Public and Non-Profit Interaction : U.S. Assistance to Eastern European Media 1989-1995

Sammanfattning: This study explores the relationships among U.S. public and non-profit organizations against the backdrop of the assistance they rendered to news media in Eastern European countries between 1989 and 1995. Ideological and administrative goals and strategies used by organizations such as the Department of State, the USAID, and the USIA, the International Media Fund, the Soros Foundations, the Freedom Forum, and other U.S. foundations and NGOs are studied. A wide range of factors are discussed: basic values such as promoting a pluralist democracy and a U.S.-style media, the latter based on the First Amendment and a free-market economy; ideas such as conservatism, liberalism, and the national interest; the historical context with basic values and ideas about public and non-profit interaction and doctrines about foreign aid; the contemporary context with its emphasis on a changing political climate; different institutional cultures; the mobility of people; organizational goals such as efficient coordination and the strategies to achieve these goals such as the market, the network, and the hierarchy; and finally, the tensions among actors due to different abilities and desires to exercise power. By exploring these factors, the study makes visible the complex patterns of similarities and differences and of interaction among individual organizations as well as between the public and the non-profit sectors.