Canadian Public Policy

The Politics of Linkage: Power, Interdependence, and Ideas in Canada-US Relations by Brian Bow Review by: Robert Teigrob Canadian Public Policy / Analyse de Politiques, Vol. 37, No. 1 (March/mars 2011), pp. 130-131 Published by: University of Toronto Press on behalf of Canadian Public Policy Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23050230 . Accessed: 06/11/2013 17:40
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Reviews/Critiques The Politics of Linkage: and

d'ouvrages

Power, Ideas in Canada-US

Interdependence, Relations

Beginning in the 1970s, however, American foreign policy-making grew more politicized and
fragmented, the result of a more assertive presi

by Brian Bow. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2009,232 pp. Cloth $85.00, paper $32.95. Partisanship, fragmentation, and gridlock are
common descriptors of the current domestic policy

dential office, a Congress incited by the excesses of

Vietnam range and Watergate, and the emergence groups of a wide the of domestic interest that pressed

government on various foreign policy issues. The losers in this new and more complex policy-making
nexus included the State Department, whose author

making landscape in Washington, DC; readers of Brian Bow's admirable study will find that these
circumstances are not new, nor are their effects

ity over foreign relations receded dramatically, and Canadian diplomats and politicians, who no longer
dealt with American actors who understood that had Canada heretofore or the "tacit understandings"

contained within American borders. The Politics

of Linkage provides a survey of some of the more

fractiousepisodes in Canada-United States relations since the Second World War, and concludes that a once-productive relationship built on shared norms, personal relationships, and "quiet diplomacy" has in recent decades been subverted by the disintegra tion, primarilyon the American side of the border, of the diplomatic culture that marked the firstyears of the Cold War.

governed bilateral negotiations. By the 1980s, it was evident that Canada was no longer special (the jollity of the Shamrock Summit notwithstanding), but merely a US ally and trading partnerlike all the
others, subject to the same, often rough treatment

in negotiations with the United States. Linkage was

now on the table.

Bow

provides

a strong

case

for the value

of con

Bow provides a close reading of four bilateral

controversies over the past 50 years: disagreements

structivistmodels of international relations, which

stress the importance of culture and ideology to the

over nuclear weapons (1959-63), maritime claims in the Arctic (1969-71), Canada's National Energy Program (1980-83), and war in Iraq (2002-04).
For the author, matters vantage a refusal to link unrelated to gain bilateral ad to a dispute represents in order the litmus bargaining

field. Realist interpretations,which maintain that

nations threats will demonstrate greater assertiveness increase, over as can to their interests and security of linkage

not account weapons author cases

for the absence and Arctic

nuclear As the

sovereignty out, he has

disputes. chosen

test for the existence the two nations.

correctly

points

difficult in which

of a "special

relationship"

between

for his interpretive

schemacases

Bow claims thatsuch a relationship did indeed exist

in the middle years of the twentieth century; he

realists would expect the United States to utilize

every mechanism at its disposal to advance its cause.

calls this era the "golden age" of Canada-US rela tions, a period when, despite the asymmetryrooted in the partnership, Canada was able to prevail in a number of importantcross-border deliberations.
Thus, the clashes over nuclear weapons and Arctic

Moreover, studies thatascribe the absence of linkage to the high level of interdependence between the two nations cannot explain why linkage became an option only late in the century,as interdependence intensified. For Bow, the explanation forthe rise of the special relationship lies in the "powerful sense of common purpose" (p. 7) shared by diplomats at mid-century,one forged by linguistic and cultural
bonds, Second the close World coordination necessitated importance by the of Can War, the strategic

sovereignty,while heated, produced no calls among American diplomats forthe deployment of coercive linkages to force the Prime Minister's hand (despite a US inclination to employ linkage in contemporan eous disputes with other close allies such as Britain and France).

ada to the United States in the early Cold War, and

Canadian

Public

Policy

- Analyse

de politiques,

vol.

xxxvii,

no.

12011

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Reviews/Critiques

d'ouvrages thus US

American sensitivities to Canada's vulnerability in

an asymmetrical relationship. As long as American

that govern

the relationship,

constraining

latitude in dispute resolution. Of course, the lat

ter approach also constrains Canada, a price that

negotiations were led by those who appreciated the

rules of the game, the relationship flourished. The

author should also be praised for providing concise historical summaries of each dispute, meaning that readers unfamiliar with the events will find all they need to develop a basic grounding in the issues.
In general, concision marks the study as a whole,

may seem especially high in the wake of a global economic crisis that has reaffirmedthe virtues of nimbleness and. in some cases, unfettered flexibility, in the economic sector. Bow points state intervention to a third option: "find[ing] ways to live with pro which would ultimatelyamount found vulnerability, to accepting strict limits on Canada's autonomy in both foreign and domestic policy" (p. 4). None
of these alternatives carry the charms of the mid

along with lucidity and effective storytelling (no mean feats for a work on policy); thus, the book will appeal not only to political scientists and his torians. but also to those interestedin such fields as cultural studies and the sociology of organizational behaviour. While Bow's text should be commended for its
clarity, at points the author's efforts to make his

century "special relationship," but as Bow makes

clear, sible the conditions are gone that made that golden age pos for good.

Robert

Teigrob,

Ryerson University

claims intelligible and convincing lead to a great deal of mapping and remapping of main arguments; this makes certain portions of the text, and particu
larly the final chapter, seem repetitive. Moreover,

From

Pride

to Influence:

Towards

a New

Canadian

in chartingthe changing shape of bilateral relations through four episodes, each separated by roughly a decade or more, the work sacrifices a careful delineation of the organic evolution of the policy environment in the name of brevity.The choice is defensible, as it contributes to the wider access ibility of the study; still, the selection of an earlier
dispute gence would give us a better culture sense of the emer here, not of the diplomatic described

Foreign Policy by Michael Hart. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2008, 436 pp. Cloth $85.00, paper S34.95. Michael Hart's From Pride to Influence provides a compelling critique of Canadian foreign policy
and argues forcefully for a closer bilateral relation

just its apex and disintegration. Any of a series of

Canada-US disagreements over Korea between 1947

ship with the United States to enhance Canada's security and prosperity. Hart, who is currentlythe Simon Reisman Chair in Trade Policy at Carleton University and a formersenior trade advisor within
the Department of Foreign Affairs and International

and 1953, and particularly US pressure on Canada

to provide ground troops to the Korean War, seem

like fruitful nominees. These are minor critiques of a cogent and pro vocative work, one that paints a rather gloomy picture of the future of the relationship. Canada's
current options include regaining greater measures

Trade, outlines threeoptions open to politicians and civil service mandarins. The pragmatic approach
embraces Canada's geographic, cultural, and eco

nomic links with the United States and emphasizes the primacy of cultivating Canadian influence in Washington. The romantic approach advocates multilateralismand a values-based agenda thatseeks Canada fromthe United to deliberately differentiate States. The incremental approach is the default op tion adopted by successive Canadian governments

of sovereignty by reducing interdependence with the United States (at profound economic cost), or increasing the institutional and regulatory regimes

Canadian

Public

Policy

- Analyse

de politiques,

vol.

xxxvii,

no.

12011

This content downloaded from 130.218.102.63 on Wed, 6 Nov 2013 17:40:38 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions