Looking back to and forward from Kim Richard Nossal’s The Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy

Looking back at the third edition of Kim Richard Nossal’s The Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy ¹ , what stands out is the parsimony of the core argumentation. Unlike other works that emerged in the post-Cold War years, or for that matter the literature that has subsequently appeared in the post-9/11 and post-financial crisis eras, including the collection making up this year’s John Holmes special issue of International Journal, the writing style and analytical logic are concisely targeted. Theoretical tools are used but only as a means to the end: to demonstrate that Canadian foreign policy (CFP) is animated by a combination of location (with the key conditioning factor in terms of the external environment taken as geography and a sense of neighbourhood) and the approach of core state authorities (with a concentrated focus in the domestic context on those officials with the “capability to exercise supreme political authority”). ²

Such succinctness has some impressive advantages in its ability to capture in broad strokes the transformation of CFP under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, not an easy task 17 years on. In conceptual terms, Nossal’s skepticism about the ability of the traditional competing frameworks to provide an accurate understanding of particularistic Canadian conditions plays well in anticipating the Harper government’s non-conformity to any of these models. Although at times Prime Minister Harper has evoked the mantra of Canada’s middle power personality, ³ this framework fails to come to terms with the essence of Harper’s foreign policy. But equally, Canada doesn’t look or act according to classic representations of a dependent state by operating as a super-ally. Certainly, there is both an outlier and abrasive component to Harper’s foreign policy that is a poor fit with any image of subservience. And, although at least in some aspects of soft power (“Own the Podium” with respect to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, for example) Canada has projected itself as a foremost power, in objective terms it is difficult to interpret Canada as a country that has moved up the global hierarchical league tables. Even where the Harper government has acted with some degree of comparative advantage, notably on issues such as financial regulation, the impression is of a country that is maintaining rather than enhancing its position in a shifting multi-polar world.

In a more substantive fashion looking forward, what the Nossal book does quite accurately is provide a script that foresees the subordination of the CFP component in his title to the forces of politics. Yet, even Nossal should be surprised about how fast and far this process has gone. Nossal, akin to other commentators during the post-Cold War period, expected the embedded Canadian outlook and pillars of doing things operationally would persist, with continuity trumping change. Although Nossal is careful to suggest that what “will hold in one era will not obtain in another,” ⁴ as thoroughly rehearsed in the book, the attributes of the underlying conditions biasing CFP toward internationalism were deemed strong. The contest was viewed not so much on the question of if but how this internationalism could and should come to the fore, debates in which Nossal vigorously participated at a later date in his critiques of the “initiative-itis” of Lloyd Axworthy on land mines, the International Criminal Court, and other (to Nossal, relatively unimportant) issue-specific areas as opposed to central interests. ⁵ If Axworthy receives only a few innocuous sentences in the book under review, there are hints about how this later debate came to be played out in the treatment of the Mulroney and Chrétien governments in their non-focus on the main game vis-à-vis the security arena. You can feel the edge of Nossal’s writing becoming sharper when he comments generally on the “modest military commitment” ⁶ favoured by Canadian prime ministers or with even greater frustration over Chrétien’s lack of enthusiasm for a more muscular approach. ⁷

This is not to suggest that Canada—at odds with Nossal’s interpretation—has reversed course completely from internationalism to embrace an all-encompassing form of parochialism. After all, on Afghanistan, the Harper government raised the bar for engagement in a risk-oriented fashion. Nonetheless, it seems clear that this form of activity, as with others in the CFP domain, was designed in large part to consolidate a political project that Nossal considered a distant memory: reviving within Canada a political culture that was based on the legacies of the First and Second World Wars (with strong references to Vimy Ridge and D-Day) as opposed to the peacekeeping dimension associated with Lester Pearson. ⁸ If there were added attractions in terms of Canada’s status in North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance dynamics, broadening the terms of engagement was sold to the Canadian population on the grounds that it presented a different kind of Canada from the years of under-performance in terms of hard power.

