Relocating Middle Powers: Australia and Canada in a Changing World Order

Australia and Canada have much in common and face many of the same problems in their international and political economic systems. Both countries are part of the post-1945 Western alliance system - Australia is a member of ANZUS and Canada of NATO and NORAD. As well, both are members of the OCED. Both, however, suffer from being mainly commodity-dependent economies and, to some extent, from their association with their major ally, the United States. Inevitably, both Australia’s and Canada’s foreign policies have reflected sensitivity to US actions and a commitment to economic and security systems established under American leadership since 1945. Relocating Middle Powers is a penetrating and innovative analysis of how these two states have dealt with changes in the international arena in the last decade. In particular, the three authors reformulate the concept of the middle power as a distinctive category in contemporary international relations. Instead of using traditional definitions based on the usual criteria of size, power, and locations, the authors focus on the entrepreneurial and technological capacities of Australia and Canada. The coming to power of Mikhail S. Gorbachev in the Soviet Union in 1985, and the subsequent transformations in international politics have resulted in declining tensions and a consequent waning of the Cold War. For Australia and Canada, this has meant that some of the more traditional, military/strategic foreign policy concerns have been replaced by mounting concern over the future of the international economic system.