Whither Internationalism?
| Published date | 01 March 2003 |
| Date | 01 March 2003 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200305800108 |
| Author | Don Munton |
| Subject Matter | Article |
DON
MUNTON
Whither
internationalism?
ARE
CANADIANS
COMMITTED
INTERNATIONALISTS
or
have
they
begun to
turn
inwards?
Has
necessity
forced
them
to
give
greater
pri-
ority to domestic
issues?
Have
they chosen
to become
not
merely
dis-
interested in
international
affairs
but
more
isolationist?
Did
these
atti-
tudes
change
with
the
end
of
the
cold war
or with
a
decade
or
more
of
retrenchment
in
international commitments
by
the
federal
govern-
ment?
Did
they
shift
again
in
wake
of
the
terrorist
attacks
of
11
September
2001?
Will they
do
so
in
response
to
the
war
on
Iraq?
The
purpose
of
this
article
is
to
begin
to
track Canadian
public
internationalism
over
time.
The
attitudes
of
the
Canadian
public
toward
involvement
in
international
affairs
have
not
traditionally
been
the
subject
of
much
serious
scholarly
attention.
In
contrast
to an
active
and
ongoing
debate
in
the United
States
about
the
degree
to
which
Americans
support
internationalist
foreign
policies,
public
opinion
on
foreign
policy
and
internationalism
has,
until
recently, been
largely
ignored
by
Canadian
analysts.
Certainly
it
has
not
been
as
closely
or
extensively
studied
as
opinion
elsewhere,
and
the
examination
of
trends
over
time
is
still
rare.,
Such
temporal
trends,
more
than
snap-
Professor
of
International
Studies,
University
ofNorthern
British Columbia.
Funding
for
this
research
was
provided
by
the
Social
Sciences
and
Humanities
Research
Council
of
Canada
and
the University
of
Northern
British
Columbia
seeds
grant
program.
Iam
grateful
to Suzanne
LeBlanc
for
valuable
comments
on
an
earlier
draft.
Daniel
Savas
managed
the
2001-2002
sur-
vey
work
at
Ipsos-Reid.
Assistance
was
provided
by
Chris
Baker
ofEnvironics,
Bob
Burge
of
the
Queen's
University
Canadian
Opinion
Research
Archive,
and
staff
of
Compas,
Goldfar
b
Associates,
and
Decima
Research.
Michael
Driedger prepared
andformasted
the
datafilesfor
much
of
the
1980s
survey
data
used
here.
All
the
analysis
herein
employed
spss,
Version
10.
i
The
first
attempt
to
take
a
broad
perspective
on
internationalism
as
a
public
phe-
nomenon
was
Don
Munton
and
Tom
Keating,
'Internationalism
and
the
Canadian
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter 2002-2003
Don
Munton
shots from
single polls,
will
be
necessary
to unravel
the
puzzle
of
Canadians'
involvement
with
the world.
REVIEWING
THE
DEBATE
Although
observers
seem
to
agree
that
internationalism
became
the
watchword
of
Canadian
foreign
policy
during
the
so-called
golden
era
of
the
early
post-World
War
II
years,
debates
have
erupted
regularly
since
the
1970s
over
the extent
to
which
this
internationalist
tradition
still
holds.
Some
argue
that
Canadian
policies
in
recent
years
have
reflected
a
declining internationalism;
others
maintain
that
interna-
tionalism
is
with
us
still.
More
than
a
decade
ago,
Cranford
Pratt
noted
an
'eroding'
interna-
tionalist
spirit
in
Canada,
particularly
amongst
Ottawa
officialdom.
2
Kim
Richard
Nossal
charged more
recently
that
the
1990s
had wit-
nessed
'a
progressive
retreat
from
internationalism,'
which
had
been
'nailed
to
the
perch'
by
the
government
of
Jean
Chr~tien
and
its
'pinch-
penny
diplomacy,'
an
'overly
frugal'
foreign
policy
motivated
by
'a
meanness
of
spirit.'
Instead
of
the
internationalist
ideals
that
animated
Canada's
foreign policy
makers
during
the cold
war,
contemporary
Canadian
foreign
policy
'delegitimizes
the
voluntaristic
acts
of
"good
international
citizenship"
that
are
essential
components
of
interna-
tionalism.'"
Jean
Francois Rioux
and
Robin
Hay
went
further;
Canada
had
'retreated
from
the world'
during
the
1990s
and
was
now
'bereft
of
its
internationalist
focus.'
4
Such
criticisms
are
not
new,
even
in
the
recent
history
of
Canadian
foreign
policy.
The
foreign
policy
green
paper
issued by
the
govern-
ment
of
Brian
Mulroney
in
1985
rated
two
'thumbs
down'
with
the
reviewers,
mainly
for
its
lack
of
internationalist
script. Although
Joe
public,'
Canadian
Journal
of
Political
Science
34(September
2001),
517-49.
Pierre
Martin
and
Michel
Fortmann
look
at
the
trends
for
certain
specific
internationalist
questions
in
'Support
for
international
involvement
in
Canadian
public
opinion
after
the
cold war,'
Canadian
Military
Journal
2(autumn
2001),
43-52,
and 'Canadian
pub-
lic opinion
and
peacekeeping
in
a
turbulent
world,' International
Journal
5o(spring
1995),
371-400
2
Cranford
Pratt,
ed,
Internationalism
under
Strain
(Toronto:
University
of
Toronto
Press
1989),
62.
3
Kim
Richard
Nossal,
'Pinchpenny diplomacy,'
Internationalournal
54(winter
1998-9),
89,96,104.
4
jean-Fran~ois
Rioux and
Robin Hay,
'Canadian
foreign
policy:
from
international-
ism
to
isolationism,'
InternationalJourna
54(winter
1998-9),
57-75.
156
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter
2002-2003
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