Foundations and American Political Science. The Transformation of a Discipline, 1945 - 1970 by Emily Hauptmann

Author:Emily Hauptmann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-05T00:00:00+00:00

Later Ford Grants for International and Area Studies

The money UC Berkeley received to develop its capacities in the behavioral sciences was part of an early round of grants Ford made to academic institutions shortly after its debut as the largest foundation in the United States. Though this grant was hugely significant at the time, it would later pale in comparison to the much more considerable sums Ford directed to Berkeley’s Institute for International Studies (IIS) and various affiliated area studies centers in the late 1950s and 1960s.32 Like its earlier behavioral science–focused grants, these later Ford grants also brought new academic entities into being. At Berkeley and elsewhere, the sudden advent of such well-funded institutes and research centers shifted the balance of power in departments and disciplines. These newly created international and area studies centers at US universities offered those affiliated with them considerable prestige. Not only were those linked to these new institutions likely to have more generous research and travel funds than those who remained department-bound; they were also more likely to move into foreign policy making circles.

When Ford and other midcentury foundations established and funded international and area studies centers, they were not just investing in a particular academic orientation; as Edward Berman put it, they were acting as “intermediaries” between academics and the foreign-policy making world. Such institutes and centers were the hubs of networks foundations built to link universities and the state; fellowships for US and overseas students as well as programs directed toward universities outside the United States reinforced these networks as well. From the late 1950s through the mid-1960s, Ford committed $138 million to such programs, more than any other foundation.33 These programs gave international and area studies considerable academic standing—a standing that, as Inderjeet Parmar argues, was inseparable from their political aims. Parmar shows how instrumental Ford, along with Rockefeller and Carnegie, were to constructing networks of academics and policy-makers focused on Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Doing so depended on a number of different programs: funding area studies centers in US universities, supporting universities overseas, and then linking the two. These ambitious network-building projects also sometimes included financing the creation of professional associations along with sponsoring their meetings and scholarly publications.34 Such multifaceted programs had a fundamental purpose: to cultivate and direct academic expertise toward the many parts of the world US political and economic elites thought vital to what one prominent consultant for Ford called “our new national interest.”35

The initial grants Ford made to develop academic capacities in the behavioral sciences had been bold attempts to redirect the social sciences. Ford’s international and area studies program was even more ambitious and “hands-on.” The foundation’s decision to end its Behavioral Sciences Program in 1957, therefore, did not mean the end of Ford’s support for the social sciences. Instead, Ford’s priorities shifted from the behavioral sciences to international and area studies.36 Ford was not alone here; Carnegie and Rockefeller devoted considerable resources to building the capacities of US universities in international and area studies as well.

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