Canada Among Nations 1994: A Part of the Peace

Paul D. Dickson is a post-doctoral fellow in military history at the
Department of National Defence.

This latest collection of articles in the Canada Among Nations series,
which annually examines Canada’s role in international affairs,
comprises two parts. Part 1 analyzes the extent to which Canadian
external policies are democratically formulated and implemented; the
chapters focus primarily on the amount of influence various segments of
Canadian society exerted on the foreign- and defence-policy reviews
conducted by the Chrétien government in 1994. Part 2 considers the
question of the promotion of democracy abroad as a foreign-policy
objective of states; the chapters describe the status of democracy
within specific countries such as China, Russia, and South Africa, as
well as in Latin America. Both sections offer various policy
prescriptions. The book’s overall argument is that “democracy
matters as a principle and a process in foreign policy; democracies make
foreign policy differently, and they make different foreign policies.”

It is always difficult for editors to bring cohesion to a collection,
and that problem is evident here, especially in the uneven amount of
attention given to Canadian policy in the recent past. A historical
survey of the themes and patterns that have characterized
Canadian–Latin American relations (similar to the one provided for
Canada and Mexico in Part 1) would have contributed helpful background
information. Overall, however, in covering the political, economic, and
social dimensions of hemispheric relations, this book achieves its main
goal of “stimulat[ing] debate on the issues, challenges and policy
alternatives facing Canada in the Americas.”