Asymmetrical Dyads and Foreign Policy

Abstract

An analysis of Canada's foreign policy toward the United States from 1963 to 1972 is used in a test of a theory of foreign policies of subordinate states in asymmetrical dyads. In this theory the interaction of two conditions—the state of a nation's economy and the extent of concentration in its linkages with a superordinate power, along with a set of conditioning environmental factors—are used to explain the foreign policy actions of the subordinate state. The findings confirm the importance of the two main exogenous factors and the environmental variables, but the interactive effect of economic performance and linkage concentration is not corroborated. In particular the statistical effects of the economic performance variable on the foreign policy indicators are positive where a negative sign was predicted.