People acting across borders and Canadian foreign policy: a systemist analysis. Issue 3 (2nd September 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Henders, Susan J.
• Is Part Of: Canadian foreign policy. Volume 27:Issue 3(2021)
• Page Start: 318
• Page End: 346
• Publication Date: 2021-09-02
• Subjects: Canadian foreign policy -- systemism -- border-crossing non-state actors -- diaspora -- immigrants; Canada -- Foreign relations -- Periodicals; 327.71005
• DOI: 10.1080/11926422.2021.1969967
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1192-6422

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article expands understanding of Canadian-linked border-crossing non-state actors and their significance for Canadian foreign policy. Using systemism, it studies three relevant works with different (meta)theoretical and conceptual approaches and empirical concerns to clarify how the specific types of border-crossing NSAs condition and impel state policies: through the effects of material structure, explored by Leuprecht with respect to (im)migrants to Canada; the effects of interests and resources derived from transnational networks, knowledge and skill, and socio-economic success, in Singh's examination of Indo-Canadian diaspora elites; and the effects of intersectional power hierarchies that are world order's deep structures in Young and Henders' study of NSAs whose diplomacies have made Canadian-Asian relations. The works also illuminate causal connections related to Canadian state attempts to manage and instrumentalize NSA border-crossing activities, decisions and relations for its own goals. Systemist bricolagic bridging of studies underscores the need for theorizations of the connections between NSA border-crossing and Canadian foreign policy that consider both causal chains of purposive action as well as the conditioning causality of social structural properties. Based on such theorizations, avenues for future research are identified.