Is Conservative foreign policy different from Liberal foreign policy?

The the nature and orientation of the Conservative government’s foreign policy differ significantly from that of previous Liberal and Progressive Conservative  governments.

At the highest level of analysis, the overall international policy mix has shifted. The military, and a general preference for the use of armed force has been placed front and centre, at the expense of both diplomacy and development assistance. Moreover, there has been an acceleration in the transformation of the structure of the Canadian Forces, away from peacekeeping in favour of expeditionary war fighting. This was evident in both the prosecution of an ambitious – if ill-fated – counter-insurgency campaign in Kandahar, and the enthusiastic participation in the NATO bombing and embargo in support of regime change in Libya.

Under the conservatives DFAIT does not appear to enjoy the confidence, trust and respect which it once did. Once a leader in public diplomacy, the imposition of the (chillingly Orwellian) Message Event Proposal requirement means that the department’s staff cannot have an unscripted conversation outside the Pearson building and are now effectively gagged. There seems to be little appetite for the Department’s advice, and it is not being called upon to develop new international policy initiatives. When the international policy content of last four years (and four foreign ministers) are compared, for instance, to the three and  a half years in the late nineties under Lloyd Axworthy (land mine ban; International Criminal Court; blood diamonds; children in conflict; Responsibility to Protect), the contrast is striking.

Under PM Mulroney, Canada spearheaded the organization of the UN’s Rio conference on Environment and Development (Framework Convention on Climate Change; Statement of International Forestry Principles; Agenda 21; Biodiversity Convention); negotiated the FTA and NAFTA; concluded treaties on acid rain and the  protection of the ozone layer (Montreal Protocol), and; worked with in the Commonwealth to end apartheid in southern Africa.

Next year, in order to save $10 million, Canada will be alone among G-20 countries in its absence at  the Expo 2012 world’s fair in Yeosu, Korea. The theme of the Expo is “The Living Ocean and Coast.” Canada has one of the longest shoreline in the world, with frontage on three oceans…

Canada’s international image and reputation – our brand – are being fundamentally recast.

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In some ways yes there are particular policy priorities – e.g. Middle East.  But fundamentally Canadian interests endure regardless of the party in power, and Canada’s structural characteristics (e.g. high dependence on international trade, proximity to and interdependence with the United States, etc.) mean that the fundamentals of Canadian foreign policy should be common to any Canadian government.

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Although the Harper Conservatives came to power in 2006 with little interest and even less experience in foreign affairs (the 171 words in the 2005-2006 election platform devoted to international affairs remain an embarrassing reminder of just how little thought was given to international policy), once in power the government quickly found its foreign policy footing.  Not surprisingly, much of the substance of Canada’s international policies since 2006 reflects a continuity with the past.  But there can be little doubt that thetone is different, a function of the considerable effort that the Harper government has devoted to distancing the Conservatives from many of the main ideational strands of Liberal foreign policy from the 1990s and early 2000s.  And while the chatterati remain on the whole unimpressed, ordinary Canadians do not appear to be much fussed by the new tone—and therein lies a lesson.

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Conservative minority governments entered with sparse world experience or interest beyond using foreign opportunities to pitch to Canadian ethnic voters. Afghanistan and beefing up the military absorbed the policy oxygen. Canadian comparative advantage in multilateral diplomacy and soft power and influence built over time by Progressive Conservatives as well as Liberals was repudiated. Very mediocre Foreign Ministers cost us internationally. The UN vote defeat reflected all this.

Now, John Baird lifts Canada’s credibility personally and on big issues such as China and Libya. PM Harper is finally building key relationships, with Brazil and India, Cameron, Sarkozy. The revamped military gets international respect.

But Canada’s soft power vocation for capacity-building needs revival, especially to put meat on the PM’s rhetorical bones of support for democracy development and human rights, the tsunami sweeping world youth.

