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Transition aid and creating economic growth: Academic exchange between Sweden and Eastern Europe through the Swedish Institute 1990–2010

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Abstract

After the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 Sweden set aside large sums for development assistance for the neighboring countries around the Baltic Sea as a part of the general European assistance to Eastern Europe. The Swedish Public Diplomacy institution, the Swedish Institute (SI), was assigned the task to carry out large scholarship programs for the region, larger than the Institute had ever handled before. This turn towards Eastern Europe was the start for a change in the focus of Swedish Public Diplomacy in general which in turn led to a restructuring of the Institute. The article investigates this development on two levels. First of all it traces the different political motives behind the post-1990 exchange programs in order to explain which role academic exchange with Sweden was supposed to play within the Eastern European postcommunist transition. Secondly it investigates what this politically motivated Swedish interest in Eastern Europe has meant for the Swedish Institute as an organization and for contemporary Swedish public diplomacy in general.

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Figure 1

Source: database on scholarship holders (SI and predecessors) 1938–2010. N = 98.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, Uppsala University, Box 628, 751 26, Uppsala, Sweden

    Andreas Åkerlund

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  1. Andreas Åkerlund
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Correspondence to Andreas Åkerlund.

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Åkerlund, A. Transition aid and creating economic growth: Academic exchange between Sweden and Eastern Europe through the Swedish Institute 1990–2010. Place Brand Public Dipl 12, 124–138 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41254-016-0009-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41254-016-0009-7

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