Exporting and Internalizing Globalization: Canada and the Global System of Power

Abstract

Since Canada has always depended on the international economy for its prosperity the chapter opens by considering its historical strategies for actively managing its interaction with more powerful international economic actors. In the 1980s the Canadian strategy shifted to one of neoliberalism and free trade. The new strategy, explored in a subsequent section of the chapter, involved accepting constraints on aspects of national sovereignty and some reorganization of state institutions through the provisions of NAFTA and the WTO.

Financial assistance of the Social Sciences Research Council of Canada, through the MCRI grant, The Globalism Project (Principal Investigator: Gordon Laxer) is gratefully acknowledged.