Why Canada Cares: Human Rights and Foreign Policy in Theory and Practice 9780773587380

Table of contents :
Cover
Copyright
Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1 Introduction: Canada, Human Rights, and International Relations
PART ONE “INTERESTS ALL THE WAY DOWN”
2 Realism and the Study of Human Rights
3 Human Rights In Canadian Foreign Policy: The Realist View
PART TWO “IDEAS ALL THE WAY DOWN”
4 Constructivism and the Study of Human Rights
5 Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy: The Constructivist View
6 Conclusion: Interests, Identities, and Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy and International Relations
Postscript: Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy Under the Harper Government
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Why Canada Cares Human Rights and Foreign Policy in Theory and Practice ANDREW LUI

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

isbn 978-0-7735-8738-0 (updf)

Bibliothèque nationale du Québec ancient forest free

t from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also f Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Why Canada cares: human rights and foreign policy in theory and practice / Andrew Lui. Includes bibliographical references and index.

'

Dedicated to

ken booth, rhoda howard-hassmann, and my parents, edward and catherine.

Contents

Acknowledgments ix Abbreviations xiii 1 Introduction: Canada, Human Rights, and International Relations 3

part one

“interests all the way down”

2 Realism and the Study of Human Rights

21

3 Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy: he Realist View 47

part two

“ideas all the way down”

4 Constructivism and the Study of Human Rights

99

5 Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy: he Constructivist View 119 6 Conclusion: Interests, Identities, and Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy and International Relations 164 Postscript: Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy under the Harper Government 177 Notes 183 Bibliography Index 233

207

Acknowledgments

his book grew out of a doctoral dissertation that I began in September 2001 and completed in March 2006 at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. Without doubt, the task of completing a PhD invokes images of solitude and sacriice – perhaps even more so when it is done in a place as remote as Aberystwyth. he allure of foreign shores and studying at the world’s irst department of international politics, where E.H. Carr wrote he Twenty Years’ Crisis, seemed, at the time, to be worth the solitude and sacriice that would become part and parcel of life in Aber. In the end, my Aber years were fortunate ones if only because of the sheer strength of the department and because of some outstanding individuals with whom my journey was shared. In their absence, the task of completing this project would simply not have been possible. I must irst acknowledge my profound gratitude to E.H. Carr Professor Ken Booth. Our conversation about this project began on an overcrowded, antiquated, stufy (and late) train between Newtown and Telford – a train that, I should say, at the time served as my only comparison to Japan’s Shinkansen, on which I had travelled some months before. Still, that initial conversation was enough to cement my determination to forego the comforts and familiarities of departments in North America for the chance to develop and grow at one of Britain’s leading centres of research. Over the course of the subsequent four and a half years, Ken provided me with constant intellectual challenge and has shaped this project greatly in its many revised forms. Ken’s acumen, compassion, and sincerity are attributes to which to aspire. Certainly, settling on a stimulating yet suitable approach to human rights in international relations was not an easy task in the immediate days following the September 11th attacks. Supervising this project

x

Acknowledgments

must have been diicult in its own right. It is thus to Ken that I owe the largest scholarly debt. My profound gratitude also goes to Rhoda Howard-Hassmann. As an undergraduate at McMaster University, I was enormously privileged to have had Rhoda as my honours thesis supervisor on the topic of human rights and the Asian values debate in China. Rhoda was stern, rigorous, challenging, insightful, and constructive while demanding nothing short of excellence. I cannot thank her enough for having shown me the gift of scholarly research and for having inspired me to pursue further studies in human rights. More than that, however, Rhoda has remained an unrelenting source of encouragement, guidance, and friendship throughout these past years – the often diicult years transitioning from graduate student to junior scholar and from junior scholar to (“normal”) human being. his book would not have come to fruition had it not been for Rhoda’s support. I would also like to thank Tim Dunne, my PhD co-supervisor from 2001 to 2003, and Jeroen Gunning, my PhD co-supervisor from 2003 to 2005. Jeroen’s irm belief in “ownership” and Tim’s ability to “deconfuse” my initial research design are things that I will always remember and appreciate. Likewise, Nick Wheeler informally ofered insightful suggestions throughout my dissertation’s development. Working with both Nick and Tim on the International Journal of Human Rights aforded me the opportunity to engage with other human rights scholars and to immerse myself in the latest research that the ield had to ofer. Similarly, I am grateful to Brian Job and Max Cameron, who were, respectively, my MA supervisor and second reader at the University of British Columbia, for encouraging me to ask the “big questions” of international relations. hough at times I may have bit of more than I could chew, their belief in my abilities enabled me to keep my nose to the proverbial grindstone. Over the years, Jack Donnelly and David Forsythe, in comparable ways, have greatly supported and inspired me to pursue some of these questions in human rights research. All of my mentors have therefore contributed to this project, whether from near or far, and will serve as role models for many years to come. I am indebted as well to my former colleagues at University College London (ucl) for their friendship and support. I had moved from the relative quiet of a coastal Welsh town to the hustle and bustle of London, England, a mere two days after submitting my doctoral dissertation. My irst crack at teaching master’s students came the next morning (following

Acknowledgments

xi

a brief encounter with a well-preserved Jeremy Bentham). he transition was abrupt and tumultuous. Fortunately, Fiona Adamson, David and Jennifer Hudson, Sally Welham, and many others at ucl made my postdissertation recovery as a Londoner a truly unforgettable experience. I could not have asked for better colleagues. And having an oice at Tavistock Square, just around the corner from the British Museum and a short walk to Covent Garden, was a perk that I will forever miss. Equally, I thank Nic van de Walle and Lani Peck at the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University for hosting me as a Visiting Scholar in 2006–07. he transition from London, England, to Ithaca, New York, was cushioned by their hospitality. Nic and Lani made me feel completely welcome and provided me with the base from which to turn a doctoral dissertation into a book manuscript. In addition, my gratitude goes to Walter Eisenbeis, librarian at the Canadian Institute of International Afairs in Toronto, for providing me with access to the institute’s newspaper archives and the Canadian Foreign Relations Index. he same appreciation goes to Gerald Schmitz, principal analyst of international afairs for the Parliamentary Information and Research Service, for his helpful suggestions with sources. Of course, my colleagues and students at McMaster University deserve special mention. Richard Stubbs, Tony Porter, Peter Graefe, Lana Wylie, James Ingram, Nibaldo Galleguillos, Don Wells, Stephen McBride, and others ofered guidance and advice whenever needed. On the administrative front, Kathleen Hannan and Manuela Dozzi kept me aloat more times than I can recall. Over the past few years, I have also had the pleasure to teach a number of top students in courses that centre on human rights, international relations, and Canadian foreign policy. hose same individuals have pushed my upper limits as an instructor, stimulated my own thoughts on these subjects, and taught me humility and the joy of teaching in turn. Previous works-in-progress related to this book were presented at various conferences of the International Studies Association, the Canadian Political Science Association, and the American Political Science Association. I thank all three organizations for their inancial assistance as well as fellow panellists, chairs, discussants, and audience members who provided constructive criticism. I would also like to acknowledge the inancial support that I received from doctoral fellowships administered through the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Overseas Research Studentship of Universities UK as well as the Department of

xii

Acknowledgments

International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. In addition, this book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Along the inal stretch, my deepest appreciation goes to Kyla Madden and all of the staf at McGill-Queen’s University Press who have their ingerprints on this manuscript from cover to cover. Kyla’s belief in the strength of this book was pivotal to its ultimate realization. hroughout the process, Kyla was patient, attentive, and professional. She is a wonderful editor from whom I have learned a great deal. Finally, credit must also go to my former Aber housemates – Wolfango Piccoli, Melanie Wagner, C. Roland Vogt, and Gemma Collantes Celador – as well as the honorary member of the house, Gerry Hughes, for their much-needed support in the years, months, weeks, and days before submission. For similar reasons, I would also like to thank Maria Sperandei, Mark Manger, Rabia Khan, and Allisson Zaldivar. Last, but not least, I am indebted to my parents, Edward and Catherine. hey have supported and encouraged me every step of the way.

Abbreviations

cbc cida ciia csce dfait dnd ecosoc flq fpa fta gnp icc iciss ir isa nafta nato ngos norad oas oda pmo r2p udhr un undp

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Canadian International Development Agency Canadian Institute of International Afairs Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe Department of Foreign Afairs and International Trade Department of National Defence Economic and Social Council Front de Libération du Québec Foreign Policy Analysis (re: scholarly ield of study) Free Trade Agreement gross national product International Criminal Court International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty International Relations (re: scholarly ield of study) International Studies Association North American Free Trade Agreement North Atlantic Treaty Organization non-governmental organizations North American Air Defence Command Organization of American States Oicial Development Assistance Prime Minister’s Oice Responsibility to Protect Universal Declaration of Human Rights United Nations United Nations Development Programme

xiv

unprofor ussr

Abbreviations

United Nations Protection Force Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

why canada cares

1 Introduction: Canada, Human Rights, and International Relations Human rights have become a taken-for-granted ixture of Canada’s international relations and an entrenched part of its national mythology. Yet given the gravity of human rights issues, and how Canada seems to champion their cause, the role of human rights in Canadian foreign policy has received surprisingly little scrutiny.1 Rarely challenged is the claim that Canada is a leading advocate of international human rights. Few notice when oicial government statements stray from historical fact or wade into the waters of propaganda. According to the Department of Foreign Afairs and International Trade (dfait), for example, “Canada has been a consistently strong voice for the protection of human rights and the advancement of democratic values, from [its] central role in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1947/1948 to [its] work at the United Nations today.”2 In fact, this claim is a serious misrepresentation of Canada’s role in the framing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (udhr), laying bare the need to revisit this period as a reminder of the country’s initial attitudes towards international human rights policies. As William Schabas evinces, Canadian policymakers approached the udhr with a mix of scepticism, indiference, and outright hostility.3 Far from playing a central role in drafting the landmark document, the Canadian government attempted to scuttle or delay its release as much as possible. In the fall of 1948, as delegations from around the world convened for the Paris session of the un General Assembly, Canada made both formal and informal requests to postpone the adoption process on the pretext that more time was needed to clarify the meaning, content, and legality of human rights. Canada’s concerns were fuelled in part by a report issued earlier that year by the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons

4

Why Canada Cares

on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Although the report was sympathetic to the objectives of the Declaration, it outlined Parliament’s reservations about speciic clauses and made several recommendations for amendments. Most acutely, the parliamentary committee suggested that, in the opening passage of the Declaration, “God” be referenced as the progenitor of all rights (an amendment later proposed by Brazil but that, given its lack of universal appeal, was ultimately struck down).4 he committee also remarked that many articles were excessively broad, which might allow certain groups – Communists, Aboriginal peoples, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Japanese Canadians among others – undue reprieve from federal and provincial laws designed to circumscribe their subversive tendencies.5 In debating the article on the right to life, the committee noted that capital and corporal punishment should remain a state prerogative. Economic and social rights were treated with equal scepticism as the committee stressed that these would impinge on the duties and authority of the state. Overall, the parliamentary committee and other Canadian policymakers in the highest oices believed that economic and social rights as well as select civil and political rights – such as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of association – did not belong in the Declaration at all.6 Canadian diplomats went to Paris with these reservations in hand. As the negotiations unfolded, however, it became clear that substantive amendments to the draft Declaration were next to impossible.7 Coming to this realization, Acting Prime Minister Louis St Laurent – who, like William Lyon Mackenzie King before him, harboured personal misgivings about the notion of human rights – ordered his diplomats to avoid playing any prominent role in the deliberations. he government then turned to procedural arguments in its continuing efort to obstruct the Declaration’s advance. he favoured rejoinder of an increasingly hostile Canadian camp was that the udhr would violate federal-provincial jurisdiction in Canada. More speciically, the Canadian government argued that the division of political authority between the federal and provincial legislatures prevented Ottawa from supporting a document over which it lacked exclusive domestic control. But this assertion was little more than the government’s crying wolf. he parliamentary committee had already established that the udhr would not require any legislative action as declarations are legally non-binding. And, as the objection had no real grounds, it was not raised by any other federal state taking part. Canada’s antagonism and stonewalling would prove to be isolating and embarrassing. On 7 December 1948, Canada was the only country, alongside

Introduction

5

the Soviet bloc, to abstain on a crucial vote that would approve the inal draft of the udhr before its submission to the General Assembly for adoption. Lester B. Pearson, then secretary of state for external afairs, was forced to defend Canada’s position by rehashing the argument about federal jurisdiction. Yet his rebuttal could scarcely conceal the Canadian government’s substantive objections to a universal deinition of human rights. Canada was still not prepared to accept a notion of rights that applied universally and inalienably to all individuals.8 he sceptics and detractors were led, moreover, by none other than the revered architects of the so-called “golden age” of Canadian foreign policy – elder statesmen from Mackenzie King to Pearson – who charted the course of international relations during exceptional moments in history only to delimit human rights at home and abroad. Ultimately, Canada voted in favour of the udhr in the General Assembly on 10 December 1948 after continued pressure from the British and American delegations and after inding itself in the company of the Soviet bloc just three days earlier. John Peters Humphrey, Canadian legal scholar, irst director of the United Nations Division of Human Rights, and the person credited as the principal drafter of the udhr, would nonetheless describe Canada’s role in international human rights over the next two decades as being uniformly negative.9 And yet this chequered history with human rights runs clearly against the grain of popular sentiment and oicial rhetoric. As Louise Arbour, former UN high commissioner for human rights and justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, comments: “his is hardly the story we [Canadians] might imagine given our national selfperception.”10 Even so, it is exactly how the story begins. Today, this story remains relevant not least because of the many questions it leaves unanswered. he fact that Canada underperformed on human rights from the very start of the postwar era needs to be explained. How and when Canada then changed course from laggard to leader is also something that has never been fully addressed. Put simply, the study of human rights in Canadian foreign policy has received an inadequate amount of scholarly attention. Higher benchmarks are needed to correct false assertions (such as the one made by dfait, cited above) and to thereby measure the disparity between rhetoric and reality that continues to impede the international human rights policies of Canada and other countries. Empirical studies that examine this disparity are lacking. So too are explanatory frameworks that can isolate the factors that prompted countries such as Canada to undergo signiicant changes with respect to international human rights.

6

Why Canada Cares

Above all, the lack of scholarship in this area is systemic, arising from a persistent divide within the existing canon of Foreign Policy Analysis (fpa) between realist and constructivist approaches to the study of International Relations (ir).11 On the one hand, realists contend that human rights do not matter in international relations given the primacy of utilitarian notions of the national interest. From this perspective, the pursuit of material interests such as state security and economic prosperity preoccupy the thrust of statecraft. Accordingly, sovereignty and nonintervention by and large take precedence over the idea that all individuals have inviolable rights simply for being human.12 Constructivists, on the other hand, emphasize that human rights have igured prominently at deining moments in international politics and are crucial in constituting the interests, identities, and international norms that collectively shape state behaviour. As Neta C. Crawford explains, for example, human rights arguments were an imperative for the demise of slavery and colonialism, which prompted “the biggest change in the structure and practice of international relations in the last 500 years.”13 And the way that human rights have begun to challenge sovereignty claims through institutions such as the International Criminal Court (icc) may signal yet more profound changes in the future.14 hese seemingly contradictory positions have polarized debate in international relations as researchers are caught between two competing paradigms: one that privileges macro, top-down determinants of state behaviour and another that privileges micro, bottom-up determinants. Asking whether human rights are either a function of states’ material interests or a function of their social identities presents a misleading dichotomy that has stalled the advance of our understanding of the role of human rights in international relations. Is there a way out of the current impasse? In this book I explore the role of human rights in foreign policy by ofering a comparative theoretical analysis of Canada’s international relations since 1945. My central claim is that, with respect to the Canadian case, not only are both realist and constructivist approaches relevant to the study of human rights but also that both must be treated in a complementary rather than in a competitive manner. Realism provides an undeniably useful explanatory framework for the inconsistencies and shortfalls of Canada’s international human rights policies. he fact is that Canada has rarely, if ever, proven willing to sacriice material advantage for international human rights. he utilitarian mainsprings of state behaviour remain a consistent feature of international relations. Yet structural realism cannot fully explain

Introduction

7

what compelled Canada, and other states, to actively pursue international human rights policies in the irst place. A constructivist identity-based perspective is needed in order to provide the missing explanatory parts. he constructivist narrative I ofer here presents Canadian identity as a historically recent and occasionally volatile project. Canada is physically vast, culturally diverse, and historically contested. Colonialism (the legacy of conquest over the peoples of the First Nations) and successive waves of immigration (irst from Europe and then the rest of the world) have created cleavages across the country’s disparate provinces and territories. One of the deepest and most troublesome divides concerns the role and place of the Province of Quebec in Canada’s federal system. his divide would test the resolve of Canadians as the separatist movement in Quebec gathered pace in the 1960s, leading not only to political confrontation at the ballot box but also to the formation of terrorist networks such as the Front de Libération du Québec (flq), which would perpetrate the violent attacks of the 1970 October Crisis. hese events would leave an indelible mark on Canadian politics. While recognizing that other factors were at play, measures to institutionalize human rights in Canada came primarily as a reaction to the acute threat of internal violence and fragmentation. In response, the Canadian government under Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau enacted constitutional guarantees for individual human rights as a necessary counterweight to potentially debilitating confrontations between the country’s diverse groups. he struggle for human rights in Canada would extend beyond the domestic frontier, however, as the federal government manoeuvred around provincial governments (such as Quebec) that were beginning to compete for jurisdiction in international relations. Human rights thus became a source of legitimacy from which the federal government could assert its authority by externally projecting a particular self-image of Canada as a just society that was undivided despite its diversity. Human rights concerns therefore played a key role in laying the contemporary foundations for Canadian federalism. In short, I argue that the role of human rights in Canadian foreign policy originated in its ability to forge internal national ties, to airm the sovereign authority of the Canadian government, and to mitigate the potential for future conlict.15 Human rights policies were pursued not because of changes in an essentialist notion of identity but, rather, as part of an aspirational sense of identity – a broader vision of what Canadian society should look like in order to survive as a coherent, uniied political entity.

8

Why Canada Cares

Rather than favouring one theoretical perspective over another or calling for a conceptual synthesis between the two, however, I stress the need for theoretical pluralism. A multiplicity of theoretical perspectives promises to be more useful for understanding state behaviour than any singular analysis that attempts to show that a particular set of variables is, a priori, “more fundamental” to international relations. Heeding this call will not eliminate the imperatives of rationalist-materialist interests and the rhetoric-reality gap so common in foreign afairs. Nonetheless, it will present a clearer picture of the role of human rights in Canadian foreign policy and international relations. Although there are limitations to the extent to which the present research indings can be generalized, I hope that the comparative approach I adopt in this Canadian case study yields insights with a wide application to the study of human rights and International Relations theory.

human rights, interests, and identities: the theoretical problem he theory of human rights has been contested repeatedly and on numerous grounds since the international recognition of the concept occurred with the advent of the United Nations (un) in 1945 and the subsequent adoption of the udhr in 1948.16 he ideological conlict of the Cold War, for instance, caused a divide between those states favouring political and civil rights and those favouring economic and social rights. A prominent debate in the 1980s, launched by the so-called “right to development thesis,” then centred on whether individual human rights are the product of, or the necessary conditions for, improvements in collective economic and social welfare.17 Similar issues were raised about the relationships linking human rights, development, and democracy.18 Driven largely by the governments of Singapore and China, the “Asian values debate” asked whether the cultural traditions of non-Western societies preclude human rights universalism.19 he tensions between human rights and sovereignty have hence preoccupied scholarship since the beginning of the postCold War era.20 he concept of human rights has nonetheless withstood these challenges and remains an important issue in international relations. To borrow Jack Donnelly’s expression, human rights have achieved “international normative universality” in that the vast majority of the world’s states now accept – in practice, in rhetoric, or as ideal standards – the validity of human

Introduction

9

rights as a normative principle.21 hey have become what Mervyn Frost calls “settled norms” of international politics such that contravention of international human rights standards requires explicit and particular justiication.22 For Louis Henkin, human rights is “the idea of our times, the only political idea that has earned universal (at least nominal) acceptance. he universalization of the human rights idea has contributed to a universal, if modest, human rights culture. Internationalization of this idea and the growing body of international human rights law have penetrated state societies and have injected speciic human values into inter-state politics and law and into the life of international institutions.”23 But human rights are facing a new set of challenges in international relations. Contemporary global pressures from anti-terror campaigns, inancial collapse, and the prospect of rising global powers fuel speculation that the currency of human rights may be waning. While the idea of human rights has succeeded in winning near-universal approval, the systemic failure to advance international norms beyond “nominal acceptance” raises concerns that human rights advocacy may have reached its upper limit. As Michael Ignatief put forward in 2002: “In the humanitarian interventions of the 1990’s, political igures … believed that they were ushering in a new era, backing human rights principles with political will and military steel. In reality, it was only an interregnum, made possible because Western militaries had spare capacity and time to do human rights work.”24 Ignatief’s intent was simply to provoke critical relection. hough it is readily apparent that human rights have not been swept into the dustbin of history as starkly as he suggests, non-compliant states may now have more leverage – or at least more conidence – to shirk international pressure in an ominous return to realpolitik. More signiicantly, the severity of Ignatief’s comment points to the inability of ir scholarship to address the topic of the era’s potential decline. To a large extent, this disciplinary shortfall is symptomatic of the chronic impasse between the ideational (constructivist) and rationalist-materialist (realist) perspectives that remain preponderant in human rights research. hese theoretical paradigms lie at the crux of ir and continue to deine – and divide – the discipline into separate camps. he linchpin of the constructivist argument is that human rights are elemental to international politics because of their key role in shaping international norms and constituting actors’ interests and identities.25 heorists such as Margaret Keck, Kathryn Sikkink, and Martha Finnemore argue that international politics is characterized by the advent of transnational networks of non-state actors that are able to change identity formation and

10

Why Canada Cares

state behaviour by transcending state boundaries, gathering and disseminating information, and mobilizing public opinion.26 And as states’ preferences are constructed endogenously through social interaction, human rights issues have emerged as an important identity marker in international relations. homas Risse and Stephen C. Ropp go so far as to claim that “human rights have become constitutive for modern statehood; they increasingly deine what it means to be a ‘state’ thereby placing growing limits on another constitutive element of modern statehood, ‘national sovereignty.’”27 Constructivists thus present human rights as a vital force in international relations that is changing the character of foundational institutions such as “sovereignty, territoriality, and the fundamental rules of international law.”28 On the contrary, realists emphasize the primacy of material interests, maintaining that concerns over security and raison d’état are unavoidable given the structural condition of anarchy that drives international relations.29 Human rights, in this regard, do not matter in the face of material interests and the enduring laws of international politics. In the eyes of most realists, constructivism has become the new idealism.30 Hence, constructivism is viewed as limited or prejudicial given the context of post-September 11th international relations, which has invited a “return of the state” and state-centred security issues that vindicate some of the realist tradition’s core assumptions.31 In the inal instance, however, neither theoretical approach produces a wholly satisfactory explanation for the emergence and endurance of the idea of human rights. Robert Keohane warns that the creation of dichotomies and their deliberate conlation within ir, however much part of a “time-hallowed rhetorical strategy,” is serious cause for concern.32 Pointing out that “the social world is not one of either/or,” he depicts the argument between realists and constructivists over whether material or ideational factors are “more fundamental” to international relations as analogous to “arguing whether the heart or the brain is more fundamental to life.”33 J. Samuel Barkin maintains a similar position. He argues that the realist-constructivist debate has declined into deliberate distortions on both sides: “Claims by constructivists that realist theory is incompatible with intersubjective epistemologies and methodologies are based on either caricatures or very narrow understandings of realism. And realist critics of constructivism are similarly guilty of inferring from the worldviews of some (perhaps many) practicing constructivists that the methodology is inherently biased toward liberalism.”34

Introduction

11

he present deadlock within the study of human rights in ir stems not from the way in which realism and constructivism are conceptualized and structured, per se, but from the way in which they are conceptualized and structured in relation to each other. Realists and constructivists have taken refuge in their own research agendas without heeding the insights and viewpoints of the opposing perspective. he existing literature on human rights in ir consequently lacks any systematic account that weighs the strengths and weaknesses of the two theories in tandem. I focus speciically on structural realism (associated most prominently with the work of Kenneth Waltz) and idealist constructivism (associated most prominently with the work of Alexander Wendt) as illustrations of the opposing perspectives that are largely responsible for having perpetuated and polarized the debate.35 hese approaches are emblematic of the extreme positions that either material factors or ideational factors are, respectively, “more fundamental” to international relations. On the ir front, I juxtapose the dominant variants of realism and constructivism in order to isolate their key variables, point to their strengths and weaknesses, and highlight the possibilities for a complementary approach to human rights in international relations. In addition, I aim to bridge the divide between ir and fpa, which, over the course of several decades, has grown increasingly vast. Essentially, scholars of fpa have become strangers in their own home. Although statecraft was once central to ir in the ield’s early decades, fpa became an obvious target in the aftermath of the behavioural revolution, and the advent of structural realism, for supposedly failing to meet certain standards of scientiic rigour. Even today, much of fpa research continues to be criticized for focusing on the particular or reductionist variables of state behaviour rather than on systemic ones abstracted from general principles. FPA’s subsequent retreat from mainstream ir, however, has had negative consequences not only for intra-disciplinary collaboration but also for the strength of the fpa research program as a whole. As Steve Smith admonishes, “he failure of general theories in fpa does not mean that one can retreat to a safe-ground of uncontentious, nontheoretical case studies,” which “has been the most noticeable reaction to the all-tooevident breakdown of the search for general theory.”36 Regrettably, in turning away from the stark conceptual frameworks of the broader ield, the study of Canadian foreign policy sufers from this problematic reliance on non-theoretical narratives, or something that much resembles Cliford Geertz’s notion of “thick description.”37

12

Why Canada Cares

Conscious of these shortfalls, I attempt to bring fpa and ir theory one step closer together on methodological grounds. Both subields stand to make signiicant gains through cross-fertilization. fpa can ill aford to ignore the systemic factors of international relations – the key contributions of general theories – that deliver more powerful explanations of state behaviour than an exclusive focus on decision-making processes. Equally, systemic theories of ir are limited because their focus on general, longer-term trends overlooks the unit-level processes that are vital for explaining speciic foreign policy outcomes. Unit-level analysis is also key to understanding the prospect for structural change in the international system. As Ruggie argues, observing aggregate shifts in actors’ social patterns and interactive capacities is necessary because, “in any social system, structural change ultimately has no source other than unit-level processes.”38 A inal issue that often arises is whether to treat a theory as explanatory or constitutive. According to Smith, “the main meta-theoretical issue facing international theory today … is between those theories that seek to ofer explanatory accounts of international relations, and those that see theory as constitutive of that reality.”39 I accept, to some extent, that both realist-like and constructivist-like mindsets have played a constitutive role in Canadian foreign policy since the postwar era. Denis Stairs, a leading Canadian diplomatic historian, points out, for instance, that realism was the standard “operational code” in the early decades of the Cold War.40 Equally, the promotion and preservation of identity has been a consistent object of Canada’s international policies. Yet there are limitations to the extent to which constitutive efects can be shown to be taking place on an active level of policymaking. his point is especially valid considering the complexity of foreign policy decisions in federalist democracies such as Canada. here is no substantive evidence to claim, in other words, that empirical events that ostensibly correspond to realist or constructivist frameworks cannot exist independently from ir theory – especially as constructivism, in its present state, did not emerge until well into the 1990s. I hence assume, for methodological purposes, that realism and constructivism are explanatory. I analyze Canadian foreign policy through both realist and constructivist frameworks, my intent being to provide a bridge between both theoretical perspectives and between the subields of ir and fpa. Bridge building can be onerous if not dangerous work. Although I do not pretend to solve all points of contention between realism and constructivism or between ir and fpa, I nonetheless attempt to start this crucial conversation: and Canada is a particularly useful site for such a comparative study.

Introduction

13

human rights in canadian foreign policy: the empirical problem he Government of Canada regularly propounds that “human rights is a central theme of Canadian foreign policy.”41 It claims, furthermore, that Canada is a world leader in promoting and protecting human rights through the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, La Francophonie, and the Organization of American States (oas), among other multilateral organizations.42 he country’s international reputation on human rights is outwardly supported by initiatives that include the Ottawa Process on anti-personnel landmines; the establishment of the icc for prosecuting genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity; as well as sponsorship of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm through the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (iciss).43 Although there may be occasional cause for criticism over Canada’s stance on certain issues or its country-speciic policies, Canada has received accolades on numerous occasions for its vociferous support of international human rights causes. As David Forsythe contends: “Canadian foreign policy has been generally progressive on rights abroad. It is well known that Ottawa has long prided itself on its record.”44 he role of human rights champion is one that Canada relishes. Yet a closer examination of the empirical record reveals that international human rights promotion is a relatively recent phenomenon in the domain of Canadian policymaking. Human rights did not become part of the vocabulary of Canadian foreign policy until the mid-1970s, when two external events forced Canada’s hand: the 1975 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which culminated in the Helsinki Final Act; and us president Jimmy Carter’s initiatives to normalize and promote human rights in international afairs.45 It was not until the patriation of the Canadian Constitution and the launch of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 that Canada began to develop international policies on human rights in earnest. Hence, contrary to popular mythology, Canada did not become an active international proponent of human rights until the 1980s and early 1990s.46 he case of Canada consequently afords a unique opportunity for empirical research. In the absence of pressure or coercion, Canada’s international policies on human rights developed from a position of opposition to one of strong advocacy. In this sense, Canada is an empirical anomaly. he existing literature on human rights in international relations has

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Why Canada Cares

tended to treat state support for human rights as a matter of compellence by other actors. Constructivist studies focus on the way in which human rights “bad” states can be socialized into human rights “good” states (i.e., those that observe international norms).47 heir evidence comes principally from relatively small, post-authoritarian countries across Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia rather than from established democracies or countries of substantial international inluence. Realist works point to the conlation of human rights with the national interest of hegemonic states.48 Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis goes further to argue that the drive to universalize human rights and individual liberties is an essentially “Western” imperialist project.49 here are several reasons why an exclusive focus on the Canadian case yields particular insight. First, although Canada is widely regarded as a leading advocate of international human rights, little is known about why it adopted this position. he fact that Canada is now one of the world’s leading advocates of universal human rights when it was initially an opponent is even more puzzling. hat Canada’s support for human rights was neither evident at the start of the postwar period nor the product of exogenous pressure indicates that this development occurred endogenously. Curiously, though, there have been no sustained studies of human rights in Canadian foreign policy since the 1988 edited volume by Robert O. Matthews and Cranford Pratt.50 Exposing this underproblematized area of Canadian foreign policy to conceptual scrutiny is overdue. Second, examining the substance and success (or failure) of Canada’s human rights initiatives should provide a general indication of the possibilities and limitations of human rights as a foreign policy issue area. Drawing from analogies by Robert Keohane and Stephen Krasner, Donnelly argues that, because regimes arise to correct market failure or to improve eiciency where transactions are poorly coordinated, international human rights regimes will naturally appear when suicient “moral demand” intersects with entrepreneurs who are willing and able to “supply” the means to regulate state behaviour.51 he extent to which Canada is able to supply human rights in international politics is an indication of demand. hus, although U2’s Bono may have declared that “the world needs more Canada,” it remains to be seen whether the world wants more Canada and more human rights.52 his case is particularly useful given that Canada, as a country of modest global inluence, tends to favour the type of multilateral arrangements that are the backbone of contemporary international regimes.

Introduction

15

hird, the Canadian case study highlights the convergence (and divergence) between human rights policies in the domestic and international spheres. Canadian society contains considerable ethnic, religious, socioeconomic, linguistic, regional, and cultural cleavages that are compounded by the country’s colonial history and conquest over the First Nations. Fierce contestations over equality and social justice have become central features of Canada’s political landscape. At times, successive governments have ignored – or, in some cases, methodically perpetuated – the underlying causes of inequality and injustice that fuel these contests. Universal sufrage, for instance, was achieved only in 1960 with the gradual repeal of the Dominion Exclusion Act, 1920, which prevented the franchise from extending to certain ethnic and religious groups.53 Citizenship rights were equally discriminatory – as per the Chinese Exclusion Act, 1885, and the Chinese Exclusion Act, 1923 – until multiculturalism began as an oicial policy in 1971.54 hese gradual changes paved the way for the constitutionally entrenched Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 and for greater attention to human rights in foreign afairs. Determining whether Canada’s international policies on human rights relect changes in social diversity and the domestic constitution of Canada’s national identity or whether they adhere to a materialist logic independent of the country’s societal composition has implications for understanding the sources of Canadian foreign policy on a broader level. Overall, these insights will help to shine a light on the role of human rights in Canada’s international relations.

organization of the book I divide this book into two parts, each with a distinct conceptual lens. In part 1, which comprises chapters 2 and 3, I deal with structural realism’s theoretical and empirical accounts of human rights in international relations and Canadian foreign policy, respectively. In part 2, which comprises chapters 4 and 5, I consider the idealist constructivist perspective in the same fashion. In chapter 2, I begin with structural realism as the null hypothesis that human rights do not matter in the face of material interests. he chapter provides an overview of the development of structural realism as a scholastic enterprise, with particular emphasis on its contribution to ir as a ield of inquiry. I trace structural realism’s ascendancy as the product of disciplinary pressures and as an attempt to defend the realist project and the independence of ir as a distinct social science. Finally,

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Why Canada Cares

I present a structural realist framework for the study of human rights in foreign policy based on the precepts advanced by Kenneth Waltz’s theory of international politics. In chapter 3, I explore the structural realist view of human rights in Canadian foreign policy. More precisely, I apply a structural realist framework to the analysis of Canadian foreign policy during three historical periods: the Cold War, the post-Cold War, and the post-9/11 war on terror. I demonstrate that, although material notions of the national interest were an important foundation for Canada’s early postwar policies, structural realism has diiculty explaining the emergence of human rights in Canadian foreign policy in the late 1970s and 1980s. Power politics cannot explain this development. Nonetheless, realism remains an important theoretical framework that provides convincing explanations for the stark inconsistencies and shortfalls of Canada’s international human rights policies. In chapter 4, I provide an overview of constructivism and the framework it ofers for the study of human rights, beginning with a survey of the rise of constructivism after the Cold War due to the perceived failures of structural realism. Constructivist theorizing subsequently developed as a collection of assumptions, claims, and contentions that ran contrary to rationalist-materialist theorizing. I examine the idealist form of constructivism emblemized by the work of Alexander Wendt. As a direct attack on Waltz’s theory of structural realism, Wendt’s brand of constructivism presents a robust social theory of international politics as a counterweight to rationalist-materialist theorizing. I also highlight the constructivist insight of looking at foreign policy as an expression of collective notions of contested identities. In chapter 5, I view an empirical analysis of Canadian foreign policy through the lens of an idealist form of constructivism. As a historically recent and potentially volatile entity, Canadian identity is the source of considerable insecurity. he nation’s self-image has been vulnerable to the threats of declining international power, excessive us inluence, and the problem of national unity. To a large extent, Canadian foreign policy has been concerned with these three threats to how it projects its national identity abroad. Accordingly, I divide this chapter into three sections that correspond to the broad periods in which Canadian foreign policy centred successively on (1) the external projection of internationalism (1945– 68), (2) Canadian sovereignty (1968–84), and (3) the Canadian model of pluralism (1984 onwards). I show that Canada’s international policies on human rights developed from domestic pressures and institutions that

Introduction

17

emerged, in large part, as a response to the problem of national unity. An idealist form of constructivism therefore provides a convincing – if still incomplete – account of the underlying reasons and motivations behind Canada’s international policies on human rights. With respect to terminology, I adopt Kim Nossal’s use of the term “Canadian foreign policy” to mean “Canada’s external objectives, its orientation to the international system, its relations with other states, its positions on world politics, and its decisions, programmes and actions.”55 I also use the term “Canada” with reference to the state rather than to its peoples or geography. I use the term “Canada” rather than “Canadian government” for three reasons. First, collective agents have attributes that cannot be reduced to the properties of individual units. In this regard, it is more appropriate to speak of “Canada” as a collective agent than it is to speak of the individual government. Second, it is problematic to refer to the “Canadian government” because Canada, as a federalist state, has a multilayered approach to governance and collective decision making. he provinces, for instance, have exclusive power over certain policy issues (such as education, culture, and, in some cases, natural resources and revenues). hird, “Canadian government” can be confused with the particular administration that happens to be in power at any given time. Finally, I should note that, on occasion, I favour the term “federal government,” which I use interchangeably with “Ottawa.”

PART ONE

“Interests All the Way Down”

2 Realism and the Study of Human Rights

Few traditions have contributed as much to the ield of ir as has realism. As Scott Burchill observes, “Realism is widely regarded as the most inluential theoretical tradition in International Relations, even by its harshest critics.”1 Over the course of its history, realism has shaped the content, method, and practice of ir unlike any other school of thought. It has become inseparable from the substance of ir itself, remaining “the central tradition in the study of world politics” since at least the Second World War.2 In Jack Donnelly’s opinion, “Whether one loves it or hates it – or is at once fascinated and repulsed – the student of international relations cannot ignore realism.”3 Realism’s dominance within the ield has surpassed its principal focus on interstate conlict and competition as its analytic reach extends to the most central debates and concepts of ir. Realism therefore afects international human rights research in an ineluctable way and presents a vital starting point for the purposes of this book. Given the variation within the tradition, however, arriving at a single, catholic set of realist precepts about human rights is by no means a straightforward task. he intellectual tradition of political realism is arguably more of a “general orientation,” or “philosophical disposition,” than a unitary theory of ir.4 Scholars have thus disagreed over the substance and nomenclature of realism’s various branches. Jack Donnelly, for instance, identiies ive typologies of realism (structural realism, biological realism, radical realism, strong realism, and hedged realism) and six main paradigms (Hobbes, Morgenthau, Waltz, the Prisoner’s Dilemma, hucydides, and Machiavelli).5 Tim Dunne and Brian C. Schmidt categorize realism into four variants: historical or practical realism, structural realism I, structural realism II, and liberal realism.6 Charles L. Glaser refers to ofensive and defensive realists while he uses “standard structural-realism” to develop his

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own branch, which he calls “contingent realism.”7 Richard K. Ashley’s postpositivist critique makes a distinction between practical realism and technical realism.8 R.B.J. Walker divides realism into historical and structural streams.9 Similarly, Stephen G. Brooks orders the tradition into postclassical realism and neorealism. While this list is far from exhaustive, it illustrates that there is no consensus on the categorical branches of the realist tradition. Indeed most, if not all, of this categorization is done post hoc according to the particular pedagogic inclinations of each project. For my purposes, however, a diferent pedagogic device may prove more useful. Rather than presenting realism as a set of confusing and contestable typologies or attempting to highlight the “richness of the tradition” in its entirety,10 I focus on the staunch materialist end of the spectrum, occupied conventionally by “neorealism,” or “structural realism,” of which Kenneth Waltz’s work is emblematic. Structural realism occupies an extreme position, which maintains that material factors are “more fundamental” to international relations than are other factors. It advocates a high degree of abstraction that allows material factors to be studied in isolation. Certainly, the profound intellectual impact of Waltz’s theory of structural realism on the development of the tradition and the study of ir as a ield of inquiry cannot be understated. Structural realism has provoked some of the discipline’s most intense debates concerning such fundamental issues as the levels of analysis problem, the purpose of theory and its relation to practice, questions of change and continuity in the international system, and the dynamics between agency and structure.11 Structural realism is, on balance, an apposite and indispensable foundation for analysis. At irst glance, structural realism’s disregard for human rights may appear fairly obvious. Because of its highly structuralist-materialist emphasis on the balance of power, the purview of Waltzian assumptions has little scope for or interest in human rights. Hence, structural realism is commonly criticized for being ahistorical, amoral, limited in scope, or even misleading.12 Yet the tradition has largely withstood these attacks and remains an important ixture of ir. Although critics may charge that Waltz wrongly dismisses important instances of successful cooperation in international relations, contending theories still do not account for instances of cooperative failure as parsimoniously or elegantly as does structural realism. Strong structuralist-materialist theories retain analytic import because they provide persuasive arguments that explain why states choose to ignore human rights institutions or eschew human rights policies in favour of material power and interest.

Realism and the Study of Human Rights

23

Overall, in this chapter I seek to situate the present human rights debate, regarding the role of human rights in Canadian foreign policy, within a structural realist framework. I divide the chapter into two main sections. In the irst section, I provide a survey of Waltz’s theory of international politics, tracing the intellectual lineage of structural realism from its earliest predecessors to its contemporary impact on the debates within, and deinition of, ir as a ield of inquiry. I also underscore the disciplinary pressures that enabled a structuralist-materialist variant of realism to emerge and to become dominant in the irst place. In the second section, I then apply this survey to the study of human rights, providing a theoretical overview of structural realism’s main assumptions about international human rights as well as the behavioural expectations that these assumptions imply. I argue that structural realism cannot be ignored in the study of human rights in international relations as all facets of state behaviour remain structurally contingent on the enduring problem of war and the struggle for relative power in an anarchic system. Structural realism therefore provides useful explanations for the frailty of international human rights institutions and for why human rights obtain such little currency in foreign afairs.

structural realism in international relations While the realist tradition has been most inluential in giving shape and substance to ir as a ield of study, Kenneth Waltz’s particular brand of realism has arguably served as the dominant and most inluential perspective within that tradition. Regardless of whether or not one agrees with its core tenets, structural realism’s inluence on the ield is undeniable. Even John Vasquez, an ardent critic of structural realism, recognizes that Waltz’s heory of International Politics is, incontrovertibly, “the single most important work in terms of its intellectual impact on the ield, the attention it has received, the research to which it has given rise, and its use to inform policy analyses.”13 Another critic, Stefano Guzzini, contends that, whether one is for structural realism or against it, the theory has spawned such a signiicant breadth and depth of scholarship that, if not for Waltz’s initiative, it would have had to be invented anyway.14 Structural realism’s contribution stems not only from the propositions that it advances but also from its ability to command key debates about the purpose and substance of ir as an academic enterprise. Principally, the leading proponents of structural realism have been able to direct disciplinary debate by marketing their product as the theory of

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Why Canada Cares

international politics. Imitating the rigorous methodological models of the natural sciences, Waltz sought to limit the study of ir to the structural properties of the international system that give rise to balancing. Robert Keohane points out that neorealism’s signiicance may rest more upon its disciplinary contribution – its attempt to “systematize political realism into a rigorous, deductive, systemic theory of international politics” – than upon its scientiic innovation.15 Vasquez ofers a similar view, while singling out Morgenthau as the main conceptual predecessor from whose work structural realism is drawn. he theory is, according to Vasquez, built upon classical realist foundations carried to the logical conclusions of a structuralist framework.16 hus, structural realism is an inseparable part of the realist canon, although it occupies an extreme position within the tradition itself. Understanding why realism was ultimately inclined or driven towards the positivist models of the natural sciences is key to understanding the theoretical premises and disciplinary implications of the structural realist project. hus, this section of the chapter is divided into two parts. In the irst part I explore the disciplinary pressures that led to its conception at the outer structuralist-materialist extremes of the realist tradition. Providing a complete and exhaustive account of the tradition’s evolution is beyond the scope of this chapter, but I trace the major works and scholars that contributed to these disciplinary developments and pressures. his brief outline is especially pertinent for framing the root causes of, and degree of polarity within, the realist-constructivist debate. As I show in chapter 4, constructivism was devised as a direct reply to the failures of structural realism, which came to a head with the abrupt demise of the Cold War. Devising a conceptual reply to an extreme position, however, led to the subsequent development of constructivism as an opposite extreme. In the second part of this section I go on to survey Waltz’s theory of structural realism in greater detail, emphasizing his key arguments and core tenets – particularly those that are signiicant for the following section on the structural realist view of human rights in international relations – while pointing to the continuing relevance of the realist theory of international politics. he Construction of Realism and the Field of International Relations Realism is often cited as the ield’s most enduring theoretical tradition. Despite the relative novelty of ir within social science, realists often

Realism and the Study of Human Rights

25

appropriate such thinkers as hucydides, Hobbes, Machiavelli, and Rousseau under the realist rubric and point to their continuing prominence as evidence of the “timeless wisdom” of realist principles. Keohane thus contends: “For over 2,000 years, what Hans J. Morgenthau dubbed ‘Political Realism’ has constituted the principal tradition for the analysis of international relations.”17 Certainly, there is disciplinary disagreement about the extent to which the realist tradition of ir can claim such a long and distinguished pedigree. David Welch, for instance, argues that hucydides’ complex narrative of the Peloponnesian War emphasizes the importance of political choice rather than the structural inevitability of the balance of power.18 For realists to claim hucydides as one of their own is, according to Welch, a serious, if not intellectually dishonest, misappropriation. Yet, as realism has occupied such a dominant position within ir, it is not altogether clear why a structuralist-materialist variant became the tradition’s ascendant voice. Put simply, why was a new version of realism – neorealism, or structural realism – a necessary disciplinary departure? A brief survey of the literature reveals that one cannot understand the development of the realist tradition without understanding its attempt to shape the study of ir itself. Structural realism must be viewed as a product of its classical realist foundations as well as of the disciplinary pressures that paved the way for its ascendancy. Ultimately, the innovators of structural realism sought to narrow the content and method of ir not merely to defend some of the realist tradition’s general precepts but also to defend ir as an independent and legitimate ield of social science. To a large extent, structural realists have sought to preserve the basis from which ir was founded in the aftermath of the First World War as an inquiry into the problem of war. As a nascent ield of study, ir ofered hope where other disciplines had seemingly failed. E.H. Carr’s he Twenty Years’ Crisis, one of the ield’s irst seminal texts, saw the realist project as a remedy for the excesses of liberal internationalism. Interwar statesmen from Wilson to Chamberlain were driven by the conviction that peace could be constructed through rational deliberation. As Carr noted in 1939: “he passionate desire to prevent war determined the whole initial course and direction of the study. Like other infant sciences, the science of international politics has been markedly and frankly utopian.”19 Carr believed, however, that this “utopianism,” or “idealism,” led ultimately to ruinous policies and deicient science. Fundamentally, idealism ignored the pivotal role of power.20 his omission is a serious one, according to Carr, as conlicts of power are invariable facts of all political life. Realism,

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Why Canada Cares

with its emphasis on power and the fallacy of the common interest, was hence constructed as a direct reply to this oversight. Carr’s dichotomy between idealism and realism sparked what is commonly known as the “First Great Debate” of ir. In retrospect, Peter Wilson points out that the debate was more of a pedagogic device to elegantly categorize a variety of theoretical approaches.21 his device is not without analytical merit, but it is historically misleading. An exceedingly broad inventory of notions and scholars, Wilson contends, were crammed under the idealist umbrella. To a large extent, the coherence of idealism as a systematic body of literature or a distinct theoretical approach was manufactured. Still, Carr’s depiction of ir largely as a rencontre between idealist and realist thinking had an unmistakable impact on the development of the discipline. With the advent of the Second World War and the growing scepticism surrounding the capacity for human reason to deliver a solution to the problem of war, realism seemed to ofer a more accurate relection of political life and the promise of a more scientiic understanding of international relations than did idealism. It is precisely because of this promise that realism has had such a profound impact on deining the substantive content, method, and practice of ir as a distinct ield of inquiry. Carr’s version of realism, however, could not fulil this pledge. Rather than favouring pure realism or pure idealism, Carr advocated a balance between the two extremes, which Ken Booth calls “utopian realism.”22 In Carr’s own words: “here is a stage where realism is the necessary corrective to the exuberance of utopianism, just as in other periods utopianism must be invoked to counteract the barrenness of realism … Sound political thought and sound political life will be found only where both have their place.”23 Bridging idealism and realism was thus Carr’s answer to the problem of war. Yet Carr left no recipe for how war could be mitigated by creating and preserving a balance between idealism and realism. As Tim Dunne points out, “the weakness in the argument, like the diiculty with the balance between the background theories of realism and utopianism, is that Carr does not explain how it is possible to have both elements.”24 Carr’s contribution to the realist project was therefore overshadowed by the failure to reach a complete scientiic solution to the problem of war. Hans J. Morgenthau attempted to provide the answer. In Politics Among Nations, Morgenthau seeks to identify the maxims unique to international politics by basing his theory of realism on “objective laws that have their roots in human nature.”25 He argues inductively that “human nature, in

Realism and the Study of Human Rights

27

which the laws of politics have their roots, has not changed since the classical philosophies of China, India, and Greece endeavored to discover these laws.”26 hrough this foundational principle, Morgenthau deduces ive others that lead to the justiication of ir as an independent discipline. he study of politics, according to Morgenthau, is the exclusive study of interest deined in terms of power.27 He argues as follows: he realist defense of the autonomy of the political sphere against its subversion by other modes of thought does not imply disregard for the existence and importance of these other modes of thought. It rather implies that each should be assigned its proper sphere and function. Political realism is based upon a pluralistic conception of human nature. Real man is a composite of “economic man,” “political man,” “moral man,” “religious man,” etc. … Recognizing that these diferent facets of human nature exist, political realism also recognizes that in order to understand one of them one has to deal with it on its own terms.28 Morgenthau’s conception of ir is thus inclined towards theoretical parsimony and abstraction. For Guzzini, Morgenthau “turned realism from the historical experience and shared knowledge of a diplomatic culture to a social science theory.”29 His search for a scientiic theory of international politics helped to justify ir’s independence within the scientiic community. Concurrently, the problem of war was further entrenched as the exclusive domain of ir. his problem, according to Morgenthau, is one of repetition and recurrence as “all history shows that nations active in international politics are continuously preparing for, actively involved in, or recovering from organized violence in the form of war.”30 In other words, war is not a policy choice but an inevitable phenomenon. Only through the creation of a world state antedated by a world community can the problem of war be eliminated.31 Given the improbability of this scenario, however, Morgenthau suggests that diplomacy is the only plausible means to moderate the problem. he remedy to idealism in Morgenthau’s theory of realism is hence found in an understanding of political power. In hindsight, Morgenthau’s theory was crucial from a disciplinary vantage point in its attempt to systematize Carr’s theoretical work by delimiting the boundaries of ir around a set of objective laws and in its attempt to assert the ield’s independence as a veritable

