Fall/Winter Timetable

POL312H1F L0101

Canadian Foreign Policy Performance

Themes

Since 1945, the study and practice of Canadian foreign policy (CFP) have been dominated by a liberal-internationalist theory focused on Canada’s pursuit, as a middle power, of harmonious multilateral associations and shared international values. This view has usually been challenged by a peripheral dependence theory, which depicts a small, penetrated Canada heavily constrained at home and abroad by dominant American power. This course also presents a third, complex neo-realist theory which suggests that Canada has emerged, in a more diffuse interconnected international system, as a principal power focused on globally advancing its own national interests, competitively pursuing external initiatives and promoting a world order directly supportive of Canada’s distinctive values. The course assesses how each theory describes and explains CFP from 1945 to the present, first by outlining the three theories, then assesses their accuracy by applying then to successive Canadian governments’ major doctrines, resource distributions, and decisions.

Texts

John Kirton (2007). Canadian Foreign Policy in a Changing World (Toronto: Thomson Nelson).
Duane Bratt and Chris Kukucha, eds. (2015). Readings in Canadian Foreign Policy: Classic Debates and New Ideas (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 3rd edition).

Format and Requirements

A two hour lecture course, once a week, with no tutorials
1. Test worth one-third of the final grade.
2. Research Essy worth two-thirds of the overall course grade.

Prerequisites

POL208H1 or POL208Y1 or POL209H5 or POLB80H3

Exclusions
POL312Y1