The academic study of Canada has traditionally been the realm of Canadian scholars. For this reason it is easy for outsiders to view Canada as a semi-Nordic continental utopia existing peacefully under a benign government that seeks only peace and harmony in the world. The reality is a more complicated story. That is the strength of this outstanding new book written by two young Polish scholars specializing in Canadian affairs. They have put together an impressively researched monograph that combines a detailed analysis outlining a rather basic premise: The world has changed dramatically since 1989 - and Canada has changed with it. In this well argued narrative they argue that in recent years Canada's foreign policy has becomeone primarily based on interests rather than the promotion of "untainted altruism" or stereotypical "Canadian values." They argue that since 1989 Canadian foreign policy has moved from the more modest aims of a "middle-power" to a more self-assertive role of a "selective power" pursuing more narrowly chosen priorities - and often based on "simple profit and loss calculations" that have clashed with Canada's traditional favorable image in the world - even if few outside of Canada seemed to notice.

The fourth edition of this widely used text includes updates about the many changes that have occurred in Canadian foreign policy under Stephen Harper and the Conservatives between 2006 and 2015. Subjects discussed include the fading emphasis on internationalism, the rise of a new foreign policy agenda that is increasingly shaped by domestic political imperatives, and the changing organization of Canada's foreign policy bureaucracy. As in previous editions, this volume analyzes the deeply political context of how foreign policy is made in Canada. Taking a broad historical perspective, Kim Nossal, Stéphane Roussel, and Stéphane Paquin provide readers with the key foundations for the study of Canadian foreign policy. They argue that foreign policy is forged in the nexus of politics at three levels - the global, the domestic, and the governmental - and that to understand how and why Canadian foreign policy looks the way it does, one must look at the interplay of all three.

The Middle East has not, historically, been a first-order priority for Canadian foreign and defence policy. Most major Canadian decisions on the Middle East have come about through ad hoc decision-making rather than strategic necessity. Balancing international obligations with domestic goals, Canadian relations with this region try to find a balance between meeting alliance obligations and keeping domestic constituents content. Middle Power in the Middle East delves into some of Canada’s key bilateral relations with the Middle East and explores the main themes in Canada’s regional presence: arms sales, human rights, defence capacity-building, and mediation. Contributors analyse the key drivers of Canada’s foreign and defence policies in the Middle East, including diplomatic relations with the United States, ideology, and domestic politics. Bringing together many of Canada’s foremost experts on Canada–Middle East relations, this collection provides a fresh perspective that is particularly timely and important following the Arab uprisings.

"This is one of the few books about `global' politics that has engaged my attention in a long time. It is well informed, well edited, and equally well written. Locating Global Order is both important and provocative --- important, in that it insists on interrogating the relationship between politics and location to avoid cliches about territorialized nation-states or patterns of globalization; provocative, in that it disrupts some powerful claims about where politics ought to be occurring." R.B.J. Walker, author of After the Globe/Before the World "Locating Global Order is interesting, intelligent, and accessible. It would work well as a reader for senior undergraduates and graduate students in Canadian foreign policy and related fields." Mark Neufeld, author of The Restructuring of International Relations Theory Since 9/11, policy makers and observers have questioned whether America should don the mantle of empire for the sake of world peace, or whether peace will come through world government. Locating Global Order questions the very idea that the political order is hierarchical, with state and international institutions at the top and groups and individuals at the bottom. Chapters examining case studies on Canada's role in the construction and maintenance of global order post-9/11, both domestically and internationally, reveal that this order is not exclusively American --- allied powers are a key component of its hegemony.

In Brazil’s International Activism Monika Sawicka questions how Brazil’s deep-rooted craving for greatness has led to the quest for status in the twenty-first century and contends that the categorization of Brazil as an “emerging middle power” enriches the understanding of modern Brazilian foreign policy. Drawing on the rich vocabulary of role theory, Sawicka sets out to establish an original theoretical framework that comprises the structural (status), the behavioral (role), and the cognitive-ideational (identity) to assess whether Brazil has performed roles distinguishing a middle power and how the state has reconceptualized them. The model is applied to scrutinize how ideational and material drivers impacted Brazil’s engagement as an integrator in Latin America, donor in Africa, mediator in the Middle East, and coalition-builder of developing states in global fora. Despite recent criticism of the concept of “emerging middle powers”, Sawicka argues that Brazil’s international activism stands as a precise embodiment of such a power. With an aim of theory development and contributing to the debate on Brazil’s international standing, Brazil’s International Activism provides a much-required reinterpretation of Brazilian foreign policy which will be of interest to scholars and students of Foreign Policy Analysis, International Relations and Latin-American Studies.

Canada and Missions for Peace: Lessons from Nicaragua, Cambodia and Somalia

The Harper government's policies are moving our country backwards toward a vision of society, the role of government, and the nature of the federation reminiscent of the 1920s. [...] As the government tried to liberalize markets in grains, the Wheat Board Ceo was fired 14 The Harper Record and the government worked to prevent Board members from speaking out in support of the marketing board. [...] The report of the Iacobucci Commission was originally meant to be submitted the week before the 2008 election was called, but was delayed until the week after the election.9 Both the Liberals who were in power during the events in question and the Conservatives, who are in favour of the anti-terrorist agenda, were thus spared public scrutiny on these issues during the election campaign. [...] Conclusion In the 32 months that the Conservative minority government was in power between 2006 and 2008, the people of Canada faced signifi- cant challenges because of the substance of what the Harper govern- ment achieved and because of the anti-democratic way in which he went about it. [...] In a 1989 memo to Preston Manning, he argued that the core political cleavage in contemporary Western democracies pits taxpayers and private sector-oriented citizens (the ideological right) against the public sector-oriented political class and "tax recipients of the Welfare State" (the ideological left).17 The conserv- ative coalition of the right would include the corporate sector and the privat.