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Why Canada Cares

scientiic enterprise. hese eforts served as the cornerstones from which structural realism later developed. Meanwhile, classical realism’s persistent inability to account for why war was such a recurrent phenomenon of international politics – beyond stating that it was simply a matter of fact – would also prove to be decisive in the tradition’s eventual turn towards structuralist-materialist assumptions. he boundaries that were set by Morgenthau were challenged vehemently – for instance, with the advent of the behavioural revolution. As Guzzini notes: “he irst debate succeeded in separating International Relations from other academic ields in terms of its speciic subjectmatter. It failed, however, to provide a methodological demarcation.”32 he behavioural revolution of the 1960s attacked ir’s claim to science by questioning the objective rigour of its method. In other words, behaviouralists would argue that ir was still not a real science, despite what realists claimed, because its methodologies were weak and underdeveloped. As per Barry Buzan: For the behaviouralists, the problem was that explanation in international relations was methodologically confused and lacking in rigour. As in historical method, the typical analysis mixed diferent locations and sources of explanations, and this both weakened the attempt to create more general types of understanding (theory) and prevented the development of cumulative science. he heated argument between behaviouralists and traditionalists eventually died down into an uneasy stalemate, but the behaviouralists did carry the point that whatever their approach scientists needed to be more conscious about the methodological, ontological and epistemological aspects of their work.33 Students of international politics were thus forced to re-examine their core assumptions. In so doing, realists not only engaged with the positivist models of testing hypotheses through falsiication but also scrutinized key concepts such as human nature, the national interest, anarchy, the balance of power, and power itself. he behavioural revolution challenged Morgenthau’s theory of political realism because it basically rendered obsolete the notion of human nature upon which it was premised. Moreover, behaviouralism undermined the distinctiveness of ir by challenging the claim that international politics requires a unique research program due to qualitative diferences with other disciplines. In other words, behaviouralism

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29

sanctioned importing methodologies from other ields of social science. Once again, realism took centre stage in the contest over the substantive content and method of ir. Flirtations with game theory and the security dilemma seemed to ofer a temporary reprieve. Soon thereafter, however, realism would hit yet another stumbling block in the form of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Although the 1962 crisis predated the advent of behaviouralism, Graham T. Allison’s 1971 publication, Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis, had a profound impact on the realist project.34 Allison’s study sought to explain Soviet and American decisions during the crisis and to discern theoretical and practical lessons. He analyzed the Cuban Missile Crisis through three conceptual models: (1) the rational actor model, which assumes that states pursue foreign policy based on the ideals of national interest; (2) the organizational process model, which argues that decisions are made based on the organizational structure of the decision-making process; and, (3) the governmental politics model, which argues that decisions are the product of bargaining between intergovernmental oices. Allison’s three “cuts” of the Cuban Missile Crisis reveal greater depth as one proceeds from the rational actor model to the governmental politics model. Allison’s study inds that the empirical reality of the Cuban Missile Crisis is better portrayed through a multiplicity of conceptual frameworks. Each of his cuts reveals aspects about decision making during the crisis that a single theory could not provide on its own. he implications of Allison’s work were profound. As Guzzini notes: Foreign policy analysis should have been at the core of a realist theory of International Relations. But, rather than attempting to explain the origins of foreign policies, realists more often than not took them for granted. Consequently, Allison’s framework made the research agenda of International Relations explode. It redeined the boundaries of the discipline, and thus threatened the overlap between realist assumptions of world politics and the identity of International Relations.35 Allison’s work was inluential because it revealed the extent of realism’s failure. he Cuban Missile Crisis was a critical moment in the history of international politics – one that hinged on conlict, competition, and the core issues of the realist paradigm. Rather than conirming realism’s validity, however, the crisis exposed its explanatory weaknesses. Allison’s indings challenged the salience of realism and its pursuit – or the inherent

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possibility – of a general theory of international politics. he expansion of ir’s disciplinary boundaries seemed all the more inevitable as, under constant scrutiny, realism’s credentials fell. In efect, the conceptual purchase of realism and the independence of ir as a distinct ield of inquiry were simultaneously at risk. he response to this dilemma would come in the development of structural realism. Structural Realism and the heory of International Politics Kenneth Waltz, in his axiomatic work heory of International Politics, attempts to rescue the realist tradition by entrenching a subject matter and methodology that could inally satisfy a scientiic approach to international politics. In many ways, Waltz’s theory contains elements that can be drawn from the latter chapters of Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations as well as Waltz’s earlier work, Man, the State, and War.36 Yet neither was satisfactory on its own with regard to defending the realist tradition and the study of ir as an independent ield of social science. he solution to this problem was found in the complete rejection of human nature as the basis for deriving the objective laws from which realists had attempted to establish the study of international politics. Instead, Waltz sought a systemic foundation for the theory of international politics, which he hoped would validate ir as a distinct social science with structural realism at its core. Waltz’s treatise begins by diferentiating between theories and laws, the former consisting of statements that explain laws, the latter “identify[ing] invariant or probable associations … established only if they pass observation or experimental tests.”37 he ultimate test of a theory, according to Waltz, is not whether it is realistic but whether it is useful, judged according to its explanatory and predictive powers.38 Hence, a theory of international politics must isolate and abstract those factors that lend themselves to the greatest degree of theoretical parsimony in explanation and prediction. Waltz criticized the existing canon of ir scholarship for its lack of rigour in this respect. His general notion of theoretical inquiry can thus be regarded as an attempt to justify the scientiic credentials of ir by eliminating normative or excessively descriptive content from analysis. Waltz then diferentiates between reductionist and systemic theories of international politics. He describes the former as an inductive approach that attempts to understand the whole through the sum of its parts.39 Systemic approaches, however, show the distinction between the systems level (or structure) and its constituent units, thereby seeking to explain

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the relationship between the two.40 Waltz contends that, in the study of international politics, reductionism is seriously lawed because it oversimpliies the problem of war, reducing it to the circular notion that “wars occur because some states are warlike.”41 In other words, reductionism relies erroneously on the level of description rather than on the level of generalization from which theories are devised.42 Again, Waltz criticizes his predecessors for either ignoring systemic approaches to the study of ir altogether or for using the term haphazardly and without suicient rigour. Waltz thus sought to construct his theory of structural realism as a departure from his realist forerunners by concentrating his analysis on the systemic properties of international relations. While recognizing that the principal components of a system consist of a structure and interacting units, he assigns foremost importance to international structure as “the system-wide component that makes it possible to think of the system as a whole.”43 he signiicance of structure is that it “deines the arrangement, or the ordering, of the parts of a system.”44 Waltz stipulates further that structure has three determinants: the ordering principle of the system, classiied dichotomously according to hierarchic or anarchic properties; the character of the units, diferentiated by their speciied functions; and the distribution of capabilities across units. In Waltz’s model, however, the second determinant is abandoned because he assumes that all states, the primary actors of the international system, are negligibly diferentiated with regard to their function. Given international anarchy, all states must help themselves to ensure their own survival. Waltz is therefore able to provide a convincing account of why states behave similarly despite their diverse cultures, histories, and domestic political structures. Waltz also abandons the ordering principle of the system in his analysis. He acknowledges that the simple dichotomy of anarchy and hierarchy does not accurately relect the varying degrees of hierarchy found in the numerous political organizations of the real world. Yet Waltz maintains that the desire to digress from his dichotomy would not only be to sacriice theoretical parsimony but would also “be to move away from a theory claiming explanatory power to a less theoretical system promising greater descriptive accuracy.”45 As the purpose of his theory is to explain the general laws of international politics in a manner that maximizes explanatory and predictive purchase, structural realism is concerned with the recurrences and repetitions of international politics rather than the prospects for change.46 he idea that anarchy can be transcended and cause a transformation of the international system is simply a non-starter

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for Waltz’s theory of international politics as it would unravel his conceptualization of theoretical inquiry as a pursuit that seeks to maximize explanatory and predictive power. Ultimately, of the three components of international structure, the Waltzian brand of realism allows only for variation within the distribution of capabilities across the units of the system. Power is, accordingly, “deined in terms of the distribution of capabilities.”47 Hence, in attempting to overcome the challenges with which earlier realists and the ield of ir were faced, Waltz, whose deinition of power rejects the problematic socio-psychological conceptions that served as the basis for previous standards of realism, constructs his theory on structuralist-materialist foundations. He advocates a purely materialist, objective deinition, pointing to the persistent pitfall of conceptualizing power as a social relation when the presence or absence of social power cannot be deinitively known or inferred.48 Waltz’s theory thus contends that the relative position of units in relation to one another changes according to the relative distribution of material capabilities within the system. While his predecessors had regarded the balance of power as a matter of foreign policy, Waltz deduces that the process of balancing is an inevitable and recurrent phenomenon of the international system.49 Structural realism’s systemic analysis of the balance of power, in other words, leads a priori to the conclusion that the threat of war is a perpetual feature of international politics because of the anarchic structure of international relations. For Waltz, the international system “is one in which those who do not help themselves, or who do so less efectively than others, will fail to prosper, will lay themselves open to dangers, will sufer. Fear of such unwanted consequences stimulates states to behave in ways that tend towards the creation of balances of power.”50 Waltz’s structuralist-materialist theory of international politics thereby limits its scope to the study of how the international system is maintained through balancing.51 Anarchy, and the self-help system that it implies, remains the permissive cause of the problem of war in international relations – an explanation that circumvents the messiness of human nature while preserving the problem of war as the central disciplinary focus of ir. In many ways, structural realism occupies an extreme position within the broader realist literature because its austere structuralist-materialist vantage point seems to ofer a viable position from which to defend ir as a distinct social science. Following this lead, Robert Gilpin’s work sought to reinforce the structural realist project by lending empirical evidence to Waltz’s theory. In

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War and Change in World Politics, Gilpin expands the structural realist framework to incorporate the economic causes that lead to changes in material power capabilities and hence in the structural balance of power over time. Gilpin states explicitly that his hypotheses are “based on the assumption that the fundamental nature of international relations has not changed over the millennia. International relations continue to be a recurring struggle for wealth and power among independent actors in a state of anarchy.”52 Analogous to Waltz, Gilpin’s purview of change is restricted to changes in the relative balance of power in the international system. He argues that “a precondition for political change lies in a disjuncture between the existing social system and the redistribution of power toward those actors who would beneit most from a change in the system.”53 Systemic change within this model thus occurs only when a disequilibrium in the system necessitates a new distribution of power that relects the interests of the system’s dominant members.54 Following a utilitarian, micro-economic formulation of international politics, Gilpin writes: “he explanation of international political change is in large measure a matter of accounting for shifts in the slopes and positions of the indiference curves of states and in the speciic objectives of foreign policy.”55 On the whole, Gilpin advances the structural realist project by demonstrating that the theory can withstand empirical testing. Far from being averse to empiricism, his study underlines structural realism’s rigour and the potential of its research program. Clearly, although structural realism was built upon the broader foundations of the realist canon, it represents a departure that arose from speciic disciplinary pressures to occupy a position at the tradition’s structuralist-materialist extreme. Joseph Grieco attempts to summarize the tenets of structural realism in ive main points: First, states are the major actors in world afairs. Second, the international environment severely penalizes states if they fail to protect their vital interests or if they pursue objectives beyond their means; hence, states are “sensitive to costs” and behave as unitary-rational agents. hird, international anarchy is the principal force shaping the motives and actions of states. Fourth, states in anarchy are preoccupied with power and security, are predisposed towards conlict and competition, and often fail to cooperate even in the face of common interests. Finally, international institutions afect the prospects for cooperation only marginally.56

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Regardless of whether or not one agrees with its tenets or aspirations, structural realism’s profound efect on ir is undeniable. No other theory has had such a deinitive impact on the substance, method, and practice of ir as a social scientiic ield of inquiry. Stefano Guzzini argues that there are two conventional ways to set a discipline apart: through an independent subject or through a distinct methodology.57 he endemic feature of ir, however, is that its substantive boundaries, core research problems, and methods are far from clear. Structural realism attempts to secure scientiic legitimacy for ir by drawing a methodological analogy with microeconomics and claiming to have developed the theory of international politics. As Guzzini states: he imitation of the deductive methodology and the market assumptions of neoclassical economics proved fertile for theoretical debates, but also invaluable for the academic prestige of International Relations. In other words, by setting a demarcation and by imitating a respected method, the discipline and its independence was both identiied and legitimated.58 hus, in its attempt to deine a core subject matter (centring on the endemic problem of international war) and a common methodology (centring on the structuralist-materialist analysis of the balance of power), structural realism has given shape to ir unlike any other approach. In this sense, the development of structural realism as a theoretical enterprise and the development of ir as a ield of inquiry are inextricably linked and must be regarded in tandem. Notwithstanding challenges from contending theoretical approaches, these attempts to deine ir and a theory of international politics endowed considerable conceptual purchase and disciplinary authority on the structural realist perspective. Its proponents would encounter a major obstacle, however, with the debate surrounding the end of the Cold War. Although commonly regarded as a major factor in the Cold War’s perpetuation, the failure of structural realism to explain its unravelling – let alone predict its end – is often cited as strong empirical justiication for the theory’s rejection. John A. Vasquez charges, for instance, that structural realism’s failure to predict the Cold War’s demise is evidence that it tends to function ex post facto. According to him: “he great virtue of [neo]realism is that it can explain almost any foreign policy event. Its great defect is that it tends to do this after the fact, rather than before.”59

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his latest version of realism was faced, like its predecessors, with a serious challenge to its scientiic credentials because it could not cope with yet another momentous historical event concerning international security – realism’s purported subject of expertise. Indeed, critiques from other traditions of ir tend to centre either on structural realism’s inability to conceptualize systemic change or on its narrow idealization of the discipline as a whole.60 R.J. Barry Jones, for instance, identiies a conceptual fault in Waltz’s overly mechanistic assumptions when he claims: “in all of modern history the structure of international politics has changed but once.”61 Jones rejects the structural realist model as a “self-proclaimed, but ill-conceived, attempt to develop an international relations analog of the economic theory of perfectly competitive markets.”62 David Dunn and Stanley Hofmann voice general discontent with Waltz’s idealization of the international system as an arena of continuity that downplays the processes of change.63 And while John Ruggie applauds Waltz for his attempt to bring conceptual clarity to international structure, he also criticizes him for the overly static nature of his theory. Ruggie contends that “both a dimension of change and a determinant of change is missing from Waltz’s model.”64 He consequently condemns the structural realist theory of international relations because “continuity – at least in part – is a product of premise even before it is hypothesized as an outcome.”65 Waltz’s theory exempliies a paradigm of continuity rather than change, which contains a reproductive rather than transformational logic.66 Change is therefore a poorly conceptualized subject area for structural realism. Yet these critiques do not discount the overall efect that the structural realist tradition has had on the development of ir. For Robert Jervis, discerning the continuities of international politics is an indispensable part of ir theory, which should not be masked or delegitimized by the study of change.67 While “some students of international politics believe that realism is obsolete” and that “new times call for new thinking,” Waltz argues that the end of the Cold War does not discount structural realism at all.68 In defence of his theory, he states: Every time peace breaks out, people pop up to proclaim that realism is dead. hat is another way of saying that international politics has been transformed. he world, however, has not been transformed; the structure of international politics has simply been remade by the disappearance of the Soviet Union.69

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Hence, despite the disciplinary pressures to explain the end of the Cold War, structural realism remains an important theoretical perspective within ir scholarship. Although the balance of power that existed during the Cold War is no longer, the structural properties of anarchy, the enduring prominence of the state as the primary actor of international relations, and the potential for balancing to recur all point towards structural realism’s continuing relevance. hese inferences are especially noteworthy in the context of postSeptember 11th international relations. As Charles L. Glaser notes, structural realism has come under recent attack for its apparent inability to deal conceptually with non-state security threats. Yet Glaser argues that the rise of non-state security threats does not necessarily mean that realism has lost all utility; rather, he claims: he potential for conlict between states, including major powers, has not been eliminated. Realism, in its various strands, continues to provide important insights into these traditional security questions. Moreover, the current relative danger posed by terrorism and major-power conlict may not be a good indicator for the future. Although certainly a contentious question, future decades might once again see major-power conlict returning to the top of the international security agenda.70 On a similar but more pessimistic note, John Mearsheimer argues: “International relations is not a constant state of war, but it is a state of relentless security competition, with the possibility of war always in the background … Genuine peace, or a world where states do not compete for power, is not likely.”71 In brief, scholars such as Jervis, Glaser, and Mearsheimer emphasize the continuing relevance of realism due to the unrelenting security anxieties endemic to international politics. Its insights will remain central to succeeding debates on the problem of war and the problems of international cooperation. In this sense, structural realism serves not as a “straw mountain” from which to build the case for a contending approach but, rather, as an important “irst cut” for the analysis of human rights in international relations.

the structural realist perspective on human rights he relationship between structural realism and human rights is an uneasy one. Jack Donnelly, a leading igure in human rights scholarship, admits “that most international human rights initiatives fail to alter the

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behavior of their targets, for reasons that lie at the core of realist theories.”72 By and large, in its explanations of state behaviour, structural realism grants little or no import to human rights. Mearsheimer argues that “realists basically believe that states are interested in gaining power, either because they’re hardwired that way or because it’s the best way to survive, and they don’t pay much attention to values.”73 In other words, human rights are incompatible with the structural realist emphasis on the structure of the anarchic international system and the principle of self-help by which states must ensure their own survival. Structural realism therefore continues to be a strong marker for cases where human rights policies do not succeed in afecting state behaviour. While structural realism may not be able to provide insight into successful cases, its ability to explain unsuccessful ones cannot be ignored. It serves as an important theoretical null hypothesis that human rights do not matter.74 It is apparent from the outset, for instance, that human rights and foreign policy are not the easiest of bedfellows. Why the foreign policy of any particular state should include provisions for the welfare of foreign individuals abroad is not easily explained. R.J. Vincent describes this tension: here is no obvious connection between human rights and foreign policy. Human rights, the rights that all people have by virtue of their humanity, tend to be associated with individuals, and if with groups at all then with groups other than states. Foreign policy, which all states have by virtue of their existence in a world of states, tends to be associated only with them.75 Self-interested states seeking to ensure their own survival in an anarchic international system need not be concerned with how other states treat their citizens. Including human rights in foreign policy can actually impair states in their pursuit of power and security or even detract from the real issues of the national interest. Structural realism’s scepticism regarding human rights in principle therefore informs its scepticism regarding human rights foreign policies in practice. Principally, this scepticism derives from the fact that human rights fall beyond the narrow parameters by which structural realism has sought to deine ir as an independent ield of inquiry. Structural realists have, as the previous survey illustrates, attempted to narrow the scope and method of ir. heir research program centres on an analysis of the structural-materialist dynamic of the balance of power, which is seen as the paramount disciplinary concern. As such, human rights are merely an afterthought of, or even

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an intrusion into, states’ pursuit of material capabilities and relative power within the anarchic system. Understanding the more fundamental, perennial problem of war and the recurrent propensity for balancing over the longue durée is thus the imperative project for the structural realist theory of international politics. Clearly, this research program is at odds with the concept of universal human rights. Human rights, from a structural realist vantage point, belong to the reductionist, or unit-level, sphere, along with all other issues that centre on the behaviour or foreign policy of an individual state rather than on the structure of the international system. Waltz in particular is adamant about the distinction between the domains of foreign policy and international politics, contending that his theory is concerned only with the latter.76 his focus is justiied, he argues, “because the efects of structure are usually overlooked or misunderstood and because I am writing a theory of international politics, not of foreign policy.”77 Waltz makes explicit that his theory is neither an ediice of truth nor a reproduction of reality but, rather, an abstraction that seeks to explain the holistic laws of international politics.78 Considerations of human rights in foreign policy remain external to this ascetic pursuit of a general theory of international politics. As previously mentioned, however, structural realists are not opposed to empiricism. Gilpin’s study of war and change illustrates that structural realists do not regard their theory as completely isolated from the observable world. Nor do structural realists avoid prediction. Waltz claims, for instance, that structural realism “leads to many expectations about behaviors and outcomes,” and he uses his theory accordingly.79 Structural realism makes predictions about state behaviour that warrant empirical testing. In addition, Waltz is aware of, and does not entirely discount, the importance of interaction-level phenomena to state behaviour. He argues that outcomes are the product of “the capabilities, the actions, and the interactions of states, as well as … [of ] the structure of their systems … Causes at both the national and the international level make the world less peaceful and stable.”80 Waltz simply chooses to concentrate on the “overlooked or misunderstood” efects of structure when building his general theory of international politics. herefore, despite Waltz’s intentional omission of foreign policy, it remains possible to speak of foreign policy in structural realist terms on a broad level. Moreover, structural realism is driven implicitly – parallel to other branches of the social sciences – by a desire to uncover the extent to which political control or management is possible within the international

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system. Waltz contends that the purpose of theory is to explain laws, which are the established relations between variables. he premise that theories must be constructed to maximize theoretical explanation follows from more than an isolated act of intellectual inquiry divorced from all practical considerations. Rather, Waltz argues: he urge to explain is not born of idle curiosity alone. It is produced also by the desire to control, or at least to know if control is possible, rather than merely to predict … Because a law does not say why a particular association holds, it cannot tell us whether we can exercise control and how we might go about doing so. For the latter purposes, we need a theory.81 Understanding the extent to which political control is possible is evidently vital to the management of international afairs and the ultimate promotion of peace and security. While war is an inevitable feature of the international system, studying the extent to which its occurrences and its efects can be minimized has remained a central feature of the realist tradition. Accordingly, structural realists are not inherently opposed to the study of human rights per se. In a reply to Richard Ashley, Robert Gilpin contends that he does, indeed, “believe in the liberal values of individualism, liberty, and human rights” and wants his “country to stand for and to stand up for these things.”82 He urges further that “social scientists should study war, injustice, and yes, even imperialism, in order to help eliminate these evils.”83 Mearsheimer expresses a similar concern for responsible, socially engaged science: One thing that bothers me greatly about most political scientists today is that they have hardly any sense of social responsibility … hey believe that they’re doing “science,” and science is sort of an abstract phenomenon that has little to do with politics. In fact, I think that exactly the opposite should be the case. We should study the problems that are of great public importance, and when we come to our conclusions regarding those problems, we should go to considerable lengths to communicate our indings to the broader population, so that we can help to inluence the debate in positive ways.84 Structural realism is not opposed, then, to the study of human rights in an absolute sense. Pointing to realists’ involvement in policy discussions on ethnic conlict, nuclear proliferation, postwar settlements, and the

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relative efectiveness of economic sanctions, Michael C. Desch explains that, “despite their pessimism about how much the world can be changed, it is striking how committed many realists are to trying to make the world a better place.”85 here is hence no reason why human rights cannot be subjected to the structural realist framework of analysis. here are three general principals that inform the structural realist perspective on human rights. hey indicate general expectations about human rights in foreign policy and can be applied to the study of all states. hey also form a theoretical framework for human rights that can be compared to and weighed against empirical facts. he irst principal is that states are rational, unitary actors that comprise the fundamental components of the anarchic international system. Few realists, if any, contend that non-state actors are irrelevant; rather, they maintain that states are the essential units of the system that deine the structure of international politics. Waltz argues this position most forcefully: States are not and never have been the only international actors. But then structures are deined not by all of the actors that lourish within them but by the major ones … he importance of nonstate actors and the extent of transnational activities are obvious. he conclusion that the state-centric conception of international politics is made obsolete by them does not follow … States set the scene in which they, along with nonstate actors, stage their dramas or carry on their humdrum afairs. hough they may choose to interfere little in the afairs of nonstate actors for long periods of time, states nevertheless set the terms of the intercourse, whether by passively permitting informal rules to develop or by actively intervening to change rules that no longer suit them. When the crunch comes, states remake the rules by which other actors operate.86 he resilience of the states system and the ever-expanding list of states and would-be states provide further testament for realism’s claim that the state remains the fundamental actor of international politics. Although non-state actors are important for helping to ensure state compliance with human rights commitments, they cannot substitute for the state’s capacity (or potential capacity) to deliver the range and depth of human rights provisions for which they are entrusted. Furthermore, this principle rests on the assumption of rationalism. As Sara Steinmetz notes: “Rationality, rather than the individual preferences of decision-makers or an assumed universal morality, guides foreign policy decisions … A successful policy of realpolitik would, therefore, be one that

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serves to preserve and strengthen the state.”87 Consequently, to study foreign policy in a structural realist light is to assume the rational actor model of political choice, which requires that the state be treated as a unitary entity. As survival is both rational and prudential, structural realism advises that the content of any state’s foreign policy will centre on security and other material concerns that will supplement power deined in terms of capabilities rather than human rights. In addition, the assumption of the state as a rational, unitary actor implies a “black-boxing” of identity issues as contributing inluences with regard to foreign policy decisions. Factors including (though not limited to) ideology, nationalism, colonialism, and underdevelopment are excluded from the structural realist framework for understanding state behaviour and foreign policy. Structural realists do not disagree that identities exist; rather, they disagree that identities are the causal factors behind the formation of foreign policy. he internal mechanisms of a particular unit are, in other words, regarded as irrelevant to understanding the recurrent patterns of international politics. Structural realists thus point to the alarming symmetry that states exhibit in their foreign policies, despite diferences in identity or ideology. What ultimately matters, they suggest, are the structural conditions that allow for the balance of power. his leads to the second principle that informs the structural realist perspective on human rights, which is that states are expected to behave according to a conception of the national interest, conceived minimally in terms of material gain and the basic defence of sovereignty and territorial integrity. It should be noted that the problem of deining the national interest is well documented. Yet Joseph Nye argues that, while the term is rather slippery, it would be a mistake to discard it altogether.88 Moreover, it follows logically from the assumptions underlying the irst principle that, in their international policies, states – as unitary, rational actors – strive to achieve goals that are consonant with their own interests rather than with the interests of others. Since power rests fundamentally in the state, structural realism leads to the conjecture that non-state actors such as human rights non-governmental organizations and inter-governmental organizations would have an inconsequential efect on state behaviour and the formation of foreign policy. For structural realism, the state and its interests are the analytic focus. Given that variation in the relative balance of power is the only source of change within the structure of the international system, the structural realist conception of national interest centres on survival or security within a self-help system of anarchy. In Waltz’s theory of structural realism, power in international politics is deined according to the distribution of material capabilities across the system.89 Power is thus derived from

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material sources. Gilpin shows, in addition, that power is inseparable from economic gain. Over the medium to long term, military capabilities and the balance of power are fuelled by economics. In Gilpin’s words: As the power of the state increases, it seeks to extend its territorial control, its political inluence, and/or its domination of the international political economy. Reciprocally, these developments tend to increase the power of the state as more and more resources are made available to it and it is advantaged by economies of scale. he territorial, political, and economic expansion of a state increases the availability of economic surplus required to exercise dominion over the system. he rise and decline of dominant states and empires are largely functions of the generation and then the eventual dissipation of this economic surplus.90 his regularity is produced as a result of the structural properties of anarchy and the tendency for interstate competition regardless of whether or not states actively seek balancing behaviour.91 Although states may deviate from this framework on occasion owing to their internal composition, structural realism provides a useful explanation for why balances of power form recurrently. Foreign policy, as a result, involves inherent trade-ofs between various and competing objectives. Human rights are but one possible issue area that must be weighed against and compromised by other concerns.92 As Shestack notes: Despite its deinitional and normative deiciencies, national interest constitutes the rationale for foreign policy decisions. Within the genus of national interest, various species of interest compete for preference — interests of trade, economics, alliances, human rights, and so forth. Hence, human rights will occupy a central role only if the molders of foreign policy are persuaded that a focus on human rights goals advances national interest.93 Similarly, Donnelly points out that, since compromise is intrinsic to politics, it is necessary that human rights sometimes be sacriiced to other interests.94 And despite her rejection of the realist project on the whole, in her empirical study of international norms Martha Finnemore concedes that “humanitarian action [is] rarely taken when it jeopardize[s] other stated goals or interests of a state.”95 Structural realism expects that state-sanctioned instances of international human rights promotion will occur only if, in one

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form or another, they are shown to serve rationalist-materialist calculations of the national interest. he theory therefore predicts that interests will always prevail over concerns for human rights in their abstract form. A preliminary sketch of how human rights have fared with the general geo-strategic concerns of international politics supports this principle. As Grieco points out, the security ixations of the Cold War largely paralyzed international institutions or subsumed them beneath the broader geo-strategic context.96 Indeed, the 1966 creation of separate, institutionally weak human rights covenants for economic, social, and cultural rights as well as for civil and political rights – in a protracted process after the initial creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 – stands as a testament to the overarching efect of Cold War bipolarity on the development of international human rights norms. Glaser points to a similar argument in highlighting how human rights abuses committed abroad during the Cold War were disregarded for reasons of strategic expediency. He observes: “Regional conlicts were viewed in strategic instead of humanitarian terms and the major powers were much more reluctant to divert substantial military forces to protect human rights, because they relied more heavily on these forces for protecting their vital security interests.”97 he structural realist perspective on human rights evidently remains a useful framework for explaining why states choose not to support human rights policies in favour of material, national interests. he third principal that informs the structural realist perspective on human rights is that states, should they actually engage in human rights pursuits, will do so in ways that minimize transaction costs and maximize state autonomy. In other words, human rights policies will tend to be limited in scope with a considerable gulf between rhetoric and practice. hus, states tend not to enter into any internationally binding human rights institutions that would restrict state autonomy or their ability to exercise power. As Bruce Cronin explains, “a realist foreign policy eschews unnecessary foreign entanglements and avoids taking risks that do not further the welfare of either the state or its citizens.”98 Supporting human rights in principle is relatively cheap; however, supporting human rights in practice can be rather costly. Promoting human rights in foreign policy through sanctions or military interventions against gross violations, for example, sacriices scarce resources such as capital and/or military personnel. he diversion of these resources is a dangerous departure from the central concerns of national security or the national interest. Should states ultimately seek to invoke human rights for instrumental purposes, structural realists would expect that bilateral rather than multilateral avenues would be

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pursued. Bilateralism reduces external interference from other actors, thus reducing errors in calculating expected outcomes and maximizing the material power diferential between the two states in question. Structural realism arrives at this principle based on its deep scepticism towards international norms, laws, and institutions. In general, the theory assigns little value to norms in explanations of state behaviour. As Desch notes: “While few realists would suggest that norms never matter in international relations, most accord pride of place in their theories to power and material interests. States may behave altruistically when doing so does not afect their security, but realism holds that states rarely sacriice power to norms.”99 Statespersons may pay lip-service to norms without backing them substantively in terms of political action. Any consideration of human rights under the structural realist purview is subsidiary to the ultima ratio of state power and interest. While other theories of ir assign greater conceptual import to norms, and may even enjoy some success in explaining norm-consistent behaviour, structural realism remains a compelling theory for explaining norm-inconsistent behaviour – especially when state security is at stake. Structural realism’s treatment of institutions provides further insight into the improbability of creating efective multilateral enforcement mechanisms for human rights. he theory’s proponents generally regard institutions with equal or greater scepticism than they do international norms or international law – that is, as the products and instruments of power. For Waltz, “Strong states use institutions, as they interpret laws, in ways that suit them.”100 Yet structural realism’s scepticism towards institutions runs even deeper than this. Driven by the premise that states only pursue institutionalization when it suits their national interest, structural realists hold that institutions exist to serve the interests of their most powerful constituents. In other words, institutions, in the realist view, are simply “forums for acting out power relationships and implementing hegemonic preferences.”101 Accordingly, structural realists regard international human rights institutions as the products of the hegemonic preferences of powerful states rather than as moral precepts in themselves. Moreover, structural realism predicts that states would resist these hegemonic preferences and the creation of enforceable, multilateral, human rights institutions that potentially limit their exercise of power. In other words, the very nature of the states system, comprised of unitary states that seek to ensure their own survival, keeps such institutions from being created in the irst place. Institutions therefore yield limited dividends for the prospects of international peace because they have limited ability to

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regulate state behaviour. As Mearsheimer argues, “the balance of power is the independent variable that explains war; institutions are merely an intervening variable in the process.”102 Attempts to curb human sufering by creating unenforceable, multilateral human rights institutions is doomed to fail because of the unavoidable efects of international anarchy. For structural realists, international anarchy and the balance of power – not international norms, laws, or institutions – are the key organizing principles of international politics. It is these permissive variables that structure state behaviour and that inform the structural realist view of human rights. In sum, structural realism advances three general principles regarding how states frame human rights in foreign policy. First, states are the fundamental, rational, unitary actors of international politics. his assumption of rationalism presupposes that issues such as identity do not have a causal inluence on state behaviour. Second, states behave according to a material conception of the national interest. As variation in the relative balance of power is the only possible basis for structural change in the structural realist framework, national interests centre on issues of survival, security, or relative material gains. In this sense, national interests will always prevail over concerns for human rights in their abstract form. hird, should states ultimately adopt human rights policies, they will tend to be limited in scope with considerable disparity between state rhetoric and actual practice. his principle is indicative of structural realism’s deep scepticism towards international norms, laws, and institutions. For structural realism, international anarchy and the balance of power are the key organizing principles of international politics: they structure state behaviour and inform the structural realist view of human rights. hese expectations are common for the study of all states’ foreign policies regardless of issues of identity or domestic composition. Whether or not these expectations hold empirically is the measure of how we assess the salience of the realist theoretical perspective on human rights.

conclusion Structural realism remains a central tradition in the study of ir because of its contributions to deining the ield’s substantive content, method, and practice. In this chapter, I show that, to a large extent, structural realism surfaced as a prominent – and, in some ways, extreme – variant of the realist tradition because of disciplinary pressures in ir and the broader social sciences. In this regard, Waltz’s theory of international politics served as a

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bid to legitimate the realist project and the independence of ir as a distinct ield of inquiry. Few, if any, works within the ield have shaped and deined ir as has Waltz’s heory of International Politics. Structural realism continues to provide an important voice in contemporary scholarship, serving as a benchmark for current and future debates in the ield on both theoretical and empirical fronts. For Jervis, the theory “has continually generated new questions, insights, and arguments.”103 Structural realism’s inluence, according to Vasquez, stems from its ability to generate criticism from opponents and thereby to stimulate scholarly deliberation.104 It may appear at irst glance that structural realism is overly deterministic or pessimistic. In response to this criticism, however, Robert Jervis counters: “Determining which research programs are ‘progressive’ and which are ‘degenerating’ is diicult because the relevant judgements are inluenced by our perspectives and interests (in both senses of the term) and because all theories undergo change in light of empirical investigations.”105 In large measure, structural realism is criticized not for its indings concerning the problem of war but for its general outlook – something that proponents of the realist project reject as either unsound or irrelevant. Patently, despite these criticisms, structural realism has signiicant implications for the study of human rights. To begin with, structural realism’s emphasis on the state sits uneasily with the notion of human rights. Its focus on the problem of war and the pursuit of material conceptions of the national interest render human rights a peripheral issue compared to state security and survival. Moreover, the anarchy problématique underlines the diiculties surrounding institutionalization and the limited prospects for multilateral cooperation. For structural realists, international norms, laws, and institutions are regarded with severe scepticism. Structural realism predicts, then, a considerable gap between human rights in rhetoric and human rights in practice. hese principles collectively inform the structural realist framework for the study of human rights in foreign policy. Overall, structural realism serves as an indispensable “irst cut” because of its profound impact on ir and the enduring acclaim of its explanatory power. Its framework provides a robust empirical test for human rights in foreign policy and international relations. Whether or not structural realism’s core principles ultimately obtain has signiicant consequences for the problems and prospects of its theoretical perspective on human rights. he theoretical null hypothesis that human rights do not matter will be conirmed should the evidence show that structural realism holds up to empirical scrutiny. Conducting this test, using the case of human rights in Canadian foreign policy since 1945, is my task in the next chapter.

3 Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy: The Realist View

Realism ofers a harsh view of the purposes of statecraft. In the struggle for power and survival in an anarchic international system, foreign policy is necessarily an exclusive enterprise of the state, which is driven rationally and egoistically in pursuit of the national interest. Realists are thus as sceptical of idealist intentions in foreign policy as they are convinced of the ultimate futility of such policy. According to Kim Nossal, idealism skews the inherently brutal conduct of foreign policy decision making: “Foreign policy can be cloaked in idealist and benign terms … But it should never be forgotten that foreign policy, however it may be justiied, is and has always been an ugly facet of state behaviour.”1 Nossal argues, in other words, that realist principles are inseparable from foreign policy regardless of the rhetoric in which it is couched. Statespersons must grapple with the fact that their interests and objectives often compete – or, in many cases, conlict – with the interests of those beyond their state borders. Realism assumes, therefore, that human rights and idealist values have little or no substantive capital in the business of foreign policy. Yet Canada is regarded as an important advocate of human rights on the international stage. According to an oicial statement by the Department of Foreign Afairs and International Trade in 2005, “Canada has been a consistently strong voice for the protection of human rights and the advancement of democratic values,” such that “human rights is a central theme of Canadian foreign policy.”2 Why, then, does Canada commit to human rights in its foreign policy? Is this commitment rhetorical or substantive? Does it contravene or vindicate structural realist principles that emphasize systemic, material explanations of foreign policy? As I show in Chapter 2, realism in general and structural realism in particular have had a profound impact on both the study and practice of international

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politics. hat the tradition has informed Canadian foreign policy should hence be of no surprise. here is even strong evidence to suggest that realist principles dominated Canada’s foreign policy framework from the outset of the postwar period. Denis Stairs comments that Canadian foreign policy in the early decades of the Cold War was based entirely on a realist “operational code”: “he canons of diplomacy were, in the end, the statist canons of prudence. For Canadian foreign service oicers, as for Bismarck, foreign policy was the ‘art of the possible.’ It was not the pursuit of the ideal. he irony is that their realist praxis has left them with an idealist reputation.”3 Stairs implies that Canada’s idealist image is merely a supericial cover for an underlying realist orientation. Canada’s human rights policies are, in other words, inextricable from realist foundations. In this regard, Canada presents an important case for assessing structural realism’s purchase in the study of human rights. Given that Canada’s self-proclaimed leadership on international human rights may have realist underpinnings, explaining the role of human rights in Canadian foreign policy has implications for understanding how human rights have developed as an issue area of international relations and how they factor into interest-driven formulations of foreign policy. If human rights are treated merely as “policy instruments” in the broader pursuit of the Canadian national interest, then the structural realist perspective on human rights clearly obtains. However, if Canada’s human rights commitments do not concur with a utilitarian rationale, then there is reason to believe that human rights occupy a role beyond the structural realist account. I proceed in my analysis of Canadian foreign policy with these assumptions in mind. Methodologically, a structural realist framework is pursued according to the major geo-strategic periods that have characterized international relations since the inception of international human rights. hese periods correspond, in broad strokes, to the Cold War, the post-Cold War, and the post-September 11th war on terror. While markers are often problematic, most structural realists would agree that these three periods represent the major historical divisions of international relations since 1945 because they delineate signiicant structural changes in the relative balance of power. As Janice Gross Stein notes: “Realists expect that policy will change as a relatively straightforward adaptation to structural change in the international system. Rational states recognize structural change, reorder their interests, adjust their policies to maximize their interests,

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and adapt.”4 his underlying conception of international political change is common among structural realists. I thus develop my analysis within each of the three periods using the model developed in chapter 2. Explicitly, I employ the structural realist model in order to assess the “it” between its theoretical expectations and the empirical facts of Canada’s approach to human rights in foreign policy. Here I argue that structural realist notions of the national interest have remained a central feature of Canada’s international policies at least since the Second World War. hese interests are material, although their precise composition may vary according to structural changes in the balance of power. Consequently, structural realism provides convincing explanations for the inconsistencies and shortfalls of Canadian human rights policies in that it emphasizes the rational trade-ofs between human rights and material goods such as trade and security. As preoccupations with material goods limit the scope and extent of human rights policies, there is little reason to believe that human rights issues discount the purchase of structural realism’s state-centric, interest-based, material approach to international relations. However, structural realism cannot account for the growing prominence of human rights in Canadian foreign policy, which is clearly not anchored in the pursuit of material gain. he structural realist claim that human rights policies are simply a materialist form of the national interest in disguise becomes patently untenable. Overall, structural realism ofers a viable theoretical framework for the study of international human rights, but it falls short of addressing the underlying reasons behind state leadership on rights-related issue areas.

the cold war It is an often-forgotten fact that Canada met international human rights with opposition. From their advent in the aftermath of the Second World War, Canadian policymakers were sceptical of universal human rights. he postwar government of Prime Minister Mackenzie King resisted the idea of a universal charter, as did various branches of the executive, bureaucratic, and public sectors.5 According to A.J. Hobbins: When early drafts of the Universal Declaration began to appear in late 1947 and 1948 they included social and economic rights along with civil and political ones. he opposition this provoked from the political right, from the business community, and, especially, from

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the legal fraternity was considerable … he adherents of the declaration were in a clear minority and sought ways to convince their fellow Canadians of the importance of the cause.6 he understanding of human rights in the draft udhr was broader than the Canadian government could accept. Additional reservations included the vague or imprecise language of the Declaration as well as perceived problems of federal-provincial jurisdiction.7 In an attempt to dilute the document, Mackenzie King instructed the Canadian delegation to the Economic and Social Council (ecosoc) of the United Nations to undertake “the elimination, as far as possible, of articles such as those on social security, which give a detailed deinition of governmental responsibilities … [and] have no place in a declaration of human rights.”8 Although the Canadian delegation ultimately voted in favour of the udhr in the un General Assembly on 10 December 1948 – after being the only country alongside the “Soviet six” to have abstained from a crucial vote in the hird Committee on 7 December 1948 – the issue “embarrassed Canada internationally” and, according to Professor William Schabas, “left a blemish that ifty years have not erased.”9 As a realist position might expect, the relationship between Canada and universal human rights clearly did not begin as an easy or natural one. Louise Arbour, former justice of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1999 to 2004 and former un high commissioner for human rights from 2004 to 2008, describes Canada’s early opposition as the “low-water mark” of Canada’s international human rights policies.10 Despite the fact that the Canadian legal scholar John Humphrey is widely recognized as the principal author of the udhr, his initiatives were quite exceptional. In the words of the late John Holmes, a former senior policy oicial and former director of the Canadian Institute of International Afairs), Humphrey was “the lone Canadian hero in the human rights struggle.”11 It is important to remember, furthermore, that Humphrey was an international civil servant of the un rather than a representative of the Canadian government. In the un’s early years, Canada was a foremost proponent of the rule that un civil servants neither represent their nations nor express their views. Simply put, most branches of the Canadian government, including the federal judiciary and provincial legislatures, were not prepared to accommodate the udhr at face value. Canada lacked the institutional infrastructure and, to a large degree, the political will for human rights.

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Especially with respect to external relations, human rights was not a home-grown dimension of Canadian policy; rather, Canadian foreign policy during the Cold War was framed by a perennial preoccupation – or, more precisely, an obsession – with Canada’s relative power in the world. Post-1945 thinking on the subject was dominated by a functionalist logic, which assumed that a state’s international role is determined by its relative position in the hierarchy of power. “In the study on Canadian foreign policy since the end of World War II,” according to Denis Stairs, “perhaps no general proposition has been more recurrent than the thought that what Canada does in foreign afairs is a function of the power that it possesses and of where that power situates it in the hierarchy of states.”12 Moreover, as Ivan Head and former prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau remark, Canadian policy was inluenced considerably by the “two basic elements of realism – the concept of an anarchic international scene and the concept of diidence as a relection of size.”13 Canada accepted the proposition that size actually matters. his concern, as an indicator of relative power, was a principal basis for Canada’s postwar approach to foreign policy, which grounded the country’s international approach to human rights. Structural realism was therefore consistently at the heart of how Canada deined and pursued its interests during the Cold War era. Canada’s National Interests he end of the Second World War left Canada in an unforeseen circumstance. Canada had placed over 1 million men and women under arms. By the end of the war, the Canadian armed forces stood as the fourth largest in the world.14 In partnership with the United States and Britain, Canada had also acquired nuclear technology.15 While most of Europe and East Asia lay in ruin, Canada’s economy was booming at a phenomenal rate – making Canada the world’s second-largest trading state. Canadians had been thrust into playing an important role in international relations under conditions that they had neither anticipated nor chosen. As stated by John Holmes, “Canada was no longer reluctant to be useful. Canadians coveted responsibilities, and Canadian diplomatic missions multiplied from seven in 1939 to sixty-ive in 1962.”16 More than transforming just the style of Canadian foreign policy, these momentous events revolutionized the very substance of Canada as a political entity.

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Without exaggeration, these changes allowed an independent Canadian foreign policy to begin in earnest. Canadian foreign policy prior to 1945 can at best be described as semi-autonomous. Britain’s entry into the First World War, for instance, automatically enlisted the support of Canada. It was not until the eve of the Second World War that Canada could test the full rites of sovereignty aforded by the 1931 Statute of Westminster. With the outbreak of war in 1939, Canada’s decision to join the efort against Nazi Germany was passed through an act of Parliament. his procedure involved a week-long delay that was intended to airm Canada’s strength and independence.17 hese attributes were ampliied throughout the war and were relected by Canada’s rising power in the world. Consistent with the structural realist outlook on international change, war was the catalyst that allowed for a change in Canada’s relative power and its external relations.18 Yet Canada’s rise in power had its limitations. It was made clear at the United Nations San Francisco Conference in 1945 that Canada was not of the same material calibre as the world’s major powers. Equally, Canada was a much more substantial player than were the world’s smaller states. Whether Canada was the “smallest of the large powers” or the “largest of the small powers” was the source of particular anxiety. Canadian policymakers thus advanced a new role for Canada under the new title of “middle power.”19 his role corresponded with functionalism, which supposed that each state had speciic responsibilities for maintaining international order according to individual capabilities and geo-strategic position.20 Under functionalist principles, Canada, as a middle power, was not meant to serve as a bufer between large and small powers; rather, these principles were designed to maximize the national interest by circumscribing a special sphere of inluence for Canada and providing an outline for manoeuvre.21 As middle powers could claim to occupy a special functional role in international relations, Canada could pursue interests that were unique to that role. Functionalism thus guided Canadian foreign policy for the irst decades of the Cold War. hese initial years were the apex of Canada’s relative material capabilities. Indeed, the St Laurent-Pearson era from 1945 to 1957 became known as the “golden age” of Canadian foreign policy. Escott Reid, the late diplomat and scholar, argued that the golden age was an era in which “Canada became, on certain great issues of world afairs, one of an inner group of three countries [with the United States and Britain] which moulded the shape of the future” of international politics.22 Not surprisingly, the golden era has often been a source of nostalgia for those statespersons and

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academics who were most afected by the new possibilities in Canadian foreign policy. According to John English, this nostalgia holds particularly true when Canadians relect on their international contributions to the twentieth century. He asserts: “Even scholars who cast a cynical eye on later times see those hours as Canada’s inest.”23 It was an era in which the purposes of statecraft were clear. International relations were deined and accepted as the relations between states, while foreign policy was overwhelmingly the domain of elite statespersons. Foreign policy still very much resembled the “sport of kings,” as in previous eras.24 he diference for Canadians, according to English, was that the golden age, like the era of the six-team National Hockey League, was when “Canada played the game best.”25 Canada’s cache of hard power deined in terms of military capabilities, and the seeming simplicity of its new role in the world, allowed for a clear conception of the national interest. Primarily, international security was Canada’s foremost concern after the Second World War and into the Cold War. he human cost inlicted by the world wars of the irst half of the twentieth century left Canada extremely wary of great-power conlict. For Canadian oicials, the portfolio of the middle power included an active role in attempting to mitigate international warfare in the nuclear age. Canada hence invested in the un and its concept of collective security.26 In this sense, the attempt to lessen the likelihood of economic depression and war through institution building was very much part of Canada’s national interest.27 With the gathering momentum of the Cold War, however, it became evident that the promise of collective security had been thwarted by the us-Soviet deadlock in the un Security Council. he Canadian government was therefore forced to devise new avenues in its search for collective security. With the improbability of a viable international collective-security framework, Canadian attention turned to possible regional scenarios. A geo-security arrangement in the North-Atlantic region seemed to present a viable and natural alternative. Lester B. Pearson pointed out that it was Canadian prime minister St Laurent, speaking at the un General Assembly in 1947, “who had irst stated the need for some regional security association … because of the failure of the un to provide that collective security to its members which the charter had envisaged but the cold war had frustrated.”28 Playing an instrumental role in bridging us and Western-European security demands, Canada became one of the subsequent founders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in

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1949. Canada’s substantial military contributions to nato attest to the degree to which Canadian policymakers were committed to the organization. Peter Dobell points out that, by 1952, “in providing twelve squadrons of ighter aircraft, Canada contributed the single largest and most advanced component of European air defence. At the same time it supplied surplus military equipment suicient to outit two European divisions.”29 Canada’s national interest during the golden age was therefore advanced through a direct exercise of its hard power capabilities. Furthermore, consistent with a structural realist framework, Canada’s national interest centred overwhelmingly on material aims. Especially as the intensity of US-Soviet rivalry heightened with the advent of bipolar nuclear brinkmanship, security became the central preoccupation of the Canadian foreign policy community. he threat of war was a real and constant danger. Denis Stairs observes that, because “power realities” could not be ignored, “a ‘realist’ calculus could not sanely or safely be eschewed. With this calculus there came a constant attention to the pragmatic task of identifying the available room for manoeuvre; of determining what the state might and might not reasonably try to do, given the relative capabilities and interests of the others players in the game.”30 Alternative games or foreign policy frameworks were seemingly absent, given the harsh conditions of international politics at the time. he Cold War was, Stairs continues, an era in which “the ‘actors’ in world afairs were the sovereign states, and these operated, however unfortunately, in an international environment that was ultimately freewheeling.”31 As a structural realist framework would suggest, Canada was an active participant in the geo-strategic circumstances of the Cold War rather than a neutral bystander. his emphasis on the balance of power was followed consistently, notwithstanding the shift from a Liberal to a Conservative government in 1957. he accession to power of Prime Minister Diefenbaker did not, in other words, signal a profound change in the national interest despite attempts by the Conservatives to the contrary. James Eayrs asserts that Diefenbaker’s secretary of state for external afairs, Howard Green, had initially attempted to steer Canadian foreign policy away from the “honest broker,” middlepower strategy pursued by his predecessors towards an “independent approach” less encumbered by the posturing of the Great Powers.32 But Green’s rhetoric could not be translated into reality. As Eayrs comments: “During the months to follow, Mr. Green discovered soon enough what all foreign ministers ind out in time: that geography, tradition and an unyielding

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environment set a hard if not iron law upon the most daring of ambitions … Mr. Green re-entered, after a brief period outside it, the tradition of his predecessors.”33 Canada consequently maintained its strategy of middlepower functionalism within the context of the broader alliance. Canada did, nonetheless, sufer noticeable strain in its bilateral relations with the United States. It was clear from the us president’s disastrous visit to Ottawa in 1961 that Diefenbaker and John F. Kennedy were at odds.34 Yet over and above their diicult personal ties, the Canada-us strategic partnership – particularly within the structure of the North American Air Defence Command (norad) – endured setbacks with the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 and the Bomarc crisis of early 1963.35 Both cases centred on Canada’s diidence in following us nuclear strategy. It may irst appear that Canada’s stand against the explicit interests of the United States, its great-power neighbour and close ally, point to limitations of the structural realist framework. Canada’s attempt to avoid bandwagonning behind us nuclear strategy as well as evidence to suggest that unit-level phenomena such as the Diefenbaker-Kennedy factor played some role in bilateral tensions are incidents for which structural forms of realism do not account. Although these issues cannot be ignored, and however convincing they might seem from a micro-political level of analysis, structural realism remains the basis for explaining Canada’s macro-level Cold War posture. Structural realism assumes, for instance, that states will seek to pursue their interests as independent, rational actors. As a middle power, Canada had nothing to gain from playing the nuclear game. Grand warfare in the nuclear age was a disaster that, through its functional role, Canada sought actively to avoid. Costas Melakopides explains that “the Diefenbaker government could not simultaneously sustain Canadian middlepowermanship and Washington’s nuclear brinkmanship without blatant self-contradiction. herefore, it had to choose middlepowermanship” because this framework was the linchpin of Canada’s approach to foreign policy.36 Moreover, Kennedy’s decision to go to high alert in the build-up to the Cuban Missile Crisis – without consulting his norad partner while expecting it to follow suit – forced Ottawa to reconsider the actual extent of its independence in the foreign policy arena. In short, Canada was being dragged into an extremely high-risk scenario with little or no potential dividend. Canada’s bilateral ties with the United States improved signiicantly after Lester B. Pearson’s Liberals defeated Diefenbaker’s Conservatives in 1963. he recipient of the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in the Suez

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Crisis while president of the un General Assembly, Pearson was an established statesman whose illustrious career had also spanned academia, the Department of External Afairs, nato, and Parliament. He also enjoyed excellent personal relations with John F. Kennedy. Despite his credentials, however, Pearson had to manage a minority government through ever more turbulent waters both at home and abroad. Quebec’s mounting ties with France and la Francophonie, spurred by the province’s growing separatist sentiment, engrossed much of the federal government’s domestic and international attention. he undeniable and signiicant effect of national unity on Canadian foreign policy is, admittedly, an issue area that lies well beyond structural realism’s remit. At the same time, however, the landscape of international afairs was changing. Canada’s inluence in the world had weakened with the start of London’s special relationship with Washington, the surmounting power of the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (ussr), nuclear proliferation, and persistent problems with the un that stunted the prospect for additional peacekeeping operations. Canada-us relations also soured dramatically with the succession of Lyndon Johnson following Kennedy’s assassination and with the unravelling of the Vietnam War. Contrary to structural realist principles, Pearson abandoned the usual demeanour of Canadian “quiet diplomacy” with its ally and spoke publicly against the war when accepting the Temple University Peace Award in April 1965. When meeting Johnson at Camp David later that afternoon, Pearson was subjected to Johnson’s outrage over the incident, which apparently consisted of both physical violence and vulgarities of a Texan lavour. Bilateral relations between the two countries subsequently laboured until both leaders retired from politics in 1968. On relection, there is little or no evidence to suggest that the Canadian government had any inluence on Johnson’s decision to withdraw us forces from Vietnam just prior to his retirement. As Pearson’s protestations did not advance Canadian interests directly, from a structural realist perspective there appears to be little reason for the bilateral dispute. For a variety of reasons, Canada’s relative power in the world was in decline. While Canada sustained its middle-power outlook, it was becoming clear that the impact of this role was diminishing. he need for the middle power was at a low point as Europe continued to rebuild and as more colonial states gained independence.37 Pearson therefore turned Canada’s attention to increasing trade with the Soviet bloc and increasing foreign aid. he Canadian position was one of engagement rather than containment.

