Admittedly, the United States has taken a vital role as the world's only superpower based on overwhelming ascendency in terms of military and economic power as well as ideological and cultural power even though the World War II informally caused Europ...
Admittedly, the United States has taken a vital role as the world's only superpower based on overwhelming ascendency in terms of military and economic power as well as ideological and cultural power even though the World War II informally caused Europe to be split into Western and Soviet spheres, which meant a shift in power from Western Europe and the British Empire to two new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. In the midst of those powers, the crucial reason why the United States can hold hegemony lies doubtlessly in hard power. As I mentioned, however, it should not be ignored the fact that ideological and cultural attraction that the United States emanates has also played a leading role in keeping America's imperialist power. That is, this thesis addresses the question of whether America's ideological and cultural attraction, so-called 'soft power' has such a practical influence on America's unipolarity.This present paper aims to focus on 'public diplomacy' of the United States in order to diagnose the impact of soft power. The truth is, 'public diplomacy' has been chosen to a main one of several diplomacy lines by America since the Cold War began, becoming the mean of intensifying America soft power. For a long period, the Educational and Cultural Exchange Programs which are one of several U.S. public diplomacy programs, has been spotlighted for the most noticeable accomplishments. In particular, 'Fulbright Program' has made a considerable contribution to deliver the ideology and value of the United States since the Cold War, also being quite attractive enough to implant positive images towards the United States as well as to evoke admiration for the strong power that it holds from people. In this aspect, considering the fact that the fundamental goal and intent of public diplomacy are successfully accomplished by Fulbright Program and the fact that the program has been continuously sponsored by the United States, Fulbright Program can be a representative example of United States public diplomacy,The basic as well as ultimate purpose of public diplomacy is just 'mutual understanding.' The United States believes that it can get a national security as well as interest through mutual understanding with other countries with different cultures and situations; therefore, whether Fulbright Program sufficiently operates as public diplomacy is dependent on its function involved in widening a range of mutual understanding. For the sake of fully examining this, it is worthwhile to re-illuminate the relationship between Republic of Korea and United States in terms of soft power on the grounds that Korea is quite a conspicuous case as an object of study in that Korea has quite a long history of Fulbright Program and even today, many Korean people are interested in this program.To begin with, with three analytic frames - diffusion of idea and value of the United States, networking and cross-cultural learning, we see how Fulbright Program as public diplomacy draws the mutual understanding between Korea and U. S.These frames reveal that people in Korea has been imbued with idea and value of the United States, that is, democracy and equalization of people and aspiration of freedom from Americans, while Korean people as recipients of the program sent to the United States get fully absorbed in the U.S. technological leadership and advanced culture. Besides, this program shows that each Fulbright program recipient continuously cultivates a sort of attitude to understand and respect each other by building and contacting with the network for Fulbrighters(participants in Fulbright Program) in spite of the program's ending. In addition, through learning about unfamiliar culture, people get accustomed to different life styles and further, they naturally experience to be assimilated with other people. Ultimately, given this situation, Fulbright program is employed in successfully accomplishing the mutual understanding of the main goal of public diplomacy.Apparently, even though Fulbright program cannot give the most crucial and primary impact on the relationship between ROK and U.S., it functions efficiently by getting close to the purpose of public diplomacy, which itself is quite significant. Even today, considering the fact that Fulbright is regarded as a representative public diplomacy program by U.S. Department of State, America will employ this program for strengthening U.S. soft power as it did in the past.All in all, through this thesis, Fulbright Program is absolutely an international educational exchange program as well as an exemplary public diplomacy program in making a remarkable contribution to reinforce U.S. national interest and security to America despite the negative effects of the program; furthermore, it is convinced that Fulbright program is a primary asset of U.S. soft power.