The Institute and the Department

The Canadian Institute of International Affairs, in its relationship with the Department of External Affairs, has acted neither as a foreign policy association nor as a council on foreign affairs. In other words it has avoided being a group of insiders defending established policy and it has stopped short of being a group of outsiders seeking to define and urge policy alternatives. Prohibited by its charter from passing resolutions and making recommendations, the latter course has been closed to it: nurtured on a tradition of retaining its independence from government, the former course has been unacceptable. Rejecting both types of example from abroad, the Institute has instead created for itself a role in which the two functions are mixed: a compromise of paradoxes which in more settled political times would have been described as typically Canadian. This dichotomous element in the Institute's self-image has at times caused it problems in coming to grips with a changing environment. It has also, on occasion, left External Affairs in a quandary over how to respond to its prestigious cousin. Nonetheless the relations between the two have generally been smooth and relatively untroubled. As the two principal organizations in the country dealing with foreign affairs, the relationship was naturally close and can, perhaps, best be described as free but co-operative; respectful but compromising (in the good sense of the word). Three contemporaneous though unconnected incidents during

Charter · Compromise · Cousin · Element (criminal law · Foreign policy · Foreign relations · Government (linguistics · Independence (probability theory · International relations · Political science · Politics · Principal (computer security · Sociology · Canadian Policy and Governance · International Relations and Foreign Policy · Law · Mathematics · Military and Defense Studies · Public Administration