The concept of culture in the development assistance sector: Culture as field of power struggle during the Cold War

MUSACCHIO, ANDRES Y REBMANN LINDA

Amsterdam

Congreso; Congress of the International Commission Of History Of International Relations; 2010

The development assistance sector emerged in the 1950s as part of foreign policy, creating a field of power struggle used by the donor countries to pursue their own interests while the recipient countries on the other side were trying to protect their negotiating power and scope of action. During the Cold War, development aid was used for the geostrategic, economic and ideological interests of both parties thus becoming another area of confrontation between East and West. Obviously development assistance was not only meant to cover material needs of the recipient countries. The cultural and ideological dimension was also used by the Western donors to win the commitment of the recipient countries to their causes. Using the example of West German development assistance in this paper, we would like to show how “culture” with its variable lines of definition and contour was used to inconspicuously implement West Germany's geopolitical and ideological strategies in Latin America also implementing characteristic cultural approaches. In the earlier periods of the Cold War, the focus was on mitigating the expansion of communism in Latin America as well as competing against the other Western powers to spread "democratic" ideas and values. For a large part, West Germany used the education sector and "cultural events" to achieve its aims. Our research is based on the evaluation of files from the German Department of Foreign Affairs concerning development aid and bilateral relations during the period of the East-West conflict and the Hallstein Doctrine with emphasis on Argentina and Brazil. These do also demonstrate how important the government thought their cultural work was for the recipient countries.