Erstwhile Middle Power in a Post-Hegemonic Hemisphere: Evaluating Canada’s Economic Diplomacy in the Americas

• In Event: The Role of External Actors in Post-Hegemonic Latin America

Abstract

Under the Canadian Strategy for the Americas, announced in Santiago, Chile in 2007, the Harper government committed itself to making the Americas a top priority in Canadian foreign policy and to increasing Canada's presence in the region. The Conservative government’s 2013 announcement of the Global Markets Action Plan (GMAP) signalled an intensification of the commercial focus of the Americas Strategy (while extending the geographic focus to other emerging economies). In this paper I review the motivations and the record of the Americas Strategy and the GMAP as a test case of the government’s response to the problems and opportunities posed by the rapid rise of states formerly considered “developing” “underdeveloped”, “peripheral” or “less developed”. I argue that the Canadian strategy must be interpreted in the light of the government’s attempt to reposition itself as a result of the global financial crisis and subsequent stagnation of the U.S. economy, and the rise of a group of developing states that are challenging established hierarchies of power and privilege in the global economy. Based on interviews with current and former government officials in Canada and in Latin America as well as trade and investment data, I argue that Canada’s economic engagement with the region has failed to respond strategically to the economic and political changes in the region. This failure is emblematic of a broader malaise affecting former “middle powers” in a rapidly shifting global political economy.

Author

• Laura C Macdonald, Carleton University