I am interested in how hegemonic ideas are negotiated on the ground, have unintended consequences, and allow us to see tracers that reveal the parochial nature of supposedly universal values (for an exploration of the complexities of education under colonialism see Bertelsen ; Chatterjee and Maira ; Seth ; Summers ; and Viswanathan ). However, while literature on colonial education provides a rich analytical framework, I do not want to imply that the contemporary Gulf context is an extension of Western imperialism—Gulf wealth and power also flows to the West, and there are many geopolitical entanglements, cosmopolitanisms, and cultural forms that resist easy categorizations of Gulf States as colonized by Western governments or ideas.…”
Section: Framing the Debate Around Globalized Higher Education In Thementioning
confidence: 99%
“…Here I reference the arguments of Edward Said in Orientalism (1979), as well as older attempts to establish American universities in the Middle East, such as American University of Beirut (AUB) and American University in Cairo (AUC), which were both founded by Christian missionaries. For more on AUB and AUC, see Bertelsen .…”
Through ethnographic examples of students' engagement with American universities in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, I argue that branch campuses have a particularly important relationship with emerging forms of racial consciousness, identity, and politicization among students, both citizen and foreign resident. This entry point is one that deliberately foregrounds the parochialism of an American perspective on the future of the academy as part of a broader project of postcolonial and transnational engagement with this new knowledge economy.
“…Then AUB’s president John Waterbury explained this clearly stating that AUB students ‘‘continue to resent US policies and criticize US leadership, but they want to import its institutional successes in governance, legal arrangements, and business organization” (Waterbury 2003, 67). In short, the soft power of American missionary universities contributes to state soft power, but only in terms of the milieu goals of creating an enabling environment of norms, skills, and connections, and not concerning specific possession goals of accepting the foreign policy of the society of origin, or the host society (Bertelsen 2012b; Bertelsen and Møller 2010).…”
Section: Soft Power Of American Missionary Universities In the Middlementioning
confidence: 99%
“…These transnational relations are the basis of these universities’ soft power. The American missionary universities in the Middle East and China are crucial cases (George and Bennett 2005) for transnational relations and soft power (Bertelsen 2009a; 2009b; 2012a; 2012b; 2014; Bertelsen and Møller 2010). Figure 1. University as Transnational Actor(Color online)…”
145-62. Rotterdam: Sense Publisher.Rather than exercise power over another, the policy implications of this research suggest that universities can contribute signifi cantly to the transnational relations of a country and its ability to address problems in concert with other nations.
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