The disarmament and non-proliferation policies of Ireland and Canada. A constructivist analysis

The author examines a phenomenon of multilateral disarmament and non-proliferation policy: the proactive engagement in building, maintaining and strengthening the associated international regimes. She traces the policies of Ireland and Canada on nuclear weapons, biological weapons and anti-personnel mines over several decades and analyses the domestic origins and accompanying discourses against the backdrop of the question of what role state identity played in shaping the policies under study. Her analysis shows that the respective identities, translated and mediated by the disarmament bureaucratic culture, significantly shaped the observed policies directly or through path dependencies. Topics: State identity and foreign policy - theoretical conception and operationalisation; Irish and Canadian policies in the fields of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, bioweapons control and anti-personnel landmine bans; bureaucratic culture as a mechanism of state identity.