Reflections on systemism, Canadian foreign policy and international relations

In January 2019, a leading Canadian foreign policy blog, OpenCanada.org, declared that “[u]nder the government of Justin Trudeau, Canada has embraced a feminist foreign policy—gradually at first, and with fervor over the past year.” Although critics have debated the policy’s effectiveness, the embrace, if not also the fervor, was indisputable. By 2019, the Trudeau government’s second foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, was proclaiming Canada’s feminist approach to international relations openly and regularly. The international community had also noticed. This article investigates the origins of the new Canadian foreign policy “brand.” It finds that, contrary to popular thinking, the prime minister himself played at most a minor role in the initiation of what became a full-fledged transformation of Canada’s global image.

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SKYHAWK, SKYSHIELD, AND THE SOVIETS: REVISITING CANADA'S COLD WAR

The Historical Journal ◽

10.1017/s0018246x17000292 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 61 (2) ◽

pp. 453-475

Author(s):

ASA MCKERCHER ◽

TIMOTHY ANDREWS SAYLE

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Foreign Policy ◽

Cold War ◽

International Relations ◽

The United States ◽

Full Account ◽

The Past ◽

Canadian Foreign Policy ◽

The Cold War

AbstractFor the past two decades, Canadian international historians have largely missed the Cold War, or at least a significant portion of it. Certainly, there has been no shortage of studies of Canadian foreign policy featuring the bipolar struggle, and yet historians have largely confined their attention to Canada's admittedly crucial relationship with the United States, while Canadian–Soviet relations have been ignored. Indeed, in the historiography of Canada's Cold War international relations, the communist powers are largely missing. Hoping to challenge this limited focus, we frame our article around two Canada–US air defence exercises held in 1959 and 1960. While historians have viewed these exercises within the context of Canada's relationship with the United States, we highlight the wider Cold War framework in which Canadian policy was formed. After all, these exercises occurred during the mini-détente of the late 1950s and the collapse of the Paris summit in May 1960. As we demonstrate, the failure to take full account of the Cold War is a shortcoming of much of the writing on Canadian international relations, and so we offer an example of the need to take seriously Canada's foreign policy toward the communist bloc.

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Notable Exceptions? New and Arrested Directions in Canadian Foreign Policy Literature

Canadian Journal of Political Science ◽

10.1017/s0008423900000469 ◽

1993 ◽

Vol 26 (4) ◽

pp. 745-774 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

David R. Black ◽

Heather A. Smith

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

International Relations ◽

Comparative Politics ◽

Epistemic Community ◽

External Influences ◽

Historical Materialist ◽

Canadian Foreign Policy ◽

Theoretical Condition

AbstractThe literature on Canadian Foreign Policy has often been characterized as overly descriptive and theoretically weak. This type of characterization, advanced most recently by Maureen Molot, is no longer wholly accurate. By reviewing several relatively recent contributions and debates in this literature, it is demonstrated that in pockets, the subfield has advanced substantially in theoretical sophistication. Nevertheless, it continues to manifest important gaps and limited cumulation. The article speculates on why this should be so, and on how the theoretical condition of the subfield can be advanced. Approaches which incorporate the interplay of internal and external influences on policy, which borrow from important developments in the wider fields of International Relations and Comparative Politics, and which engage in comparison across issue-areas, countries and time are advocated. Applications drawing on “historical materialist,” regime, and epistemic community literatures are specifically promoted.

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Cultural Diplomacy in Canadian Foreign Policy

Russia and America in the 21st Century ◽

10.18254/s207054760015924-3 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 0

Author(s):

Tatiana Shchukina

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

International Relations ◽

Cultural Diplomacy ◽

National Interest ◽

Roles And Responsibilities ◽

Canadian Foreign Policy ◽

Government Of Canada ◽

Unique Potential ◽

State Regional

In furthering its foreign policy, Canada, as other countries, uses its reputation, advantage and assets to enhance its national interest, and to strengthen its state-to-state, regional and international relations. Comprising a range of instruments, a country's culture and arts stand out as having the unique potential to enrich its foreign policy. Culture and arts have long played a role in Canada's international relations. Government of Canada should develop and implement a comprehensive cultural diplomacy strategy that establish its objectives within the context of Canada's foreign policy, articulate roles and responsibilities, and identify the budgetary resources necessary for the strategy's realization.

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‘Walking Wombs’: Making Sense of the Muskoka Initiative and the Emphasis on Motherhood in Canadian Foreign Policy

Global Justice : Theory Practice Rhetoric ◽

10.21248/gjn.8.1.58 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Rebecca Tiessen

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

International Relations ◽

Sexual And Reproductive Health ◽

Health Needs ◽

Colonial Literature ◽

Women's Bodies ◽

Post Colonial ◽

Making Sense ◽

Canadian Foreign Policy ◽

And Child Health

The Muskoka Initiative – or the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) Initiative has been a flagship foreign policy strategy of the Harper Conservatives since it was introduced in 2010. However, the maternal health initiative has been met with a number of key criticisms in relation to its failure to address the sexual and reproductive health needs of women in the Global South2. In this article, I examine these criticisms and expose the prevalent and problematic discourse employed in Canadian policy papers and official government speeches pertaining to the MNCH Initiative. I examine the embodiment of the MNCH and how these references to women’s bodies as “walking wombs” facilitate: the objectification and ‘othering’ of women as mothers and childbearers; a discourse of ‘saving mothers’ in a paternalistic and essentialist language; and the purposeful omission of gender equality. Feminist International Relations (IR) and post-colonial literature, as well as critical/feminist Canadian foreign policy scholarship are employed in this paper to frame these critiques.

