{"id":3057,"date":"2026-11-11T12:51:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-11T17:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/npsia\/?post_type=cu_event&p=3057"},"modified":"2026-11-11T12:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-11-11T17:51:11","slug":"npsia-research-colloquium-canada-in-the-21st-century-a-nation-on-the-edge-of-forever","status":"publish","type":"cu_event","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/npsia\/event\/npsia-research-colloquium-canada-in-the-21st-century-a-nation-on-the-edge-of-forever\/","title":{"rendered":"NPSIA Research Colloquium: Canada in the 21st Century \u2013 A Nation on The Edge of Forever?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NPSIA\u2019s Third Research Colloquium will take place November 19th from 10:20am to 11:30am<\/strong> with a presentation from Dr. David Carment<\/a>, Professor at NPSIA with a paper titled Canada in the 21st Century \u2013 A Nation on The Edge of Forever? <\/strong>This paper evaluates how systemic polarity and domestic leadership interact to shape Canadian foreign policy amid institutional socialization, regulatory lawfare, and engineered vulnerabilities. Bound by continentalist elite socialization, the Justin Trudeau administration treated U.S. coercion as a temporary aberration, reinforcing a state of managed subordination that left Canada exposed to unilateral shocks. This structural weakness is exemplified by Canada’s non-controlling entanglement in the Ukraine-Russia conflict and its diplomatic marginalization during the U.S.-Israel-Iran war. Conversely, Mark Carney\u2019s leadership capitalized on an emerging multipolar transition to break this paradigm, shifting from a reliance on external security guarantees to a strategy of endurance. Using the August 2026 CUSMA negotiation breakdown as a stress test for self-reliance, the Carney government  rejected submissive bargaining  in support of domestic industrial capacity and technological sovereignty against “weaponized interdependence”. This divergence  stems from a clash between structural realities and individual leadership agency<\/strong>. While systemic theories explain the constraints of an asymmetric distribution of power, they do not dictate how a government responds. In Canada’s case, structural dependence is heavily mediated by the leader’s cognitive framework, prevailing policy ideas and self-imposed limits on policy autonomy. This shift  finds contrasts between Global Affairs Canada (GAC) which operates on a legacy model of rules-based internationalism and the Privy Council Office (PCO) which considers  engineered vulnerabilities as direct national security liabilities. Thus, the central tension<\/a> in Canada\u2019s foreign policy  statecraft is shifting from managing external threats to managing<\/a> structural dependency. The emerging challenge<\/a> is not simply to maintain alignment with allies, but to ensure that alignment<\/a> does not harden into vulnerability<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The event will be held in RB 3224.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will circulate the draft\u00a0 to those that register for the event.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n