Foundations of the American Century: The Ford,

Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations in the Rise

of American Power

Inderjeet Parmar
ABSTRACT
This book reveals the complex interrelations, shared mindsets and collaborative efforts
of influential public and private organizations in the building of American hegemony. It
focuses on the involvement of the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie foundations in U.S.
foreign affairs, and traces the transformation of America from an isolationist nation
into the world's only superpower, all in the name of benevolent stewardship. The book
begins in the 1920s with the establishment of these foundations and their system of
top-down, elitist, scientific giving, which focused more on managing social, political,
and economic change than on solving modern society's structural problems. It recounts
how the American intellectuals, academics and policy makers affiliated with these
organizations institutionalized such elitism, which then bled into the machinery of U.S.
foreign policy and became regarded as the essence of modernity. The book argues that
America hoped to replace Britain in the role of global hegemon and created the
necessary political, ideological, military, and institutional capacity to do so, yet, it shows
that, far from being objective, the Ford, Rockefeller, and Carnegie foundations often
advanced U.S. interests at the expense of other nations. It incorporates case studies of
American philanthropy in Nigeria, Chile, and Indonesia, and assesses the knowledge
networks underwriting American dominance in the twentieth century.
TheSignificanceofFoundationsinU.S.ForeignPolicy
InderjeetParmar
DOI:10.7312/columbia/9780231146296.003.0001
This chapter presents an overview of the analysis on the impact of American
foundationsparticularly the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the
Carnegie Corporationon U.S. foreign affairs. Philanthropic foundations have been a
key means of building an American imperiuma hegemony constructed via cultural and

intellectual penetration. This American imperium can be tracked in three overlapping

but distinct stages. In the first stage, from the 1920s to the 1950s, these foundations
established liberal internationalism, marginalized isolationism, and institutional
capacities of the federal government, especially in foreign affairs, at the domestic level.
During the second stage, from the 1930s to the 1970s, these foundations enabled the
integration of American and foreign elites, and developed formal and informal
international organizations. By the turn of the third stage, these foundations
reconceptualized American hegemony, promoted democracy, and fostered democratic
challenges to neoliberal globalization. These foundations, however, failed to alleviate
poverty, raise mass living standards, or better educate people.
AmericanFoundationLeaders
InderjeetParmar
DOI:10.7312/columbia/9780231146296.003.0002
This chapter introduces the American foundations, which are blocs of private and state
elites cohered by a long-term globalist project, while working under the guise of four
core democratic featuresfree speech, intellectual inquiry, pluralistic political system,
and public opinion. In this context, philanthropy, for the most part, is a means of
increasing the power and influence of the givers. The Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller
Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation are three of the lead American foundations
that persisted despite the tumultuous events of the twentieth century. Wars have
accentuated the mechanics and activities of the foundations, as these wars
simultaneously offered opportunities and posed threats to the United States. At the
onset of U.S. global ascendancy, the chapter examines the emergence of these
foundations during the psychic crisis.
LayingTheFoundationsofGlobalism,19301945
InderjeetParmar
DOI:10.7312/columbia/9780231146296.003.0003
This chapter examines three interconnected foundation-led programs: the instruction of
university International Relations (IR) programs, the reinforcement of elite experts'
advisory capabilities and state's research capacities, and the mobilization of public

opinion. Firstly, IR programs were established as academic disciplines in universities

with the likes of Yale University and Princeton University. Secondly, to reinforce U.S.
foreign policy, a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) was established to develop
blueprints for American policy makers in a postwar world. Thirdly, foundations
encouraged public opinion by fostering lines of study, teaching, and research such as the
funding of Princeton's Office of Public Opinion Research. U.S. globalism did not flourish
due to the dense network of think tanks, policy research institutes, and publicity
organizations, per se, but due to the flow of material incentivesgrants, jobs,
fellowshipswithin this network.
PromotingAmericanism,CombatingAntiAmericanism,andDevelopingaColdWar
AmericanStudiesNetwork
InderjeetParmar
DOI:10.7312/columbia/9780231146296.003.0004
This chapter explores the proliferation of studies programs that promote Americanism
among European elites. At the turn of the Cold War period, the Carnegie Corporation,
which was particularly concerned with the lack of conviction among students in
America's heritage, promoted the study of American Civilization and values in colleges
and universities across the United States. In 1954, the Ford Foundation began its
sponsorship of the Harvard University International Summer Seminar. The Harvard
Seminar aimed at
persuading
young Europeans that Americans were more genuinely

