Uncle Sam and Us

The state’s estate: Devaluing and revaluing ‘surplus’ public land in Canada

“…Even now, after decades of neoliberalism, Canada has retained a distinctly ‘mixed’ economy which can be traced back to several factors, including: a lack of internal linkages, the need to integrate distinct colonial economies into a single national market after Confederation, as a way of forging/maintaining a national identity, and in attempt to overcome domination by American entrepreneurs and minimize economic dependence (see Clarkson, 2002; Eden and Molot, 1993; Innis, 1995; Laxer, 1991; Watkins, 1963). Factors contributing to the creation of Crown corporations like CLC tended to reflect these considerations as well (see Gordon, 1981; Hardin, 1989; Taylor, 1991; Tupper and Doern, 1981).…”

Institutionalized Inhibition: Examining Constraints on Climate Change Policy Capacity in the Transport Departments of Ontario and British Columbia, Canada

“…A reasonable metric for this resource could therefore be the dollars spent on policy-related staff salaries, as this will take into account the number of staff, as well as their levels of education, experience and responsibility (as better trained, more experienced, more important policy personnel will likely be paid higher salaries). In BC, the Fund report lists salaries and employee benefits for "policy and legislation" for the Ministry of Transportation from fiscal year 2002onward. Before 2002, the Consolidated Revenue Fund report does not list a policy-specific line item.…”

“…At present, we do not consider the federal government to be a leading policy actor in advancing climate change policy that influences the transportation sector. Federal government action is constrained by NAFTA and other forces of continentalization in our political economy (Cohen, 1996;Clarkson, 2002;McBride, 2003). The strategy apparent in Ottawa suggests that Canada should not formulate national climate policy until the US does so, because such a policy would be unenforceable and uncompetitive in the absence of a US policy (Sawyer and Fischer, 2010).…”

El Jardín del Edén, Bordertown, and the United States-Mexico border region : representations of integration and the changing nation-state

“…If the concept of sovereignty translates as the state's ultimate control of the national territory and populace (Joppke, 1998, 10), then this scenario represents a decline in Mexican sovereignty. While many academic studies of NAFTA and sovereignty examine how the text of the agreement sets a number of constraints to governmental action (Clarkson, 2002;McBride, 2006), Bordertown focuses on how the multiplicity of parties involved in NAFTA can have the same effect. The U.S. government and the giant corporations are too influential for their interests to be dismissed, thus guaranteeing them some degree of leverage when dealing with the Mexican government.…”