Niche Diplomacy as Canadian Foreign Policy
| Author | Evan H. Potter |
| Published date | 01 March 1997 |
| Date | 01 March 1997 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070209705200102 |
| Subject Matter | Comment & Opinion |
EVAN
H.
POTTER
.Niche
diplomacy
as
Canadian
foreign
policy
Few
observers
of
Canadian
foreign
policy
would
deny
that
the
number
and
complexity
of
foreign
policy
issues
is
increasing,
yet
the
resources
available
to
manage
them
are
decreasing.'
If
we
assume
that
'old'
foreign
policy
concerns
-
non-proliferation,
economic
diplomacy, alliance
politics,
and
multilateralism
-
will
continue
to
be
important,
Canada
is
left
with
three
choices:
increase
the
foreign
policy
budget
to
reflect
the
expanding
agenda,
do
more
things
less
well,
or
assign
a
lower
priority
to
some
issue-areas.
This
last
choice
implies
a
shift
in
Ottawa's
focus
away
from
some
traditional functional
concerns
and
geographic
areas
and
towards
those areas
in which
there
is
a
clear
and
identi-
fiable
Canadian
interest
and
where
Canada's
international
policy
decisions
and programmes
can
have
a
maximum
impact.
The
operative
term
here
is
maximum
impact
because
the
millions
of
public dollars
spent
to
keep Canadian
peacekeepers
in
the
for-
mer
Yugoslavia may
have
satisfied
the criterion
of
identifiable
interest
but
have
surely
fallen
short
of
maximum
impact.
In
this
article
I
argue
that
to
maximize
its
influence
in
an
era
of
fiscal
austerity,
Canada
will
have
to
be
more
selective
about
the
many
international
spheres
in
which
it
plays.
In
the
search
for
Senior
Harrowston
Fellow
in
Conflict
Management
and
Negotiation
at
the
University
of
Toronto and
the
founding editor
of
the
journal,
Canadian
Foreign
Policy.
I
This article
draws
on
and
amplifies
arguments
previously
expressed
in
Evan
Potter,
'Redesigning
Canadian
diplomacy
in
an
age
of
fiscal
austerity,'
in
Fen
Oster Hampson
and
Maureen
Appel
Molot,
eds,
Canada
Among
Nations
1996:
BigEnough
to
be
Heard (Ottawa:
Carleton
University
Press
1996),
23-56.
ItternationalJournal
LII
WINTER
1996-7
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