Although the influence of normative ideas on the behaviour of states occupy an evermore significant place in political science and international relations, important questions remain with respect to how international norms come into existence. International norm scholars have been criticized for failing to demonstrate how actors might forge and change norms. How do norm entrepreneurs influence the process of norm development? Further, under what conditions are norm entrepreneurs likely to be successful in norm diffusion? To begin answering these questions, this paper draws on constructivist insights to present a model of norm evolution highlighting the role of the norm entrepreneur and conducts an interpretive case study methodology to provide an empirical illustration. It examines the evolution of the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) norm with particular attention to the norm entrepreneurial role of Canadian foreign policy to highlight how norm-building processes are inextricably intertwined with agents who are engaged in fostering nonnative change. / The R2P is considered to be a nonnative breakthrough in international relations and has emerged as an important instrument for upholding and promoting human security. While Canada has been praised for its leadership in promulgating the R2P, there is little empirical scholarship that links the development process of the R2P norm to Canadian foreign policy. How has Canada, with no demonstrative material capability, been able to advance the R2P on the international stage? This thesis develops an understanding of how agents can shape an international norm by acting as a "tipping agent" in the process of norm creation. It concludes by identifying the possibilities and limitations of norm entrepreneurs to influence world politics.

This paper examines events surrounding Canada's negotiations on the question of recognizing the People's Republic of China in 1949 and 1950, and the reasons why the negotiations failed. The focus is on the work of officials in the Canadian Embassy in Nanking and External Affairs in Ottawa, particularly External Affairs Minster Lester B. Pearson. Both Nanking and External Affairs, Ottawa, strove to promote recognition, which was approved in principal by the Canadian government but never actualized. Pearson and his department, spurred by Canadian officials on the ground in China, chiefly Ambassador T. C. Davis and his second-in-command, China specialist Chester Ronning, favoured early recognition, as a means of influencing the Communist government away from total dependence on the Soviet Union. The Canadian government weighed the desirability of recognition against what it saw as the necessity of solidarity of the North Atlantic alliance with the United Kingdom and the United States, in particular, against what they perceived as the machinations of the Soviet Union in its perceived drive for world domination. In the final analysis the Canadian government, fearful of alienating the United States, opted for solidarity of the Western Alliance on the recognition question. The focus of the essay, based in large measure on External Affairs documents and the Pearson Papers, is to look at the recognition question and how it played out, in Canadian domestic terms, rather than in terms of Great Power relationships, which is largely the preoccupation in the historiography. A brief window of opportunity occurred in late 1949 and early 1950, when Canada might have recognized without potentially serious repercussions on Canada-US relations. That moment passed quickly and the outbreak of the Korean War and China's entry in the conflict against UN forces, essentially destroyed any opportunity for Canada and Communist China to develop normal relations.

Belief in human rights is a value central to the Canadian self-image. Canadians view the development of Canada's international peacekeeping role and overseas development assistance program in the post-1945 era as the foreign policy manifestation of this belief. It has led to the national myth of the country as a "Humanitarian Middle Power". Canada's response to Indonesia's oppressive occupation of East Timor (1975 - 1999) contradicted this national myth. The concept of meta-narrative, of political mythmaking, is used to examine the reasons why the Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments in Ottawa during this period perceived Canada's national interest in maintaining a strong economic relationship with Jakarta over the protection of human rights in East Timor. These "Official" meta-narratives were countered by Canadian human rights activists, such as the East Timor Alert Network, who stressed the primacy of human rights in foreign-policy decision-making. Ultimately, this debate represents a conflict of values in Canadian society. The "Official" meta-narrative has developed since World War II in active support of the capitalist world-system dominated by the United States, whereas the "Counter" meta-narrative challenges the morality of that system. The "Humanitarian Middle Power" myth, which is at the core of the Canadian identity vis-a-vis the international community, is not completely invalid, but it is greatly limited by the firm adherence of Canadian governments to the world economic structure.

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The objective of this thesis is to determine why Canada, a state that pioneered nuclear technology, and that faced, throughout the Cold War, the Soviet threat to its national security, consistently rejected any opportunity to convert its latent nuclear capability into an indigenous nuclear weapons program. The answer to this research question must address a number of explicit contradictions in Canadian foreign policy. While Canada has, on the one hand, rejected the bomb, it has, on the other hand, pursued defence and industrial policies based upon intimate involvement with nuclear weapons. Moreover, Canada espouses, on the one hand, a clearly realpolitik view of international relations, while, on the other hand, committing to forging for itself a role as an international peace broker. It becomes, therefore, unclear which theory of international relations could adequately explain this dualism in Canadian policy formulation. This thesis argues that power and self-interest are not separable from Canada's decision to reject the bomb, and that by modifying certain precepts of realist theory, we may substantiate the hypotheses that two disincentives to proliferation are at the root of Canada's policies: first, Canada's political and geographical proximity to the United States and thus a credible U.S. nuclear umbrella; and second, prestige, where Canada interpreted both the rejection of its nuclear option and its internationalist policies as a sign of independence vis-a-vis the United States.

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This thesis seeks to determine the nature and character of Canada's foreign policy towards Vietnam. / Dependent upon Southeast Asian stability for strategic resources, a merchandise surplus and the expansion of the American economy, Canada also benefitted directly through increased exports of staple goods, automotive parts and war material. / Ottawa's record on the International Control Commissions was characterized by partisan voting, complicity in the violation of the Geneva and Paris Agreements and the rationalization of Washington's strategy. / Canadian aid, dispensed only to Saigon, was a co-ordinated part of American pacification programs. / The purpose of Ottawa's policy was to ensure the permanent division of Vietnam while the ultimate intention and consequence was to legitimate the U.S. intervention. Underlying Ottawa's decision-making was Canada's integration into the world market system and the unequal, albeit voluntary, alliance between the economic elites of Canada and the United States.

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This paper will rather seek to uncover and emphasize Cold War imperatives that served as significant guiding factors in shaping the Canadian response to the Suez Crisis. The success of Canadian diplomacy in the 1956 Suez Crisis was in the ability of Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester B. Pearson and his Canadian colleagues to protect Western interests in the context of the Cold War. Suez threatened Anglo-American unity, and the future of the North Atlantic alliance. It also presented the Soviets an opportunity to gain influence in the Middle East. The United Nations Emergency Force ensured that Britain and France had a means to extricate themselves from the Crisis. Canada wished to further protect Western credibility in the eyes of the non-white Commonwealth and Afro-Asian bloc. It was, therefore, important to focus international attention on Soviet aggression in Hungary, and not Anglo-French intervention in Egypt.

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