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Direct wheat sales exceeding $500 million began in 1963 to the Soviet Union, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Poland, and the People’s Republic of China. In addition, Canadian development assistance rose by 280 percent between 1964 and 1967, including new aid initiatives with Frenchspeaking Africa – at a time when the world’s total oicial development aid was experiencing its irst downturn.38 As a result of Pearson’s leadership on the issue, Robert McNamara, then president of the World Bank, invited him to lead the 1968 Commission on International Development – now better known as the “Pearson Commission” – to make recommendations for the future of international development assistance. he report released in September 1969, Partners in Development, recommended that total-aid targets be set at 1 percent of gross national product (gnp), while oicial-aid targets be set at 0.7 percent of gnp.39 he report further cited that states’ aid commitments are necessary to help secure enterprise in an increasingly interdependent world. As a prime trading state, Canada had an inherent interest in the health of the world economy. he most signiicant shake-up in Canada’s postwar foreign policy came with the succession of Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1968. Apart from a brief interlude with Joe Clark’s Conservative government from 4 June 1979 to 2 March 1980, Trudeau was prime minister for an exceptionally long period – from 22 April 1968 to 30 June 1984.40 Soon after taking oice, Trudeau began the irst foreign policy review in Canada’s history. As Trudeau himself explained in 1968: “We wish to take a fresh look at the fundamentals of Canadian foreign policy to see whether there are ways in which we can serve more efectively Canada’s current interests, objectives and priorities.”41 Trudeau was motivated in part by a general scepticism towards Canada’s foreign policy community and its ability to serve real Canadian interests. According to Jack Granatstein, professor emeritus of history and director general of the Canadian War Museum: His principal objections to Canada’s foreign policy in the late 1960s, as he interpreted it, centred on three arguments: that Canadian foreign policy inadequately served domestic political needs, that it was too slow in coming to terms with changed international circumstances, and that it lacked a proper rational foundation which could be used to reconcile the diverse policy components.42 he report, Foreign Policy for Canadians, was released in 1970 with the explicit aim of eliminating the functionalist, role-based thinking that had

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dominated Canadian foreign policy since 1945. It committed Canadian foreign policy solely to calculations of the national self-interest as deined by the domestic needs and priorities of the federal government. It states: “In essence, foreign policy is the product of the Government’s progressive deinition and pursuit of national aims and interests in the international environment. It is the extension abroad of national policies.”43 Furthermore, Trudeau believed that the former internationalist, rolebased model of Canadian foreign policy could no longer advance the national interest within the context of a rapidly evolving world. he 1970 report makes the assumption that the major powers cannot be grouped into clearly identiiable ideological camps.44 he clear bipolar order, which had conditioned military and political boundaries since the end of the Second World War, was showing signs of erosion. he report also argues that Canada’s investment in international institutions was no longer favourable because they were plagued by internal problems and were becoming less relevant.45 In rejecting the functionalist model, Trudeau’s administration sought to clarify the real limitations of Canadian foreign policy: It is a risky business to postulate or predict any speciic role for Canada in a rapidly evolving world situation. It is even riskier – certainly misleading – to base foreign policy on an assumption that Canada can be cast as the “helpful ixer” in international afairs. hat implies, among other things, a reactive rather than active concern with world events, which no longer corresponds with international realities or the Government’s approach to foreign policy. here is no natural, immutable or permanent role for Canada in today’s world, no constant weight of inluence.46 Trudeau’s pragmatic approach was driven, according to Bruce hordarson, by an “emphasis on realism as opposed to idealism … to start from given facts, to forget ‘historical might-have-beens’ and ‘impossible dreams’ and to accentuate the feasible.”47 hus, Foreign Policy for Canadians was very much a realist treatise that sought to rescue the concept of the national interest and to rectify the over-stylized approach to foreign policy of previous administrations. he verdict of David Dewitt and John Kirton is that Trudeau’s irst three terms in oice are synonymous with the “era of national interest” in Canadian foreign policy.48 In part, Trudeau’s foreign policy report justiied his 1969 decision to halve Canada’s commitments to nato. Canadian defence expenditures

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before the cutbacks were roughly $1.8 billion – one-sixth of the country’s total budget.49 It was Trudeau’s belief that, since Western Europe was well on its way to recovery, Canada no longer needed to subsidize its security needs. Needless to say, his decision was not a popular one in Western Europe. Yet, notwithstanding the down-scaling of its military, Canada still remained the sixth-largest contributor to nato and “a nation of considerable potential force, still within the ‘top ten’ on the basis of most of the usual indices.”50 Cited in an interview en route from Leningrad to Ottawa in 1971, Trudeau even suggested that the Soviet Union dealt with Canada as a great power despite his objections that Canada was a modest power only.51 hus, the 1970 policy report can be viewed as a pragmatic move to justify the reorientation of Canada’s priorities in both focus and spending. Although realism provided its guiding framework, the report was certainly not meant as a complete dismissal of Canada’s previous international policies per se. It was, however, intended as a warning against pursuing internationalist policies qua international policies rather than qua national interests. Overall, despite particular emphasis on national interests and eliminating role-based thinking, Trudeau’s foreign policy is remarkably consistent with that of his post-Second World War predecessors. Trudeau was, for instance, extremely keen on mitigating superpower rivalry, as his commitment to détente demonstrates. In his efort to difuse tensions during a diplomatic visit to the ussr in 1971, Trudeau stressed the need for regular contact with the Soviet Union on “de-ideologized” issues of mutual interest such as bilateral trade and other cultural or educational exchanges. hese talks proved highly successful. According to Melakopides, 1972 was a milestone year for Canada-Soviet relations for three reasons: “the Canadian National Defence College visited the Soviet Union in May; a $100 million wheat sale was negotiated in July; and, most important for many, the irst Canada-Soviet hockey series took place in September.”52 By 1979, Canada’s bilateral trade with the Soviet Union provided 40 percent of Canada’s total trade surplus of $1.7 billion. In a further efort to difuse Cold War ideological tensions, Trudeau was also keen to establish oicial ties with the People’s Republic of China and to allow the country to assume its role in the un over the Republic of China (Taiwan). Trudeau’s disdain for the over-heated ideological debate of the Cold War is consistent with structural forms of realism. To some extent, Trudeau’s détente with the ussr was an attempt to balance what he perceived as an overbearing United States.53 Canada’s

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sovereign claim to the Arctic and the competence of its foreign policy community was tested forcefully in 1969 when the American supertanker, the Manhattan, crossed the Northwest Passage without Canadian permission. Canada’s opposition to the incursion was based on claims of sovereignty, or territorial integrity, and environmental protection. In reaction, the Canadian government enacted a series of environmental laws, including the Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, 1970, and assumed responsibility for controlling all navigation through Arctic waters with a unilaterally imposed one hundred-mile coastal bufer zone. Trudeau’s 1971 visit to the ussr included an oicial voyage to the Soviet Arctic, which, due to sheer bilateral frustrations with the United States, was at least partially meant to counterweigh American inluence by multilateralizing the Canadian Arctic policy. As the New York Times put it, “If this agreement [the Arctic protocol] makes the United States less inclined to take Canada for granted and more sensitive to Canadian concerns for protecting the Arctic and avoiding American domination, it will be all to the good.”54 hus, although episodic bilateral disagreements are to some extent unavoidable, Trudeau’s major dilemma with the United States clearly centred on realist-oriented problems such as sovereignty and territorial integrity, while his solution involved balancing the United States against other actors. he transfer of power to Brian Mulroney’s Conservative government in 1984 also showed remarkable consistency in Canadian foreign policy. Nonetheless, shortly after his induction, Mulroney commissioned a review that began to draw from a number of public opinion polls. he subsequent report, Independence and Internationalism, was released in June 1986 by Parliament’s Special Joint Committee on Canada’s International Relations. he report begins with the premise that international issues engage the “hearts and minds of Canadians” on a profound level as younger generations are increasingly better educated, more travelled, and relect a more multicultural society than their parents’ generation.55 he report highlights, in other words, the idea that Canadians are becoming more self-conident about their place in the world.56 Mulroney hence used the review as a platform to renew Canadian investment in deterrence and defence and to begin possible negotiations on a free trade agreement (fta) with the United States. Notably, Mulroney’s administration enjoyed what were possibly Ottawa’s best relations with Washington since the start of the Cold War. Mulroney’s excellent rapport with presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush was built upon mutual “hard” interests in the economic and

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security spheres. Mulroney’s fta initiative was prompted, among other reasons, by fears of globalization, rising markets in other regions in the world, the need to ensure that Canadian goods had constant access to the American market, and a belief that free trade would increase Canadian competitiveness and decrease import prices for the Canadian consumer. On the security front, the Department of National Defence (dnd) White Paper of June 1987, Challenge and Commitment: A Defence Policy for Canada, espoused closing the commitments-capabilities gap in Canadian security policy. he report’s approach was decisively of a Cold War tenor. It cites, for instance, that “Canadian security policy must respond to an international environment dominated by the rivalry between East and West.”57 Reminiscent of Reagan’s “evil empire” speech of 1983, the report states: “It is a fact, not a matter of interpretation, that the West is faced with an ideological, political and economic adversary whose explicit long-term aim is to mould the world in its own image.”58 Mulroney’s foreign policy, which was directed principally at Canada’s bilateral relations with the United States, therefore concentrated on substantive material issues such as security and the economy without the slightest reprieve from a classical Cold War mentality. In sum, despite diferences in leadership and political party, a substantive continuity underpinned Canadian foreign policy during the Cold War. Structural realism was very much the “operational code” of an era deined by us-Soviet rivalry. Moreover, relative power and balancing were the primary preoccupations of Canadian foreign policy as the geostrategic conditions of the Cold War presented a clear and persistent threat to Canada’s security. hese issues remained at the forefront of Canadian foreign policy while the country’s relative power continued to decline. he pursuit of the national interest, deined by strategic and economic (material) goods, was the driving force behind Canadian foreign policy. Structural realism thus continues to be an important conceptual framework for explaining Canada’s rational, interest-driven basis for foreign policy during the Cold War era. Human Rights and Canadian Foreign Policy during the Cold War Like most issues, the development of international human rights standards was hostage to the superpower rivalry of the Cold War. Human rights were divided, as Matthews and Pratt describe, “with the United States airming the paramountcy of civil and political rights … and the

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Soviet Union and its allies championing economic and social rights.”59 Each camp was sceptical of the other’s acclaimed set of rights. he two separate human rights covenants of 1966 – (1) the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and (2) the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – were hence drafted as a direct result of the ongoing ideological battle between capitalist and communist blocs. Ratifying either covenant was interpreted not merely as support for one set of human rights or another but also as a move within the broader bipolar game. he diplomatic tensions of the Cold War therefore restricted, in large measure, the substance and tempo of human rights in international relations. More than just a spectator, Canada was an active participant in this battle. he government’s explicit resistance to the inclusion of economic and social rights in the udhr subsequently carried over to the Covenant process. As Louise Arbour explains, “Canada joined other Western States in thwarting aspirations for a single international treaty embracing all rights in the Universal Declaration.”60 Canada’s early objections to universal human rights were also grounded on reasons of sovereignty and national jurisdiction. According to Kim Nossal, Canada’s attachment to the principle of sovereignty was “heavily inluenced by parochial deinitions of Canadian interest” that persisted until at least the late 1970s.61 he government maintained that human rights are issues of domestic concern only and, as such, are impermeable to outside inluence. In 1977, Don Jamieson, secretary of state for external afairs, argued: “Our approach is only one of many, and I should add, not an approach that enjoys majority support internationally … here are no irm and ixed rules for raising and discussing what are the essentially domestic concerns of other states.”62 hus, human rights remained peripheral in Canadian foreign police for at least three decades following the advent of international human rights under the un system. Although speciic rights-related issues may have surfaced in Canadian foreign policy on occasion, such instances often relected a general strategy in pursuit of the national interest. Prime Minister Diefenbaker, for instance, is cited as a key player, along with Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, in creating a general Commonwealth resolution against racial discrimination in 1960. his resolution ultimately forced the apartheid government in South Africa to withdraw its application for Commonwealth membership, which thereby saved the organization from being divided between its developed and underdeveloped members. Yet Diefenbaker’s

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decision to invest in the Commonwealth was partially motivated by the disastrous bilateral relations that were unfolding between Ottawa and Washington. Diefenbaker needed, in other words, an alternate avenue for diplomacy in order to demonstrate the political purchase of his administration. he government’s sanctions against Canadian companies operating in South Africa, introduced in 1978 and supposedly tightened in 1985, were voluntary rather than legally binding. All things considered, Canadian policies against apartheid were symbolic rather than substantive and relect the primacy of material interests in the government’s international outlook. Similar arguments can be put forward regarding the policies of successive administrations. Certainly the extent of Prime Minister Pearson’s commitment to foreign aid and peacekeeping, as well as the persistent problems of national unity that plagued his minority government, cannot be explained by structural realism alone. Pearson’s outlook on international relations and diplomacy was without doubt informed by his personal experiences while serving in high-ranking posts at nato, the un, the Department of External Afairs, and Parliament. here was, nonetheless, a strong measure of interest-based reasoning behind Pearson’s policies. hat Pearson irst undertook aid initiatives with French-speaking Africa at a time when separatism in Quebec was at its height is no coincidence. hese aid policies sought to demonstrate the federal government’s power and jurisdiction over the reach of the Province of Quebec. Moreover, aid programs are based at least partially on economic selfinterest. As the Pearson Commission’s report, Partners in Development, stipulates, aid commitments on the part of developed states are necessary to help secure investments and the free low of goods and services in an increasingly interdependent world.63 On the whole, Prime Minister Trudeau and his administration displayed much more support for international human rights than did previous Canadian administrations. In fact, according to Kim Nossal, it was during Trudeau’s tenure that governments began to cast Canada as a irm supporter of international human rights issues.64 As the 1970 foreign policy White Paper states: “Canada’s future approach to human rights at the United Nations should be both positive and vigorous.”65 Yet Trudeau’s commitment to human rights fell largely within the domestic sphere. Well aware of the federal-provincial feud over human rights jurisdiction, Trudeau sought to enshrine human rights within the Canadian Constitution. Yet Trudeau was sensitive to foreign interference in domestic afairs and, especially, to

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issues of secession. In response to the October Crisis of 1970, for instance, Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, thereby suspending civil liberties, which he justiied as a necessary manoeuvre against the separatist, terrorist activities of the Front de Libération du Québec. At the same time, Trudeau also refused to acknowledge the humanitarian disaster in Biafra. When asked about the situation, in a conspicuous attempt to sidestep the issue, Trudeau famously quipped, “Where’s Biafra?”66 hus, while Trudeau was a staunch supporter of the human rights idea, his administration was extremely hesitant about elevating human rights to the level of Canada’s international policies. Trudeau’s government did, however, signal a change in its approach to human rights in foreign policy during his third term in oice. Contrary to his earlier statements, in 1978 Don Jamieson argues: he Charter of the United Nations establishes as one of its key purposes the promotion and encouragement of respect for human rights … In adhering to the Charter, Canada and all other member states have incurred obligations to support that objective. No country can contend with any justiication that its performance is a purely domestic matter in which the international community has no right to intercede.67 his strong statement in support of international human rights seemingly contravenes Canada’s previous positions. Additionally, a similar opinion was echoed in 1980 by Yvon Beaulne, Canadian representative to the un Commission on Human Rights, who proclaimed: “It is not possible to maintain seriously today, as certain jurists have done in a less enlightened age, that the manner in which a state treats its citizens concerns it alone.”68 his shift in the Canadian position is due in part to increased us interest in human rights, particularly during the Carter administration, which was responsible for normalizing human rights in bilateral relations.69 Moreover, the Helsinki Accords inalized in the 1975 Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe raised the international proile of human rights by making obligations part of the general bipolar rivalry. hese reasons – bandwagonning and balancing – partially explain the gathering momentum of human rights in Canadian foreign policy. he shift in Canada’s international approach to human rights also rests to a degree on the gross and persistent violations that began to receive global attention. Systemic violations of human rights in South Africa,

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genocide in Kampuchea, and the atrocities committed by the Amin regime in Uganda made it increasingly diicult for governments that were denouncing the human rights situation in the Soviet Union to ignore violations in other parts of the world. Nossal points out, however, that hard interests – usually deined by more powerful states such as the United States – ultimately determined Canada’s response to any given atrocity: In the major cases of violations in the last decade, where “strategic concerns” have largely been absent, as in Uganda, Kampuchea, or Sri Lanka, Ottawa has taken a stif stand against violations: where clearly identiiable strategic interests exist, it tended to play down violations. Canada’s “considerable ambivalence” on South Africa, or its relatively muted expressions of concern about Indonesia’s political prisoners and its invasion of East Timor, or its quiet diplomacy on human rights violations in Central America, or its indiference to violations in Iran in the 1970s can be linked to the strategic importance of the states involved.70 In short, strategic and economic interests appear to have taken precedence over Canadian human rights policies with regards to both countryor issue-speciic cases. Similarly, inconsistencies and self-interest have also plagued Canada’s record on development assistance. Cranford Pratt notes that Canadian aid programs were a product of Cold War alliance politics. According to him: “Because the purpose of the aid was to counter the expansion of Soviet inluence, the United States pressed its allies to assume part of the burden. Canadian aid thus began, timidly and somewhat begrudgingly, as an obligation arising from its major alliances.”71 Canada’s aid programs were, in other words, animated by strategic rather than ethical concerns. Only with the Carter administration’s initiatives did Canada review whether or not to attach human rights criteria to decisions on development aid. Yet Keenleyside and Serkasevich point out that, unlike the United States, Canada lacked a classiication system for assessing the human rights records of recipient countries.72 Consequently, the media’s ad hoc focus on any particular country was often the deciding factor on questions of human rights and international aid. Canadian relief eforts for the Ethiopian famine of the early 1980s, for instance, did not begin until television images were broadcast around the world.73 hus, satisfying domestic pressure rather than altruism was the motivating force behind measures to address human rights violations abroad.

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Furthermore, Canadian aid programs have often been designed or redesigned to suit economic interests. he Canadian International Development Agency announced in 1975 that the bulk of Canada’s aid would be concentrated in the least-privileged sectors of the least-developed countries – the poorest of the poor – to assist in achieving a “reasonable degree of selfreliance.”74 Yet this policy was repealed only a few years later. By 1980, the government decided that 20 percent of all bilateral aid could go to the richer of the underdeveloped countries and that this aid could be used to promote Canadian exports and investments.75 A request from the Department of Industry, Trade, and Commerce was also granted, which meant that up to 80 percent of all bilateral aid could be “tied” in the sense that it would have to be spent on the purchase of Canadian goods and services.76 Canada’s oficial development assistance during the Cold War therefore appears to follow a realist rationale rather than an idealist one. Canada also wavered on its policies towards South Africa’s apartheid regime. he limited punitive measures announced by Don Jamieson in 1977 against the South African government were “negligible.”77 According to Rhoda Howard-Hassmann, in falling far short of the complete economic and political sanctions that critics of the apartheid regime were seeking, Canadian policymakers continued to choose to prioritize the promotion of trade rather than the promotion of human rights.78 Given the minimal amount of bilateral trade, she inds this alarming: In 1985, Canadian imports from that country totalled only $228 million, or 0.02 percent of total imports; similarly exports to South Africa amounted to $151 million, or 0.013 per cent of total exports. At the end of 1982, Canada had only $200 million worth of investments in South Africa, of which only $44 million was actually controlled in Canada.79 Canada refused to sacriice relatively insigniicant levels of material gain despite the clear and systemic violations of human rights under the apartheid system. Patently, Canada’s initial policy on South Africa supports structural realist assumptions, which underline the primacy of material interests over concerns for human rights. Only from the mid- to late 1980s, with a change of government, did Canada signal a stronger commitment to ight apartheid. At irst, Prime Minister Mulroney showed little intention to alter course from his predecessors. As Michaud and Nossal explain: “he Conservatives did not come to oice in 1984 intending to make the promotion of human rights and good governance one of the central features of Canadian foreign policy. However … international human rights became a persistent theme over

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their nine years in oice.”80 Mulroney’s commitment to human rights and good governance centred on the anti-apartheid campaign. Just over a year into his administration, at the un General Assembly on 23 October 1985, Mulroney declared: “My government has said to Canadians that if there are not fundamental changes in South Africa, we are prepared to invoke total sanctions against the country and its repressive regime. If there is no progress in dismantling apartheid, Canada’s relations with South Africa may have to be severed absolutely.”81 his position on South Africa was complemented by Mulroney’s “rethinking” of the concept of sovereignty (moving towards a more interventionist stance) as well as the introduction of training programs on human rights for oicials within the Department of External Afairs and Canadian International Development Agency.82 Yet Mulroney’s policies on South Africa were marked by inconsistencies and contradictions. David Black’s systematic study of the Conservative government’s sanctions against the apartheid regime indicates that measures were comprehensive but never more than partial.83 In other words, Canadian policies fell short of the “absolute” or “total sanctions” that Mulroney had threatened. Moreover, trade igures revealing an increase in the total value of both imports from and exports to South Africa by 68 percent and 44 percent, respectively, for the irst eleven months of 1988, as well as the government’s approval of a $600 million loan by the Bank of Nova Scotia to a South-African controlled company, left Mulroney’s administration open to criticism and “periodic embarrassments.”84 Hence, despite repeatedly confronting Prime Minister hatcher on the issue and persistent advocacy in the G-7 and Commonwealth, the Mulroney government sufered from an obvious reality-rhetoric gap, which limited the impact of its antiapartheid diplomacy. Far from the “exceptional leadership role” that Canadian policymakers often claim, Black concludes that “Canada’s record placed it among the front rank of Western countries but only rarely and briely at its forefront … its overall policy efort is perhaps best characterized as generally constructive but marginal.”85 herefore, consistent with the structural realist outlook, Canadian sanctions against South Africa came at a low strategic and economic cost. Nonetheless, there is reason to believe that Canada’s active human rights promotion marked a new direction in Canadian foreign policy for which structural realism cannot explain. he government’s expansion into areas of women’s and children’s rights as well as its attempts to engage countries such as China, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the ussr, and Yugoslavia on issues of good governance are substantively diferent from what we ind in the

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cautious or reticent policies of Trudeau.86 Rather than arguing that “the Mulroney government was a paragon on the issue of the protection and defence of human rights during this period,” Michaud and Nossal contend that “the attention given to human rights after 1984 represented an important departure from Canadian government practice to that point.”87 he initiatives of the mid- to late 1980s relect Canada’s irst steps beyond procedural standard-setting towards the actual implementation of international human rights codes. Purely on interest-based grounds, there is little cause for this departure. hat this policy shift occurred independently from any structural changes in the balance of power suggests that the structural realist framework for understanding policy change cannot explain the growing salience of human rights in international relations. Although structural realism advances convincing arguments regarding policy inconsistencies and failures, it cannot account for the underlying causes of the increasing prominence of human rights in Canadian foreign policy. Overall, structural realism remains a useful approach for explaining Canada’s initial opposition to universal human rights as well as its limited leadership on international human rights issues during the Cold War. Canada’s interest in human rights did, in fact, increase during this period. Yet Canadian policies were always marred by inconsistencies and a fundamental preoccupation with the traditional concerns of strategic and economic interests. hese material concerns were not even compromised during Canada’s high-proile activism against apartheid. hough the structural realist framework has diiculty explaining the rising status of human rights within the Department of External Afairs, there is no evidence to suggest that Canadian human rights policies contravened the concept of the national interest. Indeed, the empirical record reveals that the pursuit of strategic and economic goods during the Cold War had precedence in Canadian foreign policy. he rare instances of human rights promotion undertaken by the Canadian government thus came at a negligible or extremely low material cost. As Matthews and Pratt argue near the Cold War’s demise: “Canada pursues human rights actively only when that interest coincides or overlaps with other foreign policy goals, when its other interests are negligible, or when the public forces its hand.”88 Public opinion, they add, has not proven to be the permissive variable in human rights advocacy. herefore, throughout the Cold War, human rights remained a peripheral concern of Canadian foreign policy. hese insights point to pessimistic conclusions about the status of human rights during this period. For Jack Donnelly, national interests

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remain the linchpin for understanding human rights in foreign policy. In pondering when states will act against human rights violations abroad, Donnelly concludes: Necessary conditions seem to include very low costs, the absence of Cold War concerns, and an unusually high level of popular interest. Unless even massive killings overseas are in some compelling way “brought home,” and competing security, political, economic, and ideological interests are absent, humanitarian intervention almost certainly will not be attempted. In practice, this implies restricting humanitarian intervention to actions against weak, notorious, and relatively peripheral countries. Furthermore, unless there are also clear and considerable selish national interests to be furthered, “humanitarian” intervention almost certainly will not occur.89 At least during the era of superpower rivalry, human rights did not igure within conceptions of the national interest. hus, human rights are unlikely to play a sustained and central role in foreign policy decision making if they are in competition with other goals and demands. hese principles are relevant for Canada and the broader task of foreign policy analysis.

the post-cold war he end of the Cold War caused a monumental shift in the balance of power. From a structural realist perspective, this change signalled the beginning of a new period in international relations – the post-Cold War period, for lack of more precise terminology.90 At the time, human rights had featured regularly, though not consistently, in Canadian foreign policy. Although the Mulroney administration had introduced measures to normalize human rights within Canada’s external relations and aid practices, human rights was by no means a irmly entrenched part of Canadian foreign policy by the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Yet, by the mid1990s, Canada declared human rights to be a core “Canadian value” and a central component of the third “pillar” of Canada’s foreign policy framework. Structural realism has diiculty explaining the degree to which human rights became a central issue in Canada’s foreign policy agenda, surpassing more immediate material issues. here remains, however, a substantial degree of realism surrounding the discretionary application and uneven achievements of Canada’s international human rights

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policies. Overall, the theory remains signiicant with regard to explaining human rights in Canadian foreign policy in the post-Cold War era. Canada’s National Interests he end of the Cold War did little to change Canada’s obsession over its relative power. As Maureen Appel Molot argued in 1990, “Canadian foreign policy literature in large measure relects the Canadian preoccupation with Canada’s place in the world, a preoccupation with status, position, inluence and power.”91 If anything, this perpetual Canadian anxiety was exacerbated by the sudden transformation in the international balance of power. he end of superpower rivalry rendered obsolete any functionalist role that Canada had assumed in previous decades. Moreover, instability ensued in many parts of the world that had been precariously sustained by the sponsorship of one superpower or the other. he Cold War’s demise hence introduced a set of unforeseen security threats for which Canada and most other states were ill prepared. According to David Malone, a senior foreign policy oicial and former president of the International Peace Academy, “the dangerous but predictable bipolar postwar system was gone, and the international community had to navigate in unchartered waters.”92 Canada was therefore in clear need of a new foreign policy framework for the post-Cold War era. A thorough review of Canadian foreign policy did not begin until 1993, with the change from a Conservative to a Liberal government under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. he ensuing report, Canada in the World, was published in 1995. It underscores the emergence of a “new violence” characterized by ethnic and religious division, intra-state conlict, terrorism, as well as international organized crime and mass involuntary migration. Although these threats were certainly not new, they formed the basis for a new security orientation. he new Canadian outlook thus focused its conception of security, following the United Nations Development Programme’s (undp) 1994 Human Development Report, on the political, social, and economic threats to the individual.93 Canada in the World further stresses that human rights abuses often compound instability, which can lead to the outbreak of international conlict and violence. For instance, the report stipulates: “A priority ield of international concern and action for Canadians has been and remains that of human rights. he Government regards respect for human rights not only as a fundamental value, but also as a crucial element in the development

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of stable, democratic and prosperous societies at peace with each other.”94 Along with the promotion of prosperity and the promotion of global peace, human rights became one of three central pillars of Canadian foreign policy under the general rubric of “the projection of Canadian values.” Human rights consequently became, for then foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, a “threshold issue” in Canada’s external relations.95 All three pillars were carefully promoted as objectives that advanced Canada’s interests. Kim Nossal argues that there is “a perverse tendency to conclude that internationalism must be selless, that the internationalist has an obligation to disregard self-interest.”96 his tendency “ignores completely the reality that internationalist diplomacy is invariably undertaken with the view that one’s interests are going to be enhanced by engaging in it; in that sense, internationalist diplomacy is deeply self-interested.”97 Lloyd Axworthy, a key proponent of the human security agenda in Canadian policy, regarded principles and interests as co-dependent variables. He outlined the principles and interests that underlie the promotion of Canadian values abroad in a 1997 speech on human rights and Canadian foreign policy at McGill University: Mature democracies are less likely to go to war with each other, unleash waves of refugees, create environmental catastrophes, or engage in terrorism. Jobs and growth at home are increasingly dependent on trade and investment abroad. States that respect human rights and the rule of law are more likely to honour their commercial commitments. he health of the international economy is linked to issues of stability and security. All of this means that respect for human rights is an imperative of living in a global society.98 hus, the seemingly humanitarian contents of Canada’s 1995 policy statement need not exclude the basic precept of the national interest or the resonance of realism within the Canadian foreign policy community. Overall, despite the outward appearance of the new policy objectives, Canada’s national interest retained much of its material substance. Axworthy suggests, for instance, that democracy, the rule of law, and human rights are increasingly important for international peace and prosperity in the post-Cold War era. Canada has subsequently linked human rights to a broad conception of good governance, which it regards as a necessary ingredient for achieving medium- to long-term economic growth and for sustaining healthy trade and investment relations. Seen

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through a structural realist lens, human rights violations are becoming increasingly costly for Canada and Canadian businesses in a global world. his logic suggests, however, that although human rights may be increasingly relevant for Canada and other trade-reliant countries through economic interdependence, states are unlikely to react to human rights violations unless a failure to respond threatens their material interests. What has become known as the Chrétien doctrine – that “concerns about human rights will not be allowed to interfere with Canada’s eforts to promote international trade” – merely airms the primacy of Canada’s material interests over other pursuits.99 here is further evidence to suggest that, despite Canada’s policy rhetoric, the end of the Cold War allowed Canadians to reduce their internationalist commitments and capabilities.100 Canada’s growing emphasis on trade and prosperity as well as the lack of a clear security threat have contributed to the decline of Canada’s military establishment since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In Nossal’s opinion, “Canadians have discovered that they can get away with an underequipped constabulary rather than a robust military force.”101 Military downsizing has proven to be an easy policy option for balancing the federal budget. According to Jockel and Sokolsky, the end of the Cold War has eroded the linkage between Canada’s national interest and the Canadian military.102 Canadian policymakers, in other words, have taken the view that hard power capabilities no longer efectively advance Canada’s national interest at a time when the need for geo-strategic balancing is neither clear nor present. he complete exclusion of defence considerations from Canada in the World conirms the marked separation between Canada’s foreign and defence policies in the 1990s. he disappearance of the overriding security dilemma of the Cold War also brought about the Canadian foreign policy community’s experiment with so-called “niche diplomacy.” For Heather Smith, this approach originates in the interest-based precepts of realism, though perhaps those of a classical rather than a structural brand. Linking it to Hans Morgenthau’s classical standpoint, she argues that niche diplomacy “is about the management of power” during a period of tentative balance through advocating “a rational foreign policy that ‘minimizes risks and maximizes beneits.’”103 Yet niche diplomacy does not involve picking and choosing between diferent or competing organizations, institutions, or diplomatic relationships. he approach attempts instead to establish whether or not a country can or should engage in particular issue areas. Moreover, there

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is an underlying realism in the application of niche diplomacy to Canada’s human security agenda. Drawing upon Kal Holsti’s concept of “optional objectives” – those aims that are ultimately elective in the sense that the prime concerns of security and welfare are not at stake – Jockel and Sokolsky point out that “the human security agenda embodies large measures of discretionary realpolitik.”104 Niche diplomacy under the human security agenda therefore allowed the Canadian government to behave sporadically rather than consistently on issues that, by and large, carried few costs or risks. Kim Nossal charges that the cost aversion of Canada’s post-Cold War foreign policy is serious cause for alarm. It has resulted in what he terms “pinchpenny diplomacy,” not the more eloquent notion of “niche diplomacy” that Canadian policymakers supposedly pursue. In his words, pinchpenny diplomacy has no apparent overarching strategic political purpose except the prosaic and uninspiring purpose of seeing how low Canadian expenditures on international afairs can be kept without forfeiting Canada’s position in international forums like the G-8. But pinchpenny diplomacy is more than diplomacy that seeks to be as cheap as possible. Rather, it suggests a particular attitude towards international activity, an essential meanness of spirit that underwrites an overly frugal foreign policy conducted by a rich and secure community in a world that continues to be marked by poverty and insecurity.105 Although Nossal’s pinchpenny thesis is, in some measure, meant to provoke, his claim that cutbacks have had an adverse efect on Canada’s power base is entirely valid. As Canada’s chief of defence staf, General Rick Hillier, recently raged, the massive defence expenditure reductions of the 1990s compounded by the increasing number of Canadian military missions abroad “have now led to some deep wounds in the department in the Canadian Forces over this past … decade of darkness.”106 Moreover, despite the waning of internationalism and the depletion of the country’s real capabilities, Canadian policymakers have been unable to formulate any “new or fresh idea about how Canada’s orientation to the international system might be fashioned; certainly there is no strategic idea that warrants the suix ‘ism.’”107 On the whole, Canada’s post-Cold War national interests and the ways in which foreign policy could be devised as a vehicle for their attainment

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were the subjects of notable contestation. he shifting context of international relations after the demise of bipolarity has, to a large extent, made it diicult for Canada to foster a new international role. Lloyd Axworthy’s human security agenda subsequently remains a controversial component of Canadian foreign policy that has divided the academic and policy communities. For Jockel and Sokolsky, Axworthy has won nothing short of “an important political victory and a long-lasting ministerial legacy” because his agenda salvaged “Canadian defence policy from military irrelevance and strategic sterility.”108 Fen Osler Hampson, however, argues that “the moral content of this agenda strikes some as being removed from vital Canadian national interests, particularly when we set ourselves on a collision course with our major trading partner.”109 For Hampson, the human security agenda is a distraction from the core issues of the national interest, such as trade and economic gain. Most stringently, William Bain contends that “human security challenges and possibly undermines the moral foundation of international society as it has existed for nearly four-hundred years.”110 Axworthy’s agenda, Bain continues, rests on an “excessive moralism” that recklessly imposes Canadian values on others. While structural realists and advocates of a utilitarian basis for foreign policy would disparage the decline of the Canadian military in the 1990s, it would seem that Canada’s prime national interest – survival – was not endangered in the new international security environment following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, the lack of a clear security threat and the erosion of Canada’s hard-power capabilities have meant that Canadians have deined trade and economic prosperity as the consistent pursuits of the national interest. As relected by the Chrétien doctrine on trade and human rights, there is no evidence to suggest that, in the event of trade-ofs, “soft” interests such as the projection abroad of Canadian values would in any way trump “hard” interests. hus, despite the confusion surrounding Canada’s national interests, realist principles remain indispensable for explaining Canadian foreign policy in the postCold War era. Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy after the Cold War Human rights had become a regular – albeit inconsistent – feature of Canadian foreign policy at the time of the Cold War’s demise. Although the Mulroney government had introduced measures to normalize human rights in Canada’s external relations and aid practices, the promotion of

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human rights nevertheless remained an occasional experiment. As a result, the status of human rights in Canadian foreign policy was by no means irmly entrenched. Following the review process of 1993-95, however, human rights was presented as a core Canadian value and a central pillar of Canadian foreign policy under the framework articulated in the new White Paper, Canada in the World.111 he Chrétien government thus committed the country to further standard-setting on nascent human rights issues and, crucially, to pursue the implementation of established standards. At least rhetorically, human rights were accorded a prominent place in Canada’s foreign policy agenda for the post-Cold War era. he government rationalized the importance of human rights in Canadian foreign policy on several grounds. It was argued that human rights was an essential Canadian value that the government sought to project abroad under the “third pillar” of Canada’s foreign policy. As Foreign Afairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy asserts, “Our approach to international human rights is rooted in and relects our approach to human rights at home.”112 his emphasis on domestic institutions and the projection abroad of national values seemingly runs contrary to realist principles. Yet one of the chief architects of the 1995 White Paper, an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Policy Planning Division, argues that values have simply replaced interests in the international lexicon of foreign afairs.113 He suggests that the dichotomy between values and interests is exaggerated as the projection of values internationally contains self-interested motives. He argues further that “values allow us to manage our own societies efectively to create prosperity and security, and, having had success with that at home, we [Foreign Afairs Canada] feel that it is appropriate to project those values internationally to ensure prosperity and security in other parts of the world.”114 hus, while, at irst glance, the projection of national values may not conform to structural realism, there are reasonable interestbased arguments for the third pillar. he Government of Canada thus sought to link human rights to the promotion of peace and prosperity – the irst and second pillars, respectively, of Canada’s post-Cold War framework. he 1995 White Paper explicitly stipulates that human rights are a “crucial element in the development of stable, democratic and prosperous societies at peace with each other.”115 Axworthy consequently maintained a consistent interest-based argument for Canada’s promotion of human rights. In contending that human rights are an imperative rather than a luxury under conditions of globalization, Axworthy claimed:

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Jobs and growth at home are increasingly dependent on trade and investment abroad. States that respect human rights and the rule of law are more likely to honour their commercial commitments. he wellbeing of the international economy is linked to issues of stability and security. All of this means that human rights must be integral to our overall foreign policy.116 In other words, it was argued that human rights are essential to international trade and security in a globalized world. Canada’s third foreign policy pillar, including the promotion of human rights and the projection abroad of other Canadian values, therefore reinforces an interest-based pursuit of material goods. For similar reasons, respect for human rights was integrated into the government’s evolving, comprehensive concept of human security. As the phrase implies, “human security” attempts to feature the individual rather than the state as the security referent. It also emphasizes the importance of sustainable human development for international peace. According to the 1994 undp Human Development Report: At the global level, human security no longer means carefully constructed safeguards against the threat of a nuclear holocaust – a likelihood greatly reduced by the end of the cold war. Instead, it means responding to the threat of global poverty travelling across international borders in the form of drugs, hiv/aids, climate change, illegal migration and terrorism.117 he undp’s concept further involves “safety from chronic threats” as well as “protection from sudden and hurtful disruptions in the patterns of daily life.”118 he Canadian approach, though comparable, stresses “freedom from fear of threats such as terrorism, drug traicking and the illicit trade of small arms.”119 Human rights were thus included in Canada’s expansive deinition of security. According to Axworthy, the chief proponent of the human security agenda at the ministerial level, this new directive would result not only in remedial action on human rights but also in preventative measures to address the root causes of international human rights violations.120 All the same, Canada’s commitment to human rights remained far from absolute. here is little or no evidence to suggest that Canadian policymaking on human rights issues became any less ad hoc after the publication of Canada in the World. Canadian policies lacked the systematic

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coherence that the White Paper seemingly promised. Axworthy therefore had to delect criticism of the government’s inconsistent approach to diferent countries by reiterating the stylistic merit of quiet diplomacy. Speaking at the University of Ottawa in 1997, he argued: A coherent human rights approach does not require or even imply uniformity of treatment. It would be easy to take very public stands on every human rights abuse in every country, and it might even be quite popular, but this would not, on its own, change much in the country concerned. Each situation and each country holds a diferent potential for efective action. he key is to ind the right foreign policy approach to fulil that potential.121 Canadian action, Axworthy continued, must vary according to the willingness of other countries to engage with Canada on human rights issues and according to Canada’s leverage with each particular country in question.122 Canada’s approach to human rights in the post-Cold War era therefore centred on a quiet style of niche diplomacy that was tempered by a measure of prudence, or “principled pragmatism.”123 Consequently, if structural realism cannot explain the growing prominence of human rights in Canada’s foreign policy outlook, it nonetheless ofers valid materialist explanations for the inconsistencies and shortfalls of the country’s international record. Canada’s oicial development assistance, for instance, declined during the 1990s despite the Canadian economy’s recovery from the recession of the previous decade. Drastic budget cuts accompanied the launch of the 1995 White Paper. As Amitav Rath points out, “During the decade of the 1990s, while Canada’s gdp grew from $570 billion in 1992 to $1200 billion in 2003, a growth of over 100 percent, the allocations for Canada’s oicial development assistance (oda) fell both as a ratio of oda to gdp as well as in absolute amounts.”124 According to igures provided by the undp, Canada’s net oda as a percentage of gross national income fell from 0.44 in 1990 to 0.27 in 2004 – a stark downward trend away from Lester Pearson’s suggested pledge of 0.7 percent.125 hese statistics support Nossal’s pinchpenny thesis. Despite the country’s rhetorical commitment to human rights, Canada’s postCold War record on oda underscores an increasing reluctance to sacriice material goods for the beneit of those beyond its borders. Canada’s bilateral policies on human rights sufered from a similar discrepancy. In contrast to the prospects for democratic reform in the former

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Soviet bloc, the Tiananmen Square incident of 4 June 1989 heightened international concern for human rights in East Asia. One of the central debates of the 1990s hence centred on so-called “Asian values.” Supporters of the Asian values thesis objected to a universal conception of human rights based on the argument that international standards disregard cultural speciicities. he governments of China and Singapore, for example, were most vociferous in asserting the relativist notion that rights are determined culturally.126 Despite widespread domestic and international condemnation of the Chinese government’s lethal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, the response of the Canadian government demonstrated a commitment to material interests. Consistent with the Chrétien doctrine on trade and human rights, Gecelovsky and Keenleyside argue that Canadian sanctions imposed against China after the incident “had a limited impact on Canada-China relations and were largely symbolic.”127 Canadian exports to China had risen dramatically in the post-Cold War period from $984,000 in 1989 to over $4 billion in 2002.128 Moreover, arms exports increased to $1.2 and $1.3 million in 1990 and 1991, respectively, while Canadian aid to China rose by 106.5 percent to $72.7 million in 1990-91, when Canada’s total bilateral aid expenditures declined by 7.8 percent overall.129 Canada’s post-Cold War experiment to broaden peacekeeping operations into the area of humanitarian intervention illustrates further shortcomings. Donnelly deines humanitarian intervention as an act “undertaken to halt, prevent, or punish systematic and severe human rights violations or in response to humanitarian crises, such as famines or massive refugee lows.”130 he uncertainties of post-Cold War geopolitics had generated pressure to transpose peacekeeping methods onto an increasingly expansive array of conlicts and humanitarian disasters. By the end of 1992, the Canadian armed forces committed over 4,400 troops to fourteen multinational peacekeeping operations, most notably to unprofor I and unprofor II in the former Yugoslavia and to the United Nations Operation in Somalia. he latter mission was a notorious failure that, in the words of the Report of the Somalia Commission of Inquiry, “went badly wrong” and “impugned the reputations of individuals, Canada’s military and, indeed, the nation itself.”131 he “execution-style” shooting of a Somali intruder and the torture and beating death of a Somali teenager by members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment highlight a vast incapacity to protect human rights abroad. Although institutional or organizational failures are partly responsible for Canadian failures in Somalia, Rwanda, and successive humanitarian disasters, realist principles cannot

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be dismissed for underlining the lack of it between the military’s traditional role of national defence and the defence of human rights abroad. Even Canada’s celebrated leadership in the campaign against antipersonnel landmines (dubbed the Ottawa Process) was an exceptional case. In fact, Veronica Kitchen points out that Canada’s involvement in the movement was accidental rather than a deliberate, proactive attempt to protect human rights internationally. As she explains: In 1995, the United Nations published a list of countries that adhered to an export moratorium on anti-personnel landmines. Mistakenly, the list included Canada, which had enacted no such ban. Even though Canada was not a major producer of landmines, the Department of National Defence (dnd) was reluctant to tell the United Nations of the error, and so, under pressure from dfait, it consented to an export moratorium by November 1995.132 Furthermore, the government’s marketing of the Ottawa Process was underscored by a degree of opportunism that limited its ability to attract key players. Adam Chapnick charges that Axworthy’s “aggressive unilateralism” hastened the signatory process at the expense of angering some states – particularly the United States – with the result that the most dangerous landmine-producing countries continue to remain outside of the treaty.133 Axworthy broke with diplomatic protocol by initiating the signatory conference for the Ottawa Treaty in December 1997 without informing Canada’s allies or even his own colleagues in dfait. Axworthy defended his style of diplomacy by pointing to the expedience of coalition building. He claimed: “he campaign to ban antipersonnel mines was a deining moment for post-Cold War international relations … It shows that, when existing international bodies are not up to task, new issue-based alliances can make unprecedented progress.”134 Yet this unilateral, coalition-building initiative may have had unintended consequences. Although Warmington and Tuttle believe that Canada’s “unilateralism was a welcomed response to a global humanitarian crisis that demanded decisive action,” the Ottawa Process demonstrated the post-Cold War potential for unilateralism in other issue areas.135 here are striking similarities, for instance, between the Ottawa Process and the us-led invasion of Iraq. As Chapnick notes: Both Lloyd Axworthy and George W. Bush justiied their boldness by pointing to the immediacy of the crises at hand. Both found the un

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process too cumbersome, inefective and ineicient, and they felt that the need for action justiied moving outside of it. Both claimed to have gathered legitimate multilateral support outside of the un – and both promised quick results.136 While Canadian leadership may have promoted global awareness of the landmines issue and raised the country’s international proile, Canada ultimately undermined the authority of the un and was unable to persuade key states to adopt a total ban. his is not to say that the Ottawa Treaty is a superluous international document. he landmines issue is, in itself, a serious and important concern for millions around the world. Rather, these criticisms underline Canada’s erratic and opportunistic handling of the landmines issue. Canada’s support for the icc displays less erratic behaviour. Human rights promotion is central to the icc’s mandate, albeit limited to prosecuting acts of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. In the process leading to the creation of the 1998 Rome Statute for the establishment of the icc, the government claimed that “the Canadian delegation played a brokering role in many of the negotiations including the jurisdiction of the Court, deinition of crimes, and the Court’s procedures and general principles.”137 Moreover, with the creation of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act in June 2000, Canada became the irst state to implement the Rome Statute by legislating conformity between Canadian law and the country’s legal obligations under that statute. he federal government thus sponsored the creation of a technical manual to assist other states in implementing the Rome Statute within their own legal and political systems.138 Although Canada’s contribution to this project rests only on technical expertise and assistance, structural realism has diiculty explaining the cause of Canada’s support for the Court – especially as the Rome Statute places restrictions on the conduct of war, which structural realism otherwise regards as a logical extension of politics by other means. In sum, Canadian foreign policy in the post-Cold War period fails to demonstrate a sustained and consistent approach to human rights. Structural realism provides a useful framework for explaining these inconsistencies, although it has diiculty explaining the underlying motivations behind certain human rights measures (such as the establishment of the icc). While government initiatives under the human security agenda point to an interest in standard-setting as well as implementation,