concerned with abstract problems than material prosperity. More importantly, this
was a program designed to empower strategic elites to challenge the status quo of
reflexive anti-Americanism. Between years 1952 and 1955, the Rockefeller Foundation
funded initial conferences that evolved into the British Association for American Studies
(BAAS)which aimed for the reestablishment of BritishAmerican relations.
TheFordFoundationinIndonesiaandtheAsianStudiesNetwork
InderjeetParmar
DOI:10.7312/columbia/9780231146296.003.0005
This chapter examines the philanthropic intervention of the Ford Foundation in
postcolonial Indonesia. The Ford Foundation philanthropy had primarily involved the
University of CaliforniaBerkeley, the Economics Faculty at the University of Indonesia,

and the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project. The foundation has, therefore, established a
tightly knit academic network oriented toward the production of scholars dedicated to
policy-related work in Indonesian political and economic development. From 1951 to
1966, Ford's International Training and Research division expended more than two
hundred million U.S. dollars on area studies, language development, the strengthening
of professional fields, and the administration of foreign academicsall to promote a
better understanding of Western ideals in Asia, which could only occur through
studies of the Asian mind.
Ford,Rockefeller,andCarnegieinNigeriaandtheAfricanStudiesNetwork
InderjeetParmar
DOI:10.7312/columbia/9780231146296.003.0006
This chapter explores the philanthropic interventions of the Carnegie Corporation, the
Rockefeller Foundation, and the Ford Foundation in Nigeria. These American
foundations in the 1950s had thought of Africa as backward, barbaric, violent, and
stagnant. But due to Africa's significance to Britain, an American ally, the Carnegie
Corporation consequently catalyzed the development of African higher education and
the founding of the African Studies Association in 1957, with a disproportionate focus on
the white people of South Africa. The Rockefeller Foundation, whose initial focus was
also on education, was far more interested in Africa's political and economic
development later on. The Ford Foundation collaborated with U.S. state agencies and
engaged in active institution-building programs, such as economic planning units at the
University of Ife and behavioral sciences at the University of Ibadan. Although they were
intended to alleviate poverty and underdevelopment, the foundations' achievements
fell short due to the conflict of interests between African nationalists and British
colonials.
TheMajorFoundations,LatinAmericanStudies,andChileintheColdWar
InderjeetParmar
DOI:10.7312/columbia/9780231146296.003.0007
This chapter explores the impact of the philanthrophic works of major foundations to
Chile's economic ideology. With capitalistic economics as their underlying base, the

Ford and Rockefeller foundations had backed major universities in SantiagoCatholic

and the University of Chilein a self-conscious strategy of
complementarity
in

institutional development through sponsoring both free-market economists and statist

economists. As a consequence, by the late 1980s and 1990s, many statist economists had
abandoned political attachments to statism and embraced market economics. The
long-term consequences of foundation-sponsored economics in Chile, and generally in
Latin America, were the continuous decrease in socialist options, thereby increasing
capitalist market options as the country's economic strategy.
AmericanPowerandtheMajorFoundationsinthePostColdWarEra
InderjeetParmar
DOI:10.7312/columbia/9780231146296.003.0008
This chapter analyzes the impact of the overarching by-product of the major
foundations' effortsthe economic order based on capitalist globalizationin the
post-Cold War era and beyond. Major foundations remain supportive of existing
international organizations and new organizations more suited to global conditions,
with the likes of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The Ford
Foundation awards monetary grants to the World Bank for funding a microfinancing
consultative groupa project that eases the loaning process in mainstream commercial
banks. Another is the support of the Rockefeller Foundation to IMF's global programs,
without which the world would return to the economic crises of the 1930s. Although
they focused on the global sources for solutions to domestic problems, the 9/11 terrorist
attacks, however, dealt a temporary blow to the trend. Nonetheless, the chapter follows
the foundation-led globalization as this eventually spurred the emergence of the
democratic peace theory (DPT).
Conclusion
InderjeetParmar
DOI:10.7312/columbia/9780231146296.003.0009
This concluding chapter deduces the recurrence of the idea of the network and its
diverse effects from the preceding review of foundation programs. Significant globalist
consequences of networks include the Kissinger and Salzburg seminars for European

elites, and the building of networked academic associations in Asian, African, and Latin
American studieswhich sometimes prove devastating as well. Some debilitating
consequences are prevalent in Nigeria, Indonesia, and Chile, as in each case, the
foundation leaders tended to see their societies as real-world laboratories for their
technocratic schemes for modernization. Nonetheless, the chapter maintains that these
foundation-funded networks have led to the hegemony of a globalist worldview across
main political parties and upper state echelons.