Ends Changed, Means Retained: Scholarship Programs, Political Influence, and Drifting Goals
| Author | Iain Wilson |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-856X.12012 |
| Published date | 01 February 2015 |
| Date | 01 February 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Ends Changed, Means Retained:
Scholarship Programs, Political
Influence, and Drifting Goals
Iain Wilson
Research Highlights and Abstract
• Governments offer scholarships to foreign nationals expected to become influential
in their home countries and shape public opinion to the benefit of their sponsor. This
is known as the ‘opinion leader’ model.
• The histories of three British scholarship programs whose directors now subscribe to
the ‘opinion leader’ model suggest they were actually set up for other reasons.
• Beliefs about what the programs are for have shifted toward the ‘opinion leader’
model even as they have continued to do the same things.
• The pattern of changing objectives seems to fit a Kingdonian model of the policy
process.
Many governments offer scholarships specifically to foreign citizens. In recent years both
policymakers and academics have associated these scholarships with political influence, arguing
that they generate sympathetic and influential alumni who support positive relationships between
their home country and their sponsor. Digging deeper into the histories of several scholarship
programs which are now being portrayed in this way shows they were actually set up for very
different reasons. Explanations for why scholarships are being given to foreign citizens have
changed over time, consistent with a Kingdonian model of the policy process. We need to be cautious
about taking these claims at face value, an important reminder for foreign policy analysts more
generally.
Keywords: exchange programs; opinion leader model; policy; Kingdon
Governments offer many scholarships1specifically to foreign nationals. The Ful-
bright Awards which bring foreign scholars to the USA are perhaps the most
celebrated example, but financial support reserved for foreign citizens includes,
inter alia, the British Marshall and Chevening Scholarships (FCO 1985), France’s
Eiffel Scholarships (Campus France 2012), a range of financial awards offered by
Germany’s Academic Exchange Service (DAAD 2012), Australian Leadership
Awards and Endeavour Awards (Australian Government 2012), the Chinese Gov-
ernment Scholarship Program (China Scholarship Council 2011) and the Japa-
nese Government’s MEXT Scholarships (MEXT 2012). Redistributing money from
domestic taxpayers to foreign students may seem a perverse activity for a gov-
ernment ultimately accountable to its citizens.2Part of the explanation is a rhe-
torical move which associates bringing foreigners to a country with improving
international relations. Scholarships are portrayed as part of a larger effort of
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doi: 10.1111/1467-856X.12012 BJPIR: 2015 VOL 17, 130–151
© 2013 The Author.British Journal of Politics and International Relations © 2013
Political Studies Association
‘public diplomacy’, which builds up goodwill among the populations of foreign
countries (Cull 2009 provides a genealogy of the phrase; I am using it in its
contemporary sense). That goodwill ultimately benefits the sponsor country, and
its taxpaying citizens, by improving relations with those countries. Hence, spend-
ing time and money supporting foreign visitors is seen to be serving the national
interest.
This article shows that, while scholarships given to foreign citizens are commonly
portrayed as part of a public diplomacy strategy in which the recipients of schol-
arships play a key role, the stories of how scholarship programs have evolved can
be much more complex. Literature on the diplomatic practice of offering scholar-
ships to foreigners sidelines this complexity. Scholarship programs were not nec-
essarily created to do what their proponents now say they do. Such goal
redefinition is unlikely to be confined to this one example, and if goals are often
redefined for bureaucratic convenience this has important implications for how we
analyze foreign policy.
The ‘Opinion Leader’ Model and Scholarships
There is a substantial literature on the political and diplomatic impact of interna-
tional mobility programs, government schemes which fund foreign nationals to
visit those governments’ countries (see Atkinson 2010; Leonard and Alakeson
2000; Scott-Smith 2008; Sell 1983; Snow 2009). These discussions typically present
this impact within the framework of what Giles Scott-Smith in his analysis of the
International Visitor Leadership Program (Scott-Smith 2003, 2008, e.g. 177; see
also Scott-Smith 2006), calls an ‘opinion-leader’ framework. In essence, mobility is
seen as influencing international relations through the subsequent careers of grant-
ees. During their time in the host country these elite foreigners are assumed to
become better informed about that country, and often to develop favorable atti-
tudes towards it. In later life they will support positive relations between their home
country and their sponsor, and mobilize others to the same end.
Scott-Smith discusses the opinion-leader model in the context of the International
Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), which is distinctive among mobility programs in
its emphasis on political impact. The IVLP recruits foreigners to visit the United
States specifically on the basis that they are likely to become influential in the
relatively short term. However, the idea that mobility programs may be used to
generate sympathetic alumni who will lead public opinion is clearly being stretched
to notionally academic scholarships as well. Many scholarship programs claim to
benefit their countries by generating alumni who are well informed about and well
disposed toward the country in which they studied. When these programs’ admin-
istrators communicate with other government officials, they often point to alumni
who have gone on to attain influential positions in society and appear sympathetic
to their former hosts (House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee 2006; State
Department 2012; Wilson 2010). Internal reviews and evaluations of scholarship
programs also rely on these assumptions, and the actors to whom scholarship
programs’ managers are accountable (primarily politicians and finance ministries)
periodically raise concerns that they are not influencing effectively enough
ENDS CHANGED, MEANS RETAINED 131
© 2013 The Author.British Journal of Politics and International Relations © 2013 Political Studies Association
BJPIR, 2015, 17(1)
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