PSCI 3606 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Multilateralism, Middle Power, Moral Authority
11 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
PSCI 3603
Fall 2017
September 11, 2017
Learning objectives.
• To provide factual knowledge about the historical and contemporary practice of Canadian
foreign policy.
• To identify the factors that influence foreign policy in this country.
• To enable and to encourage students to adopt a more critical analytical approach to their
assessments of contemporary Canadian foreign policy.
There are two interrelated themes:
• Examination of theoretical issues and empirical aspects, both historical and
contemporary, of Canadian foreign policy.
• Merging theory and practice through experiential assignment.
Impulses and tradition:
what is Canadian Foreign policy? What ideas come to mind when you think of Canadian foreign
policy?
• Two broad traditions have defined Canadian foreign policy.
- Seeking to develop strong multilateral regimes that would provide an alternative rule
based mechanism for ensuring world order.
Managing engagement with the US, largely through the adoption of a continentalist’ perspective
that assumes increased interaction with the US allows for greater Canadian Prosperity
September 18, 2017
Week 2
What are Canadian Values? Does Canadian foreign policy reflect Canadian Values?
• Multiculturalism.
• Peace-keeping
• Freedom
• Human rights
• Democracy and rule of law.
Foreign policy development.
• Classical understanding of foreign policy development within IR is premised on a
division between the domestic and the international.
- Represented through the model of a two-level game.
• However, the classical division creates a false distinction- rather than a strict separation
between two factors, CFP suggests that it is principally “forged in a ‘nexus’ of three
political environments.
- The domestic, international, and governmental spheres all share a constitutive
relationship and, as such, foreign policy development straddles the boundaries of all
three.
➢ This idea that we have about focusing about the individual. Which ministers are in
power and which party is in power. Of no matter of how much you want to
accomplish there is always a constrain.
The Policy cycles
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Agenda Setting
• The identification of a societal problem requiring the state to intervene
- Outside- initiative model.
- Mobilization model
- Inside- initiative model: influential groups with access to decision making present
governments policy proposals. But nit supported the wide public.
Policy formulation:
• the definition, discussion, acceptance/ rejection of feasible course of action for coping
with policy problems. When we think of the feasible core of action. It is about the
elaborate of alternative with the purpose of trying to narrow those alternatives down.
- Role of cognitive and normative frames in shaping policy decisions. The role they
have is shaping decisions. The schemes or/ and structures they use in order to form
the world. normative→ how the world is ought to be
Cognitive→ how the world is.
• Policy adoption: the formal acceptance of a policy. That is chosen to solve the issue that
was placed on the agenda.
- Are reduced by the necessity driven by the majority (public opinion
- The actual allocation between decisions making. What can the government dealing
with can do?
implementation
• The conversion of new laws and programmes into practice
- Top-down models
- Bottom-up models
- Hybrid models→ little bit of both elements, more direct, little bit of change.
Evaluation
• Examination of the policy change to determine if it attained the intended goals/ addressed
the societal problems
Theory and foreign policy
• A theory is merely an interpretation of how the world works
- Theory: laws and crises: a crisis moment is when something occurs different from our
expectation. The way you ought the world is, you realize that it was just an illusion.
- Normative theory: the idea of cognitive vs normative. Normative is how the world is
ought to be. The thing people would like to accomplish.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
There are two interrelated themes: examination of theoretical issues and empirical aspects, both historical and contemporary, of canadian foreign policy, merging theory and practice through experiential assignment. What ideas come to mind when you think of canadian foreign policy: two broad traditions have defined canadian foreign policy. Seeking to develop strong multilateral regimes that would provide an alternative rule based mechanism for ensuring world order. Managing engagement with the us, largely through the adoption of a continentalist" perspective that assumes increased interaction with the us allows for greater canadian prosperity. Does canadian foreign policy reflect canadian values: multiculturalism, peace-keeping, freedom, human rights, democracy and rule of law. Foreign policy development: classical understanding of foreign policy development within ir is premised on a division between the domestic and the international. The domestic, international, and governmental spheres all share a constitutive relationship and, as such, foreign policy development straddles the boundaries of all three.
