The Bureaucracy of Intervention: Deploying the Canadian Armed Forces

This book advances the contemporary intervention literature by focusing on Canadian Armed Forces deployments and the role of the public service. The author focuses on three recent post-Afghanistan deployments, including Iraq, Ukraine, Mali, and one non-deployment to Colombia, seeking to explain why the Canadian government varies in deploying the armed forces abroad, specifically the time required to announce a deployment and the deployment’s composition/size. The book seeks to examine the civil-military relationship in Canada and highlight aspects of the principal-agent relationship by focusing on how the federal bureaucracy defines and shapes military commitments. These four case studies look past the implementation stage of the decision-making process to explain how federal bureaucracies impact policy through agenda setting and policy formulation, specifically in regards to the use of armed force abroad.

Mike G. Fejes is an Assistant Professor at The Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario where he has taught since 2019. An infantry officer with 30 years of military service in both the regular and reserve force (including five international deployments and one domestic response operation), his research includes civil-military relations, comparative defence policy, and the contemporary use of armed force.

"The Bureaucracy of Intervention sheds important light on several key questions: Why do states vary in how they deploy their armed forces, and specifically how does Canada deploys its military overseas? Drawing on a wealth of experience, interviews, and theories of bureaucratic politics, Fejes highlights how various federal departments influenced post-Afghanistan deployments of the Canadian Armed Forces. The book shows the importance of looking beyond the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and parliamentary debates, to understand how the Department of National Defence, Global Affairs Canada, the Privy Council Office, and the Treasury Board Secretariat shape and influence Canada’s military missions. The Bureaucracy of Intervention should be required reading for all students, scholars, and practitioners of Canadian defence policy. 

-Philippe Lagassé, Associate Professor and Barton Chair, Norman Paterson School of International Affair, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

"Michael Fejes makes an important contribution to Canadian defence policy as his work systematically compares Canada’s military deployments.  Asking why are Canadian military deployments often small and late?  His answer is that some players in the Canadian bureaucracy, including the Canadian Armed Forces, can stymie decision-making towards their own interests.  Consequently, Fejes’s book is a must read for those seeking to understand Canadian civil-military relations and Canada’s foreign policy decision-making process."