The multi-level state: Canada in the semi-periphery of both continentalism and globalization

This article looks at an old subject (the state of the state) under new conditions (accelerating globalization and fragmentation), using Canada as the case in point. My first concern is linguistic: such labels as 'post-Keynesian', 'post-welfare', and even 'post-national' tell us more about what the state may have been than what it has become. These 'post-' categories do not capture the extent to which governmental functions have been redistributed - upward to international institutions, downward to sub-national states, and laterally to the private sector. Nor do they direct our attention to the dynamic interconnections that are linking evolving governmental forms with civil society. I go on to consider to what extent these difficulties can be resolved by considering the 'state' as a nested, multi-tiered set of institutions providing governance on five levels - from the municipal and the regional, through the national to the continental and global. Political economy analysis of the dynamic that links these levels of governance with civil society and transnational market forces may tell us better than the post-it labels that the present capability of the Canadian, or any other, state is less bleak than it may have seemed.