International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis

This article revisits our 1993 field analysis of the theoretical condition of Canadian foreign policy (CFP) literature, which was in turn a response to Maureen Molot's 1990 argument that said literature had “been captured by its own preoccupations and ha[d], therefore, remained highly descriptive.” In our analysis, we found the field to be marked by promising yet exceptional and arrested theoretical openings and a lack of cumulation, broadly understood. We are struck today by the degree to which our core assessment still holds. In this article, we return to the arguments advanced in 1993 as the foundation for evaluating some key theoretical developments in the intervening years. We focus on the “critical turn” in CFP, the contributions of feminist scholars, and the rise of mainstream social science or “problem-solving” approaches, which we see as the most explicitly and self-consciously “theorized” approaches within the field. We conclude by looking afresh at the question of cumulation and reflecting on the fluidity of who and what constitutes the field today.

In 2012, the Harper government launched a national celebration of the bicentennial of the War of 1812, even though few Canadians were aware of the anniversary or of the war itself. While commemorating a largely unknown war might at first seem counterintuitive, this article argues that the focus on the War of 1812 represented an opportunity to engage in the construction of a different Canadian identity. In effect, the narrative surrounding the War of 1812 celebrations permitted the Conservative government to begin to establish a new “warrior identity” in contrast to the “peacekeeping identity” that has been associated with liberal internationalism and the Liberal Party. While liberal internationalism in both the study and practice of Canadian foreign policy contributed to a national identity framed around shared internationalist values, the narratives presented during the War of 1812 celebrations suggest an alternative understanding of the “true” nature of Canadian identity.

In a discussion of English School approaches to international politics, Barry Buzan suggests that one should look at “how particular states and peoples encounter and adapt to international society.” This essay examines how Canadian governments through their foreign policy practices have encountered and adapted to international society. It starts from a premise that Canadian foreign policy has been integrally linked with international society since the early part of the twentieth century and that international society has done much to influence Canadian foreign policy practice through the years. In turn, this paper discusses how Canadian foreign policy, at times in a very direct and conscientious manner, contributed to the development of international society and how that contribution has changed over time. Finally, this essay argues that an English School lens can provide a constructive interpretation of the significant transition that has occurred in Canadian foreign policy over the past two decades.

Even though they claim to recognize that the boundaries between domestic and international security have eroded, scholars of Canadian paradiplomacy have tended to ignore the security-oriented paradiplomatic activities undertaken by sub-national actors in Canada. However, policing paradiplomacy is, in our view, a perfect case for understanding how paradiplomacy in security can change the relationship between the state and its citizens. Through an examination of the paradiplomatic activities of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Sûreté du Québec, and the Vancouver Police, we show how the role of the informal, the danger of mission creep, and the shaping of foreign policy from the margins work to shift how we think about where foreign policy happens.

This study evaluates the application of international relations theory in the Canadian foreign trade policy literature. It determines that studies can now be categorized into several groups, including: traditional power-based approaches; the content and negotiation of international trade agreements; the globalization of public policy; federalism and international trade; North American integration; and alternative approaches and new directions. For the most part, however, international relations theory is applied unevenly and implicitly in studies of Canadian foreign trade policy, if at all, with an emphasis on realist and neo-liberal approaches highlighting Canada as a principal, dependent, or middle power. It is argued that a greater emphasis on international relations theory, focusing on the level-of-analysis problem, non-state actors, and normative considerations, would improve the understanding and evaluation of Canada’s global trade relations for academics and practitioners.

According to Imre Lakatos, progressive research programs are centred on the notion of an empirical knowledge foundation where new theories and methods lead to novel factual discoveries. Only through advanced but diverse methodologically sound strategies can one hope for a “better” understanding of events. With Lakatosian analysis in mind, this paper examines the state of Canadian foreign policy scholarship. The author has collected 531 peer-reviewed articles pertaining to Canadian foreign policy published between 2002 and 2012 in five leading peer-reviewed publications: Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, International Journal, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, the American Review of Canadian Studies, and Études Internationales. He has differentiated these articles based on five methodological approaches: description, quantitative analysis, comparative study, critical study, and qualitative analysis. The results suggest a disheartening lack of diversity in the methodological approaches guiding Canadian foreign policy scholarship. Moreover, the overwhelming preference for descriptive methods indicates clear signs of a degenerative research program.

In “Yearning for a progressive research program in Canadian foreign policy,” Jean-Christophe Boucher attempts to survey and evaluate the field of Canadian foreign policy (CFP) using Lakatosian theory-testing criteria. This short response raises a number of questions about Boucher’s approach, the most important of which is a challenge to his characterization of CFP as a specialized subfield of political science. Rather, it is argued, CFP should be understood as an interdisciplinary project, whose contributions should be evaluated in terms of multiple disciplinary practices and standards.

In October 2013, Canada and the EU announced the conclusion, in principle, of a comprehensive economic trade agreement (CETA). Canada's prime minister described the agreement as historic, “the biggest deal our country has ever made,” and assured Canadians there would be major economic benefits. Not all Canadians share the prime minister's confidence. Concerns about job loss, affordable health care, farm production, and national sovereignty are central to criticism of the agreement. Why has this free trade agreement, and others before it, elicited a polarized reaction, with the champions and opponents of free trade squaring off against one another? Using the history of global trade and Canadian trade policy since 1945 as a guide, this essay examines the motivations, concerns, assumptions, and meanings that animate debates over free trade in Canada. Faith and fear are central to the way people understand and respond to free trade. This essay also explains how domestic and international factors and interests have shaped free trade since 1945, and how it blends economic, political, and geopolitical considerations.

Revisiting Kim Richard Nossal’s 1997 textbook on Canadian foreign policy—with its reputation as a valuable source in the analysis of the evolution of Canadian international relations enhanced by the privileging of the political component—makes for compelling reading in 2014. This review article argues that even if many of the substantive themes in Nossal’s survey with respect to Canada’s foreign policy as exhibited by the government of Stephen Harper miss the mark, the core ingredients of the domestic context showcased by Nossal’s work are even more relevant nearly 20 years on.

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.