'‘The Right Kind of Africans’ US International Education, Western Liberalism, and the Cold War in Africa.

Abstract

The United States’ policy to win the Cold War in Africa was to ensure that African states adopted the norms of Western liberalism in the long-term. American officials defined Western liberalism as democracy and free market liberalism. U.S. policy considered capitalism the foundation of Western liberalism. For this reason, U.S. administrations allied with, supported, and cooperated with African governments that participated in global capitalism. U.S. international education programs were vital to U.S. efforts to win the Cold War in Africa in the long-term. The fundamental purpose of the programs was to exert American influence over future African civilian, military, economic, and social leaders. U.S. education programs focused on students from Ethiopia and South Africa to solicit their support for American political and social models as the only legitimate form of governance. Officials hoped the success of Ethiopia and South Africa to evolve under U.S. tutelage would make these countries positive models of Western liberalism to Africa. American international education programs for these countries, however, fueled the rise of Pan-Africanist mobilizations among participating students. These students adapted and utilized the political and social models they learned from international education to successfully organize against U.S. policy and the Ethiopian and South African governments. Student-led insurrections forced the regimes into negotiations at the end of the Cold War. However, successor regimes to the authoritarian governments in Ethiopia and South Africa committed to the norms of Western liberalism.