Department Of Foreign Affairs And International Trade Research Articles

Striped pants and Birkenstocks: work culture, gender, and clothing at Global Affairs Canada

ABSTRACT The 2013 amalgamation of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has facilitated far-reaching changes in how the merged department, Global Affairs Canada (GAC), organizes expertise and the day-to-day work of its professional officer personnel. This paper examines this institutional change by approaching GAC as a highly differentiated workplace and work force in which developing a common institutional mandate and culture remains a challenge. We center an issue with particular resonance for how GAC experts and officers see themselves in relation to each other, to the merged department, and to their work – namely, their work attire. Associated constructions of gender, professionalism, and institutional affiliation linked to and expressed through work clothing shape perceptions of difference and power in the amalgamated department. Examining these constructions and how they both persist and change amid institutional shifts contributes to building both feminist analyses of diplomacy and development as embodied practices, and a labor geography of the state, with work clothing as a key everyday materiality linking the sites and scales of the individual body to the broader spatial and social organization of the department, especially to stereotypes and ideals of gender, professionalism, and institutional affiliation.

The erasure of “gender” in Canadian foreign policy under the Harper Conservatives: the significance of the discursive shift from “gender equality” to “equality between women and men”

s/RésumésAn important discursive shift took place in 2009 when government staff in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) – now the Department for Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFATD) – were instructed to replace the term “gender equality” with “equality between women and men”. In this article, we document Canada's role as a self-proclaimed leader in the promotion of gender equality prior to 2009, and feminist critiques of Canadian foreign policy over time. We draw on feminist theory and critical foreign policy scholarship as well as interviews with mid-level bureaucrats to understand the reasons for – and implications of – the change in discourse from “gender equality” to “equality between women and men”. We argue that the shift in language was significant for several reasons including a departure from Canadian best practices and Canadàs international identity in the promotion of gender equality in recent history.

Canada Among Nations 2013. Canada–Africa relations: Looking back, looking ahead, by Rohinton Medhora and Yiagadeesen Samy, eds

Rohinton Medhora and Yiagadeesen Samy, eds Canada Among Nations 201 3. Canada-Africa relations: Looking back, looking ahead Waterloo: Centre for International Governance Innovation, 2013. 308pp., $32.00 (paper) ISBN 978-0-986-70774-2In March 2013, barely 13 years after it had written off hopeless continent, the Economist jolted some of its readers with an Aspiring cover story. For the uninitiated, serious discussions about Africa's new economic potency, declining internal conflicts, and related pockets of better governance challenge lingering preconceptions. What might a new reality and attitude toward mean for Canada relations? For the first time in its 27-year history, and with near perfect timing, the annual stalwart Canada Among Nations series concentrates precisely on Canada relations, building on a resurgence of interest across Canadian scholarly and (mostly non-government) stakeholder communities. No less than 30 experts an appropriate mix of scholars and practitioners examine a comprehensive range of topics, from diplomacy, aid, trade, mining, and health to civil society organizations (CSOs), diaspora politics, regional peace and security, conflict and academic linkages.To enable the right balance between depth and breadth of analysis (2), Africa is limited to Sub-Saharan Africa, thus excluding deliberation about the Arab Awakening across North and the 2011 Libyan intervention. Care, however, is taken not to generalize too strongly across such a diverse sub-region, whose member countries, enduring challenges, and positive developments offer many reasons for Canada to become more officially and systematically engaged.Former prime minister Paul Martin sets the tone in his brief foreword, suggesting that relationship with is too strong to let it wither (xiii). Even if any archaeological dig for a Canadian foreign policy on will always come up dry, Canada's links to post-colonial African states are inarguably broad and often strong and deep, as many chapters illustrate. Brief mention of Canada's first official (i.e., trade offices) and unofficial (i.e., missionaries) colonialera contacts illustrate how the Canadian presence started before the independence era. No mention, however, is made of the hundreds of Canadian voyageurs recruited for the Nile Expedition of the 1880s or of the nearly 8000 Canadians who volunteered to serve under British command during the Boer War. Canadian involvement in began on a distinctly expeditionary footing, followed shortly thereafter by commercial and missionary forays. The roots and substance of Canadian involvement in cannot easily be explained by charitable or humanitarian interests, but more on that oft-repeated myth below.Three general themes permeate the collection. First, African issues have, on occasion, percolated up the Canadian foreign policy agenda and into public consciousness, but for fleeting moments only (e.g., South Africa, Biafra, Ethiopia's famine, Sudan during Talisman's investment there, blood diamonds, the 2002 Kananaskis G8 Summit). Policymakers from momentarily captivated prime ministers to others deep within the civil service usually have significant choice and leeway to pursue policies and deploy resources without much public interest and oversight. Elections are never won or lost on African issues, despite growing advocacy among CSO, scholarly, diaspora, and business constituencies.Africa's policy marginalization needs to be overcome, most contributors attest, if trade-dependent Canada hopes to leverage Africa's economic growth trajectory. Otherwise, Ottawa risks being overtaken by an increasing number of nontraditional providers (NTPs) of aid (195). Most contributors who refer to the March 2013 budget announcement to re-fold the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) into the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) are cautiously optimistic about the move, sensing some potential for a more coherent policy toward and engagement with Africa. …

