Foreign cultural policy: The third of two pillars – culture

Anyone who reads the annual reports of the Goethe Institute or the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) describing foreign cultural policy will find terms that could not sound nicer: exchange, encounter, network, eye level. And the common goal of German-African museum talks, media projects in Hungary or a tea house in Beijing – all paid for by the Goethe Institute – is even higher. It’s called democracy. “Foreign cultural and educational policy,” writes Johannes Ebert, General Secretary of the Goethe-Institut, “is an investment in democracy.”