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Canada’s preoccupation with a low-cost, or penny-pinching, foreign policy casts strong doubt on the extent to which Canadians are committed to the protection of human rights abroad. As a general rule, successive Canadian governments have been unwilling or unable to substantiate their rhetorical commitment to international human rights when material objectives are at stake. Canada’s contribution to the promotion of international human rights consists generally of technical expertise and assistance backed by minimal inancial or military commitment. he empirical record therefore suggests that there is little justiication for the claim that human rights is in fact a threshold issue of Canadian foreign policy. Overall, structural realism provides scant insight into the impetus behind the growing inclusion of human rights in Canada’s foreign policy white papers. Yet the theory’s emphasis on the rational trade-ofs and material necessities of policymaking underscore its conceptual merit in the post-Cold War period.

the post-september 11th war on terror From a structural realist perspective, September 11th is a key historical marker in ir. Although the attacks were perpetrated by non-state actors, which were to some extent sanctioned by particular states, the terrorist attacks and the subsequent launch of the global war on terror catalyzed a transformation in the general alignment of international politics based on new threats and enemies. Coalitions arose to balance terrorist organizations and the states that harbour and fund them. International relations in the post-September 11th era therefore difer markedly from what can retrospectively be called the post-Cold War “interregnum.”139 his change in international politics has led to a sharp decline in the general salience of human rights in foreign afairs. For example, in 2002, Mary Robinson, un high commissioner for human rights, complained that international human rights issues were sufering as a consequence of the ight against terrorism.140 Her successor, Louise Arbour, made similar observations, pointing additionally to the negative consequences of antiterror legislation on human rights and its potential for fostering support for terrorist groups.141 Inevitably, September 11th and the global war on terror have punctuated the study of human rights in ir. In the wake of the attacks, intent on being provocative, Michael Ignatief, then director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government,

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questioned “whether the era of human rights has come and gone.”142 He cited that human rights risk becoming not only unpopular in international afairs but also fatally irrelevant. Such remarks have prompted deeper scholarly inquiry into whether the perceived decline of human rights after September 11th signals a “return of the state” and state-centred security issues – something that would serve to amplify structural realism’s importance.143 September 11th and its aftermath have therefore confounded human rights scholarship and presented an important test for the claim that human rights were prominent in the decade prior to the attacks simply because powerful states lacked clear or immediate security threats. In other words, September 11th has challenged the fundamental value of human rights as a political concept. Rather than ideology or acquiescence to international human rights standards, one of the key ordering principles in the post-September 11th era centres on a state’s ability to combat international terrorism. As such, the Government of Canada and the Canadian people at large were quick to condemn the terrorist attacks of September 11th. John Manley, then minister of foreign afairs, highlighted Canada’s commitment to the antiterrorism alignment when he stated that a key Canadian objective was “to provide assurance to [Canada’s] neighbour, to [its] allies and to [its] many global partners that [its] solidarity [was] as substantial as it [was] complete.”144 Canada’s resolve, Manley argued, was exempliied by the government’s move to “invoke Article V of the nato Charter, for the irst time in the 52-year history of the Alliance.”145 On related grounds, Canada committed troops to the international coalition in Afghanistan against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime. Yet Canada’s new commitments also revealed the extent of the Canadian military’s disrepair. he view that the Canadian armed forces were peripheral to the national interest became untenable in the post-September 11th era. After years of chronic underfunding, the urgency to reinvest in Canada’s military capabilities resembles something of a realist “correction.” Once again, hard power matters to Canadian foreign policy and the national interest. With the exception of an ongoing review of Canadian policies concerning the treatment of terrorist suspects, however, Canada’s human rights policy has remained remarkably consistent. According to an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Human Rights, Humanitarian Afairs, and International Women’s Equity Division, “in the broader scheme of things in terms of our foreign policy on human rights, no, by and large, 9/11 has not changed much if anything at all – really.”146 Moreover, another

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senior oicial within dfait’s Policy Planning Division argues that, while September 11th is considered to be “pivotal” in Canada’s overall foreign policy outlook, the Government of Canada has taken substantive measures to “raise the bar” – or to advance the existing international standard – on issues related directly to human rights (such as human security and the concept of the responsibility to protect).147 Simply put, human rights remains an important component of Canadian foreign policy. To some extent, the consistency of Canada’s human rights policies stems from Canada’s commitment to its human security agenda. Human rights will likely remain an integral part of Canadian foreign policy partially because Canada’s position on comprehensive security emphasizes that all countries are afected by human rights violations abroad.148 Structural realism has its limits as an explanatory framework for Canadian human rights policies in the post-September 11th era. Structural realism cannot explain, for instance, the efect of institutional learning and bureaucratic inertia within the various departments and ministries that gives rise to Canada’s continued support for international human rights. More strikingly, structural realism cannot explain Canada’s continuing attempts to “raise the bar” on human rights issues – especially where Canadian human rights initiatives may irritate the all-important Canada-us relationship. hus, although structural realism may provide insight into the discretionary and limited achievements of Canada’s international human rights policies, its framework provides only a partial explanation of human rights in Canadian foreign policy in the post-September 11th era. Canada’s National Interests he calamity of September 11th and the subsequent response against global terrorism served as a reminder to Canadian foreign policymakers that hard power remains a prime currency of international relations. Critics and students of, and statespersons involved with, Canadian foreign policy felt that Canada had lost touch with this reality. “In the cutthroat realm of international relations,” Granatstein proclaims, “power still comes primarily from the barrel of a gun, not from the ranks of social workers that Canadians believe they send abroad.”149 Even before September 11th, critics of Axworthy’s human security agenda argued that the “national interest is being sufocated by ‘soft power’ and humanitarian crusades.”150 In a reversal from the emphasis on trade promotion in previous eras, the human security agenda was antagonizing important

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allies such as the United States while failing to serve Canada’s national interests. As Eric Bélanger summarizes: he events of 9/11, and maybe more importantly, the reactions they triggered – border control, homeland security, the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq – have plunged Canadian diplomacy into the state of ambiguity or “nothingness” … Suddenly, the spell has broken. Not only have we witnessed a spectacular airmation of power politics, but we have been struck by the irrelevance of Canadian soft power: no coalition of like-minded countries, no public diplomacy campaign, no bridge-building action, no diplomatic creativity, no human security intervention seems adequate as compensatory actions.151 Canada’s emphasis on soft power, which had carried it through the 1990s, would clearly not suice in the post-September 11th world. Canada was therefore in serious need of a policy review and an innovative policy framework for the new challenges of this era. he review process began in 2003, and its subsequent report, Canada’s International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Inluence in the World, was released in April 2005. he White Paper was the irst comprehensive report of its kind in Canadian foreign policy in that it included a review of Canadian defence policy as well as chapters on diplomacy, commerce, and development. In the foreword of the document, Prime Minister Paul Martin describes the state of urgency for Canada’s foreign policy community: Make no mistake: We are in the midst of a major rebalancing of global power. New nations are rising as military and economic forces. Many established powers are striving to maintain their inluence through regional integration and new alliances. In a world of traditional and emerging giants, independent countries like Canada – countries with small populations – risk being swept aside, their inluence diminished, their ability to compete hampered. hat may sound dramatic, but the stakes are that high. We will have to be smart, focused, agile, creative and dogged in the pursuit of our interests.152 In response to the emerging balance, the White Paper further prioritizes a focus on failed or fragile states as the single greatest security threat in contemporary international relations. his security priority is being targeted

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both as a counter-terrorism measure and as an efort to mitigate humanitarian crises. It is, furthermore, a comprehensive aim that requires coherence between human rights, governance, legal, and military infrastructures. As the report outlines, failed and fragile states “undermine the stability of neighbours and entire regions” and are “obvious breeding grounds for terrorist networks and organized crime, which can directly threaten the security of Canadians.”153 he report additionally recommends that “the best weapon against terrorist recruitment is the promotion of accountable, democratic governments that respect human rights, allow for peaceful dissent and fulil the aspirations of their people.”154 While these policy goals stress a greater role for the exercise of hardpower capabilities, on the whole the White Paper airms Canada’s human security agenda. Since Lloyd Axworthy’s departure from politics in late 2000, a great deal of speculation has surrounded the future of human security in Canadian foreign policy. In 2002, in the words of Axworthy’s successor, Bill Graham: In Canada, the question has been raised about whether human security was simply the agenda of former Foreign Afairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy. Yet for those familiar with the fundamentals of Canadian foreign policy, promoting human security was more the drawing together of long-standing priorities, including human rights, peacekeeping, humanitarianism and disarmament, than a fundamentally new departure. It should come as no surprise then that Canada’s commitment to a people-centred approach to security policy not only survives but also becomes stronger with time.155 Graham further argues against the reversion to an emphasis on “national” security after September 11th. His argument in defence of Canada’s human security agenda rests upon three contentions. First, he points out that terrorism is not bound by the traditional notions of the nation and national boundaries, which demonstrates that “armies alone cannot defend us against new threats nor provide complete security.”156 Second, he claims that there is no contradiction between “the promotion of human security and the maintenance of national security” because the security of the person and the security of the state are “mutually reinforcing.”157 hird, Graham contends that human security is a necessary response to terrorism because it contributes to conlict resolution and to rebuilding the failed states from which potential terrorists are often recruited. herefore, in the

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post-September 11th era, Canada has airmed its support for the human security agenda as an important response to international terrorism. Yet, according to Denis Stairs, contemporary Canadian foreign policy is still very much trapped by “perceptions of a partly real and partly mythical past performance that we can no longer hope to replicate.”158 Stairs implies that Canada’s attempt to maintain its middle-power image is outdated and potentially damaging. Similarly, Jennifer Welsh argues that the contemporary conditions of international relations have made “‘middlepowermanship’ much trickier to employ,” largely because of the end of bipolarity and the emergence of the United States as the world’s dominant power.159 Canada’s human security agenda can be regarded as a last attempt to corner the middle-power market. From a structural realist perspective, however, this market is an increasingly unproitable one, considering that the United States “requires fewer friends to get the job done” while also “demanding stronger demonstrations of allegiance,” which Canada has been either unwilling or slow to express.160 Stairs further suggests that there is a danger in Canada’s current foreign policy trajectory. He argues that Canadians are ignoring the rules of power politics and that, through “the active encouragement of their leaders,” “[they] have grown alarmingly smug, complacent, and self-deluded in their approach to international afairs.”161 Consequently, Canadians believe – erroneously – in their own moral superiority and in the presumption that Canadian values are somehow especially virtuous. Although this tendency is not new, evidence suggests that it may be worsening. In 1972, for instance, Peter Dobell argued that, “even where policies have directly promoted national interests, Canadians have not seen their actions in these terms.”162 According to David Black, little has changed in the way that Canadians perceive their international conduct: Canadians have generally wished to think of themselves as naturally “good international citizens,” particularly on issues of peace and justice. Instances of high proile activism on ethical issues (e.g., peacekeeping, nuclear diplomacy, North-South mediation, landmines, and the International Criminal Court) are constructed as representative of Canada’s “natural” vocation in world afairs. By contrast, the many instances in which ethical considerations have been overshadowed by calculations of narrower strategic and/or economic advantage … are conceived as aberrant.163

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Stairs suggests that this alarming tendency in Canadian foreign policy is a direct result of Canada’s declining relative power. According to him, “in foreign policy, as in some other dimensions in life, an ostentatious claim to superior virtue can be the last refuge of the impotent.”164 Clinging to an erroneous belief in one’s own moral virtue – or the lack of virtue of others – may thus be indicative of the country’s bankruptcy in terms of power capabilities. he actual extent of Canada’s hard-power decline is quite signiicant. Yet this decline is not simply relative to that of other countries as a consequence of Europe’s rebuilding or the rising status of previously underdeveloped states and regions. Canada’s decline is the direct result of a conscious efort to minimize the country’s military expenditures. As Jennifer Welsh comments: Compared with a decade ago, Canada’s troop numbers have declined by 20,000, and we [Canadians] rank near the bottom of the list of nato countries on the measure of percentage of gdp devoted to defence (1.1 per cent vs. the nato average of 2.2 per cent). Similarly, while we [Canadians] were once at the centre of un peacekeeping and contributed 10% of the world’s peacekeepers, we now rank thirty-fourth on the list of contributor countries.165 hat igure has since fallen further. As of December 2011, Canada ranked ifty-fourth on the list of contributor countries – sandwiched between Paraguay and Slovakia.166 his evident neglect of hard power has meant that Canada could not contribute to pressing peacekeeping and peacebuilding opportunities. Prime Minister Chrétien, for instance, “committed a signiicant ground contingent to East Timor, only to be informed by the military that such a contingent was not available, given Canada’s engagements elsewhere.”167 Like the erroneous belief in their own moral virtue – that they are somehow immune from attack because Canada’s international objectives are universally seen as progressive and benevolent – Canadians are living of of myths about their past contributions in peacekeeping without realizing their existing deicits. All of these criticisms and apprehensions denote Canada’s declining power in international relations. As a consequence, the widening gulf between the country’s rhetorical commitment and substantive ability to alleviate international humanitarian disasters has become a glaring feature

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of contemporary Canadian foreign policy. Concurrently, the linkage between Canada’s foreign policy and the concept of the national interest is becoming increasingly tenuous, often misconstrued as, or even replaced by, an emphasis on Canadian values. Although the promotion of values can serve the national interest, values are not in and of themselves reducible to or interchangeable with the national interest. herefore, as a result of the blurring of values and interests, which has been accentuated in the postSeptember 11th era, structural realism has diiculty explaining Canada’s latest approach to foreign policy. Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy after September 11th September 11th prompted Canada to acknowledge the inadequacy of its existing security infrastructure with regard to dealing with the growing threat of international terrorism. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the Chrétien government was faced with worrying allegations that Canada had become a safe haven for terrorist activity. David Harris, former chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, warned that Canada is a kind of “Islamic extremist aircraft carrier for the launching of major assaults against the US mainland.”168 In response, Parliament fast-tracked Bill C-36, the Anti-Terrorism Act, which passed in December 2001. According to Anne McLellan, then minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, the new legislation would ill an essential gap by introducing preventive anti-terrorism measures where previous laws only allowed for arrest and prosecution after speciic terrorist acts had been committed.169 he bill deined terrorism and granted law enforcement bodies sweeping powers to act on suspected terrorist activity, including the authority to detain suspects without charge for up to three days.170 In severe cases, suspected terrorists could be detained indeinitely without charge when a security certiicate issued by the minister of public safety and emergency preparedness, and the minister of citizenship and immigration, was sanctioned by a Federal Court.171 hese developments lay bare the trade-ofs between human rights and security. he suspension of certain civil liberties through the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism Act suggests that human rights may in fact be an impediment to counter-terrorist eforts. According to former minister of foreign afairs Bill Graham, the events of September 11th and the advent of anti-terror legislation in Canada compelled Canadians to re-evaluate many of their basic and long-held assumptions about human rights.172

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Two recent cases reported widely in the media have tested Canada’s human rights resolve. In the irst instance, Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, was arrested, detained, and deported to Syria by us oicials in New York in 2002, despite having a Canadian passport. he subsequent launch of the highly publicized Arar Inquiry in February 2004 made Maher Arar a logical choice for Time Magazine’s Canadian Newsmaker of 2004.173 Arar testiied that, during his one-year incarceration in a Syrian prison, he was beaten, tortured, and coerced into making a false confession that linked him to al-Qaeda. He also alleged that Canadian oicials were complicit in his deportation and torture. Although the inal report of the commission, released in December 2006, cast blame on institutional rather than on individual failure, the ordeal forced the wider public to reconsider whether the security dividends of the Anti-Terrorism Act outweigh the costs to human rights.174 On the whole, the Arar case is symptomatic of the Canadian government’s inability to enforce the rights of its citizens in foreign afairs as well as its readiness to willingly sacriice human rights based on the unsubstantiated allegations of terrorist activity or the circumstantial evidence of a security threat. Second, the Canadian government had issued security certiicates under the Anti-Terrorist Act to detain ive suspected terrorists of Arab descent without charge. One of the suspects, a Syrian national named Hassan Almrei, was released in 2009 after being held for over eight years – four of which were in solitary coninement.175 During the time of his incarceration, Almrei was faced with the possibility of deportation to Syria, where he would likely have faced imprisonment and torture. Almrei is not a Canadian citizen, and he would have faced conditions similar to those endured by Maher Arar but without the possibility of future recourse or intervention by an external state. hus, human rights lawyers and notable Canadian journalists such as Naomi Klein, Avi Lewis, and Alexandre Trudeau argued, on Almrei’s behalf, that the deportation order that the government sought would be both unconstitutional and a breach of international law.176 he Omar Khadr case bears striking similarities to the above two cases. Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was captured as an “enemy combatant” by us forces in Afghanistan in 2002 and lown to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. When he was captured, however, Khadr was only ifteen years of age, making him the youngest prisoner at the facility and, by legal deinition, a child soldier.177 Yet successive Canadian governments have ignored the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as well as the un

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Convention on the Rights of the Child in the Khadr case and refused to seek his repatriation. In January 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Khadr’s Charter rights had been patently violated, though the Court noted that Canadian foreign policy was not within its jurisdiction. he Court therefore stopped short of ordering the Canadian government to repatriate Khadr, who has since become the last remaining Western citizen to be held in Guantanamo Bay.178 Canada’s indeinite detention of terrorist suspects without charge – or collusion with governments that do – clearly violates domestic and international human rights standards. It further demonstrates the government’s promptness in sacriicing human rights commitments when national security is ostensibly at stake. hese examples stand in contrast to the government’s oicial line. Speaking at the 2003 government-ngo human rights consultations, Bill Graham stipulated that “in the measures we [Canadians] take to combat the threat of terrorism more directly, we must be vigilant to ensure that counterterrorism measures respect our human rights obligations, both domestic and international.”179 Similarly, speaking at the un Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in 2004, Graham urged international counterterrorism eforts to comply fully with international law and to hold state violators accountable for their human rights violations.180 Failure to do so, he argued, would create new sources of injustice, instability, and future violence. Although a senior policy oicial admits that the human rights trade-ofs in the war on terror remains a “dicey” issue, he believes that September 11th has not changed Canada’s general approach to human rights in foreign policy.181 As Graham notes, September 11th has not changed the conditions of poverty, hunger, disease, child exploitation, sexual abuse, forced displacement, torture, extrajudicial executions, discrimination, and other violations that afect the majority of the world’s population.182 hus, in terms of oicial policy, Canada’s position on international human rights remains consistent. As previously mentioned, one senior policy oicial goes so far as to claim that the 2005 foreign policy White Paper licensed Canada to “raise the bar” on international human rights issues. As part of the broader call for un reform, the policy statement outlined Canada’s support for replacing the un Commission on Human Rights with the Human Rights Council. he council, established by the un General Assembly in March 2006, enjoys privileged standing as a subsidiary body of the Assembly and attempts to redress the ineiciencies and shortcomings of its predecessor by changing its mandate and composition. In addition, the White

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Paper also extolled the federal government’s support of the Aga Khan Foundation’s initiative to establish in Canada a global centre for pluralism that would research and engage in advocacy on issues of pluralism around the world. hese initiatives suggest that Canada’s contribution to international human rights promotion rests on relatively low-cost technical expertise. In other words, Canada may feel comfortable “raising the bar” on technical matters that neither impede security interests nor interfere with the promotion of international trade. Even Canada’s commitment to human security relects this strategy. he 2005 White Paper states as its irst priority area for international security the concern for failed and fragile states.183 It stresses the need to build the Canadian Forces’ peace-support and post-conlict capacities. And it points further to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, which has been referred to as “genocide” and as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster of the twenty-irst century, as evidence of the need for efective international action. Yet Canada’s role in the crisis has rested on technical support rather than on more risky troop deployment. Canada’s reaction to Darfur was also arguably slow as a special advisory team launched by the Prime Minister’s Oice was not established until May 2005, despite the long-standing severity of the crisis. For the most part, Prime Minister Paul Martin’s minority government was compelled to demonstrate a commitment to Darfur in a bid to mollify the intense disapproval that the Liberal Party faced in the wake of the Sponsorship Inquiry. As Allan Woods of the Montreal Gazette noted, Darfur was a prime item on the “shopping list” demanded by opposition parties – particularly the New Democratic Party – in order for the government to avoid defeat.184 he fact that the government’s June 2005 pledge of additional humanitarian aid for Darfur and surplus military vehicles for the African Union coincided with the acute threat of non-conidence must be considered when assessing Canada’s contribution to the humanitarian efort. Similarly, another initiative, Canada’s sponsorship and promotion of the Responsibility to Protect report published in 2001 by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, also relied on technical expertise rather than on hard-power capabilities. he report centres on the notion of sovereignty as responsibility and provides a framework that details when it is appropriate for states to take action against a state that fails to protect its citizens.185 While the government maintained that the responsibility to protect was a cornerstone of its human security agenda and its approach to good governance, Canada has thus far, in the

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post-September 11th world, been unable to convince many states of its urgency.186 he government’s failure to duplicate the success of the Ottawa Convention on anti-personnel landmines with respect to the responsibility to protect demonstrates the continuing salience of Westphalian notions of sovereignty. he marginal international stature of the report merely points to Canada’s limitations in promoting its human security agenda in the post-September 11th era. In addition, a glaring discrepancy between the government’s actual aid expenditures and its rhetorical commitment to international development as espoused in the White Paper remains. Statistics do show an increase in Canada’s oda output in 2005, corresponding with the year of the White Paper’s release. More speciically, oda rose to 0.32 percent of gnp from 0.27 percent in the previous year.187 But this spike in oda may yet be attributed to the exceptional circumstances of the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Consequently, critics, including celebrities such as Bob Geldof and U2’s Bono, did not hold back on their public criticism of the Martin government’s stinginess on international aid eforts, citing broken promises and the continuing disparity between Canada’s commitment and Lester B. Pearson’s benchmark 0.7 percent.188 Although Martin did not dispute the validity of the benchmark igure, he argued that, despite the country’s economic prosperity, Canada would not be in a position to commit inancially to the 0.7 percent threshold until at least 2015. Canada’s aid policy therefore supports the rationalist assumption that states seek to eschew costly overseas commitments that yield little or no direct inancial beneit. Overall, the structural realist framework remains pertinent for understanding the rational trade-ofs between human rights and material goods such as security and economic prosperity. Although Canada remained dedicated to human rights in oicial policy, the government’s contributions to international human rights promotion relied inordinately on technical assistance rather than on inancial or military assistance. Other dilemmas have centred on Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act. he Arar, Almrei, and Khadr cases highlight the Canadian government’s willingness to sacriice human rights based on circumstantial evidence or unsubstantiated allegations in the global war on terror. Attempts to “raise the bar” on international human rights issues occurred only when material national interests were not at stake. At the same time, however, structural realism cannot explain why these attempts were made at all, regardless of the fact that the government’s commitments were marginal if not

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disingenuous. Canada’s growing support for institutions such as the icc, including the government’s oicial condemnation of the exemption of us peacekeepers from icc prosecution, also serves as a frequent source of friction in the all-important Canada-us relationship.189 hus, while realism provides insight into the discretionary and limited achievements of Canada’s international human rights policies, it cannot explain important initiatives that have come to deine Canadian foreign policy in contemporary international relations.

conclusion Realism cannot be ignored in the study of human rights. his analysis of Canadian foreign policy reveals that structural realist notions of the national interest have played a crucial role in framing Canadian foreign policy at least since the Second World War. Canada’s conception of the national interest has rested on an underlying assumption of statecentrism. Consequently, Canada’s primary interests have centred on material goods such as state security and economic gain. For instance, given the threat of nuclear warfare between the superpowers, Canada’s national interests during the Cold War centred on state survival. Canada’s preoccupation with its relative power, its pursuit of collective or regional security agreements, and its diidence with regard to nuclear strategy point to rationalist-materialist conceptions of the national interest. In the absence of a clear security threat in the post-Cold War era, Canada’s national interest centred increasingly on economic gain. Canada hence witnessed a period of unprecedented growth in economic prosperity together with a decline in military spending and overseas assistance. Only after September 11th did Canadian policymakers recognize the need to temper Canada’s trade interests with an imperative to rebuild the country’s hard-power capabilities. Canadian national interests thereby centred on rationalistmaterialist notions that were underpinned by structural realist thinking. Inevitably, Canada’s approach to international human rights was either incorporated within existing material interests or involved trade-ofs with competing interests. he Canadian government’s initial rejection of universal human rights, its acceptance of the ideological division between civil and political rights and economic and social rights, as well as its criticism of the Soviet Union over Helsinki obligations were all inseparable from Canada’s alignment in Cold-War geopolitics. Although the federal government moved towards greater support for international human rights in the

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late 1970s and 1980s, these initiatives were never far removed from underlying strategic or economic interests. Canada’s international human rights policies, in other words, were largely subsidiary to material interests. his pattern persisted into the post-Cold War period, wherein Canadian trade interests routinely trumped concerns for human rights. Similarly, Canadian eforts in the war on terror, including the adoption of the Anti-Terrorism Act, highlight the government’s willingness to suspend certain rights based on unconvincing or inconclusive evidence relating to possible terrorist activity. hese observations point to realism’s continuing relevance for highlighting the inconsistencies and shortfalls of Canada’s international human rights policies. As Donnelly and Liang-Fenton put it: “Foreign policy is often the semiplanned outcome of the interaction of numerous actors who have multiple, conlicting objectives.”190 Human rights is merely one objective among many that must compete with what are often the more pressing purposes of statecraft. As Donnelly argues: Security, economic, political and ideological considerations are the principal bases of foreign policy in almost all countries. When human rights goals conlict with these goals, human rights almost always lose out. States ignore human rights violations or act in ways that harm human rights much more often than they act strongly on behalf of human rights abroad because it is more often in their security, economic, political, or ideological interest to do so. he simple fact is that in most countries international human rights goals are a minor consideration in foreign policy.191 In this sense, human rights do not readily factor into states’ conceptions of the national interest. While the structural realist literature does not provide reasons for human rights success, it does ofer an account of human rights failures. By and large, policy inconsistencies and shortfalls are the norm in international relations because of the persistent efects of international anarchy, the rule of sovereignty, and the drive for self-interest. No tradition of ir theory focuses as explicitly on these general principles as does structural realism. For this reason, structural realist explanations of the study of human rights cannot be dismissed. Yet the fact that realism cannot account for instances of human rights success or for cases in which human rights policies are not motivated by an interest-based rationalism is a glaring conceptual oversight. At least in

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oicial policy, human rights concerns became an increasingly important part of Canadian foreign policy by the mid-1980s and became even more important with the end of the Cold War. Structural realism’s materialist emphasis provides little insight into this development. Canada’s international human rights policies do not, for example, conform to the structural realist assumption that policies are enacted purely for material reasons. Canada’s approach to international human rights cannot be deined as power politics by other means. Structural realism ofers an important basis for the study of human rights in ir and fpa; however, it falls short when it attempts to address the underlying motivations of state leadership in the context of international human rights.

PART TWO

“Ideas All the Way Down”

4 Constructivism and the Study of Human Rights

Constructivism is credited as one of the most signiicant conceptual developments in contemporary ir. As Stefano Guzzini notes, “Hardly known a decade ago, constructivism has risen as the oicially accredited contender to the established core of the discipline.”1 Ofering one the strongest challenges to realism, constructivism aims to ill key theoretical and empirical gaps in ir scholarship. Its proponents speciically attack the realist tradition’s failure to explain signiicant developments such as the demise of the Cold War, the increasing purchase of non-governmental organizations, and the growing salience of human rights norms, political liberalization, and humanitarian intervention. Yet constructivists have sought to provide more than just patchwork solutions to a few empirical anomalies; rather, they have set ambitious sights on providing a complete, alternative framework for the study of ir. Constructivism’s promise, according to Ted Hopf, lies in its innovative approach to central ir themes such as anarchy, the balance of power, state identities and interests, power, and the prospects for change.2 If structural realism serves as a valuable “irst cut” for the analysis of human rights in international relations, then constructivism serves as a valuable “second cut.” Constructivism’s signiicance stems, in part, from its attempt to occupy the “middle ground” between structuralism and individualism.3 For Maja Zehfuss, constructivism’s importance also derives from the claim that “‘the debate’ between rationalists and constructivists either currently is, or is about to become, the most signiicant one in the discipline.”4 ir, according to Jefrey Checkel, has undergone a “constructivist turn.”5 He contends that constructivism rescues the concept of identity from postmodernists while employing catholic standards of methodology that are “able to challenge mainstream analysts on their own ground.”6 By promising to

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catalyze new possibilities for conceptual and empirical research, constructivism has emerged on the scene of ir amidst great expectations. However, it has met with its share of growing pains and conceptual shortfalls. Zehfuss notes further that, “despite the unmistakable surge of constructivism, it remains diicult to identify its key claims uncontroversially.”7 Similarly, Emanuel Adler states that “there is very little clarity and even less consensus as to its nature and substance.”8 Indeed, the constructivist literature is punctuated by conceptual nuances and disparities. Several scholars have attempted to catalogue its various typologies. Hopf, for instance, sets conventional forms of constructivism apart from critical variants.9 Guzzini distinguishes between epistemological and sociological types.10 John Ruggie singles out neoclassical constructivism and postmodernist constructivism as well as the nexus between the two. He then argues that these categories draw from more general “sociological variants, feminist variants, jurisprudential approaches, genealogical approaches, an emancipatory constructivism and a more strictly interpretive kind.”11 Some of these typological discrepancies are considerable if not implacable. hey arise, according to Adler, because of “disagreement about the extent to which structure or agents are more important and about whether discourse should take precedence over material factors.”12 Consequently, Neuield speculates that “the debate within the camp of [constructivists] may prove to be as vigorous as that between [them] and their positivist critics.”13 he extent of conceptual variation within constructivism is undeniably confusing. So what is constructivism? And how does it assist in operationalizing the study of human rights in international politics? Instead of attempting to provide an overview of the conceptual distinction between each constructivist scholar, in this chapter I focus on the prominent idealist form of constructivism that is emblematic of the work of Alexander Wendt. his branch of constructivism occupies an extreme position, which maintains that ideas are “more fundamental” than material variables to international relations. Wendt’s idealist theory of social constructivism was, moreover, erected as a direct reply to Waltz’s materialist theory of structural realism. Wendt’s attack on Waltz’s heory of International Politics came in the form of Social heory of International Politics. From a disciplinary perspective, Wendt’s work is crucial for understanding the realistconstructivist debate as it represents an important point of departure in ir theory. Yet I must stress that I do not contend that Wendt’s approach is conceptually superior to other variants of constructivism – any more

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than I contend that Waltz’s theory is superior to other forms of realism. I simply focus on these particular conceptual brands because their pronounced impact on the discipline of ir has polarized inquiry along idealist and material extremes. In this chapter I examine the rise of constructivism as well as its impact on ir and the study of human rights. In the irst section I provide an account of constructivism’s growing prominence within ir as a result of the explanatory failures of structural realism. I then deal speciically with Wendt’s theory of constructivism. I show that, to a large extent, the reason Wendtian constructivism occupies an extreme idealist perspective has to do with its having been constructed as a direct counterclaim to the extreme materialist theory ofered by structural realism. In the second section, I explore how these principles inform the constructivist framework for the study of human rights. I illustrate how the issue of human rights, largely peripheral under structural realism, is accorded signiicance through constructivism’s scrutiny of identities, interests, and international norms. By seeking out the constitutive factors that drive state behaviour and by exploring how human rights are a function of states’ social identities, constructivism ofers an indispensable “second cut” for the analysis of human rights in international relations. Ultimately, I argue that constructivism generates innovative hypotheses that challenge the foundations of structural realism by explaining why states would pursue human rights policies in the absence of “carrots” or “sticks.”

constructivism in international relations All theories of ir are products of historical context. hey are conceptual innovations, rooted in a given time and place, that attempt to make sense of the complex political world. he ield of ir is evidently more than a collection of discrete thoughts and thinkers. ir scholarship relects the changing conditions of international politics as well as the subsequent imperatives and questions that arise from its study. At times, scholarship may even serve as a guide for public and foreign policy. he diversity of theoretical traditions in ir relects the plethora of conditions, imperatives, and questions that have captured the attention of students since the ield’s inception. In chapter 2, I demonstrate that, despite its claim to universality, realism was manufactured by its designers because of historical circumstance, advances in the broader social sciences, and debates about the nature and substance of ir itself. Constructivism is equally the

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product of historical circumstance and disciplinary debate. Its ascendancy to the core of ir is as much a testament to the intellectual ingenuity of its scholars as a relection of the changing contours of international politics and the ield of ir. I divide this section into two parts. In the irst part I establish that constructivism is indeed a product of historical circumstance and disciplinary deliberation. Far from having developed in a vacuum, the failure of ir scholarship at the end of the Cold War essentially paved the way for constructivism’s success. he leading proponents of constructivism exploited the deiciencies of structural realism, grounding their ontology on realism’s key omissions. By tracing the conceptual and empirical shortfalls that constructivism seeks to redress, I underline its main contributions to ir, which serve as cornerstones of the constructivist framework for the study of human rights. In the second part I explore the idealist form of constructivism, which is most commonly associated with the work of Alexander Wendt. In showing how this brand of constructivism occupies an extreme position in direct opposition to the materialist theory of structural realism, I support the argument that the realist-constructivist debate, which has confounded human rights research, is simply a product of disciplinary pressure and fabrication. he Failure of Structural Realism and the Emergence of Constructivism he causes of the Cold War’s conclusion have sparked intense debate. Predicting such a momentous change in international politics evaded most – if not all – diplomatic and academic circles. According to Stefano Guzzini, “hat a single event is diicult to predict is something which could be expected.”14 He argues further, however, that the failure of ir lies in the fact that the possibility of the Cold War’s demise was an entirely absent dimension of research. he debate has thus occupied a central place in the discipline as scholars have been forced to rethink some of their most entrenched assumptions. Competing explanations have surfaced, all of which rely on diferent levels of analysis. Structural realism ofers systemic, “top-down” accounts that rely on material factors such as overwhelming us military power or the superior output of capitalist as compared to communist economies; conversely, constructivism ofers “bottom-up” accounts that stress the importance of agency and ideational factors, especially in explaining preferences with regard to collective decision making.15

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Although disagreement is likely to persist, there is plausible reason to point to fundamental changes in Soviet domestic and foreign policy as the catalyzing variable that led to the demise of bipolarity. According to Robert G. Herman, “he advent of ‘New hinking’ (nuvoye mishleniye) accompanying the accession to power of Mikhail Gorbachev brought about the end of the Cold War and created the conditions for a durable East-West peace.”16 Herman’s thesis is controversial but provocative. It implies a critical law in the logic of structural realism, which subjugates unit-level attributes to the structural constraints imposed by the balance of power. Instead, assigning Gorbachev’s New hinking a decisive role in ending the Cold War, Herman suggests that unit-level behaviour can produce profound system-level transformations. hese unit-level attributes are completely missing from the structural realist framework of analysis. In addition, unit-level explanations suggest that material factors were not the permissive cause of Gorbachev’s policy shift. How a state responds to the strategic environment, Herman argues, “depends at least in part on how decision makers understand the world and how they interpret the frequently ambiguous lessons of history.”17 Other foreign policy options were certainly available. While material factors may have presented some options and not others, they did not determine Gorbachev’s ultimate choice of action. Alex Wendt ofers similar insight in critiquing realism’s deterministic, or reproductive, logic. For Wendt, “what is so striking about neorealism is its total neglect of the explanatory role of state practice. It does not seem to matter what states do: Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Zhirinovsky, what diference does it make? he logic of anarchy will always bring us back to square one.”18 Moreover, in a direct attack on structural realism, John Ruggie criticizes Waltz’s model because it “turns what is supposed to be a methodological principle into an ontological one: Waltz has actual states becoming socialized into his model of the international system, not to the more variegated world of actual international relations.”19 he inability of prevailing theories to problematize these neglected aspects of ir led to a major inquiry into the realist tradition and its core assumptions. To a large extent, constructivism has risen on the back of events such as the demise of the Cold War and disciplinary shortfalls. While constructivist thinking was certainly present before the 1990s, the end of the Cold War ignited interest in its nascent research program as it became clear that ir was in need of new theoretical frameworks.20 According to Wendt: “Mainstream ir theory simply had diiculty explaining the end

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of the Cold War, or systemic change more generally. It seemed to many that these diiculties stemmed from ir’s materialist and individualist orientation, such that a more ideational and holistic view of international politics might do better.”21 Explaining the unravelling of the Cold War suddenly became the disciplinary task of ir. Hence, conceptually and empirically, scholarship turned to those facets of international politics that dominant ir theories either neglect or undervalue. Kal Holsti identiies a few of these facets: the importance of ethics, normative dimensions, international law, the problem of change, and the role and function of ideas.22 Structural realism either ignores these altogether or treats them instrumentally.23 he constructivist research program is therefore built directly on the excluded or underrated dimensions of the structural realist theory of international politics. Constructivists were able to contest the theory’s material assumptions at the end of the Cold War as, at that time, it was particularly evident that states were “struggling to redeine stable sets of interests and preferences regarding key aspects of the international order.”24 In pointing to ideational factors, constructivists claim that ideas rather than material capabilities are ultimately responsible for redeining states’ interests and preferences. he fundamental issue, then, from which constructivists launch their attack on structural realism centres on a rejection of the rational-choice assumption that actors’ interests and identities are exogenous and given.25 Robert Keohane, a neoliberal institutionalist, admits that, “without a theory of interests, which requires analysis of domestic politics, no theory of international relations can be fully adequate.”26 Constructivism’s theoretical groundwork is thus constructed as an explicit attempt to problematize state identities, regarding them as the key variables for explaining political behaviour. As a result, constructivist readings of ir are predicated on the ways in which agents acquire understandings of their interests and the material world through social interaction. Constructivists contend, Adler notes, “that the manner in which the material world shapes and is shaped by human action and interaction depends on dynamic normative and epistemic interpretations of the material world.”27 In contrast to structural realists, constructivists emphasize the role of ideas in international relations while dismissing the notion that behaviour is mechanistically determined by material factors alone. Although constructivists may, at times, disagree over the ways in which ideas matter and the degree of their explanatory signiicance, ideational factors are given analytic precedence across the constructivist spectrum. According to Ruggie:

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Constructivists hold the view that the building blocks of international reality are ideational as well as material; that ideational factors have normative as well as instrumental dimensions; that they express not only individual but also collective intentionality; and that the meaning and signiicance of ideational factors are not independent of time and place.28 Explaining the role of ideational factors in generating norms for collective behaviour – how shared ideas and perceptions about the social world inform who actors are and, ultimately, what they want – has thus remained central to the constructivist research program. In other words, while structural realism has sought to narrow the scope and method of ir, constructivism seeks to expand them. A key conceptual issue that separates structural realism from constructivism concerns whether or not both regulative and constitutive theories have a place in ir. Ruggie diferentiates between regulative and constitutive rules in stating that the former “are intended to have causal efects – getting people to approximate the speed limit, for example,” while the latter “deine the set of practices that make up a particular class of consciously organized social activity – that is to say, they specify what counts as that activity.”29 Regulative rules are, in other words, the explicit conventions that delimit appropriate behaviour within given social contexts. Constitutive rules are logically prior to regulative rules in that they create the need for conventions by having irst deined particular classes of social activity. In Holsti’s opinion, regulative rules are procedural while constitutive rules are foundational.30 While the realist tradition privileges the procedural aspects of international relations, constructivists train their research program on constitutive rules, which they uphold as “the institutional foundation of all social life” that makes possible any degree of organized social activity.31 he thrust of the constructivist program’s empirical focus appears to centre, moreover, on the role of international norms in constituting and regulating state behaviour. According to Rolf Schwarz, international norms are regarded as the “independent variable of constructivist explanations.”32 Norms are commonly described as social precepts that make claims about appropriate collective behaviour.33 Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein claim that “norms either deine (‘constitute’) identities in the irst place (generating expectations about the proper portfolio of identities for a given context) or prescribe or proscribe (‘regulate’) behaviors for already

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constituted identities (generating expectations about how those identities will shape behavior in varying circumstances).”34 In this light, international norms are essential to the processes of socialization and collective action that reside at the heart of the constructivist approach. hese processes also shape state behaviour because, according to Katzenstein: “norms operate like rules that deine the identity of an actor, thus having ‘constitutive effects’ that specify what actions will cause relevant others to recognize a particular identity.”35 Accordance or discordance with a particular norm therefore signals identity and intentionality. Whereas structural realism disregards the explanatory purchase of international norms, constructivists treat them as signiicant. Yet, despite being united by these common contentions against the realist school, constructivism remains a broad theoretical perspective. Constructivists generally agree that ideas, identities, and international norms matter. In fact, they would agree that these factors are vital for the functioning of international politics. here remains widespread disagreement within constructivist circles, however, concerning how and to what extent these factors matter in relation to each other. In other words, constructivists agree over the variables that are at play in international relations but they disagree over the mechanisms by which they operate. herefore, notwithstanding the growing corpus of constructivist literature, constructivism’s overall contributions (or potential contributions) to ir remain either contentious or unappreciated.36 John Mearsheimer, for instance, criticizes constructivist approaches for their inability either to “explain why realism has been the dominant discourse in world politics for well over a thousand years” or to explain “why the time is [suddenly] ripe for unseating realism.”37 As Zehfuss admonishes, “it is important to ask what we might need constructivism for.”38 By establishing a new set of assumptions that problematizes identities and interests, what does constructivism add to ir that alternative approaches do not? What scientiic dividend is generated by ridding us of structural realism’s harsh abstractions and proclivity for theoretical parsimony? In addition to these issues, though constructivism ofers plausible reasons for why identities are logically prior to interests and why constitutive rules are prior to their regulative counterparts, it remains premature to claim that the constructivist model provides the necessary tools to extract these variables empirically. Drawing from King, Keohane, and Verba, Wendt acknowledges that, in the domains of explanation and understanding, constructivists must address “problems of theory construction, of

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inference of unobservables, and of adjudicating knowledge claims against publicly available evidence.”39 While these problems persist for identities and constitutive rules, they are perhaps even more pronounced when dealing with international norms. Kathryn Sikkink argues that norms are based on an ideational or moral core. hey “have a quality of ‘oughtness’ that sets them apart from other kinds of rules … We recognize normbreaking behavior because it generates disapproval or stigma.”40 Still, locating an international norm can be a diicult task, whether this is done positively (from some minimum threshold of moral “oughtness”) or negatively (from some minimum threshold of international stigma). hese problems are signiicant and constructivism must address them. Also problematic is the constructivist project’s inclination to provide a more complete, versatile theoretical approach at the expense of explanatory power. In contrast to this, structural realism strives to maximize explanatory power by maximizing theoretical parsimony and abstraction. For Waltz: “Explanatory power … is gained by moving away from ‘reality,’ not by staying close to it. A full description would be of least explanatory power; an elegant theory, of most … Departing from reality is not necessarily good, but unless one can do so in some clever way, one can only describe and not explain.”41 Constructivism, however, attempts to uncover the “politics of reality.”42 Questions remain as to whether or not constructivism is indeed able to account for the variables that unlock the “real” world and whether or not it is able to go beyond description. As Wendt notes, “Taking something as given is necessary in any explanatory endeavour by virtue of the simple fact that it is humanly impossible to problematize everything at once.”43 hus, what is at stake for constructivism is not only the conceptual validity of adopting ideas, identities, and international norms as causal explanatory variables but also the scientiic extent to which each variable can be known empirically. hese criticisms have led some constructivist scholars to insist that constructivism is simply not a valid theory of international politics. Checkel asserts, for instance, that constructivism is not a theory but an approach to social inquiry.44 According to Ruggie, “constructivism is not itself a theory of international relations, the way that balance-of-power theory is, for example, but a theoretically informed approach to the study of international relations” and “a critical relection on the limits of neo-utilitarianism.”45 Adler espouses a similar opinion in claiming that constructivism is not a theory per se but, rather, an attempt to bridge positivist and interpretive philosophies of social science.46 Taken together, these statements have fuelled the criticism that constructivism sufers in explanatory power and

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methodological rigour. hus, faced with its own set of challenges and disciplinary pressures, constructivism inds a response in the idealist form espoused by Wendt’s social theory of international politics. Idealist Constructivism and the Social heory of International Politics Alexander Wendt is widely recognized as a foremost proponent of constructivism in ir. Wendt’s particular brand of idealist constructivism,47 however, has tended to garner greater disciplinary attention than has the work of most, if not all, of his contemporaries. To a large extent, the standing of his work rests not merely on the import of his critical attack on Waltz’s theory of structural realism but also on his attempt to construct a complete alternative to rationalist-materialist theorizing. Maja Zehfuss summarizes this ambitious efort as follows: “Alexander Wendt set out to show that (Neo)Realists are wrong: it is not an unchanging fact that the international realm is a self-help system. Rather, the international environment is created and recreated in processes of interaction. As the way states act may change, so can the international system.”48 Wendt developed his social theory of international politics with the clear intention of instigating a major disciplinary debate. In what has become a familiar ir sound-bite, Wendt counters Waltz’s claim regarding the unchanging nature of the anarchic international system and the inevitability of balancing by stating: “Anarchy is what states make of it.”49 Wendt does not, however, begin by criticizing structural realism for its state-centrism. Arguably, Wendt’s theory, like Waltz’s, is also constructed around the assumption of state-centrism. Indeed, he defends his statecentric perspective as follows: States are still the primary medium through which the efects of other actors on the regulation of violence are channeled into the world system. It may be that non-state actors are becoming more important than states as initiators of change, but system change ultimately happens through states. In that sense states still are at the center of the international system, and as such it makes no more sense to criticize a theory of international politics as “state-centric” than it does to criticize a theory of forests for being “tree-centric.”50 Rather than denying the importance of non-state actors, Wendt simply argues that their efect on the structure of international politics should

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not take analytic precedence. his, though, is where Wendt’s constructivism begins to diverge from Waltz’s structural realism. Wendt’s contention with Waltz starts from the premise that rationalactor models leave out too much, or at least the wrong things, in their presupposition of state interests. hey assume stable identities and interests, which cannot be known a priori.51 Wendt further argues that “identities are the basis of interests” given that “an actor cannot know what it wants until it knows who it is.” Further, “identities may themselves be chosen in light of interests, as some rationalists have argued, but those interests themselves presuppose still deeper identities.”52 While structural realism is successful in achieving a sense of analytic rigour that is desirable on both intellectual and policy grounds, it gives the illusion that actors have stable interests that exist within rigid structural circumstances. Wendt’s idealist brand of constructivism rests on the principle that social interaction constantly produces and reproduces conceptions of “self” and “other,” with the result that identities and interests are always in process – even if they appear to be stable enough to be assumed and taken for granted.53 As a result, Wendtian constructivism regards structure as being indivisible from interaction-level processes – that is, from the practices of states. Wendt’s social theory of international politics hence ascribes structural properties to ideational factors. Like-minded constructivists such as Finnemore and Sikkink argue: “From a constructivist perspective, international structure is determined by the international distribution of ideas. Shared ideas, expectations, and beliefs about appropriate behavior are what give the world structure, order and stability.”54 In stark contrast with structural realist theories, which obtain structure only from the distribution of material capabilities, constructivists obtain structure from the distribution of ideas. Wendt goes so far as to assert the primacy of ideas over material factors in determining social structures. He argues that constructivists share two basic principles: “(1) that the structures of human association are determined primarily by shared ideas rather than material forces, and (2) that the identities and interests of purposive actors are constructed by these shared ideas rather than given by nature.”55 For idealist constructivists, at least, shared ideas and norms as well as actors’ underlying identities and interests are the animating components of international politics. Far from arguing that material factors do not matter, proponents of idealist constructivism generally assume that the meaning and application of material forces must irst be iltered through interpretive social processes.

