Canada, Latin America, and the New Internationalism, A Foreign Policy Analysis, 1968–1990 by Brian J.R. Stevenson (review)

HUMANITIES 383 mother-figures. Her discussion of Jan Mark is also enlightening, balancing Mark=s more emotionally difficult novels with those in a lighter vein. Her treatment of the works of Robert Cormier is less convincing B partly because in choosing to discuss >monumental time= she avoids treating Cormier=s deep disgust for the body, and partly because hope is harder to find in his relentlessly vacuous characters. Even so, her interpretation of these texts is a respectable response to those many critics who have condemned them as irremediably bleak. It is annoying that Giant Despair, one of the few studies to apply literary theory to children=s literature, is marred by many small flaws and inaccuracies. Ultimately these infelicities accumulate to become a barrier to the reader=s reception of the work. The statement >Michael ... becomes the prototype of a Major novel= doesn=t make sense. The novel Handles is mistakenly identified as a >lead story= in a collection of short stories (published by >Kestral,= not Kestrel). At times quotations of Kristeva are so merged with Westwater=s analysis that one might think, wrongly, that Kristeva was originally referring to the text under discussion. Technical errors in spelling and grammar mar a text that otherwise has useful insights to offer. (DEIRDRE BAKER) Brian J.R. Stevenson. Canada, Latin America, and the New Internationalism, A Foreign Policy Analysis, 1968B1990 McGill-Queen=s University Press. xiv, 290. $55.00 In the wake of the Quebec City Summit of the Americas and last year=s General Assembly of the Organization of American States in Windsor, events that stimulated increased awareness of our hemisphere among Canadians, this academic study by a foreign policy insider is both timely and necessary. With the notable exception of Canada=s involvement in wars, traditional peacekeeping missions, and our evolving trading relationship with the United States, the remarkable public crescendo regarding our involvement in the Americas over the past year has stimulated unprecedented debate over the benefits of increased hemispheric integration, our role in projecting Canadian values of democratic governance and respect for human rights southwards, and in the postSeattle world, the interplay between those who reject globalization altogether and their governments who need to deal with it. Although Stevenson=s analysis begins with the Trudeau years and concludes in 1990, when, after decades of indifference and coinciding with the end of the Cold War, Canada finally joined the Organization of American States, his observations on the impact on policy of non-governmental organizations, who in today=s vernacular fall into the more all-encompassing term of civil society, are not only astute but also remain valid in the context of the 384 LETTERS IN CANADA 2000 contemporary debate. His analysis of this theme throughout the book also serves to underscore his second objective of indicating how the international system has changed during this period. He interprets Canadian stateled interest in the hemisphere as fluctuating: convenient when it coincided with established foreign policy goals or planned high-level visits, less so when it came to sustaining relationships, particularly with the larger South American countries, and held together by increasingly enlightened official development assistance policies. There is no doubt in Stevenson=s mind that the catalyst for more measured commitment and consistency in Canadian policy towards the region came from the conflict in Central America, characterized as ideological by the Americans but as socio-economic by the many NGO groups active throughout the isthmus and their activist networks throughout Canada. Their points of reference became important for the government of Canada, and, coupled with an official disinclination to embrace the Reagan administration=s approach to the hemisphere, led to Canada=s embarking on a series of peace-brokering efforts in Central America, first through the Contadora Group process and then progressively through enhanced diplomatic activity behind the peace plan pushed by Costa Rican president Oscar Arias, and finally, Canadian command of United Nations peacekeeping forces that oversaw the demobilization of the Contra forces in Nicaragua and Honduras. Stevenson convincingly argues that the symbiosis between state and non-state actors in policy formulation was mutually beneficial, offering the image that the government was reaching out to concerned groups to enrich...