Stephen Clarkson, CMFRSC (21 October 1937 – 28 February 2016) was one of Canada’s preeminent political scientists and a professor of political economy at the University of Toronto.
Life and career
Clarkson's work focused mainly on two areas: the evolution of North America as a continental state, reinstitutionalized by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and two decades of neoconservatism; and the impact of globalization and trade liberalization on the Canadian state. His trilogy on these themes include Uncle Sam and Us: Globalization, Neoconservatism and the Canadian State, published in 2002; Does North America Exist? (2008) and Dependent America? How Canada and Mexico Construct US Power (2011); as well as: Global Governance and the Semi-peripheral State: The WTO and NAFTA as Canada's External Constitution in Governing under Stress: Middle Powers and the Challenge of Globalization".
His latest projects looked at Interregionalism in the triangle Europe, North America and South America and at the Investor-State Dispute Arbitration.
Clarkson's knowledge and experience in Canadian politics led to the commissioning of a history of federal election campaigns in Canada from 1974 onward. These essays were the basis of his 2005 book, The Big Red Machine: How the Liberal Party Dominates Canadian Politics. Clarkson was renowned for his teaching, receiving many teaching awards in his tenure at the University of Toronto. He was a great encourager of “the engaged” life, taking his students on extra-curricular field studies to Washington, D.C., Mexico, Brazil, Madrid and Lisbon, and urging them to resist the world around them if they felt so inclined. Clarkson was a frequent commentator of Canadian politics, in both English and French. A lover of languages, he was also proficient in Spanish, German, