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POL 312Y
Canadian Foreign Policy
Winter 2000-1
Professor John Kirton
Tuesday 10-12 am

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Lecture 01
Introduction and Organization

(September 12, 2000)

INTRODUCTION - THE CLASS

Welcome to POL 312 - Canadian Foreign Policy

I'm Professor John Kirton. I have been teaching this course since I joined the faculty here in 1977.

Despite our large numbers, I hope to get to know you all by the end of the year.

If anyone is here without the prerequisite for the course - POL 208 or POL 108 or Equivalent - please see me after this class and we can discuss whether this course meets your needs.

The format for our course is as follows:

- It is generally a two hour lecture with a 10 minute break in the middle.

- We will try to end sharply at 4.00 so you can get to your other commitments

- Feel free to ask questions at any time but understand that I may defer them to later or the end.

- We have no tutorials, but I have reserved the half hour after this class for questions or more informal conversations in my office.

- Throughout the year I will try to have at least a few guest lecturers and some participatory exercises

- I will also keep you posted on the most relevant special lectures or seminars on the campus.

- To start you should reserve the evening of Thursday, November 16, when I will be hosting a lecture by the Honourable Pierre Marc Johnson, the former Prime Minister of Quebec, on "Globalization and Social Cohesion in Canada."

I assume everyone has a course syllabus/reading list

It explains the basics

Today is an organizational session. I want to:

1. Introduce briefly the subject of Canadian Foreign Policy,

2. Explain how the course is organized

3. Outline the requirements and assignments

4. Discuss the mechanics of how to succeed

1. THE SUBJECT OF CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY: WHAT, WHY, HOW,

In taking up the subject of Canadian foreign policy, we confront the three basic questions if what, why and how:

1. What is it,

2. Why do we study it,

3. How best do we study it.

The answers of each instructor and textbook author will vary. The following answers will give you some insight into mine, and the approach we are taking in this course.

1. WHAT is Canadian Foreign Policy

Whenever I tell anyone that I teach Canadian foreign policy, I usually evoke two answers.

The first and most frequent is: "I didn't know we had one." This may reflect a widespread believe in the inability of those leading the federal government to mount and maintain a single, integrated coherent policy for dealing with the outside world. It may also flow from a related belief that Canada is just too small, in a globalized world where a single superpower dominates, to have the kind of strategic, proactive approach or policy that normal major powers have. In short, in a world where globalization or neo-imperialism emasculates open, fragile, internationally exposed states, Canada doesn't count in the world and thus does not even try.

The second response I often get is: "Which One?" This response again assumes that our leaders in Ottawa may be disorganized. But it also implies that Canada is big enough to have one, indeed several, foreign policies. It also suggests, accurately, that there is more than one simultaneously unfolding, and indeed that there are different tendencies at work struggling for dominance of the foreign policy system. This is one reason why we need multiple perspectives to understand Canadian foreign policy, rather than one dominant theme or a single interpretive theory. And this menu should include the possibility that Canada is, or can under certain circumstances be, one of the countries that counts in the world.

We thus begin with a broad conception of what Canadian foreign policy is. Let us take a minute to reflect on what we mean by each of the component terms - "Canadian", "Foreign, and "Policy"

A. What is "Canadian":

First, what is "Canadian?"

Our focus is on governments, above all the federal government, as authoritative actors. To be sure, "networks" matter, and civil society actors matter. Indeed, we will deal with them as part of the external and societal determinant of, and as delivery vehicles for, what the government does. But ours is a classic state-centric view. Nation-states still matter most.

Thus we:

A. Begin with the Prime Minister;

B. We then look at the many actors and policies within the government, beginning with the foreign minister and his four DFAIT colleagues;

C. Pay some attention to the provinces who have authoritative, indeed in some respects sovereign roles.

D. And above all, we always remember Quebec. The national question is fundamental to our subject, because the national unity imperative is a primary driver of Canadian foreign policy, even when it is not visible. Thus, "Our Canada includes Quebec". It never goes away.