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According to Wendt, “the meaning of power and the content of interests are largely a function of ideas.”56 Constructivists maintain, Adler expatiates, that power includes the ability to shape the sites of identity and interest formation. He states that power “means not only the resources required to impose one’s view on others, but also the authority to determine the shared meanings that constitute the identities, interests and practices of states, as well as the conditions that confer, defer or deny access to ‘goods’ and beneits.”57 Both state and non-state actors thus have a role to play in power politics as, according to their identities and interests, they manoeuvre to make, take, and even break social rules. In direct contrast to those of structural realism, constructivist deinitions of power expand the disciplinary scope of analysis to accommodate the increasingly dense and decentralized dynamics of contemporary international politics. In other words, constructivism eschews the scientiic appeal of parsimony and explanatory power in an attempt to account for globalization and the growing complexities of international relations. Moreover, by sanctioning an expanded view of power analysis, constructivism calls for further scrutiny of the interconnected concept of authority. Wendt argues that “the concept of authority has a dual aspect: legitimacy (or shared purpose) and coercion (or enforcement).”58 Realists concentrate on the latter while omitting or neglecting the former. On balance, the concept of legitimacy carries little explanatory weight within the realist school of thought. Constructivists, on the other hand, recognize that legitimacy is a crucial factor in establishing the norms of international society and in socializing actors’ identities and interests. In the social world, therefore, power is viewed as the authority to shape the sites of identity and interest formation while, simultaneously, authority within a given set of norms confers power – albeit a form of power that is socially derived (something that structural forms of realism have long eschewed). hus, legitimate authority is, at once, regarded as a power resource and a power product. Take, for instance, Ian Hurd’s deinition of legitimacy as “the normative belief by an actor that a rule or institution ought to be obeyed.”59 Assuming, as constructivists do, that ideas matter, legitimacy becomes a power resource that can shape state behaviour in the absence of coercion. Ian Clark notes that legitimacy is indispensable for explaining certain classes of behaviour that cannot be explained by relying purely on the coercive logic of game theory. He argues that legitimacy is “both constraining and enabling: it both discourages states from acting in certain ways, while also permitting actions that would otherwise not have been

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possible.”60 For Clark, the existence of an international society – a society of states and social actors – is predicated on the existence of international norms that, to varying degrees, are regarded as legitimate or illegitimate. Clark stresses, however, that the important thing is not whether the notion of legitimacy produces discernable outcomes in state behaviour but whether the process of legitimation is seen as valuable by the social actors involved.61 In this sense, legitimacy is a relational concept between actors and institutional rules or norms. Legitimacy can also be challenged over time by actors who are seeking to change some aspect of international relations. he concept of legitimacy therefore afords ir theorists with a way to assess broad normative changes (such as the advent of global regimes on human rights) as well as more subtle changes (such as the adherence or non-adherence to given rules).62 As far as human rights are concerned, focusing on legitimacy is all the more crucial in light of the fact that coercion remains a highly inefective means of ensuring adherence to human rights principles. he costs of coercion simply outweigh the beneits. Although engaging in processes of legitimation will not guarantee total compliance, it still promises to be a more efective compliance mechanism than coercion. his is because behaviour would “no longer [be] motivated by the simple fear of retribution, or by a calculation of self-interest, but instead by an internal sense of moral obligation.”63 hese insights challenge long-standing assumptions about international anarchy. Speciically, constructivist notions of legitimacy call into question the standard disciplinary understanding of anarchy as the absence of government or authority in the international sphere. As Hurd argues: “To the extent that a state accepts some international rule or body as legitimate, that rule or body becomes an ‘authority’; and the characterization of the international system as an anarchy is unsustainable, as is the traditional distinction between domestic and international systems on the basis of the absence of international ‘authority.’”64 Waltz’s anarchyhierarchy dichotomy, which attempts to maximize explanatory power over descriptive accuracy, loses its utility if it can neither explain nor describe the signiicant efects of legitimate authority on state behaviour.65 Wendt consequently dismisses the “logic” of anarchy and argues that selfhelp and power politics are institutions rather than essential and unchanging features of international relations.66 For constructivists, anarchy is a subject to scrutinize and cannot be assumed ad ininitum. In sum, constructivism has emerged as a direct challenge to the perceived failures of structural realism. he advent of an idealist form of

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constructivism based on Wendt’s social theory of international politics must be regarded within this disciplinary context. Wendtian constructivism, which came about as a direct counterclaim to the materialist extreme of Waltzian realism, occupies the idealist extreme of the theoretical spectrum. Although constructivism faces its own share of challenges, it is likely to remain an important part of ir. As Guzzini notes, the signiicance of its innovations and its contributions to scholarly debate have guaranteed constructivism a place in the core of ir theory.67 While all theories have their critics, constructivism provides ir with valuable insights that other theories do not. Of all contemporary approaches to international relations, constructivism provides structural realism with its strongest challenge. Speciically, constructivists attempt to restore the social and idealist dimensions of ir (dimensions that were either absent or undervalued by those who aspired to the methodological rigour of the natural sciences). In so doing, constructivism is able to reinvigorate research into core disciplinary concepts such as power, authority, and anarchy. Constructivism’s rise within ir theory constitutes a statement about the changing contours of the ield itself. he end of the Cold War and the growing complexity of international politics called out for new analytic frameworks. In many ways, constructivism is a rejection of the increasingly narrow boundaries that structural realism had attempted to impose on the discipline of ir. he basic premises of constructivism ofer a forceful challenge to the realist tradition because they expand the conines of the discipline, taking it into new areas of inquiry. At the very least, this expansion of the ir research agenda, however fraught with growing pains, is commendable for allowing inquiry into important but previously marginalized issue areas such as human rights.

the idealist constructivist perspective on human rights Since constructivism’s inception, its proponents have devoted signiicant attention to human rights relative to other areas of research. hat constructivism’s ascendancy concurs with the heightened post-Cold War interest in human rights is indeed no coincidence. Constructivists have assigned human rights an important place in their research priorities precisely because their contributions to human rights scholarship have strengthened the purchase of constructivism in ir in a direct and substantive way. While

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approaches such as structural realism usually regard human rights with scepticism, constructivism maintains that they play a central role in international relations. hey do this by shaping or socializing actors’ identities and interests, by deining illegitimate and legitimate behaviour, and by mobilizing non-state actors around transnational issue areas. Constructivists of an idealist bent even stress that human rights have a constitutive efect on state sovereignty. On the whole, constructivist research ofers promising new insights into the impact of human rights on state behaviour. Unfortunately, the constructivist literature presently lacks a general framework for the study of human rights in foreign policy and international relations. While Risse and Sikkink’s “spiral model” of human rights socialization is often cited as the most inluential constructivist model dealing with human rights, it is not a substitute for a model of human rights in foreign policy;68 rather, it depicts how relatively weak postauthoritarian or transitional governments can be targeted by norm entrepreneurs and epistemic communities to comply with international human rights standards.69 Curiously, constructivists have thus far shied away from developing a framework for fpa. Operationalizing identity as an explanation for foreign policy hence remains an unexplored or at least underdeveloped domain of research – one that inevitably raises questions and uncertainties. For constructivists, identity is an intersubjective abstraction that unlocks how political communities understand conceptions of “self ” and “other.” Adler contends, moreover, that identity analysis reveals how national interests are born and manifest themselves in the political process.70 Yet the fact that political communities are the sites of frequent contestation presents itself as an operational conundrum. Using identity as the premise for foreign policy is, therefore, not an altogether straightforward task. Nonetheless, because of its emphasis on ideas and state-centrism, Wendt’s particular brand of constructivism provides some helpful clues as to how to proceed. In many ways, his social theory lends itself to the development of a constructivist framework for human rights in foreign policy more easily than do those perspectives that eschew a state-centric basis. For instance, in its emphasis on non-state actors and transnational networks, the Risse and Sikkink model assigns little explanatory value to the foreign policy of the target state. State identity is treated as a mere dependent variable – something shaped by these actors and networks rather than the independent subject of scrutiny. Instead, Wendtian constructivism’s

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focus on the state and its strong idealist inclination provide solid foundations for framing foreign policy as a product of state identity and the structural distribution of ideas. Following this, based on four points, I ofer a constructivist framework for how human rights feature in foreign policy. First, constructivism rests on the principle that states behave according to their identities. his principle is the most basic of all constructivist premises. However, Wendt stresses that identities and their mutually constitutive interests are always in process. hey are continuously constituted and reconstituted through social interaction. Given this, foreign policy can be viewed as the interest-driven expression of national identity. he constructivist view of foreign policy thus difers markedly from the standard instrumental version. Kal Holsti, for instance, deines foreign policy as those ideas or actions intended to solve a particular problem or provoke a speciic change in the policies or beliefs of external actors.71 Although a constructivist conception does not altogether reject this deinition, social theorists would include the expression – or, in some instances, the defence – of identity as a primary purpose of foreign policy. According to Christopher Hill, foreign policy also contains an ethical dimension because it serves as a vehicle to “project the values which the society in question thinks are universal.”72 Constructivism contributes to fpa, then, by providing a supplemental deinition of foreign policy as the expression of, and means to lay claim to, a particular self-image that helps to diferentiate one political community from another. Second, in constructivist terms, foreign policy is necessarily the product of the state’s conception of national identity. his principle implies that contests occur – both endogenous and exogenous to the state – over which conception, among competing visions of the national identity, is ultimately expressed in international afairs. Although Wendt subscribes to a statecentric viewpoint, his idealist form of constructivism does not dismiss or “black box” domestic pressures on identity and interest formation, as does structural realism; rather, Wendtian state-centrism rests on the premise that relations between states are the primary relations governing the occurrence and efects of organized violence.73 As such, the site of identity, constructivism’s key explanatory variable, rests with the state rather than with any other type of actor. herefore, both domestic and external pressures on states’ national identities are to be considered within a constructivist framework. his principle suggests, furthermore, that foreign policy can help to lay claim to a particular self-image, regardless of whether the national identity is viewed as essentialist or aspirational. In other words,

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foreign policy can be deined as the expression of a state’s conception of identity, whether in terms of how identity is perceived internally or in terms of how a state wishes to be perceived by domestic and/or international audiences. hird, constructivism’s focus on national identity calls for a rethinking of “national interests.” Unlike rationalist-materialist theories of ir, constructivist theories treat national identity as a primary site of political contestation. Given that interests and identities are always in process, national interests are thereby also contested rather than assumed a priori. hus, in deining national interests as “intersubjective understandings of what it takes to advance power, inluence and wealth,” Adler contends that “constructivism is equipped to show how national interests are born, how they acquire their status of general political understandings, and how such understandings are politically selected in and through political processes.”74 Scrutinizing identities and interests leads, moreover, to a shift away from traditional security issues. According to Audie Klotz: “With human rights and democratization emerging more clearly as global issues, domestic jurisdiction is increasingly losing its salience. Consequently, across a wide range of issues, we no longer deine survival – fundamental interests – solely in terms of territorial integrity and domestic political autonomy.”75 Constructivists contend that, by problematizing how national interests are formed in relation to national identities, their theoretical framework can accommodate the changing contexts in which interests are deined.76 Accordingly, constructivism claims to ofer more “realistic” explanations of foreign policy than do realist or other rationalist-materialist theories of ir. Fourth, states’ identities and interests, as expressed through foreign policy, are inextricable from broader networks of socialization and other social structures comprised of both state and non-state actors. International norms are regarded as central to these networks because they give structure to social interaction and are structured by agents themselves, thus deining speciic classes of social behaviour and their relevant identities. herefore, in assuming that agents and structure are mutually constituted, constructivists necessarily analyze foreign policy within the context of these broader social structures. Above all, constructivists maintain that socialization processes involve classes of actions – deined as legitimate or illegitimate according to prevailing norms – that signal identity and collective intentionality to relevant others. A constructivist framework for the study of foreign policy would therefore

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classify states by situating them broadly into norm compliant and norm non-compliant groups. Norm efectiveness is, then, dependent on the identity of the respective states and the extent that a norm resonates with existing social structures. More speciically, Daniel C. homas argues that efectiveness is a function of the degree to which a norm is: (1) speciic, in that it delineates clearly between compliant and non-compliant behaviour; (2) durable, or able to withstand challenges to its legitimacy and behavioural conventions; and, (3) concordant with other relevant norms and institutions.77 He argues further: [Since] norms apply to actors with particular identities, and [since] that all actors have multiple identities, we may conclude that a state actor’s sense of duty to comply with a norm will vary with the salience of the identity speciied by the norm: the more salient the identity speciied by an international norm, the more the actor will seek to fulill its obligations under that norm.78 Constructivists maintain that states will support or resist international human rights norms – and hence support or resist human rights in foreign policy – according to their salience relative to competing identities and interests. Ultimately, the importance of certain identities and interests relative to others is a function of social construction, inseparable from the broader social structures within which it occurs. In sum, the constructivist approach to ir ofers general expectations of how states frame human rights within foreign policy. First, constructivism rests on the basic principle that states behave according to their identities and mutually constitutive interests. Foreign policy is thereby regarded as an expression of states’ identity and interests, which allows each actor to lay claim to a particular self-image and to help diferentiate one political community from another. Second, as foreign policy is necessarily the expression of a particular state’s conception of national identity, this identity is treated as an active site for political contestation from within and from without. Foreign policy can, in other words, either be expressed as an outward projection of how identity is contrived internally or as a projection of how the state wishes to be regarded domestically or internationally. hird, constructivism difers from realism in seeking to problematize states’ identities and interests rather than assuming them a priori. In adopting a wider remit of how interests are deined, this principle challenges realist notions

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of the national interest. Fourth, foreign policy, as the extension abroad of identities and interests, is the means by which states interact with other members of the international community, both state and non-state, in the process of socialization. his interaction is principally structured by international norms, which deine speciic classes of social behaviour and their relevant identities. Overall, these principles are the common elements of a constructivist approach to human rights within foreign policy and international relations. While theoretically applicable to all states, whether or not these principles hold empirically is the measure by which to assess constructivism’s purchase as a framework for the study of human rights.

conclusion he rise of constructivism has proven to be one of the most signiicant conceptual developments in contemporary ir. To a large extent, constructivism’s success is fuelled by its direct critique of realism’s core assumptions and restrictive analytic scope. Although constructivism as a coherent body of theory is relatively new, it has nonetheless given shape to the discipline’s development by advancing these challenges, which have sought to expand the domain of ir as a ield of social scientiic inquiry. Most notably, Wendt’s idealist brand of constructivism stresses not only the importance of ideas in shaping interests but also the distribution of ideas across the system as a fundamental determinant of international structure. Rather than making a priori assumptions, constructivists seek to problematize states’ identities and their mutually constitutive interests as the basis for understanding state behaviour. Ironically, constructivism’s success as a critique of mainstream theorizing and as a window onto the production of new research questions has efectively made it part of the mainstream – a dominant force within contemporary ir theory. Constructivism hence ofers an innovative approach to the study of human rights. By exploring the constitutive factors that drive state behaviour, constructivism is able to provide unique insight into the underlying motivations of states’ international human rights policies. he constructivist framework for the study of human rights within foreign policy rests on the basic proposition that foreign policy is an expression of a given state’s identity. As a primary site of political contestation, the notion of identity is not only in constant process but is also being continuously shaped by various actors and communities both domestically and internationally. he constructivist framework calls for a rethinking

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of traditional notions of the national interest, and it also proposes that international norms may have a socializing efect on states’ foreign policies (depending on the degree to which they “it” with competing identities and interests as well as with broader social structures). Given all this, my task in the next chapter is to scrutinize the constructivist model by investigating the development of international human rights policies in Canada.

5 Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy: The Constructivist View

Constructivists view statecraft as the means by which states express and contest their national identities in international relations.1 For Canada, however, the subject of national identity is a source of considerable and persistent apprehension. It is, according to John Holmes, something that Canadians agonize about.2 As a multiregional, multilingual, multicultural federation shaped by a colonial legacy and by predominant relations with Britain and the United States, Canada has come to promote a distinct identity as a basic objective of its policy. Crucially, foreign policy has served to sanction speciic classes of international norms and to express claims to particular identities. Especially with the emergence of international human rights norms, the treatment of individuals both domestically and internationally is regarded as a clear identity marker.3 As Louise Arbour notes: “Canada has consistently portrayed itself as an active promoter and defender of international human rights … It is a commitment which has, moreover, come to be a matter of national identity.”4 Whether perceived or aspirational, the notion of national identity has had an undeniable impact on Canada’s approach to human rights. he empirical record shows, however, that human rights were not a natural dimension of Canadian public or international policy. As illustrated in chapter 3, Canadian policymakers were opposed to universal human rights in the aftermath of the Second World War and remained openly sceptical of human rights in foreign afairs until at least the late 1970s. he fact that Canada’s support for international human rights is such a recent phenomenon suggests that human rights are a novel development in terms of the country’s national identity. Nonetheless, human rights somehow became a salient part of that identity. Why, then, has human rights become such a pronounced feature of Canada’s self-image?

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Does Canada’s approach to international human rights contravene or vindicate constructivist principles that emphasize norms-based explanations of foreign policy? A growing body of evidence indicates that national identity is a perennial foundation of Canada’s international relations. Strikingly, though, a systematic constructivist analysis of Canadian foreign policy is all but absent in the scholarly literature. his is a peculiar oversight because the evidence suggests that national identity shapes Canadian foreign policy not simply because it provides the template from which to pursue interests but because national identity is itself the primary site of Canada’s insecurity. In particular, three long-standing “threats” challenge Canada’s sense of collective identity. First, Canada’s international role and, arguably, its relative importance have sufered since the end of the early postwar period of exceptional international stature, from roughly 1945 to 1957, known as the “Golden Age.”5 Canadians are, quite simply, fearful of becoming irrelevant. Andrew Cohen remarks that there is a general perception that “Canada is in decline in the world today. It is not doing what it once did, or as much as it once did, or enjoying the success it once did.”6 Worse than being stepped on, Canada is in danger of being ignored altogether.7 he marketing of Canada’s international role from middlepowermanship to modelpowermanship,8 for example, illustrates the degree to which Canadian policymakers have underscored the need for bearing an exclusive international role. he drive to strengthen the claim that Canada matters in international relations, and to strengthen the country’s identity as an actor with purpose, is therefore a central and recurrent theme of Canadian foreign policy. Furthermore, Canada is faced with two considerable challenges to its integrity as a sovereign, independent state. As George Ignatief puts it, these twin “inescapable realities of Canadian foreign policy … are: the necessity of maintaining unity at home, especially between the two founding nations; and living distinct from but in harmony with the world’s most powerful and dynamic nation – the usa.”9 he problem of national unity and its pronounced efect on Canadian political culture, climaxing in 1980 and 1995 with Quebec referenda on separation, cannot be understated. According to a report by the Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on Canada’s International Relations: National unity has a grip on the souls of Canadians that goes beyond rational calculation. It stands at the head of Canada’s objectives as the

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sin qua non for all the other collective goals that Canadians may decide to pursue. Canadians recognize, of course, that whether they can retain the ability and will to pull together is largely up to themselves. Since the world acts as a mirror for Canadians, however, they have recently been directing foreign policy to the achievement of national unity.10 Canada’s problem of national unity thus extends beyond domestic politics and rational choice. As international politics has become a key battleground upon which to contest claims to sovereignty and political authority, foreign policy has become a principal avenue by which to assert abroad Canada’s identity as a cohesive political entity. A similar aim is observed in Canada-us relations. As Canada’s only continental neighbour and the world’s foremost economic and military power, the United States has had a profound impact on most areas of Canadian policymaking. he Canada-us relationship has yielded the world’s largest bilateral trade partnership, with two-way trade in 2010 amounting to $645 billion annually, or averaging $1.7 billion daily.11 Canada and the United States also had strong military ties as allies during the irst and second world wars, as founding members of nato and as partners in norad. Yet Canadians are generally wary that the United States has had an excessive – and therefore negative – efect on Canada’s ability to express its national identity. In other words, interdependence with the us colossus in trade and defence has ostensibly diminished Canada’s capacity to cultivate its unique political culture and to exercise autonomy in policymaking. One need only look to the rigour with which the Canadian government has pursued policies to protect its cultural industries as evidence of Canada’s insecurity in the face of us dominance.12 Clearly, the Canadian government has been active in its attempts to moderate the problems of national unity and excessive American inluence that challenge Canada’s sense of national identity. With these assumptions in mind, Canada presents an important case for assessing constructivism’s purchase as a framework for human rights and, subsequently, for providing a systematic reading of Canadian foreign policy through an identity-based theoretical perspective. Given the policy shift from initial antagonism to contemporary leadership, Canada’s approach to international human rights would have evolved from a sense of national identity that was projected or aspirational rather than inherent. herefore, explaining why human rights became prominent in Canadian foreign

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policy has implications for understanding the purpose of human rights policies – especially with respect to perceived threats to national identity – and their underlying role in international politics. If the evidence suggests that human rights policies were pursued as a function of national identity, whether in response to perceived threats to that identity or through socialization with international norms, then the constructivist perspective is one that cannot be ignored in the study of human rights in Canadian foreign policy and ir. Conversely, should an identity-based rationale ofer little or no explanation for Canada’s human rights policies, then there are substantial grounds to question the importance of the constructivist approach. Methodologically, in this chapter I follow a constructivist framework by analyzing Canadian foreign policy according to historical periods deined in terms of distinct changes to Canada’s identity. he obvious diiculty with any categorization of identity change is that identities do not transform drastically or easily as a consequence of discrete empirical events.13 Actors have an inherent interest in defending their identities and are likely to resist change. Moreover, as identities are constantly in process, it is impossible to render any deinitive depiction of an actor’s identity at any given time. Actors often have multiple identities, or multiple and complex facets of identity, relative to diferent social structures and issues. I seek to avoid these problems by presenting the basic evolution of Canada’s identity as it relates speciically to human rights. In this sense, Canada’s identity has centred successively on the projection of Canadian internationalism, the projection of Canadian sovereignty, and the projection of the Canadian model. hese identities correspond generally to the early postwar decades in which foreign policy centred on internationalism (1945–68), an era of crisis in national unity that enlisted foreign policy as a solution to domestic problems (1968–84), and a period in which marketing the Canadian model became a principal object of foreign policy (1984 onwards). Rather than signalling a change from one identity to another, these periods relect the increasing complexity of Canada’s identity as a response to the country’s declining relative power, the problem of national unity, and conlict in Canada-us bilateral relations. I analyze each of these periods using the model developed in chapter 4. Explicitly, I employ the constructivist model to assess the “it” between its theoretical expectations and the empirical facts of Canada’s approach to human rights in foreign policy. Here I demonstrate that a constructivist framework emphasizing the social process of identity formation is crucial for understanding Canada’s

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international policies since the Second World War. I begin my analysis with the premise that national identity is an issue of considerable insecurity, that Canadian foreign policy is constituted principally in defence of national identity. Indeed, the character of Canadian foreign policy is largely a function of variations in the perceived threats to Canada’s identity, which centre on relative decline, the problem of national unity, and excessive US inluence. I demonstrate that, with regard to Canada, an internationalist identity was not a suicient condition for ensuring state support for international human rights; rather, human rights were adopted as part of an aspirational identity in response to the acute threat of Quebec separatism. In other words, human rights were entrenched in the Constitution as a means of unifying Canadians under a new federalist system of government. Marketing the Canadian model of human rights and pluralism was the next logical step. hese developments highlight constructivism’s ability to ofer a conceptual understanding of human rights in Canadian foreign policy. However, constructivism has diiculty explaining the persistent gap between the rhetoric of Canadian foreign policy and the reality of actual commitments. On the whole, it ofers a viable theoretical framework for the study of human rights but falls short of addressing the inherent trade-ofs and competing priorities of statecraft.

projecting canadian internationalism With the advent of the United Nations came a major transformation in the legal and political status of the individual in international relations. While the “long nineteenth century” observed the growing recognition of the individual as a political actor,14 states only granted rights to speciic classes of their own citizens. he Holocaust highlighted the fact that heinous acts perpetrated by states against their citizens were not prohibited by international law. Genocide was legitimated simply as a means to further the process of national uniication within the modern state.15 he un Charter and the subsequent Universal Declaration of Human Rights fundamentally changed the concept of individual rights in two principal ways. First, individuals were now ascribed rights qua individual human beings rather than qua members of a particular group.16 Second, as the 1945 International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and the 1946 Tokyo Trials demonstrated, individuals would now have duties to other human beings that supersede duties imposed by any given state. In other words, individuals could no longer use state sovereignty as a viable defence against

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war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide.17 he institutionalization of these principles is a deining moment for human rights in international relations. At least in part, the conditions of the new international order paved the way for the development of internationalism in Canadian foreign policy. At irst it would appear that Canada, given this new approach to international afairs, would have been a prime candidate to serve as a leading advocate of international human rights. Yet Canada treated the subject with scepticism – at times, even directly opposed it. As Louise Arbour notes, Canada’s early resistance to universal human rights invokes a self-image inconceivable to most Canadians today.18 In fact, Canada remained openly wary of human rights in foreign afairs for the irst decades of the Cold War. Despite the country’s internationalist outlook, human rights were not an inherent or inevitable part of Canada’s postwar identity. An internationalist identity, therefore, is not a suicient condition for ensuring state support for international human rights. Nonetheless, constructivism provides a useful explanation of Canada’s postwar position on human rights at a time when internationalism became the central theme of Canadian foreign policy. From the end of the Second World War until the country’s irst foreign policy review in 1968, Canadian policymakers were engrossed in their attempts to project an internationalist identity. hey did this by inventing the archetype of the middle power and by laying claim to an exclusive role in international relations. Constructing Canada’s Identity he circumstances of the Second World War changed the very substance of Canada as a political entity. Oicially a colonial dominion until the 1931 Statute of Westminster, Canada’s substantial contribution to the Allied war efort signalled the country’s growing prominence. By the end of the war, Canada emerged as the world’s second-largest trading state with the thirdlargest air force and the fourth-largest navy. he country had also acquired a cutting-edge industrial force that remained untouched by the war’s devastation.19 According to Escott Reid, while Canada once dwelled in a position of relative obscurity, it suddenly enjoyed the ability to shape the course of international relations.20 Postwar circumstances thus demanded that Canadians assume a considerable amount of international responsibilities.21 Canada was called upon, for instance, to play a key role in helping to rebuild war-torn Europe and to maintain peace in the fragile international

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order. hese circumstances fundamentally changed Canada’s place in international relations. More and more, Canada’s identity became synonymous with internationalism. Unfortunately, internationalism is an especially diicult concept to deine. he late John Holmes is often credited with the scholarly prominence of internationalism in postwar Canadian foreign policy. Having served as a former senior oicial in external afairs prior to assuming the directorship of the Canadian Institute of International Afairs and teaching at the University of Toronto, Holmes played a vital role in the policymaking and scholarship of his era. Yet Holmes often used the term “internationalism” with numerous qualiications, such as “pure internationalism,” “active internationalism,” “liberal internationalism,” “wider internationalism,” “new and tougher internationalism,” “soft-minded internationalism,” “comfortable internationalism,” and “internationalist nationalism.”22 In other words, Holmes deliberately avoided ofering a precise deinition. Perhaps Kim Nossal comes closest to tackling the issue when he describes internationalism’s chief objective as the avoidance of war – similar to its antithesis (i.e., isolationism) in aim but difering in method. He argues that internationalism is underwritten by four interrelated elements: (1) an active involvement in and responsibility for the management of interstate conlict, (2) a willingness to forego the advantages of unilateral action for the broader interests of the community of states, (3) support for multilateralism, and (4) a willingness to act on prior commitments by mobilizing national resources for the betterment of the international system as a whole.23 Nossal’s approach concentrates on internationalism as a style of foreign policy. his suggests that arriving at a categorical deinition of internationalism may well be impossible because the term is best used to describe what a state does rather than what a state is in any essentialist sense. From a constructivist perspective, the main point is that internationalism characterizes a state’s substantive orientation in and stylistic approach to foreign afairs. here is evidence to suggest that internationalist sentiment in Canadian foreign policy was apparent even before the Second World War. Don Munton and Tom Keating, for instance, point to the parallel use of internationalism and collectivism to describe Canada’s support for the League of Nations and the concept of collective security.24 Nonetheless, the circumstances of the Second World War would cement internationalism as the foundation of Canada’s international outlook. Broadly conceived,

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internationalism appealed to the Canadian foreign policy community for several reasons. First, although Canada was one of the few countries to beneit economically from the Second World War, the enormous sacriice in Canadian lives had produced a sharp aversion to the great-power wars that had twice engulfed Canada in the irst half of the twentieth century. Internationalism seemed to ofer a welcome prescription for the problems of excessive self-interest and unrestrained nationalism that were widely regarded as the principal causes of state conlict.25 he concept thus provided Canada with a framework within which to exercise, as far as possible, its ability to mitigate grand warfare. Second, internationalism aforded Canada the opportunity to expand its foreign markets. As a country historically dependent on external trade, cultivating overseas economic relations became a priority of Canadian postwar international policy. Every bit as relevant today, John Holmes once argued: “Canada is vulnerable because it is a country with a small population, enormous territory, and vast resources. It is dependent upon a world safe for commerce.”26 In particular, it was clear that, given Britain’s mounting debts and state of economic dilapidation, the established pattern of trade between Canada and Britain would not survive in the postwar era. To Britain alone, Canada donated $1 billion for the purchase of war materials and $1.95 billion in loans, of which $700 million was interest-free. Canada also absorbed a $65 million loss for selling wheat to Britain at artiicially low prices prior to the negotiation of the Marshall Plan.27 Yet Britain’s failure to acknowledge Canada’s inancial contribution to the war efort – at least to a level suicient to appease the government of Prime Minister Mackenzie King – revealed its glaring failure to realize that the colonial relationship had deinitively expired. Especially as it became evident that the growing Canada-us trade relationship would be the focus of Canada’s international trade policy, internationalism provided a conceptual basis from which to practicably address the country’s postwar economic needs. hird, and related to the previous point, internationalism promised a reprieve from us dominance. Ever-mounting ties between the two countries produced economic dividends as well as frequent dispute. “Relations were more complex and more irritable,” according to John Holmes, “not because the two nations were drifting apart but because they were impinging more.”28 As early as 1929, the creation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation came as a direct measure to protect and promote Canada’s cultural identity from the perceived threat of American dominance in the

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media industry.29 Economic and military interdependence amidst growing us power merely exacerbated Canada’s insecurity in the postwar period. he heightening rivalry of the Cold War hence conditioned a change in the underlying foundation of the country’s security complex. In particular, in light of escalating us-ussr tensions and Canada’s geostrategic importance to the conlict in the nuclear age, Canadians had to abandon the prewar myth that their country was a “ireproof house.”30 Canada was, as per Keating, “more vulnerable to military attack than at any other time in its history.”31 In geostrategic terms, providing a balance to the Soviet Union was a necessary security measure. Simultaneously, however, with regard to Canadian identity, military interdependence with the United States was a source of insecurity. Policymakers in Ottawa feared that their Washington counterparts were planning to assume unilateral control of North American defence policy. he United States expected, for instance, that Canada would simply follow American grand strategy with regard to nuclear weapons.32 Canada’s diidence towards us nuclear strategy hence caused astonishment among American policymakers and widened the CanadianAmerican rift. Given Washington’s apparent lack of consultation with Ottawa, and its ignorance of genuine Canadian security concerns, the United States posed a danger to Canada’s identity as a sovereign actor and to Canada’s national security interests. hus, despite joint participation in nato and norad, the security policies of both countries began to diverge as the Cold War progressed. Consequently, as the two sides held markedly diferent opinions about the future threats to North American security and about the measures needed to combat those threats, Ottawa became increasingly circumspect regarding us interest in Canadian territory for purposes of continental defence.33 Yet Canada-us tensions were the product of more than mere diferences in interests or objectives. Canadian and American policies clashed because of fundamental diferences in the two countries’ respective national identities. As Holmes suggests: he distinct identities of the two countries have been more readily discernible in their approaches to international problems than their common social and economic habits would suggest – diferences relecting diverse political institutions, histories, overseas associations, temperament, and the inevitable diferences of approach between a nation of decisive power and a nation of modest inluence in the world.34

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Canadian policymakers found a solution to this problem in internationalism. An internationalist identity allowed Canada to demonstrate its sovereignty to the rest of the world. More crucially, it also presented Canada with the opportunity to contain us power through multilateral institutions. Persuading the United States to commit to multilateral arrangements would potentially restrain unilateralist tendencies and curb the country’s power through procedural mechanisms such as collective decision making. his rationale was a primary source of Canada’s support for the founding of nato in 1949. Lester B. Pearson points out that Canada’s concern for collective security, through a regional organization as an alternative to the faltering United Nations, provided additional impetus for nato’s development.35 Yet Canada’s apprehension about excessive us dominance in security matters cannot be understated. A multilateral forum would help to alleviate the problems associated with being the United States’ sole partner on issues of mutual defence. As Keating argues: If there was to be a Cold War and if the Americans were to dominate the Western faction, Canadians did not wish to be isolated with them on the North American continent … In attempting to secure American involvement in a multilateral defence pact, Canadians hoped not only to commit the Americans to the next war before it started, but also to extend the American defence perimeter to Europe so that North America would not become the irst line of defence.36 Internationalism, therefore, became an efective way for Canada to deal with its “over-weaning uncle.”37 Concurrently, an internationalist identity provided Canada with a vehicle to expand its foreign economic markets and to play an active part in attempting to moderate the prospects for grand warfare in the nuclear age. Internationalism, according to Michael Tucker, came to embody security interests through “idealist notions of a better world order.”38 Moreover, Canada’s internationalist identity took the form of functionalism. Every state, according to functionalist principles, bore a speciic role within the international order. he expiry of old alliances and the formation of new ones during the Cold War seemed to impart increasingly irm distinctions between “self ” and “other,” or “friend” and “foe.” Functionalism was also integral to the notion of collective security as embodied within the hierarchy of the un Security Council. Role-based

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thinking thus provided a natural outlet for Canada’s internationalist identity. As John Holmes argued, Canadians “must have some conception of [their] role in the world if [Canada is] to be an independent state at all.”39 It fell to Canadian policymakers to invent a fresh role for Canada in postwar international relations. Although it was made clear at the 1945 San Francisco Conference that Canada did not belong in the circle of major powers, it was equally clear that Canada’s postwar prominence bestowed much greater significance upon it than “largest of the small powers.” he fundamental task was to proclaim that Canada mattered in international relations. Ultimately, Canada’s role assumed a new archetype known as the middle power. he middle power was much more than an intermediary between large and small powers: it was designed to play an exclusive role in foreign afairs. For Holmes, the middle power served two interrelated functions in the postwar period: (1) the maintenance of peace between the United States and the Soviet Union and (2) the provision of formal institutional support for the United Nations.40 Andrew Cooper, Richard Higgott, and Kim Nossal argue that the term “middle power” is a behavioural one as middle powers tend to seek multilateral solutions to international problems, to accept compromise in international disputes, and to be generally inclined towards “good international citizenship.”41 he role of middle power allowed Canada to assert a distinct and forceful foreign policy as well as an internationalist identity. Fashioning middlepowermanship as an operational concept therefore aforded Canada a unique identity and sphere of inluence in the world and provided a scheme for manoeuvre in foreign afairs. Overall, internationalism and its role-based ofspring, middlepowermanship, came at a time when Canada’s identity as a political actor was undergoing nothing less than a sea change. he praxis of an independent Canadian foreign policy thus began during an era in which Canada was at the height of its international stature. Internationalism provided a policy framework consonant with Canada’s emerging identity and interests. At least in the global sphere, internationalism illed an existential gap in the Canadian political consciousness by providing a rational justiication for the country’s existence.42 As Lester B. Pearson remarked shortly before his death: “he last thing we Canadians should do is to shut ourselves up in our provinces, or, indeed, in our own country, or our own continent. If we are to be of service in the world and to ourselves and our own destiny, if we are to ind our right place in the sun, we must look beyond our own national or local limits.”43 In short, internationalism was

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the foundation of Canada’s postwar identity, and it conditioned the country’s substantive orientation and stylistic approach to foreign policy for years to come. From approximately 1945 to 1968, the internationalist framework served as Canada’s guide to international human rights. Human Rights and Canadian Foreign Policy: he Status Quo As mentioned in chapter 3, Canada initially opposed a universal conception of human rights and hesitated in its support for the udhr. he postwar government of Prime Minister Mackenzie King based its opposition on claims of non-interference in domestic afairs and on problems relating to federal-provincial jurisdiction. Canada’s business and legal communities were especially opposed to economic and social rights. his opposition was based on the Cold War rivalry between capitalist and communist camps and on a general antagonism to the idea of the welfare state, which was not even in its infancy at the start of the postwar era.44 Rather than attempting to advance the project of human rights, Canada was active in attempting to restrict its temporal and substantive development in international relations.45 Human rights evidently did not coincide with Canada’s postwar foreign policy framework, which centred, according to then secretary of state for external afairs Louis St Laurent, on national unity, political liberty, the rule of law in international afairs, the centrality of Christian values, and the need to understand Canada’s international responsibility.46 hese values would persist during St Laurent’s tenure as prime minister, from 1948 to 1957. Don Jamieson, secretary of state for external afairs in the late 1970s, would later airm that Canada’s approach to international human rights relected the country’s traditions and ethical codes as a Western Christian society.47 Clearly, human rights were not inherent to Canada’s early postwar identity. Canada’s postwar foreign policy focused on the pursuit of a distinctive brand of Canadian internationalism, which favoured multilateral rather than bilateral methods.48 his internationalist style of foreign policy also entailed support for the development of international institutions for the collective good. As Denis Stairs notes, the central task for Canada as a “status quo power of modest capacity” was to foster a rules-based international environment.49 Ensuring that Canada was in a position of inluence in the creation of international institutions was the primary goal of Canadian foreign policy. Even the military was directed towards this goal.

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According to James Eayrs: “he main and overriding motive for the maintenance of a Canadian military establishment since the Second World War has had little to do with our national security as such; that it has had everything to do with underpinning our diplomatic and negotiating positions vis-à-vis various international organizations and other countries.”50 Consistent with a constructivist outlook, Canada’s material capabilities were inconsequential in comparison to their symbolic or social value, from which international inluence was derived. In addition, Lester Pearson remarked that Canada’s involvement with international organizations “helped [Canadians] to escape the dangers of a too exclusively continental relationship with [their] neighbours [the United States] without forfeiting the political and economic advantages of that inevitable and vitally important association.”51 hus, the era roughly from 1945 to 1957 became known as the “golden age” of Canadian foreign policy, with Canada at the height of its international standing. International inluence and new international responsibilities came naturally to Canada during the golden age as most of Europe and East Asia lay in postwar ruin. Canada’s special status diminished, however, as these war-torn societies were slowly rebuilt and as the dynamics of decolonization began to unfold. he Government of Canada had to be inventive in foreign policy, where inluence had once come with little efort. At least on the domestic scene, Canada’s support for human rights was developing slowly, while the foundations for the Canadian welfare state was the subject of ongoing debate as a result of growing public demand over the issue of public health care. Sanctioning the udhr was regarded as a test case for the proposed national Bill of Rights, which had thus far produced “considerable agitation” within Canada.52 he 1960 Bill of Rights was inally passed under the administration of John Diefenbaker, who was prime minister from 1957 to 1963.53 Critics of the bill point to the fact that it was not constitutionally entrenched and therefore could be struck down by other laws. Furthermore, it only had federal jurisdiction and hence could not apply to laws enacted by provincial legislatures. Yet supporters regard the bill as an important step in creating general awareness of human rights issues. It was, in this sense, a valuable precursor to the subsequent Charter of Rights and Freedoms. During the same year, Diefenbaker was also acclaimed for having forged, along with Indian prime minister Nehru, a general Commonwealth resolution against racial discrimination in response to the question of South

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African membership in the Commonwealth of Nations. his issue of membership, however, remained symbolic rather than substantive in that no other measures were taken against the apartheid regime at the time. Consequently, the issue of human rights was still conined to the domestic sphere, with little or no substantive bearing on the remainder of Canada’s foreign relations. On the international front, spearheaded by Lester Pearson, in 1956 Canada had embarked on an experiment in peacekeeping that would, in succeeding decades, become synonymous with Canada’s identity. According to Tom Keating, “Peacekeeping has been an area of activity that it well with Canadian interests, insofar as Canada is both a committed member of the Western alliance and a strong supporter of the United Nations.”54 Although peacekeeping is often invoked as an example of good international citizenship, Canada’s initiatives correspond to an internationalist interest in collective security and conlict prevention rather than to an explicit interest in international human rights or even humanitarian assistance. Peacekeeping aforded Canada an exclusive and ostensibly neutral role in the achievement of these ends – a role that the superpowers could not hope to occupy. In other words, peacekeeping was consistent with Canada’s internationalist identity and its functionalist role as a middle power. Later, Pearson was appointed by Robert McNamara, then president of the World Bank, to lead the 1968 Commission on International Development, which became known as the “Pearson Commission.” he commission’s 1969 report, Partners in Development, is well known for its recommendation that sovereign states should set aside 0.7 percent of their gnp for development assistance.55 However, as Pearson had made these recommendations after his tenure as prime minister, Canada was not committed to meeting this target and, indeed, never did reach the 0.7 percent threshold. In spite of this shortfall, at the start of the postwar period, development assistance was normalized as part of Canada’s commitment to help with rebuilding. Moreover, although development assistance had become a regular feature of the country’s international policies, Pearson also initiated assistance programs with French-speaking Africa as a means of demonstrating that the federal government’s reach in international afairs was superior to that of the Province of Quebec, which had sought to develop cultural and educational foreign relations with French-speaking Africa on its own. hese initiatives were among the federal government’s irst attempts to use foreign policy as a means to

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mitigate the problem of national unity, which was otherwise an essentially domestic issue. It would therefore seem that the issue of human rights, in and of itself, was not the motivating factor behind Canada’s international policies on development assistance. Ultimately, Canada’s initial objections to universal human rights were based, for the most part, on domestic concerns. Despite Canada’s overtly internationalist foreign policy, human rights did not igure into the country’s postwar international relations. While debate about human rights increased as a matter of domestic concern, particularly over the 1960 Bill of Rights and the issue of the welfare state, human rights did not afect Canada’s international relations, despite a growing interest in peacekeeping and other forms of foreign assistance. he federal government conined human rights issues within a small group of technical un bodies and did not pursue them in any of Canada’s bilateral relations. In short, an internationalist outlook is not a suicient condition for assuring respect for international human rights.

projecting canadian sovereignty Pierre Elliott Trudeau came to power in 1968, at a time when Canada faced immense challenges internationally and domestically. Canada-US relations were growing increasingly tense over key issues in international security and energy. Canada was, moreover, in a state of declining relative power as a result of Western Europe’s postwar recovery. Canada’s sphere of inluence as an internationalist middle power was not merely shrinking but also becoming clearly untenable. Worst of all, the Canadian federation was also threatened by national fragmentation. he outburst of Quebec nationalism in the 1960s served as a subsequent platform for the province’s separatist movement, in both its political and terrorist forms. Yet the problem of national unity extended far beyond the provincial or national sphere into foreign afairs. As illustrated by Charles de Gaulle’s inlammatory “vive le Québec libre” statement of 24 July 1967 in Montreal, international relations became a key battleground between Quebec and Ottawa in the ight for recognition and authority.56 Canada subsequently entered a period of acute crisis that tested the country’s ability to survive as a sovereign political entity. Numerous competing visions of Canada were an inevitable consequence of the social and political volatility of the era. Trudeau and other political leaders were handed the monumental task of delivering a vision of Canada

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that could sustain a viable federal structure. Part of Trudeau’s solution came in the form of a fundamental change to the Canadian Constitution. Efective in 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms became one of his lasting legacies. According to Michael Ignatief: “Pierre Trudeau did not give us the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that we were clamouring for. He gave us the Charter we never thought was possible.”57 Forcing the Charter through Parliament was Trudeau’s attempt to secure Canadian unity on the basis of individual rights. Institutionalizing human rights was meant to diminish group divisions and the appeal of nationalism. hese changes forged a new era in Canadian history, which Ignatief describes as nothing short of a rights revolution.58 In this sense, respect for human rights was not part of the natural or inherent evolution of Canadian political culture; rather, human rights were adopted as part of an aspirational Canadian identity – a broader vision of what Canadian society should look like in order to survive. he Canadian example shows that, rather than impeding sovereignty, human rights can, in fact, serve to strengthen an actor’s claim to a sovereign identity. Constructing Canada’s Identity By the mid-1960s, Canada’s early postwar role in international relations was showing signs of exhaustion. Canadian and American oicials were constantly at odds over signiicant strategic issues, including nuclear weapons, Soviet containment, and the Vietnam War. he surmounting military power of the United States and the Soviet Union also rendered one of the core tasks of the middle power – the maintenance of peace between the superpowers – exceedingly diicult. Canada had little capacity, for example, to mitigate the proxy wars that were occurring and causing alarming devastation as the Cold War expanded into the postcolonial world. As Holmes points out, the United States was also becoming less reliant on Canada and its other allies as the rising size and technological sophistication of its military reduced the need for territorial defences in the missile age.59 he fear remained, however, that Canada’s national identity and independence were being threatened by the growing cultural, economic, and political power of their neighbour, which, if not resisted, would lead inevitably to Canada’s de facto absorption into the United States.60 Canada’s subsequent nationalization of its petroleum industry, with the 1980 National Energy Program, in response to the 1970s oil crisis and fears of American takeover, led to what Stephen Clarkson describes as

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“the most acute crisis in the Canadian-American relationship in living memory.”61 In addition, irresolvable problems within the un structure hindered the prospects for future peacekeeping operations and, hence, for Canada to assume a leadership role in international relations. With the diminishing relevance and utility of the middle power, Canada’s inluence in the world and in Washington was sufering obvious decline.62 hese challenges were prompting changes to Canada’s identity. Yet an even greater challenge to Canada’s identity was mounting on the domestic front. In particular, fundamental changes were occurring in the Province of Quebec, and these would lead to a historic debate about the  basic fabric of the Canadian federation. Sparked by the provincial Liberal campaign and the subsequent tenure of Jean Lesage, the Quiet Revolution of 1960–66 awakened the political consciousness of French Canadians. he movement earned its name as the changes within the province were of such signiicance that they were described as a revolution, albeit a quiet one. his revolution called for the rejection of values traditionally advocated by the Roman Catholic Church, such as agriculturalism, anti-statism, and messianism. he Quiet Revolution’s call for modernization, statism, and social change focused on achieving functional interests such as the oicial recognition of biculturalism and the French language. At least in the revolution’s infancy, these goals sought to rectify what were perceived as legitimate protests against inequality. As the revolution evolved, however, it clearly began to assume a nationalist purpose that would test the limits of federalism. Canada’s experiment with federalism is certainly not unique. A federal structural is deined as one in which sovereign political authority is divided between independent polities. According to Nossal: “Federalism assumes irst that each level of government is autonomous from the other insofar as each level is immune from dissolution by the other. Second, federalism assumes that each level of government is granted sovereign jurisdiction over responsibilities speciied by the constitution.”63 he rise of nationalism within Quebec tested the oicial division of labour between provincial and federal governments. Unlike any of the other provinces, Quebec geared its external relations speciically towards the goal of projecting the image of nationhood, or la question nationale. Quebec vigorously marketed a self-image as the defender of Québécois culture, language, and ethnicity in the international realm by establishing cultural and educational links with France, francophone Africa, and even Louisiana. Especially with the creation of an “Entente” regarding educational exchanges between

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France and Quebec in 1964, the Government of Quebec demonstrated its eagerness to conclude sovereign international agreements on issues of culture and education. External relations consequently began to serve Quebec’s nationalistic impulses rather than the functionalist logic that had been assumed by the federal Canadian government. Moreover, as the 1967 de Gaulle incident underscores, Quebec’s external relations posed a serious threat to the authority and image of Canada in the world of international relations. In Peter Dobell’s opinion, Canada was enduring “the supreme test of its 100-year history,” and it could not be assumed that the country would survive intact.64 One must fully appreciate the gravity of these circumstances in order to understand the momentous efect that they had on Canada’s identity and the country’s approach to international relations. At the start of the postwar period, as was the norm for this era, Canadian foreign policy was an exclusive enterprise of the federal government. As Ronald Atkey comments: “Ottawa had just achieved full international competence through a gradual process of evolutionary events in the period from 1871 to 1939.”65 Sovereignty and independence in foreign afairs were not to be taken for granted; rather, they were jealously guarded as privileges that the Canadian state had earned. By and large, Ottawa also assumed that the provinces were “little more than gloriied municipalities exercising purely local functions.”66 he rise of Quebec nationalism and its extension into the international sphere completely destroyed the state’s sense of security in matters of sovereignty and independence. Simply put, the federal government was ill prepared for the fact that the chief threat to national survival came from within rather than from without. At this critical juncture in Canadian history, and shortly after taking ofice as prime minister, Trudeau initiated the country’s irst foreign policy review. In his words: “Re-assessment has become necessary not because of the inadequacies of the past but because of the changing nature of Canada and the world around us.”67 he review process and subsequent White Paper were meant to relect and give direction to the changing nature of Canada’s identity and to provide a framework for addressing the country’s needs and priorities. he review also provided a point of conceptual and operational departure from previous administrations. According to Jack Granatstein, Trudeau believed that the lack of a rational, intellectual foundation for Canadian foreign policy impaired the quality of decision making.68 Especially in light of new international circumstances, Trudeau was sceptical of the Canadian foreign policy community’s ability to serve

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Canada’s domestic political interests. he ensuing White Paper, Foreign Policy for Canadians, upheld the position that foreign policy is “the extension abroad of national policies,” which are derived exclusively from the state’s deinition and pursuit of national interests.69 Substantively, focusing on national interests enabled Trudeau to extricate Canada from international commitments that no longer seemed profitable. he report stipulates that many international organizations were becoming less and less relevant as they sufered from serious internal problems and as the continuing erosion of distinct ideological boundaries made political manoeuvre increasingly complicated.70 he Trudeau government dissolved the functional notion of the middle power and Canada’s role as “helpful ixer.”71 he concept of the middle power had largely been developed post hoc in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, and its efectiveness had waned considerably by the time of the review.72 “During this period of rapid change,” Holmes tells us, “the theory of Canadian foreign policy never caught up with reality.”73 Trudeau was convinced that Canada could no longer either “peace-keep everywhere” or determine the shape of international situations.74 hese decisions helped him to curb public and international expectations regarding Canada’s role in international relations. And, given the country’s declining relative power and the remarkable foreign policy achievements of Lester Pearson and his “golden age” predecessors, this was seen as a pragmatic move. Yet Trudeau was not in favour of the uncompromising pursuit of the national interest in an exclusively realist sense. He did not, in other words, completely reject the notion of internationalism that had underscored Canada’s past policies. In Tucker’s opinion, Trudeau never abandoned the idea that Canada was a kind of “mentor state” to the rest of the world.75 he Trudeauvian notion of the national interest, far from the classical realist sense of the term, comprised an awareness of the growing interdependence between states and the interconnectedness of broad issue areas. Speaking in Calgary in 1969, Trudeau rejected an egoistic deinition of the national interest and remarked: “he aim of our [Canadian] foreign policy … is to serve our national interests and to express our national identity abroad so that other countries know us.”76 Clearly, Trudeau was conscious of the centrality of national identity in international politics. his innovative approach to Canadian foreign policy is what Peyton Lyon calls the Trudeau Doctrine, which conceptualizes national identity as the primary object of national and international protection.77 Foreign policy was thus important to Trudeau in so far as it contributed to the

