Analysis

No Easy Route to Nuclear Disarmament
- October 11, 2017
Last week, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to a campaign group seeking a global ban on nuclear arms. The award to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) surprised many observers, particularly in a year when the architects of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran had been seen as favourites. The chair of

By Alexandra Gheciu
Cold War, Human Rights, International Law, International Security, United Nations
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Resuscitating the Canadian Foreign Service
- October 9, 2017
After years of neglect and mismanagement, the Canadian foreign service is now in serious trouble. The story of how it got this way is a long one, with a litany of poor management, appalling decisions by senior public servants, and assumptions by a succession of governments that Canada’s international relations could be run on the

By Daniel Livermore
Canadian Foreign Policy, International Development, International Trade, United Nations
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“The System is Broken”: Canada’s Latest Rationale for Stinginess
- October 2, 2017
“I would love to increase the aid budget,” admitted Celina Caesar-Chavannes, Liberal Member of Parliament and Parliamentary Secretary to Canada’s Minister of International Development, speaking at a recent conference organized by the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. But, she argued, “The system is broken.” As an illustration, she told the story of a Pakistani woman

By Stephen Brown
Canadian Foreign Policy, International Development
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The German Election: A (Preliminary) Analysis
- September 28, 2017
Minister of the Interior Thomas de Maizière, of the Christian Democrats (CDU), had a hard time defending his seat in Sunday’s general election in Germany. This is rather surprising given that his riding in Saxony, close to Dresden, in the far east of Germany has usually produced safe seats for the CDU. But nothing is

By Benjamin Zyla
Democracy, Europe
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Just Don’t Share, Except With Care
- September 26, 2017
The federal government’s Public Safety Department has just released a bombshell ministerial directive dealing with the sensitive issue of intelligence sharing in cases that might involve torture. This issue has long and delicate roots, reaching back to the terrible case of Canadian intelligence sharing with the United States and Syria — post 9/11 — which

By Wesley Wark
Defence and Intelligence, International Security, Middle East
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All the President’s Friends: Adventures in “Nambia”
- September 24, 2017
Every year, I begin my African Politics classes by giving the students a map of Africa with the state borders drawn, but their names missing. Filling in the blanks is a humbling exercise, and most manage only a handful: South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, perhaps Kenya or Tanzania, although the two are often mixed up. But

By Rita Abrahamsen
Africa, United Nations, USA
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Why Taiwan is an International Issue
- September 20, 2017
China works hard to convince the world that any decision about Taiwan is entirely a Chinese domestic affair. This has not, however, always been the official line of the Chinese Communist Party. In 1936, when the Republic of China (ROC) was China’s government and Taiwan (Formosa) was a Japanese colony, Chairman Mao Zedong offered support

By Scott Simon
Asia, Canadian Foreign Policy, China, Democracy, Human Rights
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NAFTA is the Wrong Venue to Govern Digital Trade
- September 14, 2017
By Susan Ariel Aaronson and Patrick Leblond Diplomats from Canada, Mexico, and the United States are thinking about the website where you met your soulmate, and the cloud service where you store your photos. In an increasingly digital economy, policy makers are regulating cross-border information flows more than ever, and North American free-trade agreement talks are no

By Patrick Leblond
China, Economy, International Trade, Technology
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Canada Needs a Wait-and-See Approach on Afghanistan
- September 1, 2017
By Lindsay Rodman Will US President Donald Trump’s new plan for Afghanistan pull Canada back into a war that many deem a “lost cause”? Mr. Trump explicitly invited other nations to contribute in support of his new plan. Although Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated clearly that there are no plans to reintroduce Canadian troops into

By CIPS
Canadian Foreign Policy, International Security, USA
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Crowded Out by “Big Man” Politics, Kenyan Women Still Struggle in 2017 Elections
- August 21, 2017
by Gabrielle Bardall, PhD, CIPS Research Associate For all its progressive constitution, high-tech society, and exceptionally resourced Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), Kenya is the worst performer in the East African Community (EAC) regarding women in parliament. These failures have been attributed to a lack of political will to enforce laws designed to bolster

By Gabrielle Bardall
Africa, Democracy, Gender
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The US Has Much to Gain in Embracing Freeland’s Free-Trade Approach
- August 16, 2017
On 14 August, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland outlined Canada’s objectives for renegotiating the North American free-trade agreement in view of the negotiations that began on 16 August. Freeland was optimistic about the real possibility of modernizing NAFTA in a way that would not only improve trade and investment flows across the North American continent

By Patrick Leblond
Canadian Foreign Policy, International Trade, USA
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China’s Republican Flag: A Conundrum for Canada–Taiwan Relations
- July 30, 2017
China’s Republican flag — the French-inspired tricolore representing nationalism, democracy, and peoples’ livelihood in Sun Yat-sen’s Three Principles of the People — was the national flag of all of China from 1928 until the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949. After 1949, Cold War politics kept both flags flying internationally. Since

By Scott Simon
Asia, Canadian Foreign Policy, Democracy
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