Canada and International Conflict Mediation

Abstract This article explores the attitudes of Canadian officials towards international conflict mediation and towards the potential for greater official Canadian involvement in the field. The study is based on extensive interviews with Canadian officials who have been involved in mediation at various points over a 20-year period. It finds that Canada, and particularly the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), has taken a largely ad hoc approach to its involvement in the field. Prior to the initiation of this study, there had been no attempt to develop an institutional capacity in this field within DFAIT or to keep track of the personnel involved in such experiences, much less to develop a trained cadre of such individuals. This stands in contrast to the efforts of countries that have prioritized mediation as a foreign policy activity, such as some Scandinavian countries and Switzerland. Many of those interviewed pointed to these countries as potential models for Canada in this field, but it became apparent in discussions that most of those interviewees were not necessarily well-informed as to what these countries have done; there was just a general sense that these countries do it well and that Canada could learn from them. Moreover, none of the interviewees demonstrated significant familiarity with the vast literature on mediation. Those interviewed made recommendations as to how Canada might develop its official mediation capacities so as to play a more active and focused role in this field.

Is Ottawa following Washington's Lead in Foreign Policy?

INTRODUCTIONIs Canada's foreign policy aligned with that of the United States? This question frequently comes up in foreign policy circles and was recently raised during the popular uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. Some observers have maintained that Ottawa's policy with regard to the Spring followed that of Washington.1 This criticism is in keeping with the perception that, since coming to power in February 2006, the Harper government has strategically aligned Canada's policies more closely with those of the United States.2 Some positions of the Harper government, in particular with respect to the Kyoto Protocol, the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, and the North American security perimeter, have reinforced this idea.3The question of Canada's foreign policy alignment with the United States has also been the subject of much debate within the academic community. Some see such an alignment as the best strategy for enhancing Canada's national interests.4 Others feel that it is detrimental to the country.5 Beyond impressions and normative debates concerning the values and strategies that should guide foreign policy in Canada, there is a need to empirically and systematically assess whether the existence of such an alignment is indeed supported by fact. This article presents a study of the responses of Canada and the United States to the popular uprisings and revolutions that marked Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya in 2010-2011. These crises, which helped define the Arab Spring, are the ones to which Canadian and US diplomatic responses had ended at the time this article was written and which therefore lent themselves to a complete analysis of events.By conducting a chronological and a content analysis, this study examines all the official statements (statements, news releases, and remarks) issued by the Office of the Prime Minister of Canada (PMO), the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), the White House, and the US Department of State regarding these crises. In all, 67 statements are analyzed.6 The analysis shows two recurring patterns in the way Canada responded to the Arab Spring. First, the Harper government generally issued its statements after the Obama administration had stated its point of view. Second, once Washington had made its positions known, Ottawa adopted the same stance. These findings suggest that Canada's statements were most of the time aligned with those of the United States and sometimes fashioned in cooperation with Washington. However, this apparent alignment of Canada represents one part of the story, since our study shows that the Harper government did not always emphasize the same themes, values, and principles as the US while responding to these foreign crises. For instance, Ottawa was consistently more concerned with the issue of stability than Washington. The Harper government also put more emphasis on the need to protect the State of Israel during the Egyptian uprising than did the Obama administration. Finally, the study indicates that the White House was particularly concerned with multilateralism in the resolution of these crises, while Canada has not shown the same interest in a multilateral approach.ALIGNMENT AND CONVERGENCEWhat exactly do we mean by alignment? Steven David explains that alignment occurs when one state its policies into close cooperation with those of another state.7 For David, this behaviour is usually motivated by a relationship of dependence of one state on Gordon Mace brings additional clarification to this concept by opposing it with that of convergence. He explains that alignment can be said to have occurred when only one actor has modified its position to bring it in line with that of another. However, when each actor modifies an initial position X and adopts a new position Y, this can be described as convergence.8 Convergence results therefore from coordination among governments to arrive at a common position. …

