Liminal Liberalism? Ivan Kats, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, and the Obor Foundation in Cold War Indonesia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10073237 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Giles Scott-Smith (0000-0002-9089-7194, Institute for History, Leiden University, The Netherlands, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 57 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 1051-1071 |
| Publication date | 2022-06-26 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Contemporary History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-0094 • E-ISSN: 1461-7250 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00220094221107476 |
| OpenAlex | W4283575398 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 7 |
The story of the Obor Foundation is important for several reasons. Firstly, it covers the contribution of an up-till-now largely overlooked Western philanthropic enterprise to promote a cohesive national cultural identity for Indonesia in the wake of the fall of Sukarno. Secondly, Obor was an attempt to move beyond previous Cold War efforts to spread liberal ideas globally, most notably by the Congress for Cultural Freedom. To overcome critiques of top-down Westernization and neocolonialism, Obor sought to establish local control over the publishing process in a reciprocal arrangement of shared responsibility. Thirdly, it was symbolic of the move of the Ford Foundation, which had invested a great deal in the modernisation (i.e. Westernization) of Indonesian education, towards introducing a greater level of autonomy in their operations from the late 1960s onwards, expressing a general confidence in (and sufficient monitoring of) Western-trained and/or -oriented local leadership
Autonomy · Cold war · Foundation (evidence · Liberalism · Modernization theory · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Westernization · Asian Studies and History · Law
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |