This book examines how popular narratives of Canadian identity became implicated in Canada’s foreign policy in the Global War on Terror. McDonald argues that Canada’s decisions to join the 2001 Afghanistan War yet abstain from the 2003 Iraq War became politically possible because parliamentarians linked these policies to similar narratives of an enduring Canadian identity - even while re-imagining their meanings. These decisions are explored through politicians’ mobilization of three discourses: Canada as America’s neighbour, Canada as protector of foreign civilians, and Canada as a champion of multilateralism. This book challenges conceptions of national identity as entirely stable or fluid and contests predominant arguments that downplay the role of identity discourses in Canadian foreign policy. The relevance of these narratives is assessed by exploring the rhetoric of Canadian foreign policy in light of contemporary international challenges, including the Donald Trump presidency, the COVID-19 pandemic, and Russia’s War on Ukraine.

This book centres on the key concept of diversity and relates it to the identity formation of Muslims. Muslim identity differs specifically within certain theological, social, political and regional circumstances and discourses. Considering the diversity of societies and the numerous factors contributing to the shaping of Muslim identity, this book brings together examples from different parts of the world, including Western societies, and each chapter focuses on separate determinants of individual, communal, political, institutional, civic and national Muslim identities, offering a blueprint for identity studies. A particular strength of the book is its detailed investigation of the complexity of identity formation and the heterogeneity of the Muslim experience. In addition to including a variety of themes and cases from different parts of the world, diverse methodologies, including quantitative and qualitative research methods, further enrich the book. The contributors’ academic backgrounds and organic relationships with their communities enable them to develop their arguments with insight. Furthermore, by giving voice to academics from different nationalities, this book reflects neither a predominantly Western nor a distinctly Eastern approach, but instead gives a balanced view from critical academia globally.

India has become known in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia as ‘the world’s largest democracy’, a ‘natural ally’, the ‘democratic counterweight’ to China and a trading partner of ‘massive economic potential’. This new foreign policy orthodoxy assumes that India will join with these four states and act just as any other democracy would. A set of political and think tank elites has emerged which seek to advance the cause of a culturally superior, if ill-defined, ‘Anglosphere’. Building on postcolonial and constructivist approaches to international relations, this book argues that the same Eurocentric assumptions about India pervade the foreign policies of the Anglosphere states, international relations theory and the idea of the Anglosphere. The assertion of a shared cultural superiority has long guided the foreign policies of the US, the UK, Canada and Australia, and this has been central to these states’ relationships with postcolonial India. This book details these difficulties through historical and contemporary case studies, which reveal the impossibility of drawing India into Anglosphere-type relationships. At the centre of India-Anglosphere relations, then, is not a shared resonance over liberal ideals, but a postcolonial clash over race, identity and hierarchy. A valuable contribution to the much-needed scholarly quest to follow a critical lens of inquiry into international relations, this book will be of interest to academics and advanced students in international relations, Indian foreign policy, Asian studies, and those interested in the ‘Anglosphere’ as a concept in international affairs.

Foreign policy success or failure is often attributed to the role of leadership. This volume explores the relationship between President George W. Bush's leadership, the administration's stated belief in the power of ideas (and the ideas of power) and its approach to the war on terror. Drawing on the international expertise of ten American foreign policy and security specialists, this incisive and timely book combines theoretical perspectives on political leadership with rigorous empirical analysis of selected aspects of the Bush administration's post 9/11 foreign policy. As a result, this book sheds considerable light not just on the limited impact of President Bush's war on terror strategy, but also, more importantly, on why key ideas underpinning the strategy, such as US global primacy and pre-emptive war, largely failed to gel in a globalizing world.

Cultural citizenship is a recently developed concept in discussions on multicultural society, the media society, consumerism, and political theory. It addresses the various ways in which citizenship is becoming mixed up with culture, either through globalisation processes (involving new cultural identities, immigrations, culture industries) or by increasingly life-style oriented types of action. In the face of these challenges, the good old notion of citizenship seems in need of some assistance. This book takes a fresh look at cultural citizenship by exploring it from political-philosophical angles. It seeks to develop explicitly normative perspectives on the present debates around culture. What do the novel national and global constellations mean with respect to inclusion and exclusion, participation and marginalisation, political rights and ‘mere’ cultural practices? Moreover, this volume’s authors aim to develop notions of cultural citizenship beyond the liberal political paradigm that associates it with ‘cultural rights’, ‘cultural capital’ or the ‘consumer-citizen’. They engage the concept to re-think politics in both its meanings of citizenship practices and governance practices vis-à-vis citizens. The authors address a range of pertinent issues, exploring historical as well as present-day understandings, and theoretical as well as policy applications of the notion of cultural citizenship. This book was originally published as a special issue of Citizenship Studies.