Canadian military involvement in humanitarian assistance: progress and prudence in natural disaster response

In response to the 12 January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Canada launched its largest international disaster-relief effort to date. The most visible aspect of its response came in the form of the over 2000 military personnel who were deployed to Haiti to assist in rescue, relief and recovery operations. As part of Canada's whole-of-government approach, this humanitarian intervention required close collaboration between the Department of National Defence (DND) and its primary civilian partners in humanitarian response, namely the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Using information from 27 confidential interviews with actors involved in the decision-making and administration of Canada's emergency humanitarian assistance, this paper investigates how the Canadian disaster-relief structure is able to facilitate a response of this magnitude, highlighting structural, ideational and decision-making features which foster interdepartmental collaboration. While the response was beneficial in many ways, however, this paper cautions against increased military involvement in disaster-relief efforts. Not only can this affect Canada's ability to uphold the humanitarian principles of responding based on needs on the ground, and in ways that are fair and impartial, it also increases the power of political leadership to shape the magnitude, timeliness and decision to intervene.

Architects and Innovators: Building the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909–2009 , and: Canada among Nations 2008: 100 Years of Canadian Foreign Policy (review)

Reviewed by: Architects and Innovators: Building the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909–2009, and: Canada among Nations 2008: 100 Years of Canadian Foreign Policy Kevin A. Spooner Architects and Innovators: Building the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909–2009 edited by Greg Donaghy and Kim Richard Nossal. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009, 318 pp. Cloth $95.00, Paper $39.95. Canada among Nations 2008: 100 Years of Canadian Foreign Policy edited by Robert Bothwell and Jean Daudelin. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009, 400 pp. Cloth $95.00, Paper $32.95. Anniversaries are opportunities to reflect and assess. For Canadian foreign policy, 2009 was just such an occasion. In June that year, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) marked its centennial—an event that proved especially introspective. The evidence of a century of change is obvious even in the differences in name, size, and scope of the bureaucracy charged with managing Canada’s international presence. The Department of External Affairs, as it was known in 1909, was a slight office above a Bank Street barbershop, staffed by a handful of civil servants. Today, Canada’s foreign policy bureaucracy occupies the imposing Pearson edifice on Sussex Drive and consists of thousands of employees, with many deployed to one of dozens of diplomatic missions Canada maintains throughout the world. Such a dramatic evolution clearly suggests much has changed in how Canada interacts with the world, but just as interesting may be the continuities in the nature and [End Page 429] substance of Canadian foreign policy for the past hundred years. Two books have taken on the ambitious task of centennial assessment. Greg Donaghy and Kim Richard Nossal have edited a collection of essays, Architects and Innovators: Building the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, 1909–2009, while the 2008 installment of the Canada among Nations series, 100 Years of Canadian Foreign Policy, is edited by Robert Bothwell and Jean Daudelin. Together, these works represent more than 700 pages and 30 essays. In this limited space, it is clearly impossible to speak to every contribution; instead, I will address a few broad themes the authors raise. The first conclusion to be drawn from these collections is that individuals do matter to Canadian foreign policy. This maxim may hold more truth for the past than the present, but what emerges in these pages is a picture of policy inspired and shaped by bureaucrats and politicians alike. Architects and Innovators, in its very organization, emphasizes this point. The essays are presented in five sections, proceeding chronologically from the earliest days of the Department of External Affairs and the interwar years to the late twentieth century, stopping along the way to examine the earliest missions abroad, the dynamic period of post-WWII international institution building, and the particular messiness and complexities faced in the 1960s. The authors clearly ground their essays in the lived experiences and contributions of key individuals, but this is not to suggest that structural determinants in foreign policy are ignored. In his concluding essay, J.H. Taylor cautions, “We may be lead by the most charismatic politician since Pierre Trudeau, or the least since Mackenzie King, but when we wake up in the morning, Canada will still be next door to the United States” (p. 292). Yet, Taylor quite correctly asserts that how this relationship is managed can very much depend on the skills and personalities of the very people who shape and implement Canada’s foreign policy. In the history of the Department of External Affairs, its two principal and earliest architects deserve special mention. The two men could not have been more different. Carman Miller’s portrait of Sir Joseph Pope, the first Under-Secretary, as the embodiment of Tory aristocratic internationalism stands in stark contrast with Norman Hillmer’s presentation of O.D. Skelton, Pope’s successor in 1925 (Architects and Innovators). Both men proved to be able advisors to their respective prime ministers, though Pope’s views mattered much less after Robert Borden came to power. Skelton was indispensable to both Liberal and Conservative governments, and he had little respect for Pope...

