Inspired by trailblazing work in the field, this wide-ranging collection makes an essential and timely intervention through new theoretical contributions that build on decades of critical analysis of the Canadian state as an agent active in capitalist development in a global era. The Canadian State explores the state’s distinctive role in the development of a political economy shaped by capitalism and settler colonialism. Paying critical attention to how the state exercises accumulation, legitimation, and coercion in unique ways, the book provides an essential guide to understanding the multidimensional character of Canada's contemporary state form. Leading contributors in their field provide cutting edge chapters on settler colonialism, land ownership, extractivism, energy, services, care work, democracy, finance, commercialization, employment, and trade and investment.

Heather Whiteside is an associate professor of political science at the University of Waterloo and a fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs. She is a political economist with expertise in Canadian political economy, economic geography, theories of the state and capitalism, and public policy, demonstrated through a wide range of publications on issues such as public ownership, privatization, property relations, fiscal studies, and state capitalism.

Heather Whiteside's profile page

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).

Stephen McBride is a professor in the Department of Political Science and Canada Research Chair in public policy and globalization at McMaster University.

Stephen McBride's profile page