Review: Rain Dancing
| Author | Kimberly A. Elliott |
| Published date | 01 March 1996 |
| Date | 01 March 1996 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070209605100125 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS/CANADA
183
a
reminder that
joining
the
OAS
was
really
the
start
of
another
'new
phase'
in
Canada-Latin America
relations, and
we
can only
hope
that
Ottawa
will
not
measure
our
'progress'
in
Latin America
by
the
number
of OAS
committees
chaired
by
or
conferences
staged
in
Canada,
or
by
the
size
and
frequency
of
ministerial
visits
south
of
the
Rio
Grande.
David
MacKenzie/Wilfrid
Laurier
University
RAIN
DANCING
Sanctions
in
Canadian
and
Australian
foreign
policy
Kim
Richard
Nossal
Toronto:
University
of
Toronto
Press,
1994,
xviii,
323pp,
$6o.oo
cloth,
$21.95
paper
Though
it
might
seem
that
the
literature
on economic
sanctions
is
so
voluminous
as
to
leave
little
to
be
said
that
is
new
or
interesting,
Kim
Richard
Nossal
found
a
nearly
empty
niche.
His aim
was
to
explain
sanction
policies
of
'middle
powers'
through
case
studies
chosen
from
the
experience
of
Canada
and, for
comparison,
Australia. But many
of
the
lessons
that
he
draws
apply
just
as
well
to
the 'great
powers,'
espe-
cially
in
an
increasingly
integrated
global
economy
where
even
the larg-
est
economies
have
market
power
in
a
diminishing
number
of
sectors.
Nossal
argues
that
what
he
calls
the
'generic
theory'
of
sanctions
-
which
stresses
the
utility
of
sanctions
in
the
pursuit of
foreign
policy
goals involving
deterrence,
compellence,
symbolism,
subversion,
or
ret-
ribution
-
is
insufficient
to
explain
the
sanctions
policies
of
middle
powers which
have
a
limited
ability
to
coerce
others.
Rather,
he
suggests
an
alternative
set
of
hypotheses
that
rely
on
the
push and
pull
of
various
factors
in
each
case.
Three
key
factors are
the
desire
to
punish
-
but
not
at
too
high
a
cost
to
one's
own
constituents;
coalition
politics
-
what do
one's
allies
want from
you;
and
domestic
politics.
The
cases
that
Nossal
uses
to
support
his
hypotheses
include
Canadian
policy
with
respect
to
Indonesia,
Vietnam,
and
South
Africa,
and
comparative
case
studies
contrasting
Australian
and
Canadian
policies
toward
the
Soviet
Union after
the
invasion
of
Afghanistan,
China
after
Tiananmen
Square,
and
Iraq after
the
invasion
of
Kuwait.
The
case
studies
are
all
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