The Canadian State

by Heather Whiteside (Editor), Stephen McBride (editor)

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.

Genres: Canada

288 pages, Paperback

Published May 15, 2025

Reviews

[martyn benny]

The Canadian State is an outstanding and timely collection that offers a sophisticated examination of the Canadian state through the lenses of political economy, capitalism, and settler colonialism. Edited by Heather Whiteside and Stephen McBride, this volume successfully brings together leading scholars to provide a comprehensive and critical understanding of how the Canadian state has evolved and continues to shape economic, political, and social life.

One of the collection's greatest strengths is its broad yet coherent scope. Rather than viewing the state simply as a neutral governing institution, the contributors explore its active role in processes of accumulation, legitimation, and coercion. This perspective provides readers with a richer understanding of how public institutions interact with markets, capital, labour, and society in the contemporary global economy.

I particularly appreciated the book's interdisciplinary approach. By integrating discussions of settler colonialism, extractivism, finance, energy, land ownership, employment, care work, democracy, commercialization, and international trade, the volume demonstrates the complexity of Canada's political economy while showing how these issues are deeply interconnected. Each chapter contributes a valuable piece to a larger analytical framework.

The scholarship throughout is rigorous, insightful, and highly relevant. The contributors successfully connect theoretical analysis with contemporary policy challenges, making the collection valuable not only for academics but also for policymakers, students, and readers interested in understanding Canada's evolving place within global capitalism.

Equally impressive is the volume's ability to build upon decades of critical scholarship while introducing fresh theoretical perspectives. It encourages readers to think critically about the changing role of the state in addressing economic inequality, environmental challenges, Indigenous sovereignty, democratic governance, and globalization.

The Canadian State stands as an essential resource for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of Canada's political economy and the complex forces shaping the modern state. It is an important and highly valuable contribution to contemporary political and social scholarship.

[Quinn Ingram]

The Canadian State provides a insightful overview into operations of the Canadian state past and present. While the book is more focused on the Canadian states polticial economy generally, this is to expected given the books overarching themes that emanate from each chapter (each chapter being by a different author). The first theme is of the Canadian states role in accumulation, legitimation, and coercion. The idea of these three functions being pillars of the Canadian state are directly from Leo panitchs book of the same name, which this book takes many ideas from not just in theme, but in content from specific chapters as well. The book is decidedly Marxist, but provides a broad insightful analysis that is empirical as well as theoretical. The second broad theme throughout the book is that the Canadian state over time has worked with capital in many ways to facilitate accumulation first and for most over the other pillars over time in ways that resemble state capitalism more than free market capitalism, even so in the neoliberal era which is defined by free markets. It is pointed out multiple times that confederation itself was driven out of economic need to shore up sectors of BNA that were unwilling or unable to invest due to the limitations of private capital/investment. But state capitalism is explored in a myriad of chapters throughout the book, such as the extractive state, the energy state, and the financial state chapters to name a few The third theme, is that the of the settler colonial state, which argues that the Canadian state is one that is founded on the dispossession of indigenous land and identity through legal, political, economic, and cultural means, which informs the actions of economic and political elite historically and contemporarily. This book is definelty an underrated and much needed commentary on the current Canadian state and essential to understanding the workings of power in Canada historically and currently. Surprised this book doesn’t have more reviews/ratings on this app lol.