2. What is "Foreign"

Secondly, what is "Foreign?" We should think of it simply, as everything outside Canada's borders, or things within that are closely connected to things outside. We should not think out it as other countries that are different, distant, alien, and implicitly threatening. For while all countries have distinct interests and values, which they pursue in a competitive international environment, Canada is closely connected to many of these countries, and connected so closely that it finds it difficult to regard them as foreign. The 50 countries of the Commonwealth are those with whom we exchange High Commissioners rather than ambassadors, and with whom we share a sovereign or a head of the institution. Over the past 15 years we have come to treat the 40 countries of la francophonie psychologically in a similar war. More recently we have started to think of Mexicans, now joined with citizens of the neighbouring United States in our nascent NAFTA community, in a similar way.

With Canadians coming from so many countries, doing business in so many countries, and granting dual citizenship freely, the external world - the world outside - is not one that is regarded as foreign. Indeed, it was only in the early 1980's that Canada's Department of External Affairs, created at the start of the twentieth century, was renamed the Department of Foreign Affairs.

 

3. What is "Policy"

Thirdly, what is "Policy?"

We consider policy to be everything the government does that is aimed at the world outside or is aimed inside in an effort to prevent unwanted intrusions from abroad. Canadian foreign policy is thus defined broadly as managing Canada's and Canadians relations with the outside world. It is often apparently and actually reactive, contradictory, confused and incoherent. But it can be proactive, centralized, coherent and strategic as well.

In my view, policy consists of a trilogy of components: Declarations, Distributions of Resources and Decisions. Each reflects a desire to focus on measurable behaviour in our analysis of Canadian foreign policy.

We thus take policy declarations seriously. Discourse matters, and cannot be dismissed as empty rhetoric. We focus in particular on the authoritative statements of foreign policy which governments issue when they first take office.

We are, secondly, concerned with the distribution of resources available to develop and implement these declarations. However potent soft power and moral suasion may be, to the hard-headed, money still matters. The mid-1990's world of fiscal consolidation and government downsizing, and the ensuing debates over "niche diplomacy" and the commitments-capabilities-credibility" gap, have reminded us poignantly that real resources are required to develop, deploy and employ the material capabilities required to implement policy. It is an issue which remains central now that the question has become how to spend the burgeoning fiscal surplus.

We are, thirdly, interested in decisions, particularly the major, seminal decisions that resolve crises, mark major turning points, or set a pattern for decisions to come. It is here that we can see most closely how individual, governmental, societal and external determinants come together to shape outcomes, what alternatives exist and what particular choices were made.

This trilogy of "Doctrines, Distributions and Decisions" allows us to confront a further dimension of Canadian foreign policy and one that is all too often overlooked in conventional accounts. This is the question of did Canada make a difference? What was Canada's influence and impact? Was the policy effective in securing its desired objectives? Our interest in this realm flows from our commitment to Harold Lasswell's classic definition of politics as "Who gets what, when where and how." It assumes Canada can be, under certain circumstances, big enough, and focused enough, and astute enough, to make a difference, to change the international system, to shape international order.

There are three further issues we must address in deciding what Canadian foreign policy is. These are:

    1. what time period we cover?
    2. do we chose high or low politics as our focus, and
    3. what regions of the world do we focus on.
  1. Firstly, we focus on the post 1945 period 1945 period, and continuity and change over the past five decades. While Canada was playing on the world stage for centuries before, it was in 1945 that Canada took a step level jump, psychologically, behaviourally, and legally, in becoming a more autonomous actor in its relationships with the world outside became foreign. 1945 also marked the last general or system wide war, in the world.

This look at the more than half century since 1945 allows us to address several key questions:

How much continuity and change has there been?

Is the post cold war globalizing world of the 1990's and twenty-first century fundamentally different?

How can selected forays back into the past help us interpret Canadian foreign policy in the new post cold war world?

How much novelty and innovation is there in Canadian foreign policy?

What are the degrees of freedom, scope for choice, and range of alternatives that we Canadians can realistically assume exist and ask our goevrnors to deliver?

B. Secondly, we focus on both high and low politics, and the mid-level politics of global issues or new security threats. We do so because:

A. Political and economic subjects are often linked (e.g. defence production, G7 assistance to the former Soviet Union and Russia, , economic boycotts of Iraq and Nigeria)

B. The Gulf War and Kosovo aside, the post Cold War globalizing system has brought a decline in the prominence of issues of general war and peace, and the rise of new security issues, human security issues, global issues and economic competitiveness as concerns. Low politics has become high (on the agenda)

C. Thirdly, we mount a Global Coverage that embrace all regions of the world. Canada may not be a global power but it is, or tries to be a global player, with foreign policy behaviour that unfold everywhere in the world. At a minimum Canada feels it has to react to events from all around the world be it genocide in Rwanda in 1996, or the fear of it in East Timor in 1999. The globalizing system is making more issues global. And Canada has in practice decided to be not a not just a niche player but a full strength player - for example that fought in the Gulf in 1991 and in Kosovo in 1999. We do give particular emphasis in the course to the US and NAFTA community, given the weight of the US in the world. But we are equally concerned with international order and global governance as a whole, as we should be in an increasingly integrated, inter-vulnerable and thus single globalized world.

 

2. WHY Study CFP (Now); Three Reasons

Now that we know what Canadian foreign policy might be, we turn to the question of "Why study it?" There are many reasons. One may be your career interests, with DFAIT hiring new officers this year. Another may flow from intellectual ambitions: Foreign policy is a chance to explore politics on the big screen, the world stage, at its broadest and most complex.

Most of the various reasons for studying Canadian foreign policy in particular usually reduce to three.

1. Self Defence.

We're here and so is it. This is the only country we've got. A small, open, exposed economy must cope with the outside world and its heavy influences on and into the country. Much of what is domestic policy in the US is foreign policy for Canadians as they try to cope with inflows from abroad.

2. The Model Middlepower

Most analyses of international relations and foreign policy focuses on the actions of the few great powers whose behaviour matters most. Some also focuses on the place of the small, the weak, especially in north-south relations. But it is also useful to look in the middle as the middle class of the global state system. For when these middlepowers act together, they may collectively matter to the world. And Canada has long though itself to be and been though by others to be the archetypical middlepower. By studying Canadian foreign policy, we can thus see in purest form how middle powers do or should behave int he w orld.

3. A Major Power that Matters to the World

Does Canada count? We will see, but at the least we can observe that it regularly behaves as it did, by taking initiatives, displaying leadership, being included among the select club of major powers trying to control the world. (That is why the newsmagazine the Economist can joke about the world's most bring phrase being "Great Canadian Initiative". They are often bring but they are often there. Not all these initiatives are well conceived. Not all succeed. But they are launched in steady succession as a central part of Canadian foreign policy.

Examples Abound:

a. Paul Martin and the 1997-9 Global Financial Crisis

b. Phillippe Kirsch and the World Criminal Court as a permanent body

c. Lloyd Axworthy and the antipersonnel landmines convention

d. 1996 Spring. Jean Chretien's short lived Rwanda intervention,

e. 1995 Spring. Brian Tobin and the Turbot War and UN Convention

f. 1994 December. The FTAA at the Miami Summit of the Americas.

g. 1992 Brian Mulroney and the Biodiversity Convention

As we will see in a moment, each of these reasons for why we study Canadian foreign policy has implications for how we study CFP.

Why study CFP Now?

This is an exciting time to be embarking on a study of Canadian Foreign Policy, for we are in the midst of moving into a new world and a new Canada.

There are three features of the outside world worth noting.

1. The Post Cold War World is still being defined. This is a time of dramatic change in the world - a new era being defined by the end of the Cold War and the Eurocentric international order put in place in 1919 and 1945. In this new world of the new century, what is Canada's response and role? The new challenge of the twenty first century awaits.

It has brought some real surprises. For example, it is certainly not an era of peace. Indeed, during the 1990's, for the first time in fourty years, Canada started going to war. It began the decade with the 1990-91 war in the Gulf. It ended it with the war to liberate Kosovo in the spring of 1999.

2. Globalization is now in a new intensified phase, being driven by the spread of the information technology revolution. The cold war success in spreading market oriented and democratic polities around the world has brought the openness needed for Canadians to connect to easily, instantly and inexpensively with them. Does this primarily mean new penetrations into Canada or new opportunities for Canadians abroad? Does the Internet harm or help? Is it a new channel of American penetration or a global public utility Canada, as a leading communications power, can access to promote its message around the world.

3. A new generation of global governance is being created. It is based on new international institutions and global principles E.g. the OSCE, NATO Co-operation Council, the Rio bodies. In the trade policy sphere alone we see several: CUFTA 1989, NAFTA 1994, January 1, with the CEC and CLC, the WTO, 1994, March (Marrakesh) (The WTO was a Canadian initiative), APEC, 1994, November, FTAA, 1994, December, Chile, 1996. Canada's metier has long been international institutional reform - peace order and good global governance. Governance has become global.