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goals of “national unity, economic growth and the creation of a just society in Canada.”78 hese notions of foreign policy and national identity are fully consistent with the constructivist outlook described in chapter 4, and they underscore the mutually constitutive connection between identities and interests. Accordingly, rather than rejecting an internationalist identity, Trudeau sought to eliminate the complacent, dogmatic type of internationalism that had apparently overridden Canada’s foreign policy establishment.79 He believed that this type of internationalism “did not adequately relect Canadian domestic requirements, particularly the need to cement the Canadian federal structure.”80 In other words, in so far as it could be reconigured to directly serve the national interest, internationalism was not bankrupt. For Trudeau, as for most Canadians, the paramount national interest was “to ensure the political survival of Canada as a federal and bilingual sovereign state.”81 Furthermore, as the problem of national unity began to spill beyond state boundaries, foreign policy became a primary resource in the campaign for a federal Canada. In underlining the necessary relationship between foreign policy and the country’s chief domestic problem, Trudeau argued in defence of the White Paper as follows: National unity, the divisive efects of the problems of French Canada and Quebec, of regional disparities, of inadequate economic growth, these are the overriding national concerns: foreign policy must be enlisted in their solution. he whole philosophy of the Paper, the integrated view of domestic and foreign policy in the service of common national objectives, the notion of foreign policy as the extension or projection abroad of national policies, the priorities, all seem to be uniquely suited to serve this basic concern.82 From a policy-planning perspective, this integrated view of domestic and foreign policy signalled a marked change from the immediate postwar period. Canada’s international identity underwent a signiicant change as the Trudeau Doctrine brought domestic politics to the fore of foreign policy decision making. Projecting a sovereign and independent Canadian identity was superimposed upon the internationalist identity that had directed the content and style of foreign policy in preceding decades. Trudeau and his government invested in human rights in an efort to meet the challenges to national unity. His convictions about human rights are well documented. Trudeau explicitly believed that human beings possess

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“inalienable rights, over and above capital, the nation, tradition, the Church, and even the State.”83 Legislation was central particularly with regards to the state-individual relationship. As he declared in 1968: he state must take great care not to infringe on the conscience of the individual. I believe that, in the last analysis, a human being in the privacy of his own mind has the exclusive authority to choose his own scale of values and to decide which forces will take precedence over others. A good constitution is one that does not prejudge any of these questions, but leaves citizens free to orient their human destinies as they see it.84 Subsequently, during his tenure as minister of justice, Trudeau introduced the Omnibus Bill to liberalize the law on abortion and homosexuality and to broaden the grounds for divorce.85 Later, he entrenched linguistic rights with the enactment of the Oicial Languages Act, 1969. Trudeau’s ultimate aim, however, was to cement national unity by establishing a code of constitutionally guaranteed human rights for all Canadians. After his election as prime minster, Trudeau sought to implement his 1968 campaign promise for a “Just Society.”86 he fact that his campaign swept the Liberals from a dejected minority government to a decisive 155seat majority meant that his vision of social justice clearly had resonance with most Canadians. Still, the progression from Trudeau’s personal proclivity for individual rights and freedoms to the government’s adoption of human rights policies in the battle for national unity was by no means inevitable. here are three main reasons why human rights became central to the unfolding project of Canadian federalism. First, human rights were becoming increasingly important as a relection of signiicant demographic changes across the country. he discriminatory Dominion Exclusion Act, 1920, which prevented the franchise from extending to certain ethnic and religious groups, was gradually repealed to lead the way to universal sufrage, which was attained in 1960.87 Changes in the laws pertaining to citizenship rights followed, as did the beginnings of Canadian multiculturalism, with the launch of an oicial policy of multiculturalism – the world’s irst – in 1971.88 According to Palmer, multiculturalism developed on several interrelated grounds: in response to the growing social mobility of second- and thirdgeneration Canadians of Eastern European descent; as a reaction to FrenchCanadian nationalism and to the concept of biculturalism established

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during the Pearson government; and because of escalating frustrations among Canadians of non-British and non-French heritage, who were concerned that they were being treated as second-class citizens and being kept out of the political debate.89 Institutionalizing human rights was a way of universalizing access to the political process and a way of ensuring that the cultural rights and privileges enjoyed by English and French Canadians were also available to other groups. Hugh Donald Forbes explains that Trudeau’s policy of multiculturalism kept the state from imposing on or favouring one group over another while allowing individuals the choice of balancing the pursuits of modern society with traditional practices.90 he policy of multiculturalism was hence adopted as a pragmatic solution to the problem of national unity.91 he consequence was that multiculturalism opened the door to immigration from non-European countries. he policy served to mirror fundamental demographic shifts in Canadian society, to help ensure equal access to social resources, and to give shape to new patterns of immigration. A rights-based approach to citizenship was therefore as functional (in emulating and coping with the existing composition of Canada) as it was aspirational (in proposing an image of what the federation should seek to become). As a result, Canadian identity changed dramatically. he second reason human rights became important to Canadian federalism has to do with the relationship between domestic politics and international norms. For instance, Canada was party to the Helsinki Accords, which were concluded in 1975 at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Under “Basket III” of the Accords, human rights were placed alongside “high politics” issues such as security and trade in the broader agenda of East-West détente. Shaming the Soviet Union on its Helsinki commitments meant that respect for human rights had irst to be institutionalized at home. Canada subsequently ratiied the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1976. Clearly, the Accords were crucial in informing Canada’s decision to ratify the covenants. he Helsinki Accords therefore signalled an important development in the emergence of international human rights norms as a counterweight to the long-standing norm of non-intervention in the internal afairs of other states.92 In addition, Jimmy Carter’s policies on the issue provided further impetus to this process. Carter acceded to the us presidency in 1977 with the aim of entrenching human rights in foreign policy. Although its policies were heavily criticized for their inconsistencies and light-handedness,

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the Carter administration was nonetheless responsible for normalizing human rights issues in bilateral foreign relations.93 hese measures helped to bolster the legitimacy of human rights as a veritable international, rather than exclusively domestic, concern. Previously, Trudeau had wholly supported the norm of non-intervention in domestic afairs.94 His personal convictions about human rights, however vigorous, remained within the sphere of public policy only. Likely as a result of Carter’s ability to normalize human rights in international afairs, and from growing public demand within Canada for a federal response to human rights violations committed abroad, the Canadian government began to question its position on non-intervention.95 Subsequently, by the late 1970s, Canada expressed unqualiied support for the human rights obligations contained in the un Charter.96 In demonstrating that it was in step with international norms, Canada helped to reinforce the country’s image as a sovereign member of international society. he third reason that human rights became central to the battle for a federal Canada must be attributed to the principles and political longevity of Trudeau himself. As Stephen Clarkson and Christina McCall note, the vision behind the Canada Act – also called the Constitutional Act, 1982, which included the patriation of the Constitution and the adoption of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms – belongs to none other than Pierre Trudeau. He was the one who “physically and iguratively wielded the gavel that caused the proceedings to unfold.”97 he historic weight of the Canada Act cannot be understated as it delivered complete constitutional independence from Britain and, by implication, the full rites of absolute legal and functional sovereignty. According to Clarkson and McCall, “what [Trudeau] was after in trying to patriate the Canadian constitution was a more fully realized democracy where ‘the people’ as an entity would assume responsibility for the nation’s social contract and at the same time achieve greater individual liberty through his proposed Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”98 Entrenching the Constitution in human rights had been Trudeau’s vision for a democratic and federal Canada since at least the 1960s, as is evidenced by a speech he delivered to the 49th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Bar Association in 1967.99 Constitutionally guaranteed rights “would speciically put the English and French languages on an equal basis before the law” and help to mollify a common grievance among French Canadians.100 Most crucially, Trudeau believed that institutionalizing human rights would help to dispel what he perceived to be the myth and parochial

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gloriication of the “national fact” in Quebec.101 He warned that any society that deined itself in essentialist ethnic terms would necessarily become chauvinistic and intolerant. Trudeau insisted that the purpose of the state rests fundamentally in the pursuit of the general welfare of its entire population, “regardless of sex, colour, race, religious beliefs, or ethnic origin.”102 Legislating human rights into the Constitution with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms underscored the state’s universal interest in the general welfare of all of its citizens and signalled, by complying with and advancing international human rights norms, the legitimate authority of the federal government of Canada over its citizens and territory. Ultimately, Trudeau not only had the vision but also the political longevity to see it enacted: a new constitution come to fruition in 1982, on his 4,807th day as Prime Minister of Canada. In sum, the period beginning with Pierre Trudeau’s accession to the oice of prime minister in 1968 marks a new phase in Canadian foreign policy, relecting the changing character of Canada’s identity. hese changes came about as a result of Canada’s declining relative power in international relations, heightening Canada-us tensions, and, most signiicantly, the outburst of nationalism in Quebec, which threatened the very fabric of Canadian federalism. Internationalism came to serve domestic needs above all else as foreign policy was enlisted in the struggle for a federal Canada.103 Human rights were thereby woven into the prescription for national unity amidst rapidly changing demographics, the emergence of new international norms, and, unquestionably, Trudeau’s long-standing stewardship. his shift in Canada’s identity did not occur efortlessly but, rather, in the face of persistent contention and even crisis. Nonetheless, due to a complex range of international and domestic factors, human rights became an integral part of Canada’s identity during this deining era of Canadian history. Human Rights and Canadian Foreign Policy: Reconstituting Canada From the outset, Trudeau regarded human rights as an intensely vital domestic issue. he creation of the national health care scheme in 1967, as part of the broader development of the Canadian welfare state, paved the way for his 1968 campaign platform for a just society. Despite Trudeau’s proclivity for human rights in the domestic sphere, however, he sought to keep them out of foreign policy. According to Jeremy Kinsman, this involved something of a contradiction.104 Because of the threat of Quebec

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separatism and the potential for foreign intrusion, as witnessed in Charles de Gaulle’s 1967 visit, Trudeau jealously guarded the norm of non-interference in domestic afairs. Yet even his commitment to human rights in domestic politics was tested with the flq Crisis of 1970 and his decision to impose the War Measures Act. his act, legislated at the start of the First World War, set in motion emergency government powers, including arrest and imprisonment without trial or explanation. he imposition of the War Measures Act thus allowed for the suspension of civil and political liberties. Trudeau’s decision to impose the War Measures Act was based on two key factors. he irst centred on a basic desire to provide the police with any additional tools that could help in the search for the kidnappers and their victims. he second, which apparently helped to overcome his hesitation, centred on the general deterioration of the political atmosphere in Quebec. He believed that, when public leaders in Quebec referred to convicts accused of murder, robbery, sabotage, and terrorism as “political prisoners,” their “inclination … to obey their legitimate government was crumbling.”105 his problem was compounded by the fact that the government did not know how numerous the flq terrorists were, what types of arms they possessed, or what they might be planning next. At the time, Trudeau and his administration could not know that “the whole crisis had been produced by only a ragtag, poorly organized handful of selfstyled revolutionaries.”106 According to George Radwanski, the outcome of the 1972 federal elections suggests that Trudeau was not punished by his decision to impose the War Measures Act as the Liberals retained ifty-six out of a possible seventy-four seats in Quebec – the same number as they had in the 1968 elections, with only a 5 percent drop in the total popular vote.107 he unfolding crisis of national unity and the threat of foreign intrusion in domestic afairs climbed to the top of Canada’s new security agenda. Trudeau was explicit in his doubt that the Soviet Union posed any aggressive intentions against the West. Hence, rather than reviewing Canadian foreign policy issue by issue, in an attempt to better serve Canada’s domestic interests, objectives, and priorities, Trudeau instigated a complete reassessment of “the whole underlying philosophy of Canada’s external relations.”108 Bruce hordarson suggests that, at least at the time, no government in any country had ever subjected its foreign policy establishment to such thorough scrutiny.109 Concurrently, the Quebec government had taken measures to demonstrate its capacity to exercise independent

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foreign relations over educational and cultural policy and, by 1979, had  in  place a full-ledged foreign policy program for independence.110 Consequently, international afairs became the key battleground for resolving the issue of Quebec separatism.111 An additional test for Canada’s commitment to human rights came with the 1975 Helsinki Accords. Canada’s participation in the Conference of Security and Cooperation in Europe meant that it was party to the Helsinki Final Act, which included a comprehensive list of human rights obligations. At the same time, Jimmy Carter’s commitment to human rights in foreign policy was in large part responsible for normalizing human rights in bilateral relations. hese developments signalled important measures in the development of international human rights norms. he Canadian government became cognizant, however, that it could not guarantee Canada’s ability to meet its Helsinki obligations under existing legislation. herefore, Canada had no basis for attesting to its own human rights superiority over the countries of the Soviet bloc. hese disparities provided compelling reasons for Canada to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in 1976. As a result, these measures supplied momentum for creating the constitutionally entrenched Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which would help to ensure that Canadian laws were consistent with international norms. An additional reason for Canada’s increasing interest in international human rights stems from the general public’s growing awareness of global human rights problems and its ever more active role in shaping Canadian foreign policy. Systemic violations of human rights in South Africa, Kampuchea, and Uganda, for example, made it impossible for governments to denounce the Soviets for their human rights record while ignoring other – perhaps more severe – violations in other parts of the world. Canadian foreign policy was more receptive to such public concern given Trudeau’s preliminary measures to democratize foreign policy.112 In 1978, former secretary of state for external afairs Don Jamieson airmed Canada’s position that no state, regardless of the norm of state sovereignty and non-interference, could possibly ignore those human rights obligations enshrined in the un Charter. hese international developments provided the popular support that Trudeau needed in order to fulil his aspiration for patriating the Constitution with an entrenched Charter of Rights. As Trudeau saw it, these constitutional changes – which ultimately occurred in 1982 – would provide the foundations for resolving long-standing problems of national unity and federalism.

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Human rights thus became central to Canada’s domestic policies and an increasingly prominent part of Canada’s foreign policy. Still, many of these policies were marred by inconsistencies. Canada sought to follow the Carter administration’s lead, for instance, by reviewing whether or not to attach human rights criteria to decisions on foreign development assistance. Unlike the United States, however, Canada did not develop any classiication system for assessing the human rights records of potential recipients.113 Canada lacked a systematic approach to enable it to follow through with a rights-based approach to foreign aid. Similarly, Canada’s measures against apartheid were either inconsequential or virtually negligible.114 Canadian policymakers simply refused to impose the total political and economic sanctions that most critics of the apartheid regime were seeking. Bureaucratic coordination, whether for interdepartmental reviews or high-proile initiatives, generally requires direct support from the Prime Minister’s Oice (pmo) and, in these instances, “the pmo really didn’t care.”115 It is often diicult to know whether these lapses occurred because of bureaucratic failures in foresight, judgment, or coordination; or whether they were the deliberate result of competing norms and/or a conlict of social identities that may have caused an apparent behavioural discrepancy. What is clear, however, is that these issues are peripheral to the fact that human rights were used as a cornerstone for a new federalist model whose purpose was to resolve the problem of national unity. Trudeau’s convictions about this federalist model were apparent before the normalization of human rights in bilateral relations witnessed in the late 1970s and even before he entered public life. he development of international human rights norms merely provided support for the project within the domestic constituency. For Peter Dobell, “the impact of all these developments on Canadian foreign policy is hard to exaggerate.”116 hey caused a sharp deterioration in relations with France, encouraged diplomatic relations and aid programs with several French-speaking African states, and advanced Canadian participation in francophone organizations such as l’Agence de Coopération Culturelle et Technique and l’Association des Universités Partiellement et Entièrement de Langue Française. hese developments fundamentally changed Canada’s general foreign policy orientation by steering international pursuits towards domestic needs and interests. Moreover, Canada’s institutionalization of human rights during this period changed the basis for political relations between individual citizens and provided a new framework for Canadian federalism. In the end, patriating the Constitution had a constitutive efect on airming Canada’s identity as a sovereign, federalist political entity.

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projecting the canadian model Canada’s identity is unavoidably shaped by its foreign afairs. Because of its dependence on international trade, proximity to the United States, and desire for collective security, “few countries are more conditioned than Canada by their international relationships.”117 According to Peter Gellman, Canada’s preoccupation with international institutions exceeds that of any other industrialized democracy.118 Although the character of Canadian internationalism changed during the time of Trudeau, the internationalist drive in Canadian foreign policy certainly never disappeared. In many ways, historic events in domestic politics – such as the patriation of the Constitution, the creation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the defeat of the separatist campaign in the 1980 referendum – allowed internationalism to return to the fore of Canada’s approach to external afairs. Resolving key issues in federalism essentially enabled Canadian foreign policy to resume qua matters of international rather than matters of domestic relations. Policymakers were then charged with the task of devising an innovative and active framework for Canada’s international relations. Since the patriation of the Constitution, Canada has sought to express its identity in foreign policy through various international roles. A role-based orientation was potentially problematic, however, given the increasing complexity of international relations. he end of the Cold War also signalled the unravelling of the international order that, for several decades, had conditioned the identities of Canada and most other states in signiicant ways. he demise of bipolarity triggered a new type of intra-state warfare that tested the notions of collective security and the limits of traditional peacekeeping capacities. here were no obvious prescriptions for how Canada could regain an exclusive role in international relations. Canada would respond by attempting to demonstrate the success of the Canadian model of government. Its new role in international relations, in other words, centred on marketing such values as respect for democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and pluralistic systems of political community. his framework also served to relect and to reinforce Canada’s national identity in the face of declining relative power, unresolved problems of national unity, and persistent tensions with the United States. While the Trudeauvian era observed the integration of human rights into Canada’s self-image, Canadian foreign policy has since observed the projection of the Canadian model as a foundation for the country’s role in international relations.

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Constructing Canada’s Identity Role-based thinking has provided a common foundation for Canadian foreign policy. Still, inding a clear role for Canada was a diicult task, even after government attention turned away from the patriation of the Constitution. he fact that three foreign policy reviews have been launched since the Canada Act attests to the substantial challenges that Canadian policymakers have faced in their search for new roles. hese reviews occurred under the successive oices of prime ministers Brian Mulroney (from 1984 to 1986), Jean Chrétien (from 1993 to 1995), and Paul Martin (from 2003 to 2005). hey represent successive parts of the same historical trend in Canada’s identity. Generally, review processes are motivated in some measure by an inclination among ministers to diferentiate themselves from their predecessors. Yet these reviews are also symptomatic of new developments within Canada as well as rapidly shifting patterns in international relations. For instance, the 1986 foreign policy White Paper, entitled Independence and Internationalism, was instigated after the momentous constitutional and federal achievements of the Canada Act. Such achievements, according to the report, enabled Canadians to regain self-conidence regarding their place in the world.119 Moreover, the 1986 White Paper referred to the multicultural fabric of Canadian society and, as a result of education and the efects of globalization, the growing public awareness of international issues.120 As a negative side efect, however, globalization was thought to be inducing “major pressures on national cultures, raising concerns about global homogeneity stiling distinctive local expression and identity.”121 Economic interdependence, revolutions in telecommunications, trans-border crime, disease, mass involuntary migration, and climate change were perceived as some of the most pressing threats to sovereignty across the globe.122 As threats to identity have always weighed heavily on Canadian political culture, the report also enabled the federal government to present its response to these emerging global challenges. Rather than attempting to resist globalization (which he thought would be inefectual), Mulroney sought to encourage Canada’s place in the global marketplace by initiating a free trade agreement with the United States. His initiative was prompted primarily by rising markets in other parts of the world, by Canada’s need to ensure constant access to the American market, and by a conviction that free trade would encourage competition within the domestic market and deliver lower prices to Canadian consumers.

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Notwithstanding the ostensible beneits of free trade, Mulroney’s political career would sufer enormously as a direct result of two signiicant failures. First, by forcing Canada deeper into the North American region, Mulroney failed to grasp the extent to which Canadian identity might sufer, or purportedly sufer, as a result of greater ties with the United States. he Canada-us fta of 1987, superseded by the North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta) of 1992, diminished Canada’s independence with regard to economic policies. Given the asymmetric nature of the two markets, there was widespread fear within the Canadian public that many industries would simply be absorbed by the us economy.123 Free trade threatened Canada’s identity not only from an economic standpoint but also from a cultural, social, and political standpoint. Subsequently, free trade became central to the 1988 federal election when the Liberaldominated Senate would not ratify the fta until the Conservatives could demonstrate that they had a mandate to proceed with it. As John Turner, then leader of the Oicial Opposition, argued in a televised debate in the prelude to the 1988 federal elections, the fta was unconscionable because it would allow the United States to obtain inluence over “every facet of our [Canadian] life.”124 According to Jack Granatstein, the debate over free trade had, in fact, little to do with free trade; rather, the debate was about whether Canadians would take the symbolic and psychological step towards closer integration with the United States: Mulroney as the “traitor” who wanted to follow the “American way” towards further “Americanization” had little to do with the speciics of a complicated international trade agreement. But symbolic phrases did have everything to do with how Canadians viewed themselves and their future.125 Although Mulroney survived the 1988 election, the enormous unpopularity of nafta, amidst fears of Americanization, would eventually take its toll on his career. His obvious unpopularity was the paramount factor in his decision to resign on 24 June 1993, shortly before nafta came into efect and before the expiry of his second term. Mulroney’s second failure was a result of severe miscalculations regarding the problem of national unity and the fabric of Canadian federalism. He launched the 1987 Constitutional Accord, also called the Meech Lake Accord, in an attempt to induce Quebec to assent to the Canada Act.126

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he accord was predicated on a ive-point modiication of the Canadian Constitution: (1) the recognition of the Province of Quebec as a distinct society, (2) a commitment to bilingualism, (3) increased provincial powers on issues of immigration, (4) the expansion of provincial powers to a constitutional veto, and (5) increased provincial participation in the appointment of Supreme Court judges and senators.127 As the accord would require a constitutional amendment, Mulroney needed to acquire the unanimous consent of all provincial legislatures and federal houses within three years before it could pass into law. Although ratiication failed in Manitoba and Newfoundland, thereby signalling the end of the Meech Lake Accord, the accord was a failure on a much broader level. It was, as Trudeau put it, a “complete sell-out” and “a deal made by men of little courage” – a deal that threatened to destroy Canada as a viable federal entity.128 Although he had oicially retired from politics, Trudeau campaigned fervently against the Meech Lake Accord. He was intensely troubled that Mulroney and the architects of the accord had missed the fundamental point of Canadian federalism. In particular, Trudeau regarded as reckless the proposed “distinct society” clause, the emphasis on “English-speaking Canada” and “French-speaking Canada,” as well as the clause allowing for a provincial veto over constitutional amendments. In his view, Quebec was a distinct society in so far as other provinces and regions were distinct societies, while, for the sake of argument, it was less distinct from neighbouring, bilingual New Brunswick than the latter was from west coast, English-speaking British Columbia.129 Trudeau was adamant in declaring: hose Canadians who fought for a single Canada, bilingual and multicultural, can say goodbye to their dream: We are henceforth to have two Canadas, each deined in terms of its language … For those Canadians who dreamed of the Charter as a new beginning for Canada, where everyone would be on an equal footing and where citizenship would inally be found on a set of commonly shared values, there is to be nothing left but tears.130 Federalism could work only if individuals were regarded as equals among other individuals and if provinces were equals among other provinces under the country’s federal legislatures. he Charter of Rights and Freedoms “was meant to create a body of values and beliefs that not only united all Canadians in feeling that they were one nation, but also set them above the governments of the provinces and the federal government itself.”131 he

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notion of Canada proposed by the Meech Lake Accord was inherently divisive as it would grant excessive powers to the provinces and create “two Canadas,” seemingly on the principal basis of language. After the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, Mulroney attempted to revive the process by initiating the 1992 Charlottetown Accord. his accord attempted to sell the Quebec distinct-society issue through a comprehensive renegotiation of federal-provincial powers that would apply across the country. Provinces would gain exclusive jurisdiction over natural resources and cultural policy, while issues such as telecommunications and immigration would require federal-provincial harmonization.132 he Charlottetown Accord also called for the reform of the Senate and conventions for appointing Supreme Court justices. Seeking a mandate through a national referendum, the Charottetown Accord was eventually defeated by a national vote of 54.3 percent and a Quebec vote of 56.7 percent. Both the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords were indicative of the fact that Mulroney’s vision of federalism was incongruent with the general public’s idea of Canadian identity. he failure of the Charlottetown Accord and the unpopularity of nafta resulted in the Conservative Party plummeting from 169 parliamentary seats in 1988 to a meagre two in 1993. he second review process, under Jean Chrétien from 1993 to 1995, was initiated at a time of even greater attention to globalization, acute problems of national unity, and the end of the Cold War and the dismantling of the Soviet bloc. he clear roles ofered by bipolar alliances suddenly dissolved, leaving Canada without a irm sense of its future direction in international relations.133 As David Malone notes, the authors of the review “saw that the dangerous but predictable bipolar post-war system was gone, and the international community increasingly had to navigate in uncharted waters. Growing democratisation and the dispersion of authority were evident, with prerogatives and functions of state passing to subnational and supranational actors, ngos and multinational corporations.”134 he framework under the previous review would clearly not suice in the post-Cold War era. he apparent triumph of democratic and capitalist forms of government generated optimism that the United Nations could inally fulil its aim of collective security and curb systemic violations of human rights in the absence of superpower rivalry.135 he growing power of the media, information technologies, non-state actors, and public opinion also made individual states more receptive to such issues as human rights, world poverty, and good governance than had been the case in previous times.

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Yet post-Cold War international relations also observed the emergence of a “new violence” marked by ethnic and religious division, intra-state conlict, terrorism, trans-border crime, and mass-scale forced displacement. hese threats, though undoubtedly present prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, formed the basis for Canada’s new security complex. Led by Minister of Foreign Afairs Lloyd Axworthy, the Liberal government responded by basing Canada’s approach to international security on the notion of human security.136 Unlike traditional approaches to international security, which focus on the state, an approach that focuses on human security uses the political, social, and economic threats to the individual as its prime security referent. he Canadian position, as expressed in the foreign policy White Paper entitled Canada in the World, stresses that human rights are essential for the “development of stable, democratic and prosperous societies at peace with each other.”137 As such, human rights violations are seen as an underlying cause of social instability – something that, if left untreated, could result in the outbreak of violence.138 Human rights and the projection of Canadian values hence became one of three central pillars of the White Paper, alongside the promotion of prosperity and the promotion of global peace. Human rights were, in Axworthy’s words, a “threshold issue” for Canadian foreign policy and an “imperative of living in a global society.”139 Kyle Grayson points out that Canada’s human security agenda emerged partly as a consequence of the escalating dangers of national fragmentation as it was hoped that the agenda might foster national unity around “the emerging identity of Canada as a gracious global citizen in the post-Cold War era.”140 At the time, the failures of the Meech Lake and Charlottetown accords fuelled the separatist movement in Quebec and renewed the urgency of the problem of national unity. he movement was spearheaded by Lucien Bouchard, a former Conservative Party cabinet minister under Brian Mulroney who formed a new federal political party in 1990 called the Bloc Québécois, and by Jacques Parizeau of the Parti Québécois. he latter came to power in the provincial elections of 1994, promising a referendum on Quebec sovereignty. Held on 30 October 1995, the sovereigntist movement failed by the smallest of margins, losing by 49.42 percent to 50.58 percent. Prime Minister Jean Chrétien would eventually seek “clarity” on the issue of Quebec secession. In 1996, Stéphane Dion – then minister of intergovernmental afairs and eventually short-term leader of the Liberal Party and Oicial Opposition – spearheaded the Chrétien government’s strategy to pose the following three questions to the Supreme Court

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of Canada: (1) can the Government of Quebec unilaterally secede under the Constitution of Canada? (2) Does international law grant unilateral secession to a provincial legislature under the conditions of national selfdetermination? (3) Would domestic or international law take precedence in the event of a conlict between the two?141 Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled that Quebec secession could not proceed unilaterally either within domestic law or within international law; rather, the Court ruled that secession could transpire only through negotiation with all parties to Confederation. Chrétien thus oversaw the Clarity Act, 2000 – a unique piece of legislation that outlines the speciic juridical requirements by which secession can occur within Canada.142 hese developments underscored Canada’s commitment to human rights, the rule of law, and a peaceful means to conlict resolution as part of the country’s broader pursuit of Canadian values. Accentuated by growing demand for the democratization of Canadian foreign policy, these values have become an inextricable part of contemporary policymaking.143 According to John Hay, the demand for this process is a direct result of globalization. Formulating foreign policy in an increasingly complex and interdependent world requires government coordination with a growing number of domestic and transnational organizations over interests that included but are not limited to labour, business, the environment, human rights, development, and international health.144 Canadians are thus demanding to play more active roles in Canadian foreign policy as they are ever more afected by what occurs beyond their state borders and by how their government manages its foreign relations.145 Foreign policy can no longer be defended as an exclusive state enterprise. Public opinion polls also show that internationalism within the Canadian public is growing, and this has placed additional demands on the federal government to play an active role in the world.146 In other words, rising public inluence has obliged Canada to ind creative ways to demonstrate that it still matters in international relations. Overall, these developments have shifted the focus of Canadian foreign policy from the pursuit of national interests to the projection of Canadian values abroad. As a central pillar of Canadian values and the country’s approach to international security, human rights have undoubtedly become an essential part of Canada’s international identity. Yet the strength of this framework was tested by the events of 11 September 2001. Shortly after resigning from politics in late 2000, Axworthy and other advocates of the human security project were concerned that Canada would abandon its commitment to

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human security in favour of traditional state-based notions that were in step with the United States.147 he mandate for Canada’s human security project would expire in 2005, for instance, pending the outcome of the third review process, which was instigated after the Liberal changeover between Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin. Canada needed to clearly develop its international position in the global war on terror, especially in refusing to join the us-led “coalition of the willing” in Iraq without a un mandate. As the review process advanced, it was becoming increasingly clear that there was a signiicant disjuncture between Canadian and American approaches to international security. While Canada adopted comprehensive anti-terror legislation similar to that adopted by other countries – including the United States, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand – Canada’s underlying response to the threat of international terrorism remained distinct. Contrary to Axworthy’s initial fears, the foreign policy White Paper of 2005, A Role of Pride and Inluence in the World, outlines Canada’s renewed commitment to human security.148 Speciically, Canada seeks to combat support for international terrorism through the promotion of such values as respect for democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. For Will Kymlicka, respect for diversity or pluralism is also an important Canadian value, which he believes to be an idiosyncratically Canadian dimension of foreign policy: One of the stated goals of Canada’s foreign policy is to promote a greater understanding and appreciation of “Canadian values.” … When Canadian politicians and diplomats act on the international stage, they often emphasize that diversity is a deining characteristic of Canadian society and of Canadian identity. To understand Canada, it is said, one must understand the Canadian model of diversity.149 Canada’s response to the new security environment, and its new role in international relations, thus centres on marketing values such as respect for democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and pluralistic systems of political community. In efect, Canada seeks to project, preserve, and promote its national identity – and to thereby claim an exclusive place in international relations – by marketing the Canadian model of values and good governance. Indeed, the preliminary report of the 2003 review process contends that “a better world might look like a better Canada: a place of shared

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security and prosperity, of tolerance and respect for diversity, of democracy and the realization of human rights, of opportunity and equal justice for all.”150 According to an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Policy Planning Division who was a chief architect of the White Paper, the Canadian model is not necessarily better than others or evidence of Canadians’ self-righteousness;151 rather, the Canadian model is a means by which Canada can create a dialogue on issues of governance by sharing those values that have led to success in generating prosperity and security within a federalist system.152 In other words, the primary objective of Canada’s latest foreign policy framework involves projecting the Canadian model in international relations. Consistent with a constructivist framework, former prime minister Martin argues in the White Paper that “foreign policy is how a nation best expresses itself to the world.”153 hese views demonstrate the growing conidence with which Canada regards the success of its values and its federalist system of government. As Jennifer Welsh highlights, “A crucial aspect of Canadian foreign policy today is simply being what we are: a particular, and highly successful, model of liberal democracy.”154 Her comment is not to be taken in an essentialist sense – her notion of “what we are” is neither innate nor static – but simply as a critique of the perennial drive of Canadian foreign policy to invent roles for itself. Seemingly, projecting the Canadian model abroad strengthens Canada’s national identity, notwithstanding the challenges of declining relative power, national unity, and acute friction with the United States. he Cold War’s demise brought about the end of the constitutive rules that, for several decades, had conditioned Canada’s identity. he unrivalled power of the United States also meant that partnership with Canada and other allies no longer igured as prominently in American grand strategy. In other words, the United States was becoming even less receptive to Canada’s interests and priorities. As Welsh points out, “while Canada and the United States have never been so interdependent, and while peopleto-people contacts are on the rise, Canada is iguring less and less in the us government’s world view.”155 Arguably, Canada-us relations have worsened with the end of the bipolar era. While Canada and the United States share many similarities and bonds in the geographic, strategic, historic, cultural, and economic spheres, their governments have recently disagreed on such issues as Arctic sovereignty, the war in Iraq, and multilateral instruments such as the Kyoto Protocol, the Ottawa Treaty on anti-personnel landmines, and the icc.

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Consonant with their distinct identities, Canada and the United States also hold distinct conceptions of security. Canada’s human security agenda contrasts most starkly with the principles of pre-emptive strike and state-centred security outlined in section 5 of the 2002 us National Security Strategy.156 Yet, regardless of persistent bilateral disputes and anti-American sentiment, coping with the United States and the struggle to deine the Canada-us relationship “is and always has been an essential ingredient of being Canadian.”157 Consistent with a constructivist logic, projecting Canadian values abroad provides Canada with an outlet for promoting a greater understanding of its national identity and interests south of the border. he Canadian model, as an extension of Canada’s collective values, therefore ofers a coherent framework for Canadian foreign policy that rationalizes Canada’s approach to international relations, however diferent it may be from the us standpoint. In many respects, upholding the Canadian model as the archetype of a successful federalist structure also allows Canada to claim a unique and important role in international relations – a role for which Canadian policymakers have been searching. In addition, projecting the Canadian model into foreign policy serves as an attempt to mitigate the continuing problem of national unity. While this problem can only be resolved through constitutional changes to the federal structure of Canada – supported by the necessary social and political preconditions within Canadian society – marketing the beneits of Canadian values such as respect for human rights, the rule of law, and pluralism in international relations has helped to reinforce those values within the domestic sphere. According to Will Kymlicka: [Canada’s] international initiatives also have a domestic audience. Selling the Canadian model to foreigners can, indirectly, help to sell it to Canadians. In efect, the Canadian government hopes that if international organizations and experts can be encouraged to describe Canada as a successful model of accommodating diversity, this will marginalize critics of the model within Canada.158 hus, demonstrating the viability of the Canadian model abroad can reinforce its value – and hence a particular vision of Canadian identity – at home. As constructivism would expect, foreign policy is the vehicle by which Canada is able to express a collective notion of identity, whether perceived or aspirational, both nationally and internationally while attesting to the constitutive relationship between the two domains.

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Human Rights and Canadian Foreign Policy: he Canadian Model Canadian foreign policy during the period following the Canada Act is characterized principally by an active attempt to project the Canadian model of political community internationally. After the achievement of constitutional patriation, policymakers from the mid-1980s began taking gradual steps to relect Canada’s identity – as a pluralistic, multicultural, and rights-based society – in foreign afairs. As human rights formed the cornerstone of the new federalist structure, it became increasingly indefensible to preclude human rights considerations from foreign policy. Kathleen Mahoney notes that, prior to the Canada Act, “Canada’s policies on human rights were on the periphery of foreign afairs and their development proceeded progressively but carefully, with few risks or initiatives. By the mid-1980s … considerable interest was expressed in Canada’s parliament.”159 Growing parliamentary pressure, supported by relevant domestic laws and institutions, led to calls for a more systemic treatment of human rights in Canada’s international relations. Relations with South Africa provided an early test case for Canada’s nascent commitment to international human rights. he Mulroney government of the 1980s, for instance, often pursued the role of “‘helpful ixer’ or ‘go-between’ diplomacy” within the Commonwealth’s frequent quarrels over South Africa.160 Speaking at the un General Assembly in 1985, Mulroney threatened to sever ties with South Africa completely should there be no progress in the dismantling of apartheid.161 he basic assumption of apartheid – that people may be deemed unequal based on skin colour – is, Mulroney argued, “completely reprehensible and completely unacceptable to Canada.”162 According to Cooper, Higgott, and Nossal, Canada was also responsible for providing technical leadership on the issue of apartheid: preparing a strategy paper on how best to ight censorship in South Africa; providing technical support to the security needs of the Front Line States through Canada’s Military Training Assistance Program; and assisting in planning for the transition to postapartheid democracy. he post-apartheid assistance was an initiative undertaken by the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, a new arm’s-length agency created by the Mulroney government to concentrate expertise on human rights issues.163

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In addition, following his high-proile oicial visit to Africa in early 1987, Mulroney became an outspoken igure in the anti-apartheid campaign. he central aim of Mulroney’s policy was to induce Canada’s G-7 partners, such as Japan, Britain, and the United States, to adopt more coercive measures against the apartheid regime. Yet government sanctions against Canadian irms operating in South Africa remained voluntary rather than being legally binding. As far as David Black is concerned, Canada’s contributions to the anti-apartheid campaign, however constructive, were only marginal.164 Canada’s ostensive leadership was a belated part of the global anti-apartheid campaign, which suggests that bandwagonning was a likely factor in Mulroney’s position. Indeed, although Canada’s stance on South Africa may have developed from values and identity, its actions were more symbolic than substantive. Constructivism is useful for explaining the centrality of values and identities in state behaviour, but it cannot explain this rhetoric-reality gap. Nevertheless, Canada’s experience with the anti-apartheid regime prompted Mulroney’s 1991 adoption of a good governance policy in an effort to promote democracy and human rights abroad. As a result of years of investment in multilateral arrangements, the Canadian government under Mulroney could boast of Canada’s unsurpassed institutional reach.165 Mulroney thus turned his attention to regional organizations in the 1990s as he sought to entrench good governance alongside the promotion of free trade.166 Speaking in October 1991 at the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, Mulroney suggested that democratic government and respect for human rights should become requisites of membership in such organizations as the Commonwealth of Nations. Although this idea was certainly not realized, the proposal to tie membership rules to democracy and respect for human rights was an important symbolic move. During the same period, Canada also became a “crucial player in the debate raging in Asia as to whether universal conceptions of human rights are incompatible with ‘Asian Values.’”167 International interest in the Asian values debate became especially widespread after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989. As has been mentioned, Gecelovsky and Keenleyside point out that Canadian sanctions against China after the incident were, like its concerns about apartheid, more symbolic than substantive.168 Canada also worked closely with ngos at the 1993 Vienna Conference in an attempt to strengthen the available mechanisms for monitoring and promoting international human rights.169 he conference theme linking democracy, development, and human rights lent additional support to

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Canada’s position. Overall, Mulroney oversaw important test cases for Canada’s evolving policies on human rights and good governance. However, his policies were applied sporadically rather than systemically and often favoured style over substance. he change from a Conservative to a Liberal government in November 1993 saw human rights become an even more entrenched part of Canadian foreign policy with the launch of the human security agenda in the mid1990s. his comprehensive notion of security incorporated human rights and good governance into an operational framework that centres on the security of the individual. Some of the initiatives under the human security agenda include eforts to curb the international traicking of small arms and light weapons, a 1996 pledge for $700,000 to the International Labour Organization, and the Kimberley Process, which seeks to prevent conlict diamonds from reaching the international marketplace.170 Most prominently, however, was the anti-personnel landmines campaign that eventually concluded with the Ottawa Treaty in December 1997. According to Lloyd Axworthy, then minister of foreign afairs and one of the treaty’s chief proponents, Canada was able to exercise soft power internationally because of the country’s “attractive values, a reputation as an honest broker, skills at networking, a democratic tradition of openness, and a willingness to work closely with civil society.”171 he treaty was, in Maxwell Cameron’s words, “one of the most signiicant Canadian foreign policy achievements in decades.”172 Axworthy used the success of the Ottawa Treaty to point to the broad appeal of the human security agenda and to illustrate the changing conditions of international relations. In particular, he believed that the Ottawa process underscores the signiicance of soft power and the ability of statespersons, through political will, to overcome complex zero-sum games.173 As Axworthy contended at the time, “Driven by global change, new forms of multilateralism are emerging, with new concepts, new tools, new actors, and even new institutions.”174 According to this logic, solving complex international problems requires cooperation between like-minded states – actors with similar identities on speciic issue areas. Subsequently, a similar process surrounded the 1998 Rome Treaty for establishing the International Criminal Court. According to Keating: [he icc]stands as a considerable achievement in the drive to establish enforceable norms of global justice. It also represents a fairly

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signiicant achievement for Canadian oicials, who were among those from a small group of states that led the efort for such a court. he Canadian action is noteworthy because it occurred in spite of fairly strong American opposition to the court.175 Canada’s support for these various initiatives, often in opposition to the United States, supports the constructivist assumption that state behaviour is a function of states’ identities rather than of rational-material calculations of interest. Clearly, Canada’s policies under the general rubric of the human security agenda underscore the country’s support for international norms of human and global justice. Peacekeeping, for instance, is also an issue historically associated with Canada’s identity. Jockel and Sokolsky suggest that “peacekeeping was seen as a distinctively Canadian pursuit and something of a remedy to too much contact with the United States, especially in the United Statesled Western alliance.”176 In this sense, peacekeeping demonstrates support for the multilateral processes of the United Nations. hroughout the 1990s, however, Canada’s identiication with peacekeeping has slipped. Once contributing 10 percent of the world’s peacekeepers, Canada now ranks ifty-fourth on the international scale.177 A partial reason for this drop – particularly in the 1990s – pertains to Canada’s declining military capabilities and reluctance to serve in increasingly costly missions.178 Constructivism is poorly equipped to deal with this scenario as it would appear that Canada is unwilling to bear the political and economic costs of the new requirements of international peacekeeping. However, rather than eschewing the internationalist identity of “helpful ixer” that peacekeeping afords, Canada is simply attempting to exploit its former reputation and self-image without committing fresh expenditures. Despite the 2005 White Paper’s references to Canadian involvement in the Darfur region of Sudan, Canada’s actual commitment has fallen far short of meeting the needs of and curbing violence against the hundreds of thousands of civilians sufering in the region. A second reason, for which constructivism is better able to account, centres on the growing identiication of peace enforcement with the United States.179 Canada’s growing aversion to these new operations may be in response to a desire to diferentiate itself from the United States by preserving its independence in military afairs, in particular, and by preserving a distinct Canadian identity, in general. Again, it would appear that national self-image is

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perhaps a more important indicator of state behaviour than is subscription to any given international norm. Furthermore, the events of September 11th would challenge the extent of Canada’s stylistic and substantive commitment to international human rights. According to an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Human Rights, Humanitarian Afairs and International Women’s Equity Division, September 11th has not changed Canada’s outlook on international human rights.180 In addition, another senior oicial within dfait’s Policy Planning Division points to the 2005 foreign policy White Paper, Canada’s International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Inluence in the World, in highlighting Canada’s latest initiatives to advance international human rights.181 hese initiatives include support for the creation of the permanent Human Rights Council to replace the now defunct un Commission on Human Rights. In addition, Canada has given its full support to the Aga Khan’s Pluralism Initiative, which was launched in 2001 “to understand how and why Canada’s unique experiment works and how its lessons might be shared with other culturally diverse societies around the world.”182 Based in Ottawa at the former site of the Canadian War Museum, the Global Centre for Pluralism uses the Canadian model as a point of departure for research and dialogue on issues of pluralism and diversity. hese initiatives highlight that human rights remain a central concern of Canadian foreign policy in post-September 11th international relations. However, Canada has not been able to recreate the success of the Ottawa Treaty on anti-personnel landmines. he landmines issue was focused narrowly on an easily-identiiable weapon. heir limited military application and high costs for removal meant that states were more willing to agree to a total ban.183 Moreover, the high civilian casualty rate – especially among children – found particular resonance with global public opinion and the media. Conversely, Canada’s sponsorship and promotion of the 2001 Responsibility to Protect report, which centres on the notion of sovereignty and responsibility, has thus far generated little international attention, despite the government’s oicial view that it serves as an anchor for Canada’s human security and good governance agenda.184 In other words, the Ottawa Process was likely an exceptional case rather than the start of a new trend. Canada therefore appears to be limited in its current ability to promote its human security agenda in the post-September 11th era. Perhaps the most immediate challenge to human rights in Canada stems from the anti-terrorism legislation that was fast-tracked in December 2001.

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Bill C-36, which became the Anti-Terrorism Act, provides a working deinition of terrorism and grants police authorities sweeping powers to act on the suspicion of terrorist activity.185 hese powers include the ability to detain suspected terrorists for up to three days without charge and, in more extreme cases, to detain suspects indeinitely without charge when authorities are able to obtain a security certiicate from a Federal Court.186 hese developments highlight the diicult balance between individual rights and public security. Although Canadian anti-terror laws are matters of domestic jurisprudence, they have nonetheless afected Canada’s international relations, as the cases of Maher Arar and Hasan Almrei illustrate. he challenge that remains is to determine the appropriate balance between rights and security – a balance that would resonate not only with the country’s broad interests but also with its domestic and international identity. Overall, it is clear that September 11th did not change persistent global problems such as poverty, hunger, disease, child exploitation, sexual abuse, forced displacement, torture, extrajudicial executions, slavery, or any other human rights violations.187 At least with regard to oicial policy, Canada’s position on international human rights has remained con-sistent. A constructivist analysis proves invaluable for explaining the evolution of Canadian foreign policy since the start of the postwar period; however, it falls short when it comes to explaining the rhetoric-reality gap and the trade-ofs that are inherent to the business of statecraft. hus, while constructivism highlights neglected but foundational elements of Canadian foreign policy, its deicits provide reasonable grounds for theoretical eclecticism.

conclusion he subject of national identity is of particular importance to Canadians. As a former colony now “bedridden with a behemoth,” Canada has not always had an easy time preserving its sovereign independence.188 Further compounding these problems is the persistent threat of national disintegration that has engaged politics at both the national and international levels. Policymakers have had to assume responsibility for the twin tasks of forging and defending various notions of Canadian identity in the hope that the country will survive as a federal entity. As Kyle Grayson notes, “to claim that Canada has periodically sufered from (inter)national identity crises would be a bit of an understatement.”189 Canadian foreign policy has therefore been principally tailored as a defence of Canada’s identity, while its architects have had to test the limits of their

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abilities in creating policies that appeal to the broadest possible spectrum of the Canadian public. Hence, Canadian foreign policy has focused successively on the projection of internationalism, the projection of Canadian sovereignty, and the projection of the Canadian model of pluralism as the basis for Canada’s international relations. Here I show that an internationalist identity is not a suicient condition for ensuring support for international human rights. Within the Canadian context, human rights were institutionalized in response to growing divisions within the country over regional identities, ethnicity, language, and religion – divisions that prompted the threat of Quebec separatism. Human rights were consequently entrenched in the Constitution as a means of unifying Canadians under a new federalist system of government that would ensure equal rights for all individuals. In 1962, even before entering politics, Pierre Trudeau argued as follows in the Cité Libre: he die is cast in Canada: there are two ethnic and linguistic groups; each is too strong and too deeply rooted in the past, too irmly bound to a mother culture, to be able to swamp the other. But if the two will collaborate inside of a truly pluralist state, Canada could become a privileged place where the federalist form of government, which is the government of tomorrow’s world, will be perfected.190 An oicial policy of multiculturalism in 1971, followed by the patriation of the Constitution and the creation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, were the gradual achievements of the federalist process. As a means of cementing this ledging structure and as a way of sharing the success of these values internationally, Canada began marketing a distinct Canadian model of pluralism in foreign afairs. his model, according to former minister of foreign afairs Pierre Pettigrew, is “a unique political project” that upholds “equality amidst diversity” as the touchstone of Canada’s identity.191 All of this emphasis on the active pursuit of identity and independence in foreign policy may seem strange for the dispassionate observer. No other country, it seems, reviews its foreign policy with such frequency and scrutiny.192 As John Holmes once remarked, “the disadvantage of the synthetic state such as Canada is that it lacks a visceral drive to achievement.”193 To compensate, Canadians have acquired a strong tendency to rationally justify their country’s very existence. Foreign policy has served, over the years, as a means and mirror for that existence. Balancing between competing

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themes, roles, and models of foreign policy thus became standard practice in the Canadian establishment. Inevitably, most of these themes, roles, and models are embedded in values such as pluralism, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, all of which have proven successful in delivering public goods to Canadian society. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, constructivism has diiculty explaining the rhetoric-reality gap in Canadian human rights policies. Although it ofers a useful explanation of the underlying motivations behind human rights pursuits, it falls short of addressing the inherent trade-ofs and competing priorities of statecraft. In other words, a conceptual framework that centres on identities and international norms cannot explain those instances in which behaviour difers markedly from the underlying narrative. According to Jack Donnelly: “Human rights have a greater prominence in the contemporary foreign policy of more states than at any other time in the past … But, while international human rights are working their way up the foreign policy agendas of a growing number of states, in few if any have they come even close to the top.”194 In this regard, constructivism provides invaluable insight into the process whereby human rights have “worked their way up” the Canadian foreign policy agenda. As Canada has demonstrated numerous instances of international human rights leadership, unravelling the Canadian case could help to solve the broader puzzle of the role of human rights in foreign policy and international relations.

