Quirk: What is the best international affairs book of 2011?

By: /
5 December, 2011
By: Paul Quirk
Phil Lind Chair in US Politics and Representation, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia

Here is an un-nomination:  Stephen Clarkson’s Dependent America? How Canada and Mexico Construct US Power(University of Toronto Press, 2011) has received quite a bit of attention in the media and is likely to be esteemed in some quarters.  But it presents a cartoon-like account of North American international relations and is not to be taken seriously. Clarkson’s central puzzle is this:  If Canada were to disappear, the US would lose a sizable fraction of its national income. Why, then, does Canada have such limited influence on US policy?  His answer in a nutshell:  Canadian diplomacy is too polite.  Canadians cannot bring themselves to use threats or punishments to induce American cooperation.  Other works on Canada-US relations—well actually, just about all of them—recognize the fundamental asymmetry of the relationship:  Most things that Canada could do to punish the US would at the same time punish Canada, even more severely—and might also lead to further retaliation.  On the whole, Canadian diplomats struggle competently in inherently difficult negotiating situations with the US.  The cartoon solution—pop open a can of spinach, and get tough—won’t work.  

Before you click away, we’d like to ask you for a favour … 

Journalism in Canada has suffered a devastating decline over the last two decades. Dozens of newspapers and outlets have shuttered. Remaining newsrooms are smaller. Nowhere is this erosion more acute than in the coverage of foreign policy and international news. It’s expensive, and Canadians, oceans away from most international upheavals, pay the outside world comparatively little attention.

At Open Canada, we believe this must change. If anything, the pandemic has taught us we can’t afford to ignore the changing world. What’s more, we believe, most Canadians don’t want to. Many of us, after all, come from somewhere else and have connections that reach around the world.

Our mission is to build a conversation that involves everyone — not just politicians, academics and policy makers. We need your help to do so. Your support helps us find stories and pay writers to tell them. It helps us grow that conversation. It helps us encourage more Canadians to play an active role in shaping our country’s place in the world.

Become a Supporter