| The US Peace Corps is an official volunteer organization initiated by President John F.Kennedy in 1961.Under the background of the Cold War,its original intention was to display American advanced culture and values in order to win people's hearts and fight the Soviet Union by sending technical personnel such as teachers and nurses to the third countries and help their development.With the end of the Cold War and the changes of the times,the Peace Corps organization has been retained and its development and actions have tended to be more mature and systemized.Also,it has become an important strategic tool for U.S.public diplomacy,and it has played a crucial role in the improvement of U.S.image and improvement of soft power.Africa is the region where the largest number of volunteers has been dispatched by the Peace Corps,reaching 45%of the total number of volunteers.Thereinto,the education sector is the most important project among the six aid areas in Africa implemented by the Peace Corps.The number of volunteers who carry out education aid activities and the number of African countries receiving education aid programs are the highest.The education aid activities of the Peace Corps have generally been recognized and welcomed by the host country government and its people,making the image of the United States in the host country better.As to both the aiding country and the recipient country,the US Peace Corps' education aid in Africa is a very effective aid project.From the political point of view,it is actually a very successful public diplomacy practice and an effective means and tool for the United States to increase its influence and soft power in the African region.Therefore,understanding and analyzing the United States Peace Corps' educational aid activities in Africa is quite inspired to China,which has put a stress to public diplomacy and development assistance as essential working content.In the introduction part,the thesis explained the reasons for selecting the topic,sorted and reviewed relevant researches at home and abroad to do a general literature review according to the time periods,also elaborated the paper's research line of thinking and methods.This paper divided the body of text into five parts according to the logical sequence of theory-practice-case-analysis-enlightenment.The first part analyzed the ideological and theoretical basis of the American Peace Corps' educational assistance to Africa,that is,the co-existence and joint action of realism and idealism in American traditional politics and the ascendant theory of human capital development in the 1960s.The second part introduced the basic operation system of the US Peace Corps based on the order of execution of the project,which was divided into four links:background and property of establishment,selection and agreement with the host country,recruitment and training of volunteers,dispatch and service of the volunteers.In Part three,the thesis selected Ghana as the case,which is the first country to sign a cooperation agreement with the Peace Corps and the assistance has never been interrupted in history.It described the reasons why the U.S.Peace Corps opted to aid Ghana,the execution of education aid assistance activities,and the impacts of the activities in Ghana.The fourth part of the paper focused on the characteristics of the American Peace Corps' education assistance in Africa from the perspective of public diplomacy.It includes the following five points:supplementing national interests of the United States,fully respecting the actual needs of the host country,the Peace Corps possessing larger autonomy,deeply integrating with the grassroots and organically combining with other aid projects.Then the last part of the thesis attempted to summarize the enlightenments that we China can learn from US Peace Corps' education aid in Africa,because China tried to implement public diplomacy by giving education aid to Africa,too.The enlightenments were from four aspects:support and innovate the behavior subjects of public diplomacy,establish and improve the mechanisms of overseas volunteers,respect and address the educational needs of recipient countries and expand and coordinate the educational aid projects. |
PDF Full Text Request