Geopolitics of decolonization: Carnegie Endowment’s diplomatic training program 1960–73

This paper considers the case of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s ‘Programs in Diplomacy’, which from 1960 to 73 provided international, bilingual training for the diplomats of ‘newer states’ – former colonies that gained independence after 1945. Drawing on archival research in three continents, we can see that the spaces and practices of diplomatic training through these programmes were inherently geopolitical: they would shape social and professional norms and networks, in turn shaping state-building and international life. As a result, the pedagogies, curricula, and spaces of these courses must be understood through the prism of contemporary (geo)political tensions: the ideological confrontations of decolonization and the Cold War. Organizers sought ‘neutral ground’ for the programmes, in terms of both their locations and their content. Beginning in Geneva and New York, the programmes shifted quickly towards universities in the Global South and articulated Third World ideals such as African unity. Despite consistent attempts to frame the programmes as technical and non-ideological, their discursive and material geographies reveal an approach to ‘learning the international’ that privileged Western liberal norms and practices, particularly through a pedagogy of socialization.