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Welfare Institutions and Foreign Aid: Domestic Foundations of Canadian Foreign Policy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

Jean-Philippe Thérien
Affiliation:
Université de Montréal
Alain Noël
Affiliation:
Université de Montréal

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between Canada's development assistance policy and its welfare state institutions. Through an analysis of the Canadian experience, the article argues that the differences between the social policies of developed countries help to understand the nature of their participation in the international aid regime. Although this hypothesis is not entirely new, it is here refined with the help of the comparative literature on the welfare state, and assessed systematically for Canada. Through this case study, the article explores the extent to which values and principles institutionalized at the domestic level influence foreign policy and the international order.

Résumé

Cet article étudie la relation entre la politique d'aide au développement du Canada et son Etat-providence. L'article soutient que les différences entre les politiques sociales des pays développés permettent d'expliquer la nature de leur participation au régime international de l'aide. Cette hypothèse n'est pas tout à fait, nouvelle, mais elle est ici réévaluée à la lumière de la littérature comparative sur l'Etat-providence, et appliquée au cas du Canada. L'article explore dans quelle mesure les valeurs et les principes institutionnalisés au niveau interne influencent la politique étrangère et l'ordre international.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1994

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References

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2 The most thorough exploration of this hypothesis is found in the two companion volumes by Pratt, Cranford, ed., Internationalism under Strain: The North-South Policies of Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989)Google Scholar; and Stokke, Olav, ed., Western Middle Powers and Global Poverty: The Determinants of the Aid Policies of Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden (Uppsala: The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1989)Google Scholar.

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4 In their recent survey of the literature, David R. Black and Heather A. Smith argue we should draw from “the wider body of international and comparative politics literature,” “engage in comparison across countries, issue areas and time” and better integrate the domestic and international determinants of Canadian foreign policy. This is basically what we are trying to do in this article (Black, David R. and Smith, Heather A., “Notable Exceptions? New and Arrested Directions in Canadian Foreign Policy Literature,” this JOURNAL 26 [1993], 755Google Scholar).

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16 Liberal internationalism is “compatible with a generous development assistance programme towards the less developed countries (LDCs), but is quite sceptical of the structural changes associated with reform internationalism” (Pratt, Cranford, “Middle Power Internationalism and Global Poverty,” in Pratt, Cranford, ed., Middle Power Internationalism: The North-South Dimension [Montreal: McGill Queen's University Press, 1990], 10Google Scholar). On Canada, see Cranford Pratt, “Has Middle Power Internationalism a Future?” in Ibid., 144-47.

17 Comparisons will be made between Canada and the other members of the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD. For a more detailed comparative analysis of Canadian aid policy, see TheYien, Jean-Philippe, “Canadian Aid: A Comparative Analysis,” in Pratt, Cranford, ed., Canadian International Development Assistance Policies: An Appraisal (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1994), 315333Google Scholar.

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19 See Ahmad, Jaleel, “Canada's Trade with Developing Countries,” in Helleiner, Gerald, ed., The Other Side of International Development Policy: The Non-Aid Economic Relations with Developing Countries of Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 3133Google Scholar.

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44 See, for instance, Lise Bissonnette, “Une forme d'arnaque,” Le Devoir (Montreal), March 6-7,1993, A10.

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53 This is precisely one of the key arguments developed in a much-discussed External Affairs document leaked in 1993 and entitled International Assistance: Policy Update.

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60 Banting, “Neoconservatism in an Open Economy,” 158-59.

61 James J. Rice and Michael J. Prince, “Lowering the Safety Net and Weakening the Bonds of Nationhood: Social Policy in the Mulroney Years,” in Phillips, ed., How Ottawa Spends, 393-94.

62 Alan Freeman, “Ottawa Talks Tough on Social Programs,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), January 12, 1994, Bl.

63 Théien, “Canadian Aid: A Comparative Analysis,” 323. Canadian aid has been criticized often for being too dispersed. Keating, for instance, wrote that development assistance was spread “more widely and thinly than considerations of economic efficiency or political influence might warrant” (Canada and World Order, 132).

64 The propositions contained in the policy paper entitled International Assistance: Policy Update may never be implemented, but they tell us much about the nature of current debates in government circles. See Black and Smith, “Notable Exceptions?” 755.

65 International Assistance: Policy Update, 20.

66 See Muszynski, Leon, “A New Social Welfare Agenda for Canada,” in Drache, Daniel, ed., Getting on Track: Social Democratic Strategies for Ontario (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992), 171Google Scholar; and Pratt, Cranford, “Towards a Neo-Conservative Transformation of Canadian International Development Assistance: The SECOR Report on CIDA,” International Journal 47 (1992), 600CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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69 Total government programme spending includes all government expenditures except public debt charges. The less than 2 per cent figure for aid is for 1992-1993; the more than 65 per cent figure for social policies is an estimate for 1991-1992 (the exact proportion is 67.8 per cent) (Clark, “Secret Paper Steers Aid Policy Changes,” I; and Rice and Prince, “Lowering the Safety Net,” 385-86).

70 Liberal Party of Canada, Creating Opportunity: The Liberal Plan for Canada (Ottawa: Liberal Party of Canada, 1993), 21Google Scholar, 37, 73-74.

71 Ibid., 108.

72 Philp, Margaret, “Consensus Growing for Social-Policy Reform,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), January 25, 1994, AlGoogle Scholar.

73 York, Geoffrey, “Grits Vow Radical Social Reform,” The Globe and Mail (Toronto), February 1, 1994, AlGoogle Scholar; and Dubuisson, Philippe, “Ottawa mise sur la réforme du régime de sécurité sociale pour relancer l'emploi,La Presse (Montreal), February 1, 1994, AlGoogle Scholar.

74 Nossal, “Mixed Motives Revisited,” 36. See Khan, “André Ouellet et le développement.”

75 Stokke, “The Determinants of Aid Policies,” 300-02; Keating, Canada and World Order, 202; and Pratt, Cranford, “Canada's Development Assistance: Some Lessons from the Last Review,” International Journal 49 (19931994), 109110CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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