International Journal - Sage - Books and Journals

Canada and the United Nations: Rethinking and Rebuilding Canada's Global Role

The global order built after the Second World War is fraying and the United Nations is facing unprecedented challenges. The Advisory Panel on Canada and the United Nations, comprising multiple former Canadian UN ambassadors, therefore asked whether the UN should remain a central focus for Canadian foreign policy. The Panel concluded in its 2023 report “Canada and the United Nations: Rethinking and Rebuilding Canada's Global Role” that a well-functioning UN can offer the universality and predictability Canada needs to advance its national interests. This article summarizes the chief conclusions of that report, examining how Canada can rebuild influence at the UN. Too often, multilateral cooperation is an afterthought in Canadian foreign policy today and Canada's presence at the UN is under-resourced. The Panel and this article make a series of recommendations aimed at achieving a more functional, interest-based approach to Canada's UN engagements in the current global context.

Canada and the United Nations: Setting the Record Straight

In response to the 2023 report, “Canada and the United Nations: Rethinking and Rebuilding Canada's Global Role,” Jack Cunningham argues that Canada should instead marginalize the United Nations. In response, this rejoinder maintains that, while the UN has weaknesses, the world would be a worse place without it. Look to the UN's work to close the hole in the ozone layer, deliver life-saving vaccines to millions, or give food and shelter to the displaced. The UN has been a remarkably successful norm-setter, creating vital international standards on issues that range from the more political to the technical. Cunningham favours a retreat by Canada to smaller clubs of like-minded states, without explaining how this retrenchment might produce more effective results on global issues, such as climate change. He offers no alternative to the UN. It is hard to see how abandoning the field to China, Russia, and Iran, would serve Canada's interests.

Emerging Middle Powers, Transitions, and the Role of Turkey in a Changing International Order

In what ways are emerging powers affecting the liberal international order? This study examines the increasing influence of emerging powers in international affairs and how these powers may shape the new order that is emerging. We argue that the declining roles of existing international organizations and Western diplomatic interventions have paved the way for new actors, mostly emerging powers that are now leading various interventions. Yet research has not fully captured the implications of these new powers for the emerging order. Using Turkey as a case study, the authors demonstrate that shifts within the international system are likely to have far-reaching consequences to the liberal international order and may give rise to illiberal conservative trends. The study addresses how emerging powers are likely to change the international system and relates some contributing factors. The study concludes that the shift of emerging powers towards illiberal conservativism may have a volatile impact on the liberal international order.

Book Review: North of America: Canadians and the American Century, 1945–60

Lobster Diplomacy: Nova Scotia and the Provincial Role in Canada-China Relations

This article concerns the increasingly significant role of subnational entities in international relations, using Nova Scotia's engagement with China as a case study. It highlights the period from 2010 to 2023, during which Nova Scotia leveraged its key export—lobsters—to establish and deepen economic and diplomatic ties with China, thereby carving out an influential role in the broader Canada-China relationship. The article provides an overview of subnational diplomacy's growing importance in international relations. The theoretical framework centres on subnational actors in global diplomacy and examines how Nova Scotia pursued independent diplomatic efforts with China, focusing on economic interests. The case study investigates lobster exports as the cornerstone of Nova Scotia-China relations, driving both economic benefits and diplomatic engagement. Finally, it touches on the economic outcomes for Nova Scotia and the political dynamics between federal and provincial authorities, concluding with broader implications for Canada's foreign policy and subnational actors in international diplomacy.

Editors’ Introduction

Book Review: The Insiders’ Game: How Elites Make War and Peace

No Further Options: Canada's Peacekeeping Efforts in Yugoslavia, 1991–1993

Drawing from archival records and secondary sources, this article examines the decisions that led Canada to undertake peacekeeping operations in former Yugoslavia, and how subsequent decisions influenced the course of those operations. It argues that despite the prevailing diplomatic and military conditions that Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative government knew about, and notwithstanding the volatile situation in Yugoslavia, Canada decided to commit peacekeepers to a mission that even then was quickly degenerating into a major regional war. The search for an international success led the federal government to disregard the complicating factors that ultimately created the conditions for the failure of Canada's mission. Mulroney's decision was an attempt to put a Progressive Conservative Party imprint on the liberal internationalism that defined twentieth-century Canadian foreign policy.

Tackling the Geopolitics of Standardization: Lessons from Canada's Strategic Foresight-to-Standards Pilot Project

Strategic foresight is the systematic exploration of emerging and future developments. Standardization is the process by which a common technical language is created and applied to new concepts and evolving technologies. Both strategic foresight and standardization address long-term technological change across industries, societies, and economies. And yet rarely are the two used in tandem to anticipate emerging standardization priorities that are critical to national interests. Against the backdrop of a global “technological race,” the foresight-to-standards process provides a novel approach to anticipate the nature of emerging technologies and their plausible influence on national, military, and economic interests, and to direct standardization efforts to align with strategic objectives. Our article provides an in-depth exploration of the Standards Council of Canada's experimentation with foresight between 2018 and 2021, informed by first-hand experience and observation. We describe and assess the SCC's use of strategic foresight in standardization, providing insights on capacity building, collaboration, leadership, decision making, and action.

Book Review: Jozef Pilsudski: Founding Father of Modern Poland