To highlight that it is the politics dimension, as opposed to CFP per se, that has jumped to the fore also suggests the need to rebalance Nossal’s core determinants. The record of the Harper government reinforces the take-away that giving primacy to “government sources” ⁹ is indispensable, even if the nuances about which of these sources are most salient requires more extensive debate. While there is an intellectual justification—and excitement—about exploring the “other world” ¹⁰ that Nossal alludes to at the end of the book, the compression and contraction with the intention to put CFP “back in the box” moves the mode of examination to the apex of power. Yet, if Nossal can be credited with getting the big picture right about the general trajectory of the conduct of foreign policy with respect to motivational and procedural drivers, on the details of CFP about the where and even how and by whom it is conducted the reading is less valuable, with the need for a substantive rewrite. ¹¹

As noted at the outset, Nossal represents CFP as the product of core external and domestic contextual conditions. On both geography and sense of neighbourhood, however, his interpretation is at odds with the core concerns of Canadian international relations under current circumstances. Territory has not withered away completely as a conditioning factor, but it has morphed in a manner that Nossal doesn’t capture from a time-specific vantage point. Notably, in the book, Nossal gives short shrift to the Arctic as opposed to the continental environment, with an “inexorable southern orientation.” ¹² But the Harper government has aimed to alter if not reverse this focal point in a concerted manner, including its recent move to claim the region near and surrounding the North Pole as part of the outer limits of its continental shelf. Moreover, the Harper government has tried to demonstrate in a number of important ways that location is not destiny. If market access to the US is still the economic side of Canada’s main game, what is striking is the push reminiscent of the Third Option of the 1970s toward diversification, with a focus this time on China (with a U-turn on concerns about human rights) and the ambitious Canada–European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement.

Indeed, one of the most striking features of the Harper government’s foreign policy has been the downplaying of connections based on physical location in comparison with those based on non-geographic affinities. Relationships with the United Kingdom, Australia, and Israel have been played up, while the sense of Canada belonging to a larger North America neighbourhood has been marred by the serious irritant with Mexico over visas for Mexican travellers.

The willingness of the Harper government to risk offence with neighbouring states reveals from another angle how the orthodoxies of the past can be fundamentally altered. Even if revealing some frustration in terms of practices, especially when it is connected with what he sees as symbolic as opposed to instrumental activity, Nossal builds a portrait of political culture of CFP that is highly resistant to change. Akin to mainstream scholarship, in the tradition of John Holmes, the diffuse organizational membership and cautious instincts of Canadian diplomacy will be privileged over unilateral and muscular options. To be sure, Nossal acknowledges that in this multi-linkage domain, Canada will choose to focus on some international organizations over others. But he still points to the role of Canada as a “great joiner.” ¹³ Similarly, from a procedural perspective, Nossal privileges the use of persuasion and the use of influence through a skilled diplomatic corps. ¹⁴

On the how, as much as the where, CFP has been shape-shifted in a manner that moves well beyond the template offered by Nossal. As witnessed by Andrew Cohen’s 2003 book, as criticisms mounted in the immediate post-9/11 era, a likely prediction would have been a revival of Canada’s diplomatic capabilities. ¹⁵ Nonetheless, against this expectation, what we have seen in the Harper years is an accelerated decline of the foreign policy establishment. While cost cutting played a role, the biggest factor was simply a disconnection between the older diplomatic culture and the approach of the Harper government. Such a break is of course not completely new, as noted in Nossal’s survey of the earlier challenge to the older culture by the Trudeau government. What is different, though, is the pattern of association that goes along with the disconnection. Trudeau was willing to use Canada’s leverage in specific cases, whether on the Arctic or in episodes related to the contours of Canadian federalism. But there was no appetite for defining “enemies” in an explicit fashion out ahead of other countries. On the contrary, the standard criticism of the Trudeau government was an over-eagerness to woo friends in the second and third worlds of the time.

