Intro - Jan 5th

When we talk about a country’s foreign policies, what policy areas or types of policies are we talking about? 

  • Economic and international relations (grey: from audience, not lec slides/prof) 

  • International climate agreements 

  • Grand strategies (trade, environment, econ, etc) 

  • National security policies 

  • Alliances and international organizations (Canada: NATO, UN, commonwealth, g7 and g20, etc) 

  • Bilateral relations with individual countries 

  • International trade 

  • Foreign aid, humanitarian assistance 

  • Immigration, refugees 

  • Cooperation on environment, public health, crime, and many other more ‘domestic’ policies (coordination, better mobilization of aid supplies) 

Determining FP on different matters: 

* What factors determine what a country’s foreign policy will be on these issues? 

* Does which party is in power matter? 

  • Some aspects of a country's foreign policy will be the same no matter which party is in power, due to: 

  • Common national interests 

  • Inertia, path dependence 

  • External commitments such as treaties, trade deals, alliances, and international organizations 

Parties and foreign policy 

  • some aspects of foreign policy are determined by ideology/philosophy 

  • Which party is in power can matter 

  • Therefore, we must look at the foreign policy ideology or beliefs of different parties 

  • (conservative and liberal) differ on foreign aid/intervention, immigration, climate change, UN (international law), trade agreements, etc 

Ideologies and foreign policy 

  • Also, different leaders from the same party can have very different FP’s 

  • Is bc parties are made up of different ideological factions  

  • Which faction is dominant (in the party) matters (all political parties are coalitions) 

  • E.g. trump: conservative nationalists (republican party), there’s also neoconservatives (differ on foreign interventions) 

  • Therefore, we must look at the foreign policy ideology of different factions/leaders 

  • Head of cia, national security adviser, treasury board, etc 

FP Ideologies 

  • We can identify 7 main foreign policy ideologies, range from left-wing to right-wing 

FP ideologies/approaches 

  1. Left 

  • Profressivism 

  • Bernie sanders, Jagmeet Singh 

  • Less money on military, more on humanitarian aid, un, domestic stuff, etc 

 

  1. Centre-Left 

  • Liberal internationalism 

  • Modern democrats, joe biden, J. Trudeau (between centre-left and left) 

 

  1. Centre 

  • Modern conservatives, George H. W. Bush, red tories, mark carney (shifted FP from centre-left to centre after trudeau–more realist) 

  • Realism 

 

  1. Centre-right 

  • Neoconservative (steven harper) 

  • More aggressive, use of military 

  • Libertarianism (neoliberals) –pulling out of NATO, more isolationist 

 

  1. Right 

  • Social (religious) conservatism (evangelical christians, conservative catholics) –trump 

  • Conservative nationalism 

 

THe FP policy spectrum 

  • A party’s fp preferences are a compromise between different ideological factions 

  • Green: progressivism 

  • NDP: progressivism, LI 

  • Bloc quebecois: LI, progressivism 

  • Liberal, LI, realism, progressivism 

  • Conservative: neocon, libertarian, realism socon, nationalist 

  • People’s party: nationalist 

 

Constraints on foreign policy 

  • Parties seek to promote foreign policies based on their ideologies 

  • However, cant always do what they want due to constraints such as:  

  1. Events: 

  • Events happen that can distract from parties from their agenda 

  • E.g. trump election and pandemic, once they get into power, stuff happens, hard to implement everything promised 

  • Old British PM Harold Macmillan, asked what could potentially derail his agenda: “events dear boy, events” 

  1. Domestic reaction: 

  • Parties are constrained by public opinion and need to get re-elected 

  • Lobbying by diasporas (groups from a country outside of the nation they’re in?) 

  • Diaspora politics, policies toward countries that have a large population in a nation 

  1. Economic dependence: 

  • Canada is very depended on US (also China) 

  • Canadian business community often lobbies for good relations 

 

Predicting a country’s foreign policies 

  1. Is there a common national interest on the specific issue? 

  1. Which party is in power? 

  1. Which faction or factions are in power in that party? 

  1. What are their beliefs on the issue/which issues do they prioritize? 

  1. What domestic and foreign constraints do they face in promoting their beliefs?