It is simultaneously a time of major transition in Canada

1. A New Foreign Policy Review and Doctrine we just came through in 1995.

2. The 1990's Deficit-Debt Challenge required setting priorities in an age of downsizing and restructuring, and has now led to a new debate on what to spend the surplus on.

3. There is a wider array of alternatives with the Canadian Alliance and the Bloc Quebecois. They are raising fundamental, previously unthinkable questions, such as Canada withdrawing from the UN.

4. Domestic politics has become foreign policy

The Canadian economy has become a foreign policy economy. Close to 40% of our overall GDP, and over half or our private sector production, now comes from exports. The Canadian economy is now predominantly an international economy. Every one of those exports generates 10,000-15,000 jobs.

Canadian society is now an international society. Over 11% of our population is born outside the country, compared to about 7% in the USA. High and sustained immigrant intake, of 200,000 to 250,000 per year, with a plummeting domestic birth rate beyond replacement levels. As of 1996 Canada's population increase came more from net immigration than from net natural births. Immigrants increasingly come from around the world. The reversion of Hong Kong to China in July 1997 mattered to Canadians now in a much more immediate way than the fall of Honk Kong to the Japanese over five decades ago. Canada now has the world within.

Our Prime Minister and his ministers have become foreign policy ministers. The constant travel, the premiers too.

HOW TO STUDY CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY: THE NEED FOR THEORY

Over half the newscast each might is composed of international stories. In most of them, even when its not mentioned, Canada is involved or affected.

It is so voluminous, complex, multifaceted, we have to move beyond the endless waves of often ephemeral events to identify underlying trends and their causes and their implications

To do this we need at least a framework, a conceptual framework, to organize our data. Here James Rosenau's pretheory is the classic starting point.

But we need more. We need a model that shows how the different elements are logically related to each other

And indeed we need a theory, which gives an idea of underlying causes, and the range and extent of their effects. In short, we need what I call theoretical perspectives.

We need this to explain, rather than merely describe.

We need it to produce policy change, as citizens or as professionals. What are the sources of change, the leverage points? What variables will have the largest impact and is open to our influence? Will actions that we find instinctively appealing have the desired effects?

Hence we appraoch our subject with the use of three competing perspectives

 

2. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE COURSE

Thus we start, as you can see on your syllabus with theory, and move from there to evidence. We examine in turn:

1. Three Competing Perspectives;

2. Behavioural and Historical Evidence, from 1945 to the present;

3. The Foreign Policy Making Process: Governmental, Societal and External Determinants;

4. Relations with the United States and the new NAFTA Community;

5. Canada's Relations with the Regions Outside, and;

6. Canada's Approach to Global Governance, notably toward the global institutional system of the United Nations and G7/G8.

 

3. REQUIREMENTS

There are three assignments for the course:

1. A Christmas Test (25%) held in the final class in term

2. A February Essay (50%) due on the first class after reading week

3. A Final Test (25%) held in the final class in year

Essay Topics will be distributed later, once I have a better idea of your particular interests

The Late Penalty for overdue essays is 1% per day, including weekends and holidays. You make get exemptions in advance for the instructor for allowable cause.

Weekly Readings are substantially drawn from textbooks and major works. They

average a manageable 100 page or so of reading each week, seasonally adjusted to reflect the other demands in the course.

The textbooks you should buy and use are by:

Nossal

Cooper

Molot and Hampson

Fry, Kirton and Kurosawa

The basic library you should use is the new John Graham library at Trinity College. It is located in the Munk Centre at 1 Devonshire Place. All weekly readings are on reserve here. In addition the Victoria College library and Robarts are helpful.

You should also use several websites, including those noted in the Nossal book, DFAIT's, and the G8 Information Centre at www.g7.utoronto.ca

 

4. MECHANICS: HOW TO SUCCEED

To succeed in this course, there are three basic rules of thumb to follow:

1. Keep up with the Lectures

2. Do the Key Weekly Readings

3. Offer your own answers. Anyone can answer and ask questions about Canadian foreign policy, given the novelty of the challenges that Canada's currently faces in a rapidly changing world.


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