Stephen McBride

McMaster

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.

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  • Orchestrating Austerity

    Impacts and Resistance

    Edited by Donna Baines and Stephen McBride     September 2014

    Following the 2007–08 global financial crisis, Western nations engaged a variety of measures that departed quite dramatically from conventional neoliberal wisdom. However, these policies were quickly succeeded by what we now call “austerity” measures. This collection engages with the question: Is there something new in this era of austerity, or should this be understood as a continuation and intensification of earlier forms of neoliberalism? Finally, Jim Stanford’s afterword probes to the heart of the question of why austerity in the first place.

  • Private Affluence, Public Austerity

    Economic Crisis and Democratic Malaise in Canada

    By Stephen McBride and Heather Whiteside     April 2011

    “The book is both timely and sorely needed. There is simply nothing like it. A brilliant and surprisingly clear analysis of the theory and practice of Canadian politics in the current conjuncture of capitalist development, the authors provide an exceptionally clear and most useful exposition of the forces at play, arising out of the propensity of capitalism towards crisis.”

  • Paradigm Shift, 2nd edition

    Globalization and the Canadian State

    By Stephen McBride     January 2005

    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.

  • Dismantling A Nation, 2nd Ed.

    The Transition to Corporate Rule in Canada

    By Stephen McBride and John Shields     December 1996

    This new edition is reorganized to make it a more usable text and updated to include the Liberal government’s pursuit of neo-liberal policies. William K. Carroll, Sociology, University of Victoria, said of the first edition: “All the aspects of the neo-conservative policy matrix-privatization, deregulation, NAFTA, the obsession with deficits, attacks on collective bargaining, the cutbacks to social programs, the weakening of federal powers-are carefully analyzed as elements of a political project that will have disastrous consequences for most Canadians and for Canada as a nation. This book is truly essential reading for those who care about Canada’s future.”