The 9/11 terror attacks and the ensuing War on Terror have profoundly impacted Muslim communities across North America. Islamophobia: Understanding Anti-Muslim Racism through the Lived Experiences of Muslim Youth is a timely exploration of the experiences of young Canadian Muslims and the challenges they have encountered since 9/11. Through framing anti-Muslim racism, or ‘Islamophobia’, from a critical race perspective, Naved Bakali theorizes how racist treatment of Muslims in public and political spheres has been mediated through the War on Terror. Furthermore, he examines the lived experiences of Muslim youth as they navigate issues relating to race, gender, identity, and politics in their schools and broader society. This book uncovers systemic bias and racism experienced by Muslim youth in a climate that is increasingly becoming hostile towards Muslims. Ultimately, the findings detailed in this work suggest that anti-Muslim racism in the post-9/11 era is inextricably linked to the effects of the War on Terror in the North American context. Moreover, Islamophobia is also impacted by localized practices, policies, and nationalist debates. This book is a unique contribution to the field of anti-racism education as it examines systemic and institutionalized racism towards Muslims in Canadian secondary schools in the context of the War on Terror.

This book examines how popular narratives of Canadian identity became implicated in Canada's foreign policy in the Global War on Terror. McDonald argues that Canada's decisions to join the 2001 Afghanistan War yet abstain from the 2003 Iraq War became politically possible because parliamentarians linked these policies to similar narratives of an enduring Canadian identity - even while re-imagining their meanings. These decisions are explored through politicians' mobilization of three discourses: Canada as America's neighbour, Canada as protector of foreign civilians, and Canada as a champion of multilateralism. This book challenges conceptions of national identity as entirely stable or fluid and contests predominant arguments that downplay the role of identity discourses in Canadian foreign policy. The relevance of these narratives is assessed by exploring the rhetoric of Canadian foreign policy in light of contemporary international challenges, including the Donald Trump presidency, the COVID-19 pandemic, and Russia's War on Ukraine. Dr. Taylor Robertson McDonald is a Scholar-in-residence at American University's School of International Service in Washington, D.C. He is a former post-doctoral fellow at the Taube Centre for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences at The Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland.

Following 9/11, the securitization of state practices and policies has chipped away at the citizenship and personal rights of all Canadians, particularly those of Arab descent. This book argues that, in a securitized global context and through racialized immigration and security policies, Arab Canadians have become “targeted transnationals.” Media representations have further legitimized their homogenization and racialization. The contributors to this book examine state practices towards, and media representations of, Arab Canadians. They also present voices that counter the dominant discourse and trace forms of community resistance to the racialization of Arab Canadians.

In this timely volume, contributors from various disciplines analyze reaction and resistance to feminism in several areas of law and policy � child custody, child poverty, sexual harassment, and sexual assault � and in a number of institutional sites, such as courts, legislatures, families, the mainstream media, and the academy. Collectively, their studies paint a complicated, often contradictory, picture of feminism, law, and social change, offering feminists and activists empirically grounded knowledge to develop legal and political strategies for change.

Since 1991, Canada has provided Ukraine with ongoing political and economic assistance. Never was this policy pursued with more urgency than in 2014, when Russian aggression prompted the Canadian government to elevate its support for Ukraine to a foreign policy priority. Although the move is often described as a radical departure, Bohdan Kordan and Mitchell Dowie contend that it was consistent with Canada's security interests and political and historical identity. In this calculation the worldview of Prime Minister Stephen Harper also figured prominently. Canada and the Ukrainian Crisis offers a timely explanation of the dynamic interaction between key factors - at the international, national, and individual levels - that shaped the Canadian government's response and imbued it with an unusual degree of urgency. Explaining the nature of the crisis and why it elicited such a forceful reaction from the Harper government, Kordan and Dowie assert that Canada's decision to side openly with Ukraine is best understood as a course correction, rather than a completely new foreign policy direction. They argue that this action reaffirmed Canada's historical commitment to a liberal rules-based order that has been an emblem of its foreign policy since the Second World War, treating the Ukrainian crisis as part of a wider struggle to defend liberal principles and values. Resolving lingering questions about the most serious geopolitical event since the end of the Cold War, Canada and the Ukrainian Crisis demonstrates that the policy changes triggered by the crisis represent a return to deep-rooted concerns about international order.