6 Conclusion: Interests, Identities, and Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy and International Relations

In this book I address a long-standing, intractable debate in international relations – that of realism versus constructivism – through an empirical study of human rights in Canadian foreign policy since 1945. he precise relationship between human rights and foreign policy remains a blind spot within the existing ir literature.1 Scholars have clashed endlessly over whether human rights derive from structural realist principles based on material power, from idealist constructivist principles focused on identity and socialization, or even from contending theoretical approaches beyond the scope of my study. I therefore focus upon one simple question: Are human rights a function of (1) the material interests of states or (2) their social identities? Rather than presenting a single reading of human rights in foreign policy and international relations, my approach in both parts of this book seeks to provide discrete structural realist and idealist constructivist accounts of human rights in Canadian foreign policy. I now want to bring together the arguments and insights from both accounts in order to point to their strengths, weaknesses, and contributions to the advancement of knowledge. Overall, I claim that realist and constructivist accounts should be regarded as complementary rather than as competing and mutually exclusive. Although realism indicates that statist pursuits of material interests remain an enduring part of international relations, constructivism ofers valuable insight into the role of collective identity formation. he Canadian case highlights the fact that human rights were crucial in providing a basis for national unity within Canada’s federalist, pluralist society. In this regard, structural realist notions of material interest provide useful explanations for the shortcomings of Canada’s international

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human rights policies. Constructivist notions of identity, however, are key to explaining the underlying motivations for human rights in foreign policy as the projection abroad of an aspirational sense of national identity. Indeed, much may depend on the time horizon as state identities tend to be relatively stable until changes due to novel pressures, either from within or from without, occur in a society’s constitutive structure. hese indings have implications for modern federal governments and multicultural societies as well as for broader understandings of fpa and ir.

empirical arguments and insights My empirical investigation begins from the assumption that Canada is generally regarded as a leading advocate of international human rights. he latest statements from the Department of Foreign Afairs and International Trade claim a leadership role in the promotion of human rights in international relations.2 he role of human rights champion is clearly one that Canada is keen to play. Yet the historical record reveals that, at the start of the postwar period, Canada initially opposed the notion and codiication of universal human rights. Canada’s development from early opposition to international leadership on human rights renders the Canadian case an empirical anomaly. My indings show, for instance, that Canada was at best a reluctant participant in the standard-setting process that occurred throughout most of the Cold War period. Rather than ofering leadership on human rights issues, Canadian policies were marked by inconsistencies and a fundamental preoccupation with strategic and economic interests. Canada’s contribution to the advancement of international human rights standards was not substantial. he evidence also shows that Canada is rarely, if ever, willing to sacriice material advantage for international human rights. Karen Smith notes, in drawing upon Donnelly’s work on human rights trade-ofs, that “human rights promotion cannot possibly come irst all the time.”3 Inconsistencies are an inevitable part of foreign policy. Yet the inconsistencies of the Canadian experience point not to competing norms and identities, as constructivists would argue, but, rather, to the tendency for what David Forsythe calls “‘cheating’ or ‘sanctions busting’ in the pursuit of national economic advantage.”4 As reasons for this persistent condition, Forsythe cites the anarchic nature of international relations and the rule of state sovereignty. As I show in chapter 3, that economic gain trumps concerns for the protection of human rights abroad – whether, for example,

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through the Chrétien Doctrine or “pinchpenny diplomacy” – is a persistent pattern in Canadian foreign policy.5 For Steven Kendall Holloway, inconsistencies may be a natural and inevitable part of foreign policy simply due to shifting priorities, which, from time to time, shule the core content of national interests.6 hese shifts are not to be lamented, he argues, as they merely allow governments to direct their time and resources to the most pressing problems with which a country might be faced. Such insights point to pessimistic conclusions about the prospect for future human rights violations. For this reason, realism remains an indispensable conceptual framework for understanding the inconsistencies of human rights policies as well as the reasons they may ultimately fail. Yet realism runs into serious limitations when it attempts to explain the emergence and prominence of human rights in Canadian foreign policy. As I show in chapter 5, realism cannot explain the motivations behind Canada’s growing international commitment to human rights. Problems with realism’s explanatory framework for the understanding of Canadian foreign policy begin to appear in the 1970s. A constructivist approach helps to account for these discrepancies by highlighting how Canada’s preoccupation with identity and national unity prompted the irst comprehensive overhaul of the country’s foreign policy framework in 1970. As a historically recent and potentially volatile project, Canadian identity has been the source of considerable insecurity. In particular, Canada’s sense of self-image has been acutely vulnerable to the perennial threats of declining power, excessive us inluence, and the problem of national unity. In this regard, foreign policy – viewed as the projection abroad of a collective self-image – is a way of relecting and securing a sense of national identity in both international and domestic spheres. his conception of foreign policy supplements established deinitions. Kal Holsti, for instance, describes foreign policy as the “ideas or actions designed by policy makers to solve a problem or promote some change in the policies, attitudes, or actions of another state or states, in non-state actors (e.g. terrorist groups), in the international economy, or in the physical environment of the world.”7 he constructivist perspective ofers an addendum to this: foreign policy can be regarded as the projection abroad of a given notion of collective identity, which may be essentialist (i.e., based on evident social characteristics such as demographic or regional political representation) or aspirational (e.g., based on a projected vision of what society should become). Foreign policy in the constructivist sense is, put simply, a means of expressing and contesting identities

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and interests in the social context of international afairs. In the Canadian case, international policies on human rights were advanced as an attempt to ameliorate an identity crisis that threatened the country’s existence as a singular political entity. Promoting the idea of a political community based on respect for individual rights was seen as a policy solution to the divisive tendencies of nationalism. Whereas materialist theories cannot explain policies pertaining to active human rights promotion, constructivist theories can. he Canadian case further shows that an internationalist foreign policy agenda has little or no efect on a state’s human rights orientation; rather, measures to institutionalize human rights in Canada came only in the wake of the threat of internal violence and fragmentation. Human rights played an important role in providing the foundation for Canada’s national unity by emphasizing values such as pluralism, the rule of law, and individual autonomy. In this sense, human rights derive not only from an essentialist sense of identity but also from an aspirational or constitutive sense of identity. he Canada Act, 1982, centring on the patriation of the Constitution and the creation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, was part of this broader project to create a viable, uniied society. Although the problem of national unity remains, the threat of internal violence has virtually disappeared, which largely substantiates the positive efect that the institutionalization of human rights can have on modern governments and societies. Speciically, the Canadian case illustrates that human rights can help to ease political tensions within pluralistic communities while serving as part of the constitutional bedrock of successful, federalist systems of government. Given the fact that pluralism and federalism are ever-present facets of globalization, I draw attention to the pressing need for further comparative research.

theoretical arguments and insights Both parts of this book begin with theoretical explorations of human rights in ir theory. he initial survey of realism reveals that the tradition has played a pivotal role in shaping the scope and method of ir as a ield of inquiry. As a result of disciplinary developments and pressures within ir and the broader social sciences, a materialist variant – structural realism – eventually became the prominent voice within the realist tradition. hese developments and pressures led to the development of structural realism as an extreme materialist enterprise. I juxtapose structural realism

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with an idealist form of constructivism that is emblematic of the work of Alexander Wendt. Wendtian constructivism came about as a direct challenge to the rationalist-materialist assumptions of Waltzian realism. Its key claims are predicated on a critique of rationalist-materialist theorizing, and it attempts to address some of structural realism’s main explanatory shortcomings. Not surprisingly, Wendt and like-minded constructivists claim that human rights play a signiicant role in constituting international norms and fundamental institutions such as sovereignty, territoriality, and international law. hese institutions, they argue, shape states’ identities, interests, and behaviours. Both structural realism and constructivism ofer useful insights, but their perspectives on human rights in international relations are immoderate and incomplete. Structural realism’s strong rationalist-materialist emphasis obscures any account of the underlying motivations behind human rights policies, while constructivism’s heavy idealist slant tends to ignore instances of persistent inconsistency or policy failure. As Robert Keohane points out, “both positions seem to be based, untenably, on the assumption that either ideas or material forces are ‘the most fundamental.’”8 My analysis reinforces this claim by showing that both realism and constructivism are relevant to the study of human rights. It would seem that the complexities of the social world may best be understood through a multiplicity of approaches. he fact that realism and constructivism were driven to such conceptual extremes has profound implications for understanding their insights and shortfalls within ir theory. he long-standing position of the realist tradition is that the academic enterprise of ir centres on the study of the recurrent features and observable rules of international political life. As Hans Morgenthau once wrote, the laws of ir theory are “impervious to our preferences,” and conceptual “novelty is not necessarily a virtue in political theory.”9 he job of the ir theorist, according to Kenneth Waltz, is to “identify invariant or probable associations.”10 In analyzing international relations through this macro perspective, the realist tradition looks at the issue of political change – especially the idea that the ir theorist should be involved directly in the pursuit of human progress – with scepticism if not outright disdain. his position stands in stark contrast to the constructivist perspective, which, according to Richard Price and Christian Reus-Smit, is rooted in critical social theory.11 Not only do constructivists assume a micro-analytic approach to the study of international relations, but many, to varying

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degrees, support the notion that theory should play an active role in effecting political change. Constructivists have since been criticized for being all too eager to proclaim systemic change without being suiciently self-relective regarding questions of ethical or conceptual validity. Even from a strictly social-scientiic vantage point, John Mearsheimer and others contest that, although constructivism is able to explain minor cases of atypical state behaviour, there is little evidence to suggest that this alters international relations on a macro scale.12 hus, whereas realism may be too conservative on the issue of disciplinary scope, constructivism may be too drastic. he trouble is that inding a “middle ground” between these extremes is both unlikely and undesirable. Alternatively, I argue that theoretical eclecticism is more useful than (1) adopting either realism or constructivism or (2) attempting to synthesize them. As the case study demonstrates, realism and constructivism each provides unique insight into the problem of human rights in Canadian foreign policy. Attempting to bridge both perspectives is, more than likely, scientiically unhelpful. It is also likely methodologically impossible as a synthetic approach would compromise at least some of the value-added contributions of each tradition. heoretical eclecticism, on the other hand, underlines the richness of and distinction between the two conceptual schools while insisting that they can be applied concurrently to explain diferent facets of state behaviour over time. he model of punctuated equilibrium advanced in Hendrik Spruyt’s account of political change provides a useful starting point.13 Although Spruyt is predominantly concerned with the ascendancy of the sovereign state, using a modiied approach to explain a state’s general foreign policy orientation is a more powerful framework than are those that rely on post hoc rankings of foreign policy priorities. Explicitly, the evolutionary principle of punctuated equilibrium speciies that one political arrangement will dominate until environmental changes precipitate the emergence of competing arrangements. One of these arrangements may become dominant should it out-perform its competitors within the new environment. his basic model is useful, irst of all, because it moves the theory of fpa beyond standard reviews of how priorities vary over time or between administrations. Certainly, contemporary political decision makers engage in research and experiment with new policy initiatives – even in periods of relative stasis. Yet an evolutionary model emphasizes the fact that substantive policy shifts occur when environmental shocks require political communities to choose between a set of limited policies and initiatives.

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Choices may appear to shift priorities from material to ideational goals or vice versa. More important, though, the model of punctuated equilibrium centres on shock and adjustment scenarios, which tend to result in a qualitative change to the constitutional structure of the decision-making process. As the history of Canadian foreign policy shows, adaptation was necessary because of domestic and international developments such as the 1931 Statute of Westminster, shifts in the relative balance of power and patterns of international trade, the acute threat of Quebec separatism, and the Canada Act, 1982, to name but a few examples. Although certain punctuations will carry more signiicance than others, they all tend to produce a variance in the constitutional structure of foreign policy decision making at three levels of adaptation. Speciically, adaptation can involve changes according to: (1) the constituent actors or groups that have access to the political process in the irst place; (2) the relationship between diferent types of actors, such as individuals and provincial and federal governments, in the decision-making arena; and, (3) the material or ideational position of a given actor in its interstate relations, with consideration for the structure of the international system. As the Canadian case study demonstrates, these three levels of adaptation need not be mutually exclusive. hey also allow for the material and ideational considerations underscored, respectively, by realism and constructivism. And as adaptation is institutional in form, it is generally resistant to sudden reversions or discontinuities in the underlying policy framework. Atheoretical, anecdotal perspectives that fail to consider this principle are therefore less likely to explain why certain policy choices are more accessible than others. Finally, applying an evolutionary perspective to the examination of the environmental shocks and pressures that Canada has endured will help to account for the country’s apparent need to review its foreign policy with such frequency and vigour. he subsequent inclination to seek new niches and international roles underscores, as Jennifer Welsh points out, the lack of conidence that Canada has displayed on the international stage in recent history.14 Hence, deeper theoretical inquiry into Canadian foreign policy is beneicial not only for the sake of conceptual clarity but also for its possible application in policymaking. In fpa, too often country-speciic literature focuses (1) on the consistencies or inconsistencies of particular policies as depicted through anecdotal description and (2) on whether certain initiatives are “good” or “bad” according to ill-deined benchmarks. According to Steve Smith, this retreat is endemic and long-standing due to the

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disciplinary drive towards general theory in the wake of the behavioural revolution and the turn towards structural realism.15 Unfortunately, these trends have contributed to a widening gap between the academic and policymaking communities in Canada, encouraging isolation and scepticism on either side. With such stark segregation occurring between contending theoretical schools of ir, between scholars of ir and fpa, as well as between academics and policymakers, it is little wonder that George Grant’s Lament for a Nation still reverberates so deeply with Canadian audiences.16 Of course, academics and policymakers of various stripes need not be jacks or jills of all trades. But it should be remembered that the foundations of any house – or of a country for that matter – cannot be built by one set of tradespeople independently from all the others. I hope that my eclectic approach will enable a broader understanding of human rights in Canadian foreign policy and international relations – an understanding that will enable students to better traverse pressing political problems and disparate disciplinary landscapes.

HUMAN RIGHTS IN CANADIAN FOREIGN POLICY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS My research was prompted by the need to resolve critical gaps in the study of human rights in Canadian foreign policy. For at least the past few decades, Canada has maintained that human rights are central to its international policies. At the same time, Canadians are generally proud to hear that their government is promoting human rights abroad. And yet, fuelled by a scholarly impasse regarding how best to problematize the subject, public knowledge of Canada’s position on human rights in its foreign policy is either lacking or entirely skewed. he Canadian government continues to take credit, for instance, for its role in drafting the udhr, when deinitive research by A.J. Hobbins and William Schabas shows that, in the early post-Second World War years, Canada was not only a human rights laggard but a human rights outlier. John Humphrey, the legal expert and principal drafter of the udhr, would later airm that Canada’s impact on international human rights in the years and decades after its oicial adoption was invariably negative. But because human rights have become such a taken-for-granted ixture of Canadian foreign policy, the subject remains overlooked and under-scrutinized. Misconceptions abound, while the extant literature on Canadian foreign policy does not provide answers to

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fundamental questions about the key factors that have enabled and constrained Canada’s behaviour on international human rights issues. My point is not to single out the shortfalls of Canada’s international human rights policies or to deride the genuine achievements that Canada can claim with respect to its human rights performance. Rather, my aim is to highlight the fact that, until now, there has been no systematic study of human rights in Canadian foreign policy. Although my research draws from a wealth of secondary sources, the vast majority of these are limited to speciic issues, cases, or episodes in the history of Canada’s international human rights policies. Schabas’s archival research, for instance, is scholarship of the highest order: his thesis is clear and its conclusions are convincing and incontrovertible. But historical snapshots do not easily translate into political models that can explain state behaviour over a sustained period of time. As a result, however valid and insightful, they rarely make their way into the public realm – especially when they contravene the prevailing self-images of a collective group. Equally, sociological studies, such as Dominique Clément’s insightful depiction of social movements and human rights activism in late twentieth-century Canada, are largely conined to the domestic sphere and thereby miss the international level of analysis as well as the interplay between the domestic and international levels, which I see as both necessary and causally signiicant.17 I attempt to build on the historical evidence of the extant literature to produce an eclectic theoretical model that captures the enabling and constraining conditions that have framed – and continue to frame – human rights in Canadian foreign policy. As mentioned earlier, there have been no sustained studies on the topic since Robert O. Matthews and Cranford Pratt’s 1988 edited volume. Of course, much has changed since the Cold War. Matthews and Pratt’s volume is obviously dated and contains a bias towards civil and political rights over economic, social, and cultural rights. In fairness, the Matthews and Pratt edition was published as a compilation of thematic essays that made a positive contribution to scholarship at the time. It made no attempt to produce a theoretical model of human rights in Canadian foreign policy. Filling this void is therefore long overdue. My work also contributes to contemporary debates about the possibilities and limitations of Canada’s international human rights policies. Further, I explore the prospects for successfully projecting the Canadian model abroad. Indeed, human rights have become an institutionally entrenched part of Canadian foreign policy. Scholars such as Alison Brysk suggest that international human rights promotion may have become a

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staple feature of Canadian foreign policy, notwithstanding minor luctuations, in which global humanitarianism is adopted as a long-term national interest.18 According to her: “he study of Canada’s principled foreign policy supports a constructivist interpretation of international relations, in which the meaning and interpretation of social conditions ilter actors’ perceptions of their interests. Global Good Samaritanship is in some sense a form of cosmopolitan identity politics, giving participants orienting roles and ideological maps in the international system.”19 My indings support a constructivist interpretation of Canadian foreign policy as part of the theoretical eclecticism that I espouse. A constructivist interpretation reveals that there may be more selish, inwardlooking reasons for Canada’s international behaviour on human rights than Brysk’s Global-Good-Samaritanship thesis afords. In efect, the sites of identity politics that serve as the foundation for Canada’s international human rights policies are closer to the constitutional, federal realm than they are to the country’s eforts “to establish its niche as a moral superpower.”20 I therefore raise questions about the motivations and limits of human rights in Canadian foreign policy. I also cast doubt on whether bureaucratic politics – institutional bargaining around the predominance of human rights in the policymaking realm – has now supplanted identity politics as the main driver of Canada’s international human rights policies. Indeed, the arguments I present are closer to Andrew Moravcsik’s thesis that governments support and enter into human rights regimes primarily “to ‘lock in’ and consolidate democratic institutions, thereby enhancing their credibility and stability vis-à-vis nondemocratic political threats.”21 By adopting increasingly active international human rights policies, and by grounding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as the cornerstone of constitutional patriation, the Canadian government “locked in” the primacy of individual rights over competing, non-liberal notions of group rights. Constitutional contestations within Canada’s domestic sphere have not altogether disappeared, even though they appear to have subsided. Concurrently, the origins of Canada’s international human rights policies, which I unravel in this book, may yet be more intractable and may yet have a more determining efect on Canadian foreign policy than contending perspectives suggest. Likewise, eforts to project the Canadian model abroad may encounter problems due to the strong domestic component that continues to animate this policy.22 Marketing the Canadian model is directed, in large measure, at domestic audiences. And, as a result, Canada

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has largely faltered when it comes to ensuring that other countries get the message and recognize the successes of Canadian pluralism.23 I ofer a subtle counterweight to these prevailing notions while underscoring the need for future research as Canada continues to deal with emerging debates, both domestically and internationally, on human rights. In many respects, the artificial, fabricated nature of the realistconstructivist debate resembles ir’s tendency to drift towards “great debates.”24 In particular, the problem with the realist-constructivist debate is that it returns to the so-called First Great Debate between idealists and realists – except now in reverse. As I outline in chapter 2, the First Great Debate was sparked by E.H. Carr’s realist critique of Wilsonian idealism at the dawn of the Second World War. According to Carr, “he utopian makes political theory a norm to which political practice ought to conform,” thereby “depriving himself of the possibility of understanding either the reality which he is seeking to change or the processes by which it can be changed.”25 As a similar charge can be launched against constructivism and other intellectual branches of critical theory, this perspective is, in many ways, the new idealism. Although resolving the debates between realism and idealism or materialism and ideationalism once and for all may not be possible, Molly Cochran suggests that a pragmatist approach would be a useful way of breaking down the extremes.26 Principally, her approach calls for a rejection of false and exaggerated dichotomies. Keohane advances a similar position. In a critique of Wendt’s constructivist theory, he asks: do states only worry about relative gains? Of course not … Do institutions matter in an era in which most major international issues, from the world monetary crisis in 1997–98 to Kosovo, are dealt with in the irst instance by international organizations? Of course they do. he question is how they matter … But if the so-called debate remains on square one – do institutions matter? – we will never reach those interesting questions.27 Borrowing from this logic, the contemporary research agenda on human rights in international relations should consider not whether or not human rights matter with respect to contemporary global pressures such as the war on terror but, rather, how they matter for particular political communities and for international relations more generally. My indings suggest that, in order to bridge the problematic divides between realism

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and constructivism and between ir theory and fpa, scholarship should devote more of its attention to “those interesting questions.” In some ways, these disciplinary divides are symptoms of disciplinary insecurity or even immaturity. As I show, the development of the realist tradition is tied largely to divisive issues concerning the central problems of ir and the discipline’s analytic scope. Constructivism emerged as a possible remedy for and pervasive attack on realism’s disciplinary standing. Yet the point is clear, whether one ascribes to heory of International Politics or to Social heory of International Politics, that stark disciplinary divides are unproductive. According to Steve Smith, “great debates” are necessarily harmful. He argues that historicizing ir theory in terms of grand divisions “silences all the debates and conlict between rival interpretations and in efect awards a winner’s medal to the dominating voice.”28 J. Samuel Barkin repeats this concern by pointing out the harmful efects of paradigmatic disciplinary divisions. his way of thinking about ir obscures both the compatibilities among diferent approaches, and the complex ways in which they interrelate. In building paradigmatic castles, it encourages insular thinking, and a focus on emphasizing diferences. It also encourages paradigmatic partisans to try to it too much within the walls of their particular approach, in an attempt to make their paradigmatic castle self-suicient. In this way, it encourages what might be called a paradigmatic imperialism at the expense of communication within the discipline.29 Building castles may have its aesthetic appeal. But building bridges is a more useful – and often more diicult – enterprise, given the growing complexities of foreign policy and international relations. One should therefore avoid gravitating towards conceptual extremes, whatever their aesthetic or theoretical attraction. In his search for peaceful change, E.H. observes: “Mature thought combines purpose with observation and analysis. Utopia and reality are thus the two facets of political science. Sound political thought and sound political life will be found only where both have their place.”30 Ultimately, although it may not appeal to the aesthetic or conceptual impulses of some theoreticians, I point to the beneits of a multiplicity of theoretical approaches instead of relying on any singular type of theoretical analysis. Rather than the theory of international politics, Jack Donnelly argues that “we need theories of international politics, realist

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and non-realist alike, that together give us a chance to begin to come to terms with the multiple human purposes and complex practices and processes that make up world politics.”31 his proposition may sit oddly with those who feel that social scientists must deliver the “right” or “new-and-improved” theoretical approach – one that will work universally. However, given the intricacies of the social world as well as the persistence and gravity of international human rights violations, Donnelly’s proposition is an imperative one.

Postscript: Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy under the Harper Government Although updated until the time of publication, the bulk of the research for this book was completed by early 2006 to coincide with the release of the much anticipated government White Paper, Canada’s International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Inluence in the World.1 I therefore used the United Nations’ founding in 1945 and the publication of the 2005 White Paper as rough historical bookends between which to focus my analysis of human rights in Canadian foreign policy. he White Paper, however, unveiled in the inal days of Paul Martin’s struggling government, would survive only a few short months until it was shelved by Stephen Harper’s Conservative minority in early 2006. In and of itself, the act of cancelling or replacing a White Paper should not be surprising with any change in government. Every government since Trudeau has, after all, done the same. Yet recent evidence suggests that the Conservatives have attempted to reorganize Canadian foreign policy in a much more profound way. Suspicions of a Liberal-dominated public service, particularly within dfait, have prompted not only vociferous complaints by the Harper government but also a major reshuling of personnel among the various ministries.2 Although these changes do not, in any way, discount my analysis, they do raise important questions about the future of human rights in Canadian foreign policy. For starters, will human rights maintain a place of prominence in Canadian foreign policy under the new administration? And is any shift thus far attributable to the direct policy directives of the Harper government itself or to broader, exogenous changes to the constitutional structure of Canadian foreign policy decision making? At irst, answering these questions was diicult due to the Harper government’s precarious minority status and the looming prospect of another federal election.

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Until the Conservatives attained their majority in May 2011, analyzing Canadian foreign policy was complicated by the plethora of domestic actors and interests that would have had little inluence on a government with a clear governing mandate. he Conservative government was also relatively inexperienced, given that so few of the parliamentarians among its ranks had ever held ministerial positions. he now infamous example of Maxime Bernier’s bungling of top secret dossiers, which forced his resignation as foreign minister, is a case in point. Nonetheless, a quick glance at the oicial literature shows that human rights seem to enjoy the same status in Canada’s oicial rhetoric. Unchanged in dfait documentation are the claims: “Canada has been a consistently strong voice for the protection of human rights and the advancement of democratic values”; and “Human rights is a central theme of Canadian foreign policy.”3 Borrowing from the evolutionary model of punctuated equilibrium discussed earlier, it is evident that Canada and its foreign policy elite have not experienced a qualitatively signiicant shock requiring them to adjust to the way that the country conducts its international human rights policies. More speciically, irst, there does not appear to be any signiicant change in the constitutive structure of foreign policy decision making as deined by the constituent actors or groups that have access to the political process. he only amendment in this regard is that the Conservative government may have cancelled or circumscribed regular consultations with the public and various ngos. In fairness, however, dfait oicials had already begun to question the value-added of the consultations before the demise of Martin’s Liberal government. As one senior oicial put it, successive rounds of consultations were merely drawing from a regular group of “usual suspects.”4 he consultations were thus afected by diminishing returns in terms of democratic input into the policymaking process as the groups attending the consultations often represented distinct interests. Few new actors joined in on the conversation and, as a result, new voices or ideas were seldom heard. Second, there does not appear to be any signiicant change in the constitutive relationship between various domestic actors in the foreign policy decision-making arena. he one potential exception centres on a recent decision in the House of Commons concerning Quebec and its standing within Confederation. But this was sparked by former Liberal leader Michael Ignatief rather than by the Harper government. he winter of 2006, for instance, witnessed the parliamentary decision to oicially recognize Quebeckers as a nation.5 Legal experts immediately highlighted the

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fact that the motion did not have any impact on the Constitution and therefore did not afect the decision-making structures or separation of powers within Canada. Political experts, including those from oicial parties such as the Bloc Québécois, underscored the fact that terms such as “nationhood” and “nationality” are diicult if not impossible to deine and, hence, are of limited political consequence. As such, even as André Boisclair, former leader of the Parti Québécois, declared that the motion granted him every conidence to take the issue of Quebec sovereignty onto the international stage, it has yet to have any discernable impact on Canada’s international relations in general or on human rights in Canadian foreign policy in particular. However, should the Quebec nationhood issue ultimately afect constitutional politics – as parliamentary critics such as Justin Trudeau and former Liberal leadership contender Gerard Kennedy warn that it could – it may then result in a signiicant shock and adjustment to the decision-making structure of Canada’s domestic and international politics. Fortunately for advocates of a strong federation, this apprehension has yet to be realized. Last, but not least, it seems that the most signiicant changes that have occurred in Canadian foreign policy under Stephen Harper’s tenure concern Canada’s stance towards its most powerful counterparts. In particular, foreign relations with the United States and China are perhaps most indicative of the Harper government’s experiments with Canada’s international position on human rights. Even after the highly public Arar affair, the Harper government remains steadfast in its implicit support for the American detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. With the case of Omar Khadr, who was legally a child at the time of his capture by us forces in Afghanistan, Canada remains the only country that has not petitioned the United States for the release of citizens being held at Guantanamo Bay. he Khadr case contrasts with that of Huseyin Celil, a dual Chinese-Canadian citizen of the Uyghur minority, who has been incarcerated in China on charges of terrorism. While the Harper government refuses to move on the Khadr ile, it has attempted to assert the sanctity of Celil’s Canadian citizenship on numerous occasions with Chinese oicials with relative vigour. As critics such as Robert Wolfe (cited in Taylor 2007) chide, the Conservatives openly “scold China on Tibet, yet you would never catch Harper making nasty comments about Guantánamo.”6 he subject of citizenship and rights in Canadian foreign relations with China has, in many ways, been an experiment for the Harper government that has resulted in shortfalls and inconsistencies.

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In November 2006, for instance, Prime Minister Harper noted that he did not believe Canadians would want their government to “sell out to the almighty dollar” in terms of their beliefs in human rights relative to SinoCanadian trade.7 He also became the irst Canadian prime minister to host the Dalai Lama on an oicial visit to Parliament Hill. Nevertheless, Harper’s China policy seemed to be achieving little or nothing for human rights as Beijing began to turn its ear away from Ottawa. At the same time, Canadian businesses have sufered as China has cancelled several bilateral trade meetings with the Canadian government and representatives from industry. According to Wenran Jiang, acting director of the University of Alberta’s China Institute, Stephen Harper has likely experienced the worst relations with Beijing of any Canadian prime minister since the international recognition of the People’s Republic of China.8 Due to a slowing economy and complaints lobbied by Canada’s business community, however, Sino-Canadian relations appear to be gradually on the mend as Ottawa has begun to adopt a conciliatory posture in its China policy.9 In glaring contrast to Sino-Canadian relations, the Harper government has sought improved relations with Colombia and other – often unsavoury – regimes in Latin America, despite widespread allegations of stateled human rights violations. In 2007, en route to his four-country tour of the region, the prime minister defended the government’s new geopolitical emphasis on Latin America, arguing that it would be nonsensical to stall trade talks with all foreign partners until human rights conditions were satisfactory. With respect to Colombia, he stated: “We are not going to say, ‘Fix all your social, political and human-rights problems and only then will we engage in trade relations with you.’ … hat’s a ridiculous position.”10 he inconsistencies between the Harper government’s attitude towards Colombia and its attitude towards China could not be more patently obvious. Elsewhere, I explore the underlying causes for the Harper government’s deliberate shift away from China either towards traditional partners or towards new ones in the Americas.11 On balance, Harper’s China policy has, by all measures, been nothing short of a complete failure. Under parallel circumstances, James Eayrs once observed that Diefenbaker’s attempt to chart a new course in Canadian foreign policy and to distance his international policies from those of previous Liberal governments was unsuccessful.12 Like the Diefenbaker government, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives over-estimated their agency while ignoring the structural (both ideational and material) factors that constrain Canada’s behaviour on the world stage. he Harper government

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has had to reverse course in China and seek a “correction” in its approach to bilateral relations with that country. In efect, Harper has been forced to plagiarize from the Chrétien playbook in adopting a virtually identical – if somewhat less lamboyant – approach to bilateral relations with the rising power of China. Overall, there is little to suggest that the issue of human rights in Canadian foreign policy has undergone a sea change since the Conservative minority government was formed in February 2006. he inconsistencies of Harper’s international human rights policies are certainly regrettable. Of course, the Harper government is relatively new and has not conducted a formal foreign policy review. Even so, my assessment shows that the study of change in Canadian foreign policy has been limited to the immediate level of interstate relations along a relatively short time horizon. he fact that so much of the Canadian foreign policy literature has tended to focus on this particular level of analysis may be indicative of an endemic disciplinary problem – one that has dissuaded scholars from cutting deeper into the foundational or constitutive aspects of foreign policy while encouraging them to look at the topical or supericial. Studies that problematize all levels of analysis over the long term are arguably more trying than are those that do not, but they are ultimately necessary for understanding the causal factors that make states behave the way that they do in the ield of foreign afairs. While in this book I illustrate some of the modest beneits of theoretical eclecticism, it remains the task of successive studies – and of successive students – to test this approach to the study of human rights in foreign policy and international relations.

Notes

chapter one 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9

10 11

Canada, Canada’s International Human Rights Policy [2005]. Canada, Canada’s International Human Rights Policy [2011]. Schabas, “Canada and the Adoption,” 435. he promotion of Christian values in Canadian foreign policy was an explicit priority of Canada’s postwar government, airmed by Louis St Laurent in his capacity as secretary of state for external afairs and later by his successors. See St Laurent, “Gray Lecture.” Schabas, “Canada and the Adoption,” 410–11. See also Clément, Canada’s Rights Revolution, 36–47. Schabas, “Canada and the Adoption,” 439. On the concept of universal human rights, see Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in heory and Practice, 2nd ed., 10 and 27. Ibid. It is important to note that John Humphrey, as a un diplomat, had no ailiation with the Government of Canada. It would not be until the 1965 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, according to Humphrey, that Canada would play a constructive – rather than uniformly negative – role in international human rights. Only with further changes brought forth by Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau was there “any acceptance or tolerance of the United Nations human rights programme in North America.” See Hobbins, “Eleanor Roosevelt,” 341–2. Arbour, Freedom from Want. I use the term “International Relations” (ir) with reference to the broad, scholarly ield of study within the social sciences; I use the term “international

184

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15

16 17 18 19

20 21 22

23 24

25

26 27

Notes to pages 6–10

relations” with reference to the practical enterprise that centres on diplomacy and statecraft. Jackson, Global Covenant, 373. Crawford, Argument and Change, 2 and 388. See Arsanjani, “Rome Statute”; Robinson, “Redeining ‘Crimes Against Humanity’”; Sriram, “Externalizing Justice”; Sriram and Roth, “Externalization of Justice.” his inding corroborates Christine Bell’s work on peace agreements, which points to the necessity of human rights requisites for peace in the aftermath of internal conlict. See Bell, Peace Agreements and Human Rights. For a discussion of human rights as a concept, see Freeman, Human Rights, 2–6. Barsh, “Right to Development”; Howard, “Full-Belly hesis”; Sen, “Human Rights and Economic Achievements.” Donnelly, “Human Rights, Democracy, and Development”; Howard and Donnelly, “Human Dignity,” 66–106. Donnelly, “Human Rights and Asian Values”; Howard, Human Rights and the Search for Continuity, 51–74; Jung, “Is Culture Destiny”; Zakaria, “Culture Is Destiny.” Barkin, “Evolution of the Constitution”; Reus-Smit, “Human Rights.” Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in heory and Practice, 2. A “settled norm” exists where any argument or act that contravenes or opposes the given norm is commonly regarded as requiring special justiication. See Frost, Ethics in International Relations, 105. Henkin, “Law and Politics,” 207. Ignatief, “Is the Human Rights Era Ending?” For lengthier discussions on human rights, terrorism, and national security, see, for example, Gearty, Can Human Rights Survive; Wilson, Human Rights in the War on Terror. Not all constructivists emphasize the primacy of ideational factors over material ones. he variation within constructivism, which is dealt with in chapter 4, should be acknowledged. I generally refer to the perspective that emphasizes the primacy of ideational factors, which is emblematic of the work of Alexander Wendt, as “idealist constructivism.” For reasons stated later, this particular class of constructivism is the conceptual focus of the book. At times, however, the term “constructivism,” rather than “idealist constructivism,” may be used simply for stylistic purposes, such as when describing the “realist-constructivist impasse.” Keck and Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders. Risse and Ropp, “International Human Rights Norms,” 236.

Notes to pages 10–13

185

28 Foundational institutions, according to Holsti, “deine and give privileged status to certain actors. hey also deine the fundamental principles, rules, and norms upon which their mutual relations are based. Finally, they lead to highly patterned forms of action.” See Holsti, Taming the Sovereigns, 24–6. 29 Similar to what is discussed in note 25, not all realists emphasize the primacy of material factors over ideational ones. he variation within realism, which is dealt with in chapter 2, should be acknowledged. I generally refer to the perspective that emphasizes the primacy of material factors, which is emblematic of the work of Kenneth Waltz, as “neorealism.” For reasons stated later, this particular class of realism is my conceptual focus. At times, however, the term “realism” may be used rather than “neorealism” simply for stylistic purposes, such as when describing the “realist-constructivist impasse.” 30 See Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis. he “First Great Debate” was sparked by Carr’s critique of interwar idealism in the wake of the Second World War. he subsequent debate centred on the clash between realism and idealism. See also Booth, “Security in Anarchy”; Wilson, “Myth of the First Great Debate.” 31 Dunne, “After 9/11” 93–102. See also Waltz, “Continuity of International Relations,” 348–53. 32 Keohane, “Ideas Part Way Down,” 126. 33 Ibid., 126–7. 34 Barkin, “Realist Constructivism,” 326. 35 his focus is logical from a disciplinary vantage point as these speciic branches of realism and constructivism have commanded much of the scholarly attention within their respective schools. 36 Smith, “heories of Foreign Policy,” 24. 37 See Geertz, “hick Description,” 3–30. 38 Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity, 153. For a more detailed discussion of processes and interaction capacity in the analysis of international systems, see Buzan and Little, International Systems in World History, 79–84. 39 Smith, “Self-Images of a Discipline,” 26. 40 Stairs, “Realists at Work,” 111 (emphasis in original). 41 Canada, Canada’s International Human Rights Policy [2005]. 42 Canada, Canadian Approach. 43 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, Responsibility to Protect. 44 Forsythe, “Human Rights and Foreign Policy,” 129. 45 Mahoney, “Human Rights and Canada’s Foreign Policy,” 555–6.

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Notes to pages 13–22

46 Interview with an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Human Rights, Humanitarian Afairs, and International Women’s Equity Division, Ottawa, 6 May 2005. 47 See Finnemore, “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention”; Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change”; Keck and Sikkink, Activists beyond Borders; Klotz, Norms in International Relations; Risse et al., Power of Human Rights; homas, Helsinki Efect. 48 Desch, “Kind to Be Cruel,” 424. See also Mearsheimer, “False Promise of International Institutions;” Morgenthau, Human Rights and Foreign Policy. 49 Huntington, Clash of Civilizations, 184. For a rebuttal, see, for example, Donnelly, “Human Rights: A New Standard”; Freeman, “Human Rights, Asian Values.” 50 See Matthews and Pratt, eds., Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy. 51 Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in heory and Practice, 2nd ed., 135–6. 52 Canadian Press, “Bono Endorses Martin.” 53 See Canada, History of the Vote. 54 he Chinese Exclusion Act was known oicially as the Chinese Immigration Act. 55 Nossal, Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy, xiv.

chapter two 1 Burchill, “Realism,” 70. 2 Keohane, International Institutions and State Power. See also Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation,” 485; Waltz, “Structural Realism after the Cold War.” 3 Donnelly, Realism and International Relations, 31. 4 Ibid., 6. 5 Ibid. 6 Dunne and Schmidt, “Realism.” 7 Glaser, “Realists as Optimists”; Glaser, “Structural Realism in a More Complex World.” See also Mearsheimer, Tragedy of Great Power Politics. 8 Ashley, “Political Realism and Human Interests.” 9 Walker, Inside/Outside. 10 Guzzini, “Enduring Dilemmas of Realism,” 535. 11 See Keohane, Neorealism and Its Critics. 12 See, for example, Ashley, “Poverty of Neorealism”; Brown, International Relations heory; Keohane, “Realism, Neorealism”; Ruggie, “False Premise of Realism”; Walker, “Realism, Change, and International Political heory.”

Notes to pages 23–32

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50

187

Vasquez, Power of Power Politics, 4. Guzzini, Realism in International Relations, 125–6. Keohane, “Realism, Neorealism,” 15. Vasquez, Power of Power Politics, 191. Keohane, “heory of World Politics,” 158. Welch, “Why International Relations heorists.” Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis, 8. Dunne and Schmidt, “Realism,” 141–2. See Wilson, “Myth of the First Great Debate.” Booth, “Security in Anarchy.” Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis, 191. Cox et al., Empires, Systems, and States, 33; Dunne, Inventing International Society (emphasis in original). Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 4. Ibid. Ibid., 5. Ibid., 14. Guzzini, Realism in International Relations, 30. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 38. Ibid., chaps. 29–30. Guzzini, Realism in International Relations, 32. Buzan, “Levels of Analysis Problem,” 199. Allison, Essence of Decision. Guzzini, Realism in International Relations, 65. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations; Waltz, Man, the State, and War. Waltz, heory of International Politics, 5. Ibid., 8. Ibid., 18–19. Ibid., 38–41. Ibid., 63. Ibid., 65. Ibid., 79. Ibid., 81. Ibid., 115. Ibid., 69. Ibid., 192. Ibid. Vasquez, Power of Power Politics, 191; Waltz, heory of International Politics, 128. Waltz, heory of International Politics, 118.

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61 62 63 64 65 66

67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

Notes to pages 32–9

Ibid., 204. Gilpin, War and Change, 7. Ibid., 9. Ibid., 9–11. Ibid., 24. Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation,” 488. Guzzini, Realism in International Relations, 7. Ibid., 125. Vasquez, Power of Power Politics, 324. See Ashley, “Poverty of Neorealism”; Ruggie, “False Premise of Realism”; Ruggie, Multilateralism Matters; Walker, “Realism, Change, and International Political heory.” Jones, “Concepts and Models,” 14–15. See also Waltz, heory of International Politics, 163. Jones, “Concepts and Models,” 15. Dunn, “Emergence of Change,” 30–2 and 47–8. Ruggie, “Continuity and Transformation,” 273. Ibid., 285. Katzenstein, “International Relations heory,” 291; Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity, 137; Sørensen, “International Relations heory after the Cold War,” 85; Wendt, Social heory of International Politics, 17. Jervis, “Variation, Change, and Transitions,” 288. Waltz, “Structural Realism after the Cold War,” 5. Ibid., 39. Glaser, “Structural Realism in a More Complex World,” 407. Mearsheimer, “False Promise of International Institutions,” 9. Donnelly, Realism and International Relations, 197. Mearsheimer cited in Desch, “Kind to Be Cruel,” 417. homas, Helsinki Efect, 9–10. Vincent, “Introduction,” 1. See also Vincent, “Human Rights in Foreign Policy,” 54. Waltz, heory of International Politics, 121–2. See also Waltz, „International Politics,“ 54–7. Waltz, heory of International Politics, 174–5. Ibid., 5–13. Ibid., 128. Ibid., 174–5. Ibid., 6. Gilpin, “Richness of the Tradition,” 304.

Notes to pages 39–50

83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92

93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105

Ibid. Mearsheimer cited in Desch, “Kind to Be Cruel,” 420. Ibid. Waltz, heory of International Politics, 93–4. Steinmetz, Democratic Transition and Human Right, 4. Nye, “Redeining the National Interest,” 22–3. Waltz, heory of International Politics, 192. Gilpin, War and Change, 106. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, Brief ed.; Waltz, heory of International Politics, 116–28. Hill, “Human Rights and Foreign Policy,” 10; Luard, “Human Rights and Foreign Policy,” 581; Nye, “Redeining the National Interest,” 31; Shestack, “Human Rights, the National Interest,” 19–20. Shestack, “Human Rights, the National Interest,” 19–20. Donnelly, “Human Rights and Foreign Policy,” 590; Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in heory and Practice, 2nd ed. Finnemore, “Constructing Norms of Humanitarian Intervention,” 168. Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation,” 491. Glaser, “Structural Realism in a More Complex World,” 412–13. Cronin, Institutions for the Common Good, 6. Desch, “Kind to Be Cruel,” 417. Waltz, “Structural Realism after the Cold War,” 24. See also Strange, Retreat of the State. Cronin, Institutions for the Common Good, 7. Mearsheimer, “False Promise of International Institutions,” 13. Jervis, “Realism in the Study of World Politics,” 980. Vasquez, Power of Power Politics, 191–2. Jervis, “Realism in the Study of World Politics,” 972.

chapter three 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

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Nossal, Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy, xiii. Canada, Canada’s International Human Rights Policy [2005]. Stairs, “Realists at Work,” 111 (emphasis in original). Stein, “Ideas,” 41. English, “Fine Romance,” 83. Hobbins, “Eleanor Roosevelt,” 326. Arbour, Freedom from Want. Marshall, “Cold War,” 191.

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9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35

36

Notes to pages 50–5

Schabas, “Canada and the Adoption,” 434. Arbour, Freedom from Want. Holmes cited in English, “Fine Romance,” 84. Stairs, “Will and Circumstance,” 12–13. Head and Trudeau, Canadian Way, 313. Canadian Institute of International Afairs, “Canada Now,” 6. Granatstein, “Impact of Trudeau,” 255. Holmes, “Canadian External Policies,” 138. Melakopides, Pragmatic Idealism, 38. See, for example, Gilpin, War and Change. Dobell, Canada’s Search for New Roles, 2. Cooper et al., Relocating Middle Powers, 169; Tucker, Canadian Foreign Policy, 4–5. Stairs, “Realists at Work,” 93. Reid, “Canadian Foreign Policy,” 172–3. English, “Fine Romance,” 74–5. See Nossal, Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy. English, “Fine Romance,” 79. hordarson, Trudeau and Foreign Policy, 1. Reid, “Canadian Foreign Policy,” 173. Pearson, “nato,” 79. Dobell, Canada’s Search for New Roles, 1. Stairs, “Realists at Work,” 93. Ibid., 92. Eayrs, “Foreign Policy of Canada,” 673. Ibid., 673–4. Relations were tense, for starters, because of a leaked 1961 memo prepared by US assistant secretary of state Walt Rostow entitled “What We Want from the Ottawa Trip.” Moreover, the memo is said to have referred to Diefenbaker as an “S.O.B.” For details, please see Melakopides, Pragmatic Idealism, 53–6. During this Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy administration’s decision to go to high alert without consulting Canada, its norad partner, made Ottawa particularly uneasy with Washington’s nuclear strategy and raised questions about Canadian sovereignty. he Bomarc crisis followed from Canada’s hesitance to arm the Bomarc missile defence system, built after the abandonment of the Avro Arrow interceptor program, with the nuclear arms for which they were designed. Melakopides, Pragmatic Idealism, 56.

Notes to pages 56–65

191

37 Dobell, Canada’s Search for New Roles, 3; hordarson, Trudeau and Foreign Policy, 69. 38 World Bank, Pages from World Bank History. 39 Ibid. 40 Canada, First among Equals. 41 Trudeau, “Statements and Speeches 68/17,” 3. 42 Granatstein, “Impact of Trudeau,” 251. 43 Canada, Foreign Policy for Canadians, 8–9. 44 Ibid., 5. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid., 8. 47 hordarson, Trudeau and Foreign Policy, 77. 48 Dewitt and Kirton, Canada as Principal Power. 49 Melakopides, Pragmatic Idealism, 91. 50 Dobell, Canada’s Search for New Roles, 2 (emphasis in original). 51 Ibid., 147. 52 Melakopides, Pragmatic Idealism, 94. Canada won the deciding game of the series by a score of 6–5. For details, please see Pelletier, www.1972summitseries.com. 53 Holmes, Canada, 29. 54 Cited in Melakopides, Pragmatic Idealism, 98. 55 Canada. Parliament. Special Joint Committee on Canada’s International Relations, Independence and Internationalism. 56 Ibid., 15. 57 Canada, Challenge and Commitment. 58 Ibid. 59 Matthews and Pratt, “Introduction,” 3. 60 Arbour, Freedom from Want. 61 Nossal, “Cabin’d, Cribb’d, Conin’d,” 52. 62 Jamieson, “Statements and Speeches, 77/5” (emphasis in original). 63 World Bank, Pages from World Bank History. 64 Nossal, “Cabin’d, Cribb’d, Conin’d,” 47. 65 Canada, Foreign Policy for Canadians, 27. 66 Canada, Canada and the World. 67 Jamieson, “Statements and Speeches, 78/13.” 68 Beaulne, “Statements and Speeches 80/3,” 1–2. 69 Berry and McChesney, “Human Rights and Foreign Policy-Making,” 60; Donnelly, “Social Construction of International Human Rights,” 76. 70 Nossal, “Cabin’d, Cribb’d, Conin’d,” 53–4.

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101 102 103 104

Notes to pages 65–73

Pratt, “Ethics and Foreign Policy.” Keenleyside and Serkasevich, “Canada’s Aid,” 142–3. Nossal, “Opening Up the Policy Process,” 279–80. Canada, Strategy for International Cooperation, 23. Pratt, “Ethics and Foreign Policy,” 277. Ibid., 286. Black, “How Exceptional,” 175. Howard, “Black Africa and South Africa,” 280. Ibid. Michaud and Nossal, “Conservative Era,” 18. Black, “How Exceptional,” 176. Gecelovsky and Keating, “Liberal Internationalism for Conservatives,” 196. Black, “How Exceptional,” 176–9. Ibid., 179–80. Ibid., 189. Michaud and Nossal, “Diplomatic Departures,” 293. Ibid. Matthews and Pratt, “Conclusion,” 297. Donnelly, “Human Rights: he Impact,” 253 (emphasis in original). For the realist perspective on structural or systemic change, please see Gilpin, War and Change; Waltz, heory of International Politics. Molot, “Where Do We,” 77. Malone, “Foreign Policy Reviews Reconsidered,” 567. United Nations Development Programme, “Human Development Report 1994.” Canada, Canada in the World, 34 (emphasis removed). Axworthy, Human Rights and Canadian Foreign Policy. Nossal, “Pinchpenny Diplomacy,” 100. Ibid. Axworthy, Human Rights and Canadian Foreign Policy. hompson, “Chrétien Doctrine.” Nossal, “Pinchpenny Diplomacy.” For a discussion of Canadian internationalism, please see Munton and Keating, “Internationalism and the Canadian Public.” Nossal, “Pinchpenny Diplomacy,” 103. Jockel and Sokolsky, “Lloyd Axworthy’s Legacy,” 17–18. Smith, “Caution Warranted,” 59. Jockel and Sokolsky, “Lloyd Axworthy’s Legacy,” 18.

Notes to pages 73–9

105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126

127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135

193

Nossal, “Pinchpenny Diplomacy,” 104. General Rick Hillier, cited in Galloway and Howlett, “Afghan Spring.” Nossal, “Pinchpenny Diplomacy,” 104. Jockel and Sokolsky, “Lloyd Axworthy’s Legacy,” 1. Hampson et al., Canada among Nations, 2. Bain, “Against Crusading,” 85. Canada, Canada in the World. Axworthy, Human Rights and Canadian Foreign Policy. Interview with an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Policy Planning Division, Ottawa, 6 May 2005. Ibid. Canada, Canada in the World, 34. Axworthy, Notes for an Address, 3. United Nations Development Programme, “Human Development Report 1994,” 24. Ibid., 23. Canada, Canada’s Human Security Web Site. Axworthy, Human Rights and Canadian Foreign Policy. Axworthy, Notes for an Address, 4. Ibid., 8. Axworthy, Human Rights and Canadian Foreign Policy. Rath, “Canada and Development Cooperation,” 854. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2006. China, “Human Rights in China”; Mahbubani, “Can Asians hink”; Zakaria, “Culture Is Destiny.” For an opposing view, see Donnelly, “Human Rights and Asian Values”; Kim, “Is Culture Destiny.” Gecelovsky and Keenleyside, “Canada’s International Human Rights Policy,” 586–7. Canada, Canada-China Trade and Investment; Gecelovsky and Keenleyside, “Canada’s International Human Rights Policy,” 574. Gecelovsky and Keenleyside, “Canada’s International Human Rights Policy,” 574 and 9–80. Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in heory and Practice, 2nd ed., 234. Canada, Report of the Somalia Commission. Kitchen, “Rhetoric to Reality,” 41. Chapnick, “Ottawa Process Revisited,” 292. Ibid., 282. Warmington and Tuttle, “Canadian Campaign,” 56.