Losing Heart: Declining Support and the Political Marketing of the Afghanistan Mission

Abstract. Public opinion shifted markedly between 2006 and 2007 regarding Canadian military participation in Afghanistan. Multivariate analysis of survey data reveals that the interplay of cognitive and emotional responses fractured support and consolidated opposition to the mission. Subsequently, a major government communication strategy, aimed at bolstering support for the Afghan mission succeeded at an informational level but failed to connect at an emotional one, leaving overall support for the mission essentially unchanged. Our analysis points to the need for nuanced interpretation of shifts in public support for war as well as in assessing political marketing efforts by government.Résumé. L'opinion publique s'est nettement décalée entre 2006 et 2007 concernant la participation militaire canadienne en Afghanistan. L'analyse multi variée des données d'aperçu indique que l'effet des réponses cognitives et émotives a divisé l'appui et a consolidé l'opposition à la mission. D'ailleurs, une stratégie importante de communication du gouvernement, destinée à augmenter le soutien de la mission afghane a réussi à un niveau informationnel, mais ne s'est pas reliée au niveau émotif, laissant le soutien global de la mission essentiellement inchangé. Notre analyse indique le besoin d'une interprétation diversifiée et nuancée des variations de soutien public face à la guerre ainsi qu'une évaluation du marketing politique du gouvernement.

A History and Genealogy of the Freedom-from-Fear Doctrine

A discussion of the relevance of the human security agenda, and of its impact on Canadian foreign and security policy, is these days likely to cause scholars and policymakers to suppress a yawn. Such a reaction largely stems from a belief that all relevant aspects of the human security agenda have been fully understood and scrutinised. The full story has been told, so to speak. In this paper we argue against the idea that the human security agenda is a story of the past, at least when it comes to: 1) understanding what made the human security agenda possible in the first place; and 2) how the alleged new diplomacy that accompanied the human security agenda was a reflection of broader politico-economic changes within rather than outside of Canada. Using a Foucaultian genealogical perspective, the following analysis provides an alternative account of the origins of the Canadian human security agenda. In so doing, it challenges and adds to the dominant historical narrative of the origins of the human security agenda, produced by government documents, policymakers, and some academic analyses. Specifically, this article presents a genealogical investigation of the Freedom from Fear (FFF) doctrine. The FFF doctrine emerged from a narrowing of the human security concept by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) in the late 1990s. Our genealogical investigation analyses why DFAIT chose to narrow its human security agenda around FFF. Second, the article examines the underlying rationale of this narrower FFF agenda. We conclude that the FFF doctrine was shaped by a political economy of power that existed in Canadian society.

Branding Canada: The Renaissance of Canada's Commercial Diplomacy

Diplomacy has always been concerned with trade. Ambassadors have traditionally been their country’s chief trade promotion officers. Today, with the forces of globalization ensuring greater and greater economic integration, government’s role in responding to and managing this process bears greater scrutiny. While there is extensive literature on economic and trade diplomacy, encompassing international negotiations on market access, far less attention has been devoted to commercial diplomacy, defined as the application of the tools of diplomacy to help bring about specific commercial gains through promoting exports, attracting inward investment and preserving outward investment opportunities, and encouraging the benefits of technological transfer. This is not to suggest that commercial and economic diplomacy are separate activities; they are irrevocably intertwined: commercial diplomacy aims to exploit comparative advantages and capitalize on the international opportunities created by economic diplomacy and the evolution of markets. It is now referred to as part of the “new diplomacy” (including greater “public diplomacy”) because of the increased time being devoted by the governments of both developing and industrial countries to advocacy and nation-branding in their foreign policy making. This paper will examine how the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) and, specifically, its Trade Commissioner Service (TCS) have responded to the pace of economic globalization over the last decade. The case is instructive for three reasons. First, the foreign ministry’s role as coordinator, moderator, and facilitator is more important than ever because of the accelerating consequences of international negotiations and regimes for national policy making. For a highly open economy such as Canada in which the exports of goods and services as a share of GDP climbed from 26 percent in 1990 to 41 percent in 2002, economic and commercial diplomacy have been accorded a much higher priority in foreign policymaking. Second, globalization has come to extend …

