Canada Trying to Get it Right: the Foreign Ministry and Organizational Change

Abstract

The Canadian experience in terms of change and the foreign policy community presents a paradoxical case study. The stylized image of Canadian governance has been one of cautious and hesitant adaptation. Yet, over the last three decades, the Canadian foreign ministry (the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and its predecessors, External Affairs and International Trade Canada and the Department of External Affairs) has gone through a series of reorganizations in a bid to reinvent itself. While clinging on to many of its older habits of behaviour with respect to international activity (most notably an acute concern with diplomatic skill and reputation),1 the Canadian pattern of internal reform has been one which features a marked focus on re-thinking and re-jigging. Indeed, the concern with trying to get its organizational structure right serves as the dominant leitmotiv for the Canadian foreign ministry.