ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the evolution of Canadian security policies since the end of the Cold War and assesses the Canadian contribution to global/regional security governance. Following the analytic framework developed by Duffield (1998: 13-39), this chapter considers Canadian national security policy to result from Canadian political elites’ perceptions of three major variables: 1) type of international system; 2) national capacity; and 3) national security culture. Its focus is primarily on the role of the last of these variables and more precisely on assessing how changes in security policies might be related to changes in security culture. The chapter is divided into five sections. The first provides an overview of Canada’s security culture after the end of the Cold War, identifies Canada’s core national security interests and perceived threats and sketches the type of security policy mix one could expect the Canadian government to have adopted on the basis of these variables. The next four sections examine the evolution of Canadian security policies in four functional policy domains: prevention, assurance, protection and compellence. The conclusion evaluates Canada’s contribution to global and regional security governance, and advances a hypothesis concerning the relationship between security culture and security choices.
