Fen Osler Hampson
Fen Osler Hampson is Distinguished
Fellow and Director of Global Security at
the Centre for International Governance
Innovation (CIGI) and Chancellor’s Professor
at Carleton University.
Fen Osler Hampson's Latest Posts
The U.S. and China: The great decoupling
There are few signs that U.S.-China trade and security tensions are abating under the Biden administration, amid heightened fears that the COVID pandemic has exposed critical vulnerabilities in global supply chains and is contributing to rising inflation. There is also a lot of chatter in Western capitals about “decoupling” from China, particularly as political and […]
Fall summits will shape Canada’s global goals
The fall of the Western-backed Afghan government to the Taliban just as the Canadian election writ was drawn showed, yet again, that the best-laid plans, to riff on Robert Burns, “go oft awry.” The Sept. 20 election was supposed to be a referendum on the Liberal government’s handling of the COVID pandemic and stewardship of […]
21st-Century world order restored?
Between November 1814 and June 1815, Europe’s leaders sat down at a diplomatic conference in Vienna to establish the foundations of a new political order, following the disruptions of the French Revolution and the massive carnage of the Napoleonic Wars. The new spirit of the international co-operation that was born out of the Congress of […]
Canada’s gains and losses in a Biden presidency
Many hope that Joe Biden’s presidency will reap big dividends for American allies and for Canada after four tumultuous years of Donald Trump. There will be less bashing of friends and fewer insults with the new president. He will also pay greater attention to nurturing alliances and multilateral institutions. But there is no going back […]
Wholesale corruption causing a democracy deficit
When Canadian foreign minister François-Philippe Champagne touched down in Beirut in late August to survey the damage from the disastrous explosion that killed hundreds, injured thousands and left hundreds of thousands homeless, he had a clear message for Lebanese President Michel Aoun: Canadian aid would be contingent on “real reforms” to the country’s political system. […]
COVID will dampen our economic future
As the coronavirus took its toxic flight around the globe and the health crisis in many countries — developed and developing alike — deepened, many pundits forecast that globalization was finally lurching to an ignominious end. “Davos Man will need rebranding,” one commentator cheekily observed in Forbes business magazine, arguing that the crisis was forcing […]
The risk of our rancorous times
Should politics be civil in the age of Trump and Twitter? Many Canadians think so. Canadians applauded when Conservative leadership candidate Peter MacKay walked back a tweet that had been issued by his leadership team poking fun at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s yoga habit with a caption saying that “while running for leader of the […]
What the new year will bring
The onset of the New Year is generally a time for punditry, predictions, crystal-ball gazing and the invariable resolutions — resolutely made, occasionally kept, more often broken. Resolutions aside, there is good reason to be circumspect about what 2020 will bring as the year unfolds. The geopolitical order is unstable. The global economy more so. […]
Why foreign policy should be an election issue
Foreign policy won’t be a federal election issue during the 2019 campaign, although it should. To be sure, there may be a leader’s debate about foreign policy as there was in the 2015 election. But foreign policy is generally not a do-or-die, make-or-break issue with Canadians. Like voters pretty much anywhere, they are preoccupied with […]
Europe’s ever-deepening malaise
The European Union’s mounting woes over Brexit and its aftermath are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Europe has many other problems, some below the waterline, some above, that threaten its future. They include the fragmentation of the political landscape with a proliferation of extremist parties on the left and right that make it […]
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