Peaceful, tolerant, and orderly: Post-Cold War foreign policy and 'Canadian' subjectivity.

摘要

This thesis argues that post-cold war Canadian foreign policy is implicated not only in the governance of others, but also in the subjectification and governance of 'Canadians.' While Canadian foreign policy analysis has largely been understood as an 'outward' practice, it is possible instead to consider its relation to 'Canadian' subjectivity. This thesis thus traces the ways in which 'foreign' subjects have been targeted by post-cold war Canadian foreign policy, and peacebuilding in particular, as unable to fully self-govern due to their 'underdevelopment' and their lack of liberal values and behaviours of tolerance, peacefulness and orderliness. In contrast, 'Canadians' have been idealized within foreign policy as having just those values that are deemed to be lacking among 'foreign' subjects, including tolerance, humanitarianism, orderliness, and peacefulness. Thus, post-cold war foreign policy enjoins 'Canadians' to understand and conduct themselves as good liberal subjects, and to govern themselves as such. The thesis concludes with a consideration of resistances to this truth regime, and a discussion of the importance of critique.