The Ottawa Process Revisited

I believe that the campaign to ban landmines only produced significant victory in international disarmament, but also epitomized broader changes that have shaken the foundations of international relations. Driven by global change, new forms of multilateralism are emerging, with new concepts, new tools, new actors, and even new institutions. -Lloyd Axworthy, 1998(1)THE GLOBAL MOVEMENT to ban anti-personnel (AP) landmines has been described by Canadian academics Maxwell Cameron and Brian Tomlin, and Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) senior policy advisor Robert Lawson as a story of triumph against all odds.(2) It was, writes Cameron, one of the most significant Canadian foreign policy achievements in decades.(3) Then Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy was even more forthcoming: campaign to ban anti-personnel mines was defining moment for post-Cold War international relations... It shows that, when existing international bodies are up to task, new issue-based alliances can make unprecedented progress.(4) The Ottawa Process,(5) it has been argued, revealed that traditional diplomatic fora and mechanisms can and should be subverted when they represent an obstacle to the achievement of policy goals that are widely demanded by world opinion. Multilateralism is fine as long as states are prepared to move as fast as the slowest in the pack, but of the are preferable when the public wants results.(6)In the wake of the recent American War on Iraq, this message is eerie. In his account of the landmines initiative, Axworthy encouraged Canadians to analyze the success of the... campaign, reflect on the lessons learned, and look ahead to new international opportunities in the new century.(7) But, in his enthusiasm, Axworthy and his supporters seem to have ignored the blatant contradictions between Canada's high-minded humanitarian rhetoric and the take-it-or-leave-it bargaining strategy that was at the core of the so-called new multilateralism.Moreover, the celebration of the freedom of the lesser powers, made possible by the end of the bipolar structure of the Cold War, has over-looked the dangers that have come along with the unitary hyperpower system left in its place. America too has been empowered and spurred on by the tragedy of 9/11; its president has presented rather different interpretation of the words coalitions of the like-minded when faced with an international body not up to the task of furthering its interests.Canadians, along with the rest of the international community, should have seen this coming. In their summary of focus group research undertaken at the end of the Ottawa Process, Cameron, Tomlin and Lawson concluded: If the lesson learned by participants is truly that coalition of small and medium powers in concert with NGOs can take issues outside of regular diplomatic channels and fast-track an outcome over the objections of major powers, then the major powers surely learned the same lesson.(8) That said, whether or George W. Bush had any knowledge of the methods used by the International Coalition to Ban Landmines (ICBL), it should be at all surprising that the United States organized and justified its war against Iraq's Saddam Hussein through strategies and rhetoric disturbingly similar to those employed so effectively against its own wishes in 1997.THE OTTAWA PROCESSThe dangers inherent in AP landmines were first recognized seriously by the international community in Protocol II of the 10 October 1980 United Nations Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or Have Indiscriminate Effects (CCW). The Protocol proposed to restrict or eliminate landmines and similar war instruments that put civilians at risk.(9) However well intentioned it might have been, the CCW had virtually no impact on the use, sale or production of AP mines. …

Canada's Human Security Agenda in Kosovo and Beyond

In Kosovo, NATO prevailed over evil... The Alliance's intervention was an important step in the ascendance of human security as a norm for global action... However, Kosovo must not be held up as a precedent justifying intervention anywhere, any time or for any reason. It raises serious and legitimate questions. Lloyd Axworthy, 28 June 1999(1)THE WAR OVER KOSOVO IN 1999 continues to raise serious concerns. A tendency to portray the North Atlantic Treaty Organiation (NATO) as the victorious moral leader, with 'good' prevailing over 'evil,' does not help to clarify the situation. The conflict was much more complicated - Albanians and Serbs both incited violence and committed atrocities in varying degrees over many years. Moreover, the West has to take some responsibility for helping to create and to exacerbate what became a major crisis. Nor does the moral proclamation by Canada's then foreign minister, Lloyd Axworthy, address long-term conflict prevention or the contradictory dimensions of Canada's human security agenda. Instead, Kosovo helped 'rescue' Canada's beleaguered defence establishment, as some in the military see support for the human security idea as a new role for defence.(2) Officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) have also reinforced the human security notion, built on 'success' in Kosovo, to justify possible 'humanitarian' military intervention elsewhere.(3) Something is askew here, given that the human security concept attained initial credibility in the development-oriented and largely non-military vision of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its Human Development Report 1994. UNDP raised hopes for a post-cold war 'peace dividend' to be generated by new international aid for sustainable human development.(4)Before the war, some field observers with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) mission in Kosovo believed a non-military solution to the emerging crisis was possible. The OSCE was authorized under United Nations Security Council resolution 1199 to monitor and verify ceasefire compliance, assist humanitarian agencies, and facilitate democratization for elections. Western governments and the media alleged Serb 'ethnic cleansing' or 'genocidal policies' against Kosovo Albanians. But some ground observers, such as Canadian Rollie Keith, disputed such claims. Keith suggested that the ceasefire deteriorated with increasing Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) attacks on Yugoslav security forces. Counter responses followed with human rights abuses (on both sides) in a spiralling vicious cycle. Keith, a former director of the OSCE's Kosovo Verification Mission, also stressed later that 'we require a better mechanism to counter national human rights violations than bombing... diplomacy has failed and the ongoing air bombardment exacerbated an internal humanitarian problem into a disaster.'(5) He believed war could have been avoided with enhanced OSCE or United Nations monitoring, an agreement with Yugoslavia to cancel economic sanctions, and support for restructuring to promote integration within Europe and to complement guarantees to address human rights concerns in Kosovo.Canada, with its reputation as a non-combatant mediator of disputes and innovator of United Nations peacekeeping, might have offered high-level leadership on conflict prevention, development support, and diplomatic alternatives to bombing campaigns to resolve disputed issues, not just in Kosovo but throughout the Balkans and at a much earlier stage. Canada's successful federal state - officially bilingual and multicultural - was attained through constitutional, legal, policy, and economic incentives. When the Soviet Union collapsed, and the future of Yugoslavia was unclear, Canada was uniquely positioned to offer leadership on self-determination, ethnic co-operation, and nation-building in Yugoslavia. Instead, a decade of disaster and lost opportunities followed as armed secession became the order of the day. …

From Rhetoric to Reality

This article was awarded the Marvin Gelber prize for 2001. Established in recognition of the abiding interest of Marvin Gelber in international affairs and of his many years of service to the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, the prize is awarded annually to a superior essay by a junior Canadian scholar on a subject in the area of international affairs and foreign policy.Graduate Student, Department of Political Science, Brown University. The article was written when the author was a student at the University of Toronto.ON 3 DECEMBER 1997, 122 STATES came together in Ottawa to sign the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and on their Destruction. The United States, one of the countries at the forefront of the fight to deal with the problem of landmines, was not one of them. Canada, which had been virtually silent on landmines up until at least 1995, in the end spearheaded the fast-track diplomatic process that ended in the Ottawa convention. How did this come about?A comparison of personalities, non-governmental organization (NGO) campaigns, the foreign services, the relative importance of the military, and negotiating strategy leads to several interesting conclusions. First, it seems clear that the debate in Canada centred around landmines as a humanitarian issue and their effect on civilians. In the United States, the debate remained an arms control issue; ban proponents never successfully redefined it in humanitarian terms. In Canada, the redefinition made it possible to take the ban outside of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament (CD), the consensus-driven body that traditionally had responsibility for landmines and other booby traps. For Canada, too, the Ottawa Process (as the initiative came to be known) was a way in which a middle power could distinguish itself on the world stage with a 'moral' foreign policy. The United States, by contrast, preferred to keep the issue in a forum it could control. It also had to deal with the tension between its military duties as a superpower and a traditional desire to pursue a moral foreign policy. These factors all led to the decision by Canada to seize the initiative and by the United States to concentrate its efforts on demining rather than on signing the ban.Because the Ottawa Process is a relatively recent event, little scholarly research has been done on the subject, especially in the United States. Much of the literature in Canada was commissioned by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), in whose best interest it is to portray Canada in a positive light; moreover, many of the authors participated in the policy process as government officials, civil servants, or activists. Possible biases must, therefore, be taken into account in the work of these authors. Furthermore, the government that presided over the Ottawa Process is still in power, and many of the people involved in the process are still in the civil service. Lloyd Axworthy, who as the minister of foreign affairs played a pivotal role in the process, left office only recently. The participants cannot, in many cases, be completely candid in their interpretations of the policy process because they are still officials of the Canadian government. On the other hand, because the process is so recent, it is possible to interview participants for memories and interpretations not yet blurred by too many intervening years.(1)The origins of the campaign to eliminate landmines can be traced back to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Originally, the issue was one of high politics, concerned only with state security, and precluded any civil society involvement. At the end of the cold war, the security discourse broadened, providing room for a counter discourse that portrayed landmines as a humanitarian issue. Once considered a useful defence for states, landmines began to be portrayed as a danger to civilians long after conflicts were over and as a hindrance to development, in part because their presence prevented aid agencies from moving into the regions where they were most needed. …

