THE IDEOLOGICAL SHIFT IN CANADIAN SECURITY POLICY- HARPER NEO-CONSERVATIVISM

Abstract

The ideology of liberal internationalism is the basis of Canadian identity in international politics, through the foreign-policy project, which includes taking responsibility in international conflicts, constructive multilateralism and commitment to international organizations. In its final form this ideology involves promoting the values of Canadian society as a specific objective of foreign policy, which represents a radical starting point in the approach to international politics. Canadian neoconservatism, which is introduced by Stephen Harper is one of the brands of American conservatism, which has replaced the traditional Canadian conservatism based on the British tradition. This is a product of neoconservatism of a radical American right wing, and basically is not conservative and moderate in the original sense of the word, but gravitate to a radical change the order in politics and society. Harper rejected the liberal project of the Canadian welfare state as part of the overall denial of rational discourse of liberal ideology, and tried to build a political project on a completely new basis. In Harper's vision, international policy in security domain is presented in a narrative of Manichean struggle between the forces of good and evil, in which big conflicts define the position of Canada in the world. However, if ideology generally leads to consistency and coherence, it can be concluded that the empirical record of Harper's foreign policy became less ideological and more pragmatic. Harper stuck ideological paradigm only when it is not in conflict with the basic attitudes of targeted voters. So it happened that the Harper neo-conservatives shifted a significant part of the hard neoconservative ideological positions to majority attitudes of public opinion, and not the other way around, that the public opinion is shaped by the ideology of the neoconservatives.