Old habits and new directions indeed

Revisiting Canadian Foreign Policy: Old Habits and New Directions, Andrew Cooper’s 1997 textbook on Canadian foreign policy, in 2014 makes for compelling reading, not least because the subtitle is the perfect leitmotif to describe the considerable differences in Canada’s foreign policy between then and now. This review article argues that the main themes in Canada’s foreign policy that Cooper surveys so well are indeed regarded by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper as old habits, to be abandoned in its own search for new directions in Canadian foreign policy.