Paradigm Shift (Second Edition)

Globalization and the Canadian State, Second Edition

Stephen McBride

Canada has always been a global nation, integrated with the international economy and having close relations with succeeding hegemonic powers. Recently, globalization was accompanied by an intellectual paradigm shift: moderate state interventionism associated with Keynesian economic theories was replaced by an economic orthodoxy that confined the state to a minimal role and trumpeted the virtue of market solutions. Paradigm Shift evaluates the globalization debate through a Canadian lens and places Canada in the forefront of the analysis. Opposition to neo-liberal globalization emerged on several fronts: from political opposition within civil society and social movements, skepticism about the claims of the globalizers from academic researchers, and lack of enthusiasm by some nation-states which found, contrary to expectations, that they retained some power. The Bush administration’s aggressive unilateral foreign policy stimulated talk of a new imperialism and sharpened the debate over the nature of the new era. Canada faces difficult choices but so far the government shows intensified rather than lessened enthusiasm for removing obstacles to trade and investment. On the other hand, as the government moves toward greater integration with the United States, many Canadians seek a more independent path.

Contents

• 1. The Globalization Debate 
• 2. Canada: Between Nationalism, Continentalism and Globalism 
• 3. Canadian Capital and the Politics of Neo-Liberal Globalization 
• 4. The Theory and Politics of trade and Investment Agreements: Class and Nation at the Global Level 
• 5. Neo-liberalism and Canadian Policy 
• 6. Canadian Foreign Policy in the Global Era 
• 7. Conditioning State Behaviour Through International Agreements 
• 8. Reshaping Canadian Institutions: Canadian Politics 101 Revisited 
• 9. Paradigm Stalled 
• Bibliography

About the Author

Stephen McBride, Professor and Director of the Centre for Global Political Economy, specializes in political economy, and comparative public policy, and Canadian politics.  He is the author of Not Working: State, Unemployment and Neo-conservatism in Canada (1992) which won the 1994 Smiley prize, and Paradigm Shift: Globalization and the Canadian State (2001; 2nd edition 2005). He is the co-author of Dismantling a Nation: Canada and the New World Order (1993; 2nd edition 1997) and several co-edited volumes: Global Turbulence: Social Activists’ and State Responses to Globalization (2003), Global Instability: Uncertainty and New Visions in Political Economy (2002), Globalization and its Discontents (2000), and Power in a Global Era (2000). His current research is focused on the impact of globalization on the state, and the political economy of labour and the welfare state.

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