The massive difference between looking forward to the Harper government as opposed to Nossal’s looking back at the Trudeau era is the former’s willingness to go it alone on major bilateral relationships. In terms of the embedded culture, this shock is not complete as the Harper government has not moved to transform the Canada–Cuba relationship. But there is no equivalent in Nossal’s comprehensive coverage for Canada to sever ties with a country in a decisive and out-in-front manner, as witnessed by the unilateral move to cut off all direct diplomatic ties with Iran, complete with the sudden closing of the embassy and the expulsion of all Iranian diplomatic personnel from Canada in September 2012.

Still, the paradox in looking back at Nossal’s book, with an eye to gaining insights about what CFP looks like moving forward, comes beyond the where and how to the who in the ambit of decision making. As noted, Nossal gets the big picture broadly right in showcasing the dominance of the nexus between politics and core state authorities. Where the predictive value of Nossal’s work as a guide for current debates falls down is by not pressing the argumentation further to its logical conclusion. Nossal takes it for granted that the prime minister, aided by the Prime Minister’s Office and the Privy Council Office, had gained a lock in terms of a pre-eminent status at the apex of power. He hedges his bet, nonetheless, in maintaining that this pre-eminence will allow space for other actors including not only the bureaucracy but also Parliament, the provinces, and relations with colleagues in cabinet. ¹⁶

The transformation to this hub component of CFP has been remarkable. If the prime minister’s office has been the big winner in the recalibration, the biggest losers have come from other categories of actors. In the past, prime ministers ran with select major initiatives, often because of the personal qualities that Nossal highlights. No recent prime minister, though, has moved to manage foreign policy in such a consistent fashion with such an ingrained political rationale.

Nossal’s “wider circle” has been radically reduced. Whereas previous prime ministers enabled past and present rivals to exert foreign policy influence, the dynamics of the Harper government have moved to consolidate synergies. After cycling through a number of low-profile ministers, the appointment of John Baird as foreign minister has accentuated the pattern of centralization, complete with the absorption of the Canadian International Development Agency into Baird’s over-arching portfolio.

The extent of this paradox radiates out in a number of other ways as well. Although Nossal devotes a stand-alone chapter to prime ministers and summit diplomacy, the centrality of summit diplomacy has diminished, at least at the leadership level, in the Harper years notwithstanding the continued ascendancy of this process in scope and intensity within global politics. In contrast to Paul Martin’s championing of the L20/G20, Harper has produced a low-key profile, even when he hosted the Toronto summit in June 2010. Pride of place was given by way of contrast to a new wave of technocrats, above all the governor of the Bank of Canada, Mark Carney. Moreover, as exhibited by his non-attendance at the October 2013 Sri Lanka Commonwealth summit, Harper has quite clearly put domestic politics ahead of organizational maintenance. Equally, when the prime minister has travelled to other summits, the tendency has been to take an outward in approach. A case in point was his attendance at the October 2012 La Francophonie in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, where the main focal point was Harper’s first meeting with Quebec’s premier, Pauline Marois.

Assessing Nossal’s textbook through a dualistic lens—not only of looking back but forward—is by its very nature distorted, in that the purpose of the work was to provide insights on what was “a particular state at a particular time in history.” ¹⁷ What can be laid out as hits and misses in terms of analysis inevitably can be dramatically reversed with subsequent political change. The authentic question for future texts on CFP will be whether Nossal’s work serves as the foundational standard or a contested point of comparison. If the latter, the complexity of the “other world” or “worlds” studiously avoided by The Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy must be brought more fully and creatively into the analysis—factoring in the activities and relative influence of transnational civil society, gender, capital flows, multinational corporations, and the global reach of philanthropic foundations, to name just a few. If the former, deeper attention will be devoted to the evolving dynamics of central agencies and key political advisors, the realignment of the old foreign policy establishment into a new securitization-oriented bureaucracy, and the constellation of interest groups highly relevant to the intense application of politics to CFP. Whether admired for its parsimony or critiqued for its gaps, however, Nossal’s book has proved difficult to dislodge on the basis of reputational shelf life, a worthwhile achievement for a book written in such a different moment of politics and CFP.