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Reflexive Pluralism in IR: Canadian Contributions to Worlding the Global South

International Studies Perspectives ◽

10.1093/isp/ekab001 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

W R Nadège Compaoré ◽

Stéphanie Martel ◽

J Andrew Grant

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

International Relations ◽

Policy Research ◽

Global South ◽

Government Policies ◽

Asia Pacific ◽

Canadian Foreign Policy ◽

American Hegemony ◽

The Impact ◽

Opening Up

Abstract Observers of the evolution of international relations (IR) theory often point to an American hegemony in the discipline on a global level. However, more recent analyses show that there has been a systematic and increasing Canadianization of IR scholarship in Canada since the 1990s, facilitated by government policies that fostered the hiring of domestic candidates and the creation of Canadian foreign policy research centers. This process has by no means been a cohesive one, yet it reflects a tendency in Canadian IR to make room for a pluralism in ontological as well as epistemological and methodological terms. This opening up of space for diversity is an important yet underappreciated characteristic of Canadian IR's contribution to the discipline, which has not been seriously examined beyond the study of Canadian foreign policy. This article assesses the impact of Canadian IR scholarship on the development of a “Global IR” through an examination of its contributions to Asia-Pacific and African IR. We argue that despite its heterogeneity, Canadian IR scholarship in both areas is characterized by a common set of elements that, taken together, reflect a distinctly Canadian way of studying and practicing IR in relation to the Global South: pluralism and reflexivism.

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International Relations at the Beginning of the XX Century in the Works of Vladimir Mikhailovich Khvostov

Journal of Educational and Social Research ◽

10.2478/jesr-2019-0074 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (4) ◽

pp. 218-221

Author(s):

Albina Imamutdinova ◽

Nikita Kuvshinov ◽

Elena Andreeva ◽

Elena Venidiktova

Keyword(s):

Social Sciences ◽

Foreign Policy ◽

International Relations ◽

Significant Role ◽

Research Activities ◽

History Of

Abstract The article discusses the research activities of Vladimir Mikhailovich Khvostov, his creative legacy on issues and problems of international relations of the early ХХ century; the life of V.M. Khvostov, characterization and evolution of his approaches and views on the history of international relations, foreign policy. A prominent organizer and theorist in the field of pedagogical Sciences, academician Vladimir Mikhailovich Khvostov played a significant role in the formation of the Academy of pedagogical Sciences of the USSR – the all-Union center of pedagogical thought. As its first President, he paid great attention to the development and improvement of the system of humanitarian education in the school, taking into account all the tasks and requirements imposed by the practice of Communist construction in our country. In his reports and speeches at various scientific sessions and conferences, he repeatedly emphasized the exceptional importance of social Sciences in the training of not only educated girls and boys, but also in the formation of politically literate youth.

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Basic principles of Russian foreign policy under Vladimir Putin

Upravlenie ◽

10.26425/2309-3633-2020-8-4-116-122 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 116-122

Author(s):

Sadeghi Elham Mir Mohammad ◽

Ahmad Vakhshitekh

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

International Relations ◽

World Order ◽

Policy Decision ◽

Point Of View ◽

Russian Foreign Policy ◽

National Interests ◽

Basic Principles ◽

Interstate Relations ◽

The Moment

The article considers and analyses the basic principles and directions of Russian foreign policy activities during the presidency of V.V. Putin from the moment of his assumption of the post of head of state to the current presidential term. The authors determine the basic principles of Russia's foreign policy in the specified period and make the assessment to them. The study uses materials from publications of both Russian and foreign authors, experts in the field of political science, history and international relations, as well as documents regulating the foreign policy activities of the highest state authorities. The paper considers the process of forming the priorities of Russia's foreign policy both from the point of view of accumulated historical experience and continuity of the internal order, and in parallel with the processes of transformation of the entire system of international relations and the world order. The article notes the multi-vector nature of Russia's foreign policy strategy aimed at developing multilateral interstate relations, achieving peace and security in the interstate arena, actively countering modern challenges and threats to interstate security, as well as the formation of a multipolar world. The authors conclude that at present, Russia's foreign policy activity is aimed at strengthening Russia's prestige, supporting economic growth and competitiveness, ensuring security and implementing national interests. Internal political reforms contribute to strengthening the political power of the President of the Russian Federation and increasing the efficiency of foreign policy decision-making.

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