Is development different? : tracing interests-based, values-driven policy in A Role of Pride and Influence in the World

Abstract

This thesis continues the discussion of the role of interests and values as determinants of Canadian foreign policy by examining closely their treatment in the Martin government’s 2005 foreign policy statement, A Role of Pride and Influence in the World (RPIW). The purpose of the thesis is to capture the expression and interplay of interests and values within RPIW vis-à-vis past foreign policy expressions. It begins by presenting a literature review of selected works by Denis Stairs, Jennifer Welsh, Kim Richard Nossal and Cranford Pratt, which will reveal the state of the discourse on the role of interests and values in Canadian foreign policy. It proceeds with a textual analysis of RPIW: Overview, comparing its structure and content to those which appear in Canada in the World (1995), Competitiveness and Security (1985) and Foreign Policy for Canadians (1970).

This textual analysis ends with the conclusion that RPIW not only incorporates past criticisms by Denis Stairs and Kim Richard Nossal, but also seems to embrace the interests-driven, values-based orientation put forward by Jennifer Welsh in At Home in the World. However, as the thesis moves on to a comparison of RPIW: Overview and RPIW: Development, the thesis exposes the fact that in RPIW: Development, the interests-based, values-driven approach seems to have been abandoned in favour of policies, such as the section titled “Good Governance,” that use values as policy drivers in and of themselves. The thesis concludes that development, despite the Martin government’s deliberate efforts in RPIW, appears to be a consistently altruistic, values-driven exercise. If aid effectiveness has any hope of being strengthened, it must be done under both an acknowledgement of the altruistic character of the development enterprise, as well as careful thought as to what the desired outcome of Canadian development policy ought to be.