Foreign Policy Reviews Reconsidered

President of the International Peace Academy (IPA) in New York. David Malone was Director General of the Policy Staff, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Ottawa, 1994-5, and co-ordinated preparation of the 1995 government foreign policy statement, Canada in the World. He is grateful to Robert Bothwell, Kenneth Calder, Chris Cooter, Nicolas Dimic, Alain Hauser, George Haynal, John Higginbotham, Steven Lee, Gordon Smith, Vernon Turner, and Patrick Wittmann for their suggestions. The views are his own, not those of the Canadian government or of IPA.THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES THE USEFULNESS of the foreign policy review as a mechanism for re-calibrating Canadian foreign policy. It focuses on the most recent major review, arising from the defeat of the Progressive Conservative government in 1993 and the advent to power of a Liberal majority government that year.The process set in place by the new minister of foreign affairs (a title that replaced secretary of state for external affairs - SSEA) involved public consultations, an examination of Canadian foreign policy by a joint parliamentary committee that produced a raft of recommendations, and the government's response thereto. The response took two forms: a relatively short presentation of the government's foreign and aid policies and an accompanying volume of detailed (but repetitive) responses to the parliamentary committee's recommendations, the vast majority of which were accepted.The review thus involved a dialogue between parliament (heavily dominated by the party in power) and government. It occasioned significant effort by the joint parliamentary committee and its staff. The efforts of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) to codify an approach to foreign policy purporting to be substantially different from that of the previous government also engaged significant resources, involving inter-departmental consultation on attempts to forge a foreign policy more meaningful than the lowest common denominator of respective departmental positions. The foreign policy elements of the Liberal party's election platform, the so-called 'Red Book,' played an important role in the review, guiding both parliament and government up to a point.The outcome can be interpreted in a variety of lights. However, the review clearly failed to alter the essential thrust of foreign policy under previous governments and, to some degree, involved smoke and mirrors, particularly on policy initiatives reliant on financial resources (which the government was busy constraining in a successful attempt to eliminate the federal deficit). Not surprisingly, it failed to live up to high expectations in the rare quarters where they existed.The experience calls into question the usefulness of such elaborate reviews, which can create expectations of change in foreign policy they are unlikely to satisfy. The following draws on personal experience in the preparation of Canada in the World, a limited number of scholarly sources, and practice elsewhere in the world.AN OVERVIEW OF CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY REVIEWSForeign policy reviews are nothing new to the Canadian government, although their form has varied considerably. The fist comprehensive overview of Canadian foreign policy appeared in a speech given by Louis St Laurent, the SSEA, in Toronto in January 1947. Thereafter, it was a question of amendments and redefinition, although some historians claim that the original formulation has never been bettered. At various times, ministers and senior officials asked for a re-examination of particular aspects of Canadian policy. Perhaps the most important early attempt was in 1951 when Professor Frederic Soward was given extensive access to departmental files (with the apparent exception of documents relating to discussions with the United States on free trade in 1947-8) and produced a high quality (if orthodox) essay on foreign policy. …