The logic of state response to economic change: An institutional analysis of industrial adjustment in Canada.
Item
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Title
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The logic of state response to economic change: An institutional analysis of industrial adjustment in Canada.
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Identifier
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AAI3083642
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identifier
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3083642
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Creator
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Bernard, Prosper Maurice, Jr.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Howard H. Lentner
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Date
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2003
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Political Science, International Law and Relations | Canadian Studies | History, Canadian | Economics, History
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Abstract
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This study explores how the Canadian state, from the early 1970s to the mid-1990s, dealt with the problem of industrial adjustment. The growing concern that Canada's international economic position was deteriorating, that its manufacturing sector was facing major structural deficiencies, and that Canada was becoming more vulnerable to shifts in the policies of the United States triggered a sequence of industrial adjustment policy actions. In identifying two industrial adjustment strategies (economic nationalism and economic liberalism), which were used to address the problem of industrial adjustment, this study seeks to explain what caused the shift from one strategy to the other and the variance in the efficacy of each strategy.;The study develops a framework of analysis which combines an institutionalist argument and a modified realist argument. I argue that the sequence of adjustment actions reflects policy actors' efforts to act in the face of domestic and international constraints and incentives. At the international level, I argue that increases in negative externalities stemming from American economic policies and changes in the asymmetry of economic power between Canada and the United States constitute the key obstacles and opportunities for state action. Whereas the deterioration of Canada's economic power and increasing exposure to externalities impelled government officials in the 1970s to select economic nationalism, an improvement in Canada's relative power and continued exposure to externalities led Ottawa to shift to economic liberalism in the mid-1980s.;At the domestic level, the path dependence dynamic of institutional politics imposed limits on and enabled government officials as they attempted to effect the necessary institutional adaptation to facilitate the implementation of the two strategies. The increasing returns and the distributional conflict processes that produce path dependent outcomes narrow the parameters within which institutional innovators can act as they seek to set up an institutional framework that is appropriate for the pursuit of an adjustment strategy. This study shows that path dependence shaped how economic nationalism was pursued by creating huge obstacles for government officials as they sought to modify drastically (and deviate from) the prevailing pattern of institutional arrangements. On the other hand, the path dependence dynamic proved to be more amenable to undertaking those institutional modifications that were necessary to pursue economic liberalism because the institutional changes followed the prevailing institutional patterns.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