A behavioural difference from predecessors persists that may still block Conservatives from returning national foreign policy and influence to a world-class level. They inhabit an ideological bubble, scanning outside opinion only from neo-conservative like-minded in the US and Israel, whose drumbeat of threats obscures the chance to grasp the world’s complexity and real developmental potential.

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Differences between Liberal and Conservative foreign policies are easily summarized but their sources are deep and complex. Liberals believe in rules, multilateralism, soft power, peacekeeping missions, humanitarian intervention, and the United Nations. Conservatives see the world as a dangerous place, where hard power rules. In such a world it is imperative for a country like Canada to stay inside the security perimeter of the United States. 

More important than the policy differences, however, are the differences in the underlying frames used by liberals and conservatives (here I use lower case “l” and “c” to designate the ideologies not the parties). An emerging body of evidence—much of which is nicely summarized in Berkeley linguist George Lakoff’s recent book The Political Mind—suggests that liberals and conservatives think differently. Whereas liberals emphasize caring, fairness and reciprocity, conservatives focus more on loyalty, authority, and obedience. That is why the Conservative government wants to restore the moniker “royal” to the name of the Canadian forces. It also explains why the Conservative government has systematically eliminated terms like “gender equality” and “indigenous rights” from the foreign policy lexicon. Such terms evoke inconvenient cognitive frames. 

Message discipline also reassures Conservative supporters, who are typically intolerant of ambiguity, that their leader states his intentions clearly and delivers. A major danger inherent in framing policy options in terms of authority and obedience, however, is that science and evidence take a back seat to the shared beliefs of the leader and his followers. The best example of this is the failure to take climate change seriously.

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The short answer is that the Liberals under Chretien-Axworthy promoted the Soft Power foreign policy brand with their human security agenda. Under Harper, the Conservatives have been champions of Hard Power with our mission in Afghanistan and our more recent role in Libya. It is time now to have a Smart Power foreign policy, which makes good use of both Hard and Soft Power and which recognizes they are but two sides of the same coin.

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In many ways. Liberal foreign policy was based on engagement with nations and international elements however differing in values and behavior. The concept was to focus on the middle to longer term and gradually narrow the distances by building common interests. Thus multilateral institutions were valued as furthering these objectives. International relationships were valued at the socio-political and cultural levels and not only as economic and transactional.

Conservative foreign policy is focused more on support of like minded international players and is more immediately seen as  results driven. There is less interest in fostering the building of international institutions and in efforts to engage with countries where our economic interests are marginal.

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Not substantively when it comes to international development policy and the Millennium Development Goals. Both Conservative and Liberal governments have been global laggards in this area – especially when compared to a country like the UK, where the Conservative, Labour and Liberal parties are all strongly committed to international development.

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Current Conservative foreign policy is vastly different from Liberal foreign policy. It could be argued that Canada has never witnessed such a significant foreign policy shift in such a short time frame. Africa is no longer on Canada’s foreign policy radar, the Responsibility to Protect and human security have been totally erased from the lexicon of Canadian officials – despite our important role in the current NATO mission in Libya – and much needed funding for our country’s diplomatic corps has all but dried up.  Canada for the first time lost a seat on the UN Security Council because many countries were wary of our new foreign policy direction.  By ignoring the world’s most troubled continent and showing too little of our national will to intervene to protect civilians from genocidal regimes, Canada has lost a good portion of its soft power, including our leadership on human security and our ability to directly affect international issues of peace and security without a seat on the Security Council.

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Yes, in terms of tone and to some extent direction; foreign policy on close examination tends to be bipartisan as it reflects in the end domestic interests, which don’t change all that much over the years.

There’s still the focus on the United States as Canada’s number 1 priority but with a slight tilt to more militarism and less expressed interest in Africa compared to Latin America or South Asia.

We’re a little less constructive on multilateral governance concerning international political arrangements, trade, or development but slightly more on international financial governance…all slight shifts of emphasis but not dramatic with the possible exception of the Arab-Israeli situation, where rhetoric has been more evident than policy change as such.

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