194

136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145

146

147 148

149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163

Notes to pages 80–6

Chapnick, “Ottawa Process Revisited,” 290. Canada, Canada and the International Criminal Court. Rights and Democracy, Policy Manual. See Cox et al. Interregnum. Olson, “At Rights Meeting.” Associated Press, “Curbing Rights Helps Terror Groups”; Canadian Press, “Arbour Calls for Calm”; Associated Press, “Don’t Usurp Human Rights.” Ignatief, “Is the Human Rights Era Ending.” Dunne, “After 9/11” 93–102. Manley, Notes for an Address by the Honourable John Manley to the Public Policy Forum. Manley, Notes for an Address by the Honourable John Manley to a Special Session of Parliament. For further details about nato, please see www.nato.int. Interview with an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Human Rights, Humanitarian Afairs, and International Women’s Equity Division, Ottawa, 6 May 2005. Interview with an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Policy Planning Division, Ottawa, 6 May 2005. Interview with an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Human Rights, Humanitarian Afairs, and International Women’s Equity Division, Ottawa, 6 May 2005. Welsh, At Home in the World, 1st ed., 173. Hampson et al. Canada among Nations, 1999, 1. Bélanger, “Disenchantment of Canadian Foreign Policy,” 112. Martin, “Making a Diference,” ii. Canada, Canada’s International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Inluence in the World, 13. Ibid., 12. Graham, Notes for an Address by the Honourable Bill Graham to the Ambassadors of the Human Security Network. Ibid. Ibid. Stairs, “Challenges and Opportunities,” 490. Welsh, At Home in the World, 157. Ibid. Stairs, “Myths, Morals, and Reality,” 239. Dobell, Canada’s Search for New Roles, 146. Black, “How Exceptional,” 190.

Notes to pages 87–91

195

164 Stairs, “Myths, Morals, and Reality,” 240. 165 Welsh, At Home in the World, 1st ed., 173. 166 United Nations, Military and Police Contributions. See also Fowler, “Canada’s Bid for a Seat.” 167 Jockel and Sokolsky, “Lloyd Axworthy’s Legacy,” 11. 168 Public Broadcasting Service (pbs), Is Canada a Safe Haven for Terrorists? 169 McLellan, Notes for the Minister of Justice. 170 Canada, Bill C-36. 171 Canada, Keeping Canada Safe. 172 Graham, Notes for an Address by the Honourable Bill Graham at the 14th Annual Human Rights Consultations. 173 Time, Canadian Newsmakers of the Year. 174 he Arar Inquiry is oicially known as the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Oicials in Relation to Maher Arar. Please see Canada, Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Oicials in Relation to Maher Arar. For details of the commission’s indings and recommendations, please see Canada, “Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar: Analysis and Recommendations”; Canada, “Report of the Events Relating to Maher Arar: Factual Background.” 175 Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Hassan Almrei. 176 Jiménez, “Jailed Syrian Gets High-Proile Help,” A5. 177 For a detailed archive of the legal aspects surrounding the Omar Khadr case, please see University of Toronto Faculty of Law, Omar Khadr Case. 178 he Canadian government may be forced to accept his repatriation after Khadr plead guilty in October 2010 to charges laid against him. As part of his plea deal, Khadr would serve an additional year in Guantanamo Bay with the rest of his eight-year sentence served in Canada. However, his lawyers have said that they have iled for clemency in an attempt to secure his early release. 179 Graham, Notes for an Address by the Honourable Bill Graham at the 15th Annual Human Rights Consultations. 180 Graham, Notes for an Address by the Honourable Bill Graham at the 60th Session of the Commission on Human Rights. 181 Interview with an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Human Rights, Humanitarian Afairs, and International Women’s Equity Division, Ottawa, 6 May 2005. 182 Graham, Notes for an Address by the Honourable Bill Graham at the 14th Annual Human Rights Consultations. 183 Canada, Canada’s International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Inluence in the World-Diplomacy, 9–12.

196

Notes to pages 91–104

184 Woods, “ndp, Independents Make Demands.” 185 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, he Responsibility to Protect. 186 Canada, Canada’s International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Inluence in the World, 20; Canada, he Responsibility to Protect. 187 World Bank, Canadian ODA Performance. See also Canadian International Development Agency, Statistical Report on International Assistance. 188 Sallot, “Canada Discovering Foreign Aid.” 189 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canadian Ambassador Attacks icc Exemption. 190 Donnelly and Liang-Fenton, “Introduction,” 5. 191 Donnelly, “Human Rights: he Impact,” 257–8.

chapter four 1 Guzzini, “Reconstruction of Constructivism,” 147. See also Dessler, “Constructivism within a Positivist Social Science,” 123. 2 Hopf, “Promise of Constructivism,” 172. 3 Adler, “Seizing the Middle Ground,” 331. 4 Zehfuss, Constructivism in International Relations, 2–3. 5 Checkel, “Constructivist Turn.” 6 Ibid., 325. 7 Zehfuss, Constructivism in International Relations, 3. 8 Adler, “Seizing the Middle Ground,” 320. 9 Hopf, “Promise of Constructivism,” 171. 10 Guzzini, “Reconstruction of Constructivism,” 156–69. 11 Ruggie, “What Makes the World,” 880–1. 12 Adler, “Seizing the Middle Ground,” 335. 13 Neuield cited in Ruggie, “What Makes the World,” 882. 14 Guzzini, “Reconstruction of Constructivism,” 155. 15 Hollis and Smith, Explaining and Understanding, 9. 16 Herman, “Identity, Norms, and National Security,” 270–1. 17 Ibid., 277. 18 Wendt, “Constructing International Politics,” 80. 19 Ruggie, “What Makes the World,” 865 (emphasis in original). 20 Koslowski and Kratochwil, “Understanding Change in International Politics,” 215–16. 21 Wendt, Social heory of International Politics, 4. See also Katzenstein, “Conclusion,” 499. 22 Holsti, “Scholarship in an Era of Anxiety,” 36–40.

Notes to pages 104–9

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47

48 49 50 51 52

197

Ruggie, “What Makes the World,” 855–56. Ibid., 885. Wendt, “Anarchy,” 392. Keohane, “Institutional heory and the Realist Challenge,” 294–5. Adler, “Seizing the Middle Ground,” 322 (emphasis in original). Ruggie, “What Makes the World,” 879. Ibid., 871 (emphasis in original). Holsti, Problem of Change, 13. Ruggie, “What Makes the World,” 873. Schwarz, “Paradox of Sovereignty,” 200. Checkel, “Constructivist Turn,” 327–8; Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics,” 891–2; Florini, “Evolution of International Norms,” 364; Lutz and Sikkink, “International Human Rights Law,” 650; Spruyt, “End of Empire,” 67. Jepperson et al., “Norms, Identity, and Culture,” 54. Katzenstein, “Introduction,” 5. Adler, “Seizing the Middle Ground,” 319. Mearsheimer, “Realist Reply,” 91–2. Zehfuss, “Constructivism and Identity,” 315. Wendt, “Constitution and Causation,” 116. Lutz and Sikkink, “International Human Rights Law,” 650. See also Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics,” 891–2; Florini, “Evolution of International Norms,” 364; Spruyt, “End of Empire,” 67. Waltz, heory of International Politics, 7. Zehfuss, Constructivism in International Relations. Wendt, Social heory of International Politics, 36 (emphasis in original). Checkel, “Constructivist Turn,” 325–6. Ruggie, “What Makes the World,” 879–80. Adler, “Seizing the Middle Ground,” 323. Wendt uses the term “idealist” in opposition to “materialist” in order to emphasize the explanatory signiicance of ideas. His use of the term should not be confused with the type of idealism that is emblematic of the First Great Debate. Zehfuss, Constructivism in International Relations, 38. Wendt, “Anarchy,” 395 (emphasis in original). Wendt, Social heory of International Politics, 9. Ruggie, “What Makes the World,” 867; Wendt, “Collective Identity Formation,” 386. Wendt, “Anarchy,” 398; Wendt, Social heory of International Politics, 231.

198

Notes to pages 109–19

53 Wendt, Social heory of International Politics, 36. See also Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity, 27; Zehfuss, Constructivism in International Relations, 3–4. 54 Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics,” 894. 55 Wendt, Social heory of International Politics, 1. See also Wendt, “Collective Identity Formation,” 385. Compare with Checkel, “Constructivist Turn,” 325–6. Checkel may not agree with Wendt’s assertion of the primacy of ideational over material factors, as such, but he nonetheless accedes that social structures are determined by both of them. 56 Wendt, Social heory of International Politics, 96. 57 Adler, “Seizing the Middle Ground,” 336. 58 Wendt, “Collective Identity Formation,” 392. 59 Hurd, “Legitimacy and Authority,” 381. 60 Clark, Legitimacy in International Society, 246. 61 Ibid., 247. 62 See Clark, International Legitimacy and World Society. 63 Hurd, “Legitimacy and Authority,” 387. 64 Ibid., 381–2. 65 Waltz, heory of International Politics, 114–5. 66 Wendt, “Anarchy,” 394–5. 67 Guzzini, “Reconstruction of Constructivism,” 147. 68 See Risse and Sikkink, “Socialization of International Human Rights.” 69 See Risse et al., Power of Human Rights. he countries surveyed in their volume include Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Tunisia, Morocco, Indonesia, the Philippines, Chile, Guatemala, and the Eastern European countries of the former Soviet bloc. 70 Adler, “Seizing the Middle Ground,” 337. 71 Holsti, International Politics, 83. 72 Hill, Changing Politics of Foreign Policy, 5. 73 Wendt, Social heory of International Politics, 8–10. 74 Adler, “Seizing the Middle Ground,” 337. 75 Klotz, Norms in International Relations. 76 Adler, “Seizing the Middle Ground,” 337. 77 homas, Helsinki Efect, 15. 78 Ibid.

chapter five 1 For stylistic purposes, unless otherwise stated, in this chapter I use the term “constructivism” to refer to “idealist constructivism” (as outlined in chapter 4).

Notes to pages 119–26

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12

13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

199

Holmes, Life with Uncle, 42. Donnelly, “An Overview,” 316–17. Arbour, Freedom from Want. Dobell, Canada’s Search for New Roles, 144. Cohen, While Canada Slept, 22. Dufy, “Canada’s Foreign Policy in Transition,” 296. See Canada25, “From Middle Power to Model Power.” Compare with Canada, Canada’s International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Inluence in the World. he term “model power,” as used by Canada25, describes “a country whose inluence is linked to its ability to innovate, experiment, and partner; a country that, by presenting itself as a model, invites the world to assess, challenge, borrow from, and contribute to, its eforts.” Although Canada’s 2005 White Paper does not explicitly use the term “model power,” it nonetheless adopts a model-based approach in emphasising Canada’s “role of pride and inluence in the world” as the underlying theme of the country’s foreign policy strategy. George Ignatief cited in Keating, Canada and World Order, 1. Canada, Parliament, Special Joint Committee on Canada’s International Relations, Independence and Internationalism, 32. Canada, “Trade and Investment: Canada-us.” See also Canada, CanadaUS Relations. Canada, Cultural Afairs; Media Awareness Network, International Agreements and Canadian Identity; Media Awareness Network, Media and Canadian Cultural Policies. Wendt, “Collective Identity Formation,” 485–7. As described in the historical trilogy by Eric J. Hobsbawm, depicting the period from 1789 to 1914. See Hobsbawm, Age of Capital; Hobsbawm, Age of Empire; Hobsbawm, Age of Revolution. Cassese, Human Rights, 21 and 72. Cassese, International Law, 289. Ibid., 64–5. Arbour, Freedom from Want. Kaplansky, “Economic Policies of a Middle Power,” 146. Reid, “Canadian Foreign Policy,” 172–3. Holmes, “Canadian External Policies,” 138. Munton and Keating, “Internationalism and the Canadian Public,” 526. Nossal, Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy, 53. Munton and Keating, “Internationalism and the Canadian Public,” 525. hordarson, Trudeau and Foreign Policy, 3; Tucker, Canadian Foreign Policy, 5.

200

Notes to pages 126–36

Holmes, Canada, 30. Holmes, Shaping of Peace, 80–90. Holmes, Better Part of Valour, 12. Media Awareness Network, Media and Canadian Cultural Policies. Tucker, Canadian Foreign Policy, 4–5. Keating, Canada and World Order, 77. See Melakopides, Pragmatic Idealism, 54–6. Keating, Canada and World Order, 77–8. Holmes, Better Part of Valour, 12. Pearson, “nato,” 79. Keating, Canada and World Order, 79. Holmes, Shaping of Peace, 138. Tucker, Canadian Foreign Policy, 4–5. Holmes, “Canada’s Role as a Middle Power,” 28. Ibid., 18–20. Cooper et al., Relocating Middle Powers, 19. Holmes, Better Part of Valour, 29. Lester B. Pearson cited in hordarson, Trudeau and Foreign Policy, 3–4. Hobbins, “Eleanor Roosevelt,” 326. Arbour, Freedom from Want. St-Laurent, “Gray Lecture,” Jamieson, “Statements and Speeches, 77/5.” Donaghy, “Introduction,” 20. Stairs, “Realists at Work,” 92. Eayrs, “Military Policy and Middle Power,” 70. Lester B. Pearson cited in Keating, Canada and World Order, 13. Marshall, “Cold War,” 191. Canada, Canadian Bill of Rights. Keating, Canada and World Order, 39. World Bank, Pages from World Bank History. For an archived digicast of de Gaulle’s original speech, please see Gaulle, Vive le Québec Libre! 57 Ignatief, “Balancing Foreign and Domestic.” 58 Ignatief, Rights Revolution. 59 Holmes, Better Part of Valour, 166. 60 Johnson, “Problems of Canadian Nationalism,” 239. 61 Cited in Keenleyside et al., “Press and Foreign Policy,” 191–2. 62 Holmes, Better Part of Valour, 14. 63 Nossal, Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy, 189. 64 Dobell, Canada’s Search for New Roles, 38. 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

Notes to pages 136–41

201

65 Atkey, “Role of the Provinces,” 249. 66 Ibid. 67 Pierre Elliott Trudeau cited in Dobell, Canada’s Search for New Roles, 3. 68 Granatstein, “Impact of Trudeau,” 251. 69 Canada, Foreign Policy for Canadians, 8–9. 70 Ibid., 5. 71 Ibid., 8. 72 Holmes, Canada, v-vi. 73 Holmes, Better Part of Valour, 14. 74 Pierre Elliott Trudeau cited in hordarson, Trudeau and Foreign Policy, 69. 75 Tucker, Canadian Foreign Policy, 10. 76 Trudeau, “Statements and Speeches 69/8,” 6–7. 77 Lyon, “Trudeau Doctrine,” 40. 78 hordarson, Trudeau and Foreign Policy, 118. 79 Granatstein, “Impact of Trudeau,” 251. 80 Ibid. 81 Pierre Elliott Trudeau cited in Hyndman, “National Interest and the New Look,” 6. 82 Pierre Elliott Trudeau cited in Ibid., 13. 83 Pierre Elliott Trudeau cited in hordarson, Trudeau and Foreign Policy, 55. 84 Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, 11. 85 hordarson, Trudeau and Foreign Policy, 55. 86 Liberal Party of Canada, History. 87 he document was known oicially as the Dominion Elections Act, 1920. See Canada, History of the Vote. 88 Canada, Canadian Multiculturalism. he efects of Canada’s oicial multiculturalism policy are becoming increasingly discernable in some areas of Canadian foreign policy and, as a result, easier to study. See, for example, Carment and Bercuson, he World in Canada. 89 Palmer, “Mosaic versus Melting Pot,” 516. 90 Forbes, “Trudeau as the First heorist,” 28–9. 91 Kymlicka, “Marketing Canadian Pluralism,” 840. 92 homas, Helsinki Efect, 27. 93 Donnelly, “Human Rights and Foreign Policy,” 584; Loescher, “Human Rights and US Foreign Policy,” 332–42. 94 Kinsman, “Who Is My Neighbour,” 58. 95 Cooper et al., Relocating Middle Powers, 159–60. 96 Beaulne, “Statements and Speeches 80/3,” 1–2; Jamieson, “Statements and Speeches, 78/13.” 97 Clarkson and McCall, Trudeau and Our Times, 357.

202

98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126

127

Notes to pages 141–9

Ibid., 357–8. Trudeau, Federalism and the French Canadians, 52–60. Ibid., 44–5. Ibid., 4. Ibid. For an overview of how Canadian foreign policy became a nationalist project, see Nossal, “Homegrown IR.” Kinsman, “Who Is My Neighbour,” 58. Pierre Elliott Trudeau cited in Radwanski, Trudeau, 329. Ibid., 327–8. Ibid., 333. hordarson, Trudeau and Foreign Policy, 1. Ibid., 2. Nossal, Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy, 203. Kirton and Dimock, “Domestic Access to Government,” 73; Tucker, Canadian Foreign Policy, 13. hordarson, Trudeau and Foreign Policy, 5. Keenleyside and Serkasevich, “Canada’s Aid and Human Rights Observance,” 142–3. Black, “How Exceptional,” 175. Michael Pearson cited in Malone, “Foreign Policy Reviews Reconsidered,” 575. Dobell, Canada’s Search for New Roles, 50–1. Dufy, “Canada’s Foreign Policy in Transition,” 296. Gellman, “Lester B. Pearson,” 68–9. Canada. Parliament. Special Joint Committee on Canada’s International Relations, Independence and Internationalism. Ibid. Malone, “Foreign Policy Reviews Reconsidered,” 567. Potter, “Question of Relevance,” 39. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Entering a New Era; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Looking Back at the Mulroney Years. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Much Ado about Free Trade. Granatstein, Yankee Go Home, 274. his move was primarily a symbolic gesture as the Supreme Court of Canada had ruled that Quebec’s objections to the Canada Act were superluous because no province had the power of veto in order to prevent the act from becoming law. he Canada Act would therefore apply to all provinces regardless of whether or not they agreed to it. Canada, Constitutional File and Unity File: 1987 Constitutional Accord.

Notes to pages 149–56

128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138

139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160

203

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Frum Questions Trudeau. Trudeau cited in Ibid. Trudeau, Pierre Trudeau Speaks Out, 10. Ibid., 46. Canada, Constitutional File and Unity File: 1992 Charlottetown Accord. Goold, “Bill Graham, Pierre Pettigrew, Jim Peterson,” 931. Malone, “Foreign Policy Reviews Reconsidered,” 567. Mahoney, “Human Rights and Canada’s Foreign Policy,” 556. United Nations Development Programme, “Human Development Report 1994.” Canada, Canada in the World, 34 (emphasis removed). Interview with an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Human Rights, Humanitarian Afairs, and International Women’s Equity Division, Ottawa, 6 May 2005. Axworthy, Human Rights and Canadian Foreign Policy. Grayson, “Branding,” 60. Canada, Constitutional File and Unity File: Reference re Secession of Quebec. Canada, Clarity Act. Nossal, “Democratization of Canadian Foreign Policy,” 96. Hay, “Practising Democratic Foreign Policy,” 123. Ibid.; Interview with an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Policy Planning Division, Ottawa, 6 May 2005. Hampson and Oliver, “Pulpit Diplomacy,” 379. See Graham, Letter to Lloyd Axworthy. Canada, Canada’s International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Inluence in the World. Kymlicka, “Marketing Canadian Pluralism,” 829. Canada, Dialogue on Foreign Policy, 3. Interview with an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Policy Planning Division, Ottawa, 6 May 2005. Ibid. Martin, “Making a Diference,” ii. Welsh, At Home in the World, 189. Ibid., 47. United States of America, National Security Strategy. Holmes, Life with Uncle, 107–8. Kymlicka, “Marketing Canadian Pluralism,” 831–2. Mahoney, “Human Rights and Canada’s Foreign Policy,” 555–6. Cooper et al. Relocating Middle Powers, 156.

204

Notes to pages 156–61

161 Brian Mulroney cited in Ibid., 157. 162 Brian Mulroney cited in Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada and the Fight against Apartheid. 163 Cooper et al., Relocating Middle Powers, 159. 164 Black, “How Exceptional,” 189. 165 Keating, Canada and World Order, 1. 166 Ibid., 174–5. 167 Mendes, “Canada, Asian Values, and Human Rights,” 167. 168 Gecelovsky and Keenleyside, “Canada’s International Human Rights Policy,” 586–7; Mendes, “Canada, Asian Values, and Human Rights.” 169 Keating, Canada and World Order, 174. 170 Canada, Small Arms and Light Weapons; Graham, Letter to Lloyd Axworthy; Melakopides, Pragmatic Idealism, 182. 171 Axworthy and Taylor, “A Ban for All Seasons,” 193. 172 Cameron, “Democratization of Foreign Policy,” 444. 173 Axworthy and Taylor, “A Ban for All Seasons,” 202. 174 Axworthy, “Towards a New Multilateralism,” 448. 175 Keating, Canada and World Order, 183. 176 Jockel and Sokolsky, “Lloyd Axworthy’s Legacy,” 3. 177 United Nations, Military and Police Contributions. See also Fowler, “Canada’s Bid for a Seat.” 178 Jockel and Sokolsky, “Lloyd Axworthy’s Legacy,” 3. 179 Ibid. 180 Interview with an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Human Rights, Humanitarian Afairs, and International Women’s Equity Division, Ottawa, 6 May 2005. 181 Interview with an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Policy Planning Division, Ottawa, 6 May 2005. 182 Aga Khan Foundation Canada, Global Centre for Pluralism. 183 See Price, “Reversing the Gun Sights.” 184 Canada, Canada’s International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Inluence in the World, 20; Canada, Responsibility to Protect. 185 Canada, Anti-Terrorism Act. 186 Canada, Keeping Canada Safe. 187 Graham, Notes for an Address by the Honourable Bill Graham at the 14th Annual Human Rights Consultations with Canadian NonGovernmental Organizations. 188 Keenleyside et al., “Press and Foreign Policy,” 189. 189 Grayson, “Branding,” 41.

Notes to pages 162–75

205

190 Trudeau cited in Cook, “Canadian Dilemma,” 19. 191 Pettigrew, Notes for an Address by the Honourable Pierre Pettigrew. 192 Malone, “Foreign Policy Reviews Reconsidered;” hordarson, Trudeau and Foreign Policy, 2. 193 Holmes, Better Part of Valour, 29. 194 Donnelly, “An Overview,” 330.

conclusion 1 Vincent, “Introduction,” 1. See also see Vincent, “Human Rights in Foreign Policy,” 54. 2 Canada, Canada’s International Human Rights Policy [2005]. 3 Smith, “he eu, Human Rights, and Relations with hird Countries,” 199. 4 Forsythe, Human Rights and Comparative Foreign Policy, 8–9. 5 Nossal, “Pinchpenny Diplomacy;” hompson, “Chrétien Doctrine.” 6 See Holloway, Canadian Foreign Policy, chap. 1. 7 Holsti, International Politics, 83. 8 Keohane, “Ideas Part Way Down,” 126. 9 Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations, 4. 10 Waltz, heory of International Politics, 5. 11 Price and Reus-Smit, “Dangerous Liaisons.” 12 Mearsheimer, “Realist Reply,” 91. 13 See Spruyt, “End of Empire,” chaps 2 and 9. 14 See Welsh, At Home in the World, 189. 15 Smith, “heories of Foreign Policy,” 24. 16 Grant, Lament for a Nation. 17 See Clément, Canada’s Rights Revolution. 18 Brysk, Global Good Samaritans, 67. 19 Ibid., 94. 20 Ibid. 21 Moravcsik, “Origins of Human Rights Regimes,” 220. 22 Potter, Branding Canada, 5. 23 Ibid. 24 Smith, “Self-Images of a Discipline,” 13–7. 25 Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis, 13. 26 Cochran, “Pragmatist Perspective,” 68. 27 Keohane, “Ideas Part Way Down,” 129. 28 Smith, “Self-Images of a Discipline,” 16. 29 Barkin, Realist Constructivism, 2.

206

Notes to pages 175–80

30 Carr, Twenty Years’ Crisis, 10. 31 Donnelly, Realism and International Relations, 197–8 (emphasis in original).

postscript 1 Canada, Canada’s International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Inluence in the World. 2 Freeman, “Top Bureaucrats.” 3 Compare Canada, Canada’s International Human Rights Policy [2005] with Canada, Canada’s International Human Rights Policy [2008]. 4 Interview with an anonymous senior policy oicial within dfait’s Policy Planning Division, Ottawa, 6 May 2005. 5 See, for example, Leblanc, “Tories Play Down Constitutional Fallout”; Wells, “Symbol Solution.” 6 Robert Wolfe cited in Taylor, “Harper Doctrine.” 7 Laghi, “Harper Promises.” 8 Wenran Jiang cited in Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Harper Hosts the Dalai Lama Despite Stern Warning from China. 9 Clark, “Canada Subtly Signalling Change”; York and Chase, “Ottawa Aims to Rebuild”; York and Freeman, “Sino-Canadian Relations.” 10 Stephen Harper cited in Freeman, “pm Backs Trade Talks.” 11 Lui, “Sleeping with the Dragon.” 12 Eayrs, “Foreign Policy of Canada,” 673–4.

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Index

9/11. See September 11th attacks on the United States Adler, Emanuel, 100, 104, 107, 110, 113, 115 Afghanistan, 82, 84, 89, 179 Africa, 14, 57, 63, 91, 132, 135, 145, 157. See also apartheid; Darfur; humanitarian intervention; Rwanda; Somalia; South Africa Aga Khan Foundation, 91, 160 aggressive unilateralism. See Chapnick, Adam Allison, Graham, 29–30 Almrei, Hassan, 89, 92, 161 al-Qaeda, 82, 89. See also terrorism anarchy. See International Relations ir anti-personnel landmines. See Ottawa Treaty Anti-Terrorism Act, 88–9, 92, 94, 160– 1; security certiicates, 88–9, 161 apartheid, 62–8, 132, 144–5, 156–7 Arar, Maher, 89, 92, 161, 179, 195n174 Arbour, Louise, 5, 50, 62, 81, 119, 124 Arctic sovereignty, 60, 154 Arctic Waters Pollution Prevention Act, 60 Asian values debate, x, 8, 78, 157

authority. See International Relations; Canada, federal-provincial jurisdiction Axworthy, Lloyd, 71, 74–7, 79, 83, 85, 151–3, 158 Beaulne, Yvon, 64 behavioural revolution, 11, 28–9, 171 Bernier, Maxime, 178 Biafra, 64 biculturalism, 135, 139. See also Canada, multiculturalism bilateralism in Canadian foreign policy, 43–4, 64, 66, 77–8, 130, 133, 141, 144–5; British-Canadian relations, 5, 51, 52, 119, 126, 141; Canada-US relations, 5, 55–7, 60–4, 82–3, 86, 88, 93, 121–2, 126–7, 133–5, 142, 148, 154–5; Sino-Canadian relations, 8, 57–9, 67, 78, 157, 179–81; SovietCanadian relations, 56–7, 59–62, 65, 67, 93, 127, 140, 143, 144 bilingualism, 119, 138, 149. See also Oicial Languages Act Bill of Rights, 131, 133 Black, David, 67, 86, 157 Boisclair, André, 179 Bomarc crisis, 55, 190n35

234

Index

Bono, 14, 92 Booth, Ken, vii, ix–x, 26 Bouchard, Lucien, 151 Britain, 51, 52, 126, 153, 157. See also bilateralism in Canadian foreign policy, British-Canadian relations Brysk, Alison, 172–3 Bush, George H.W., 60–1 Bush, George W., 78, 155 Cameron, Maxwell, x, 158 Canada, 3–5, 7, 13–5, 17, 47, 52; economics and trade, 51, 56–7, 59–61, 63, 66–7, 71–2, 74, 76–8, 83–4, 91, 93–4, 121, 126, 140, 146–8, 157, 180; federal-provincial jurisdiction, 4–5, 7, 17, 50, 63, 130–1, 133, 135–6, 139, 142, 149–52, 170; immigration, 7, 139–40, 149–50, 186n54; minority groups, 4, 15, 139–40, 179; multiculturalism, 15, 60, 119, 139–40, 147, 149, 156, 162, 165, 201n88. See also Canadian foreign policy cfp; national identity; national unity; Quebec Canada Act. See Canadian Constitution Canada in the World, 70–2, 75–6, 151 Canada’s International Policy Statement: A Role of Pride and Inluence in the World, 84, 153, 160, 177, 199n8 Canada-Soviet hockey summit series, 59, 191n52 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement, 60–1, 148, 150. See also bilateralism in Canadian foreign policy; NAFTA Canada-US relations. See bilateralism in Canadian foreign policy, Canada-us relations

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), 126 Canadian Constitution, 7, 13, 63, 134, 141, 147–9, 156, 167, 270, 202n126 Canadian foreign policy (CFP), 11, 17, 53; golden age, 5, 52–4, 120, 131, 137; hard power, 53–4, 72–4, 82–7, 91–3; helpful ixer, 58, 137, 156, 159; multilateralism, 14; national interests, 47–9, 51–4, 58–9, 61–2, 68–70, 70–4, 82, 83–4, 86, 88, 92, 93–4; nuclear strategy, 51, 53–6, 76, 86, 93, 127–8, 134, 190n35; operational code, 12, 48; public input, 60, 68– 9, 89, 92, 131, 137, 141, 144, 147, 150, 152, 160; relative power, 51–4, 56, 59, 61, 70–4, 83, 87, 93, 122, 133, 137, 142, 146, 154; security, 49, 53–4, 58–61, 69, 70–6, 78–92, 93–4, 120– 3, 125, 127–8, 130–4, 136, 140, 143, 146, 150–61; soft power, 83–4, 158; trade-ofs, 42, 47, 49, 68–9, 72–4, 81, 88, 90–4, 123, 161, 163, 165; values, 71, 74–6, 78, 86–8, 114, 130, 135, 139, 146, 149, 151–8, 162–3, 167, 178, 183n4. See also bilateralism in Canadian foreign policy; Canadian model of pluralism; functionalism; internationalism; international norms; multilateralism; national identity; national interests; national unity; unilateralism Canadian International Development Agency. See CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) Canadian model of pluralism, 16, 91, 122–3; 146–63, 167, 174 Canadian Parliament, 3–4, 52, 56, 63, 88, 91, 134, 150, 156, 178–80; Special

Index

Joint Committee on Canada’s International Relations, 60, 120–1; Special Joint Committee on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 3–4 Carr, E.H., ix, 25–6, 185n30 Carter, Jimmy, 13, 64–5, 140–1, 144–5 Celil, Huseyin, 179 Challenge and Commitment: A Defence Policy for Canada, 61. See also DND. (Department of National Defence) Chapnick, Adam, 79–80 Charlottetown Accord, 150–1 Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 13, 15, 89–90, 123, 131, 134, 141–2, 144, 146, 149, 162, 167, 173. See also Canadian Constitution Checkel, Jefrey, 99, 107, 199n55 Chinese Exclusion Act (1923), 15, 186n54 Chinese Immigration Act. See Chinese Exclusion Act (1923) Chrétien Doctrine, 72, 74, 78, 165–6 Chrétien, Jean, 70, 72, 74–5, 78, 87– 8, 147, 150–3, 166, 181 Christian values, 130, 183n4 CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency), 66–7 civil and political rights. See human rights, civil and political Clarity Act, 151–2 Clark, Joe, 57 Clarkson, Stephen, 134–5; with Cristina McCall, 141 Cold War, 12, 16, 43, 48, 53–5, 61–9; containment, 56, 134; détente, 59, 140; explanations regarding the end of the Cold War, 24, 34–6, 102–4; ideology, 8, 59, 61–2 Colombia, 180

235

colonialism, 6, 7, 15, 41, 56, 119, 124, 126, 134 Commission on International Development. See Pearson Commission Commonwealth of Nations, 13, 62–3, 67, 131–2, 156–7. See also multilateralism in Canadian foreign policy Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), 13. See also Helsinki Accords Constitution Act. See Canadian Constitution constructivism, 6, 9–10, 11, 16, 99– 100; anarchy, 99, 103, 108, 111–12; authority, 110–12; constitutive and regulative rules, 105, 138, 154; critique of realism, 102–5, 107; human rights and foreign policy, 112–17; idealist/Wendtian, 11, 16, 100–1, 108–14, 117, 164, 168, 174, 184n25, 198n1; ideas, interests, and identities, 99, 100–1, 103–4, 105–7, 109, 110–18, 164–8, 173; legitimacy, 110– 16; norms, 6, 9, 13–14, 42–6, 99, 101, 105–7, 109–11, 115–19, 168; power, 99, 102–3, 110–12, 115; socialization, 14, 103, 106, 110, 113–18, 122, 164; variants of, 99–100. See also International Relations (ir); realist-constructivist debate containment. See Cold War Convention on the Rights of the Child, 90 crimes against humanity, 13, 80, 124. See also ICC (International Criminal Court); R2P Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, 80. See also ICC (International Criminal Court) Cuban Missile Crisis, 29, 55, 190n35

236

Index

Dalai Lama, 180 Darfur, 91, 159. See also humanitarian intervention de Gaulle, Charles, 133, 136, 143 Department of Foreign Afairs and International Trade Canada. See DFAIT (Department of Foreign Afairs and International Trade Canada) Department of National Defence. See DND (Department of National Defence) DFAIT (Department of Foreign Afairs and International Trade Canada), 177–8; on human rights 3–5, 47, 49–51, 62, 67–8, 75, 82–3, 90, 144, 154, 160, 165, 178; on landmines, 79–80; on the Canadian model, 154; on values, 75, 130, 183n4. See also Axworthy, Lloyd; Bernier, Maxime; Graham, Bill; Green, Howard; Jamieson, Don; Manley, John; Pettigrew, Pierre Diefenbaker, John, 54–5, 62–3, 131, 180, 190n34 Dion, Stéphane, 151–2 DND (Department of National Defence), 61, 79 Dominion Elections Act. See Dominion Exclusion Act (1920) Dominion Exclusion Act (1920), 15, 139 Donnelly, Jack, x, 8, 14, 21, 36, 42, 68, 69, 78, 163, 165, 175, 176; with Debra Liang-Fenton, 94 Dunne, Tim, x, 26; with Brian Schmidt, 21 East Timor, 65, 87 Eayrs, James, 54, 131, 180

economic and social rights. See human rights, economic and social federalism, 135. See also Canada, federal-provincial jurisdiction First Great Debate, 26, 174, 185n30 First Nations, 4, 7, 15 First World War, 25; Canadian entry, 52 FLQ (Front de Libération du Québec), 7, 64, 143 Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), 6, 11– 12, 29, 69, 95, 113–14, 165, 169–71, 175; values, 37, 39, 47. See also Canadian foreign policy (cfp) Foreign Policy for Canadians, 57–9, 137 Forsythe, David P., x, 13, 165 Front de Libération du Québec. See FLQ (Front de Libération du Québec) functionalism, 50–3, 55–9, 70, 74, 80, 84–5, 91, 120–4, 128–9, 132, 134–7, 146, 147, 154–6 G-7, 67, 157 G-8, 73 game theory, 21, 29, 54, 110, 158 Gecelovsky, Paul, 78, 157 Geertz, Cliford, 11. See also thick description Geldof, Bob, 14 genocide, 13, 65, 80, 91, 123–4. See also ICC (International Criminal Court); R2P geopolitics, 43, 48, 52–4, 61, 72, 78, 93, 127 Gilpin, Robert, 32–3, 38–9, 42 Glaser, Charles, 21–2, 36, 143 Global Centre for Pluralism. See Aga Khan

Index

global good samaritanship. See Brysk, Alison good governance, 66–7, 71, 91, 150, 153, 157–8, 160 good international citizenship, 86, 129, 132. See also internationalism; middle power Gorbachev, Mikhail, 103 Graham, Bill, 85, 88, 90 Granatstein, Jack, 57, 83, 136, 148 Great Powers, 36, 43, 52, 54, 58, 129 Green, Howard, 54–5 Grieco, Joseph, 33, 43 Guantanamo Bay detention camp, 89–90, 179, 195n178 Guzzini, Stefano, 23, 27, 28, 29, 34, 99, 100, 102, 112 Hampson, Fen Osler, 74 hard power. See Canadian foreign policy (cfp) Harper, Stephen, 177–81 Helsinki Accords, 13, 64, 93, 140, 144 Henkin, Louis, 9 Hillier, Rick, 73 HIV/AIDS, 70. See also human security Hobbes, homas, 21, 25 Holmes, John, 50, 51, 119, 125, 126, 127, 129, 134, 137, 162 Holocaust, 123; nuclear holocaust, 76 Holsti, Kal, 73, 104, 105, 114, 166, 185n28 Howard-Hassmann, Rhoda E., vii, x, 66 humanitarian intervention, 9, 42–3, 64, 69, 71, 78–9, 83, 85, 87, 91, 99, 132, 173 human rights, 3–5, 8–10; Asian values debate, 8; civil and political, 4, 8, 43, 49, 61–2, 93, 140, 143–4, 172;

237

economic and social, 4, 8, 43, 62, 71–2, 93, 130, 140, 144, 172; foreign policy, 37–45, 47; imperialism, 14; media attention, 65, 89, 127, 150, 160; right to development, 8; theory 8; trade-ofs, 47, 68–9, 72–4, 165; universalism, 8–9. See also international norms human security, 71, 73–4, 76, 80, 83– 6, 91–2, 151–3, 155, 158–60 Humphrey, John, 5, 50, 171, 183n9 Huntington, Samuel, 14 ICC (International Criminal Court), 6, 13, 80, 86, 93, 154, 158 idealism, 25, 58, 174 idealist constructivism. See constructivism, idealist/Wendtian identity. See national identity Ignatief, Michael, 9, 81–2, 134, 178 Independence and Internationalism, 60–1, 147 interdependence, 72, 121, 127, 137, 147 interests. See national interests International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (Rights and Democracy), 156 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS). See R2P International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, 183n9. See also racial discrimination International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 62, 140, 144 International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, 62, 140, 144

238

Index

International Criminal Court. See ICC (International Criminal Court) internationalism, 16, 25, 58–60, 71–3, 123–30, 132–3, 137–9, 142, 146–7, 152, 159, 162, 167; deinition, 125. See also Canadian foreign policy (cfp) international law, 10, 44, 76, 89–90, 104, 123, 152, 168 International Military Tribunal (IMT). See Nuremberg Trials international norms, 6, 9, 13–14, 42– 6, 99, 101, 105–7, 109–11, 115–19, 165, 168, 185n28; in Canadian foreign policy, 119–20, 122, 140–2, 144–5, 158–9, 163 International Relations (IR), 6, 9–12, 15, 21–2, 23–30, 30–2, 34–7, 44, 45– 6, 99–106, 108, 111–12, 115–16, 117, 164–5, 167–8, 171, 175, 183n1; agency, 17, 22, 33, 100, 102, 104, 115, 180; anarchy, 10, 23, 28, 31–3, 36–7, 41– 2, 45–6, 94, 99, 103, 108, 111–12, 165; authority as a theoretical concept, 110–12, 121; change and continuity, 6, 7, 9, 12, 22, 27, 31–2, 33, 35–6, 38, 40–1, 45–6, 48–9, 99, 102–4, 108, 111, 122–3, 165, 168–70, 172, 174–5; explanatory vs. constitutive theory, 12; explanatory power and theoretical parsimony, 27, 30–2, 46, 106–7, 110–11; legitimacy as a theoretical concept, 7, 34, 79– 80, 110–16, 123, 141–3; legitimacy of IR within social science, 25, 34, 46; positivism, 24, 27; power, 22–3, 25–8, 32–4, 36–8, 41–46, 99, 102–3, 110–12, 115, 164; problem of war, 23, 25, 27, 31–2, 35–6, 38–9,

46; reductionism vs. systems theory 11–12, 24, 30–1; structure, 6, 22, 29–32, 35, 37–8, 40–1, 117–18, 122, 165, 177–9, 198n55. See also constructivism; Foreign Policy Analysis (fpa); international norms; realism; realist-constructivist debate Iraq, 82, 84, 153–4 Jamieson, Don, 62, 64, 66, 130, 144 Jervis, Robert, 35–6, 46 Jiang, Wenran, 180 Johnson, Lyndon, 56 Kampuchea, 65, 144 Katzenstein, Peter, 106; with Ronald Jepperson and Alexander Wendt, 105 Keating, Tom, 127, 128, 132, 158; with Don Munton, 125 Keenleyside, T.A., 78, 157 Kennedy, Gerard, 179 Kennedy, John F., 55–6, 190n35 Keohane, Robert, 10, 24, 25, 104, 168, 174; with Stephen Krasner, 14; with Gary King and Sidney Verba, 106 Khadr, Omar, 89–91, 92, 179 Kimberley Process on conlict diamonds, 158 King, Mackenzie, 4–5, 49–50, 126, 130 Kitchen, Veronica, 79. See also Ottawa Treaty Kymlicka, Will, 153, 155 La Francophonie, 13, 56. See also multilateralism in Canadian foreign policy landmines. See Ottawa Treaty League of Nations, 125

Index

legitimacy. See International Relations (ir), legitimary as a theoretical concept liberal internationalism, 25, 174. See also idealism Machiavelli, Nicolò, 21, 25 Malone, David, 70, 150 Manhattan voyages, 60. See also Artic sovereignty Manley, John, 82 Marshall Plan, 126 Martin, Paul, 84, 91–2, 147, 153–4, 177–8 materialism. See realism, structural Matthews, Robert, 14, 61, 65, 68, 172 McNamara, Robert, 57, 132 Mearsheimer, John, 36, 37, 39, 45, 106, 169 Meech Lake Accord, 148–51 middle power, 52–6, 86, 120, 124, 129, 132–5, 137, 199n8 model power, 120, 199n8 Molot, Maureen Appel, 70 Morgenthau, Hans, 26–8 Mulroney, Brian, 60–1, 66–9, 74, 147–51, 156–8 multiculturalism. See Canada, multiculturalism multilateralism in Canadian foreign policy, 3–5, 13, 14, 51, 52, 60, 64, 80, 125, 128–30, 140, 144, 154, 157–9 NAFTA, 60–1, 148, 150 National Energy Program, 134 national identity, 7, 9–10, 16, 29, 41, 45, 99, 100–1, 103–4, 105–7, 109, 110–18, 164–8, 173; in Canadian foreign policy, 7, 12, 15, 16, 119–24,

239

124–30, 132, 133–42, 145, 146–55, 156–9, 161, 162–3. See also Canada; Canadian foreign policy (cfp); Canadian model of pluralism; internationalism; national unity national interests, 6, 9–10, 14, 16, 28–9, 33, 37, 41–6, 109, 116–18; in Canadian foreign policy, 47–9, 51– 61, 62, 68–9, 70–4, 82, 83–8, 93–4, 137–8, 173 nationalism, 41, 125–6, 133–4, 149–50, 153, 156, 167. See also Quebec national unity, 16–17, 56, 63, 120–3, 130, 133, 138–40, 142–6, 148, 150–1, 154–5, 164, 166–7 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 53–4, 56, 58–9, 63, 82, 87, 121, 127–8 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 62, 131 New hinking (nuvoye mishleniye), 103 niche diplomacy, 72–3, 77, 170, 173; principled pragmatism, 77 non-governmental organizations (NGOs). See non-state actors non-state actors, 9, 36, 40–1, 81, 99, 108, 110, 113, 115, 117, 150, 157, 166, 178 NORAD (North American Air Defence Command), 55, 121, 127, 190n35 norm entrepreneurs, 14, 113 North American Air Defence Command. See NORAD (North American Air Defence Command) North American Free Trade Agreement. See NAFTA North Atlantic Treaty Organization. See NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization)

240

Index

Nossal, Kim, 17, 47, 62, 63, 65, 66–7, 71, 72, 73, 77, 125, 129, 135, 156; with Nelson Michaud, 68 Nuremberg Trials, 123 October Crisis, 7. See also FLQ (Front de Libération du Québec) Oicial Development Assistance (ODA), 57, 65–6, 77, 92, 132–3, 145 Oicial Languages Act, 139 Organization of American States (OAS), 13. See also multilateralism Ottawa Process on antipersonnel landmines. See Ottawa Treaty Ottawa Treaty, 13, 79–80, 154, 158, 160 Parizeau, Jacques, 151 Partners in Development. See Pearson Commission peacekeeping, 55–6, 63, 78, 85–7, 132– 3, 135, 146, 159 Pearson Commission, 57, 63, 132 Pearson, Lester B., 5, 52–3, 55–7, 63, 77, 92, 128–9, 131–2, 137 Pettigrew, Pierre, 162 pinchpenny diplomacy, 73, 77, 81, 166. See also Nossal, Kim pluralism. See Canadian model Politics among Nations, 26, 30. See also Morgenthau, Hans post-Cold War, 16, 69–81; interregnum, 9, 81; new violence, 70, 151 power. See Canadian foreign policy (cfp); constructivism; International Relations (ir); realism Pratt, Cranford, 14, 61, 65, 68, 172 Quebec, 7, 135, 178–9; and the Canadian Constitution, 148–51,

202n126; culture and language, 135, 139, 141, 143–4, 149–50, 162; distinct society clause, 149–50; foreign policy, 63, 143–4; foreign relations with Africa, 63, 132; foreign relations with France, 56, 133, 135–6; nationalism and nationhood, 133, 135–6, 142–3, 178–9; separatism, 64, 120, 123, 143–4, 151–2, 162. See also Canada; Clarity Act; Quiet Revolution quiet diplomacy, 56, 65, 77 Quiet Revolution, 135 R2P, 13, 83, 91–92, 160 racial discrimination, 4, 15, 62, 131, 183n9, 186n54 rationalist-materialism. See realism, structural Reagan, Ronald, 60–61 realism; 21–2, 24–30; anarchy, 10, 23, 28, 31–3, 36–7, 41–2, 45–6; balance of power, 22, 28, 32–4, 36–8, 41–2, 44–5, 64; human rights and foreign policy, 40–5, 47; cheating and the limits of institutional cooperation, 22, 33, 44–5; objectivity and social scientiic laws, 26–7, 30–1, 38–9; positivism, 24, 28; power, 22–3, 25– 8, 32–4, 36–8, 41–6; security 29, 33, 35–7, 39, 41, 43–6; structural, 6, 8–11, 16, 22–4, 30–6, 37–40; values, 37, 39, 47; variants of, 21–2. See also International Relations (ir); realistconstructivist debate realist-constructivist debate, 6, 10–11, 24, 100, 102, 174, 184n25, 185n29 Reid, Escott, 52, 124 Responsibility to Protect. See R2P

Index

rhetoric-reality gap, 5, 8, 43, 44–6, 47, 67, 72, 75–7, 81, 87, 91–2, 123, 157, 161, 163 Risse, homas, 198n69; with Kathryn Sikkink, 113; with Stephen Ropp, 10 Robinson, Mary, 81 Rome Statute, 80. See also ICC (International Criminal Court) Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 25 Ruggie, John, 12, 35, 100, 103, 104–5, 107 Rwanda, 78. See also genocide; humanitarian intervention Schabas, William, 3, 50, 171–2 Second World War, 26; Canadian contributions, 51–2 security certiicates. See AntiTerrorism Act, security certiicates security dilemma, 29, 36, 74. See also game theory self-image. See national identity September 11th attacks on the United States, 9–10, 16, 36, 48, 81–3, 84–5, 88, 90, 93, 152, 160–1 settled norms, 9, 184n22 Sikkink, Kathryn, 9, 107; with Martha Finnemore, 109; with homas Risse, 113 Sino-Canadian relations. See bilateralism in Canadian foreign policy, Sino-Canadian relations Smith, Heather, 72 Smith, Steve, 11, 12, 170, 175 Social heory of International Politics, 100, 175. See also Wendt, Alexander soft power. See Canadian foreign policy, soft power Somalia, 78

241

South Africa. See apartheid sovereignty, 6, 8–10, 16, 41, 52, 60, 62, 67, 90–4, 113, 121, 122–3, 128, 133–6, 141, 144, 147, 160, 165, 168 Soviet-Canadian relations. See bilateralism in Canadian foreign policy, Soviet-Canadian relations Soviet Union. See USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) spiral model, 113. See also Risse homas, with Kathryn Sikkink Sri Lanka, 65, 67 Stairs, Denis, 12, 48, 51, 54, 86, 87, 130 Statute of Westminster, 52, 124, 170 Stein, Janice Gross, 48–49 St Laurent, Louis, 4 structural realism. See realism, structural Suez crisis, 55–6 Supreme Court of Canada, 90, 149– 52, 202n126 Taliban, 82. See also terrorism terrorism, 7, 9, 16, 36, 48, 64, 70–1, 76, 81–94, 133, 143, 151, 153, 160–1, 166, 174, 179, 184n24 hatcher, Margaret, 67 theoretical eclecticism, 6, 8, 11–12, 26, 107–8, 161, 169–71, 172–5, 181 heory of International Politics, 23, 30– 2, 46, 100. See also Waltz, Kenneth thick description, 11, 170–1 hucydides, 21, 25 Tiananmen Square incident (1989), 78, 157. See also bilateralism in Canadian foreign policy, SinoCanadian relations Tokyo Trials, 123 transnational advocacy networks, 9

242

Index

Trudeau, Alexandre, 89 Trudeau Doctrine, 137–38 Trudeau, Justin, 179 Trudeau, Pierre Elliott, 7, 51, 57–60, 63– 4, 68, 89, 133–4, 136–46, 149, 162, 177 Twenty-Years’ Crisis, ix, 25, 185n30. See also Carr, E.H.

utopianism, 25–6. See also idealism utopian realism, 25

UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights), 3–5, 8, 43, 49–50, 62, 123, 130–1, 171. See also DFAIT (Department of Foreign Afairs and International Trade) Uganda, 65, 144, 198n69 unilateralism in Canadian foreign policy, 79–80 United Kingdom. See Britain United Nations (UN), 3–5, 8, 13, 50, 52, 63–4, 70, 76, 78–80, 90, 123, 128–9, 132, 150, 159, 177, 183n9 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. See (UDHR) (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) universal sufrage, 15, 139 USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), 4–5, 29, 35, 50, 53–4, 56–7, 61–2, 67, 79, 72, 74, 103, 127, 134, 140, 150, 198n69 utilitarianism, 6–7, 29, 33, 48, 74, 107; prisoner’s dilemma, 21. See also realism

Waltz, Kenneth, 11, 16, 22–3, 30–6, 38–44, 45–6, 100–1. See also realism war crimes, 13, 80, 124. See also ICC (International Criminal Court); R2P War Measures Act, 64, 143 Welch, David, 187 Welsh, Jennifer, 86, 87, 154, 170 Wendt, Alexander, 11, 16, 100–3, 105– 12, 113–14, 117, 168, 174, 184n25. See also constructivism Wilsonian idealism, 25, 174. See also idealism World Conference on Human Rights (1993). See Vienna Conference (1993)

Vasquez, John, 23–4, 34, 46 Vienna Conference (1993), 157–8 Vietnam War, 56, 134 Vincent, R.J., 37

Yugoslavia, 67, 78 Zehfuss, Maja, 99–100, 106, 108