This year's edition of Canada Among Nations offers a critical overview of a number of landmarks in the last hundred years of Canadian foreign policy. The editors take a critical look at the now almost mainstream "declinist" thesis and at the continued relevance of Canada's relationships with its principal allies - the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. Contributors discuss a broad range of themes, including the weight of a changing identity in the evolution of the country's foreign policy, the fate of Canadian diplomacy as a profession, the often complicated relationship between foreign and trade policies, the impact of immigration and refugee procedures on foreign policy, and the evolving understanding of development and defence as components of Canada's foreign policy.
Marking the 25th anniversary of the series, Canada Among Nations 2009 focuses on how leading foreign and Canadian thinkers and doers assess Canada's prospects in a world in which the US will become more pre-eminent and predominant. The rise of China, India, Russia, and Brazil as well as the increased significance of Europe and the further development of Africa are all transforming the context in which Canadians live. Given the change in the tone, style, and substance of American foreign policy, and the need to deal with unprecedented international financial problems and global economic retreat, the topic of this volume is especially timely. Canada will need to formulate sound policies on key issues such as energy and environmental sustainability, nuclear nonproliferation, human rights, and trade and investment in key areas such as Afghanistan and the Middle East. Astute bilateral diplomacy and constructive engagement in multilateral forums such as the United Nations and the G20 will be crucial to Canada's success. Contributors to this volume critique Canada's performance on the world stage, offering advice on initiatives Canada can take in its own and in the common interest.
From 1948 to 1966, the United Nations worked to create a common legal standard for human rights protection around the globe. Resisting Rights traces the Canadian government’s changing policy toward this endeavour, from initial opposition to a more supportive approach. Jennifer Tunnicliffe takes both international and domestic developments into account to explain how shifting cultural understandings of rights influenced policy, and to underline the key role of Canadian rights activists in this process. In light of Canada’s waning reputation as a traditional leader in developing human rights standards at the United Nations, this is a timely study. Tunnicliffe situates policies within their historical context to reveal that Canadian reluctance to be bound by international human rights law is not a recent trend, and asks why governments have found it important to foster the myth that Canada has been at the forefront of international human rights policy.
In the decade following the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, economic and political relations between Canada and Mexico have expanded significantly. Today, Canada and Mexico are each other's third largest trading partners and, outside of the United States, Mexico is the second largest tourist and business destination for Canadians. In the face of increasing competition from Asia, Canada and Mexico need to strengthen their economic competitiveness by leveraging their comparative advantages more effectively. In a multi-polar world, Canada and Mexico have an opportunity to utilize their North-South partnership to provide leadership on the pressing issues of our time, such as climate change, transnational crime, and global crisis management. In Canada Among Nations, 2011-2012 a leading group of Canadian, Mexican, and American academics, policy makers, politicians, journalists, and energy and climate change experts offer substantive recommendations for Ottawa and Mexico City to realise the full potential of their strategic relationship. Canada Among Nations is the premier source for contemporary insight into pressing Canadian foreign policy issues. This volume continues that tradition by providing students, policy makers, and business people with a timely compendium of expert opinion on Canada-Mexico relations.
The objective of The Oxford Handbook of Migration Crises is to deconstruct, question, and redefine through a critical lens what is commonly understood as "migration crises." The volume covers a wide range of historical, economic, social, political, and environmental conditions that generate migration crises around the globe. At the same time, it illuminates how the media and public officials play a major role in framing migratory flows as crises. The volume brings together an exceptional group of scholars from around the world to critically examine migration crises and to revisit the notion of crisis through the context in which permanent and non-permanent migration flows occur. The Oxford Handbook of Migration Crises offers an understanding of individuals in societies, socio-economic structures, and group processes. Focusing on migrants' departures and arrivals in all continents, this comprehensive handbook explores the social dynamics of migration crises, with an emphasis on factors that propel these flows as well as the actors that play a role in classifying them and in addressing them. The volume is organized into nine sections. The first section provides a historical overview of the link between migration and crises. The second looks at how migration crises are constructed, while the third section contextualizes the causes and effects of protracted conflicts in producing crises. The fourth focuses on the role of climate and the environment in generating migration crises, while the fifth section examines these migratory flows in migration corridors and transit countries. The sixth section looks at policy responses to migratory flows, The last three sections look at the role media and visual culture, gender, and immigrant incorporation play in migration crises.
The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) allocates vast sums of money each year, providing vital assistance to countless individuals across the developing world. Yet many observers and insiders have sharply criticized CIDA for its lack of concrete results. Presenting a range of work by scholars and practitioners, this collection offers the most comprehensive examination of CIDA's efforts in over a decade. Contributors explore recent trends in Canadian foreign aid, including topics such as its place in Canadian politics, gender and security concerns, advocacy and public engagement, the complexity of CIDA policies, and CIDA's relationship with non-governmental organizations. The perspectives assembled in Struggling for Effectiveness bring clarity to the issue of foreign aid while judiciously gauging Canada's record and offering concrete suggestions for strengthening CIDA's efforts to help people living in poverty. Extensively researched and comprehensive in scope, Struggling for Effectiveness will be indispensable to anyone interested in Canadian assistance abroad and Canada's place in a rapidly changing world. Contributors include Stephen Baranyi (University of Ottawa), David Black (Dalhousie University), Elizabeth Blackwood (Simon Fraser University), Stephen Brown (University of Ottawa), Dominique Caouette (Université de Montréal), Adam Chapnick (Canadian Forces College), Denis Côté (Canadian Council for International Cooperation), Molly den Heyer (Dalhousie University), Nilima Gulrajani (Oxford University), Hunter McGill (University of Ottawa), Anca Paducel (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva), Rosalind Raddatz (University of Ottawa), Ian Smillie (independent scholar and consultant), Veronika Stewart (Simon Fraser University), and Liam Swiss (Memorial University of Newfoundland).
Established in 1961, the same year as the US Peace Corps, Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO) became the first Canadian NGO to undertake development work from a secular stance and in a context of rapid decolonization. Over the next twenty-five years, nine thousand volunteers, many of them women, travelled to over forty countries and became Canada’s face in the Global South. Drawing on more than one hundred interviews, Brouwer tells the story of how these young Canadians responded to the challenges of “underdevelopment.” Moving beyond their initial naïveté, they sought to fit into the host communities that had invited them and to provide social services, particularly in education. Returning home, they brought unique skills to the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and other development organizations and a new level of global consciousness and cultural diversity to Canadian society. At a time when many are concerned about Canada’s waning reputation for global humanitarianism, this book reminds us of an earlier, more hopeful time.
In Canada Looks South, experts on foreign policy in Canada and Central America provide a timely exploration of Canada's growing role in the Americas and the most pressing issues of the region.
