“Middle power blues”: Canadian policy and international security after the cold war

ID:	HARP-432
Title:	“Middle power blues”: Canadian policy and international security after the cold war
Source:	American Review of Canadian Studies , v.28(1/2) Spr/Summ’98 pg 131-156
Parties:
Dispute Resolution Organ:
Year:	1998
Pages:	0
Author(s):
Keywords:	Canada, human rights, United Nations, foreign policy, diplomacy, civil and political rights, security, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Tr, liberty
Abstract:	Canada has recently reaffirmed its standing as a Middle Power. By taking an important stance on issues such as peacebuilding and the outlawing of antipersonnel landmines, by promoting a shift to human security, and by supporting the setup of the UN-sponsored international criminal court, Canadian foreign policy has asserted its traditional commitment to a Middle Power role. And it is prepared to go farther; in the words of the former Director General of the Planning Secretariat at the Department of Foreign Affairs, “While we have been proud of our respected role as middle power in the past, today, objectively, we are aiming at a global reach. Therefore we think that `global’ middle power would fit the bill.” This ambitious agenda is supported by arguments that Canada can practice what scholars such as Andrew Cooper and Evan Potter call “niche diplomacy” in areas associated with the exercise of “soft power” (information technology is a telling example of a new “niche”); this would allow Ottawa “to maintain a high profile on the international stage.”These hopes are commendable but will need to confront the changes brought upon Canadian foreign policy by transformations in the international system that, in our view, tend to diminish, not increase, the overall leverage Canada has had (and will continue to have) as a Middle Power. In the future, Canada may find it more difficult merely to retain its traditional Middle Power status.
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