This article examines the importance of exchange programs as channels of political influence and the value that can be gained from examining their impact via various theoretical positions in international relations (IR). Although there are clear possibilities for linking the study of public diplomacy with IR theory, so far this has not occurred to any real extent. Following World War II, a whole swathe of social scientific and behavioralist research, mainly in the fields of communications and psychology, laid the basis for understanding the political implications of public diplomacy and exchanges. Using these studies as a springboard, the article moves on first to consider their continuing relevance and then to insert exchanges within reflections on IR fields such as regime theory, Gramscian-based critical theory, constructivism, epistemic communities, and transnational networks. The article concludes with some observations on the relevance of exchanges as forms of cultural-political interchange and the use of case studies for confirming their importance as an object of study for IR.

This article examines in depth the foundation of the EU's one explicit example of public diplomacy, the European Union Visitors Programme. The narrative covers the historical background to the EUVP, the main individuals involved, and its significance for the development of the EU as an international actor. Public diplomacy relies on personal contacts, and the intention here is to demonstrate the importance of this petit histoire. The contribution of the EUVP towards establishing a transatlantic "community of values," as demonstrated by the support it received from the U.S. diplomatic representation in Brussels, is an important extra dimension. The article concludes that the EUVP, while offering a potential model for the EU to project its "soft power" and world-view internationally, remains limited in scope and unable to fulfill its potential.

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Public diplomacy covers an array of different activities, all of which function at various distances from and combinations with the practice of foreign policy and its specific objectives. Amongst these activities, exchange programs are an interesting case. Most forms of public diplomacy involve the presentation of image and information, and most public diplomacy research also focuses on these 'fast media'. Exchanges are different in that they directly involve the 'human factor', where an engagement with the personality, psychology and both short-and long-term personal development of participants is central. The interpersonal nature of the exchange experience, coupled with its inherently private character, have caused this field to be largely written out of the documentation of diplomacy and its conduct in the public realm. This diffuse interchange of people, ideas, and opinions are generally so lost in the myriad of global social contacts that their worth is often questioned.Most public diplomacy researchers avoid dealing with exchanges for this reason, since it is hard to gather the necessary data to reach hard conclusions on results. Nicolas Cull has argued that exchanges represent a specific activity separate to other forms of public diplomacy, in terms of raison d'etre, mechanisms, and outcomes. 1 Notably, contributions outlining public diplomacy in recent major anthologies on diplomacy have failed to mention exchanges in any form at all, the emphasis being more on the role of non-state actors, domestic publics, and social media. 2 International education has a burgeoning literature, but one that rarely addresses the exchange experience outside of study of the "circulations of knowledge". 3 Nevertheless, there are various tools to assess influence in some shape or form, moving beyond anecdotal evidence and what Frank Ninkovich has termed the 'act of faith' that these circulations of people actually succeed in their designated objectives. 4 How to situate exchanges within the broad panoply of public diplomacy, or indeed international relations? Exchanges and Evaluating 'Success'In his overview of diplomatic trends and possible futures, Philip Seib commented the following:Consider the 19-year-old who comes to your country for a year in an academic exchange program that is part of your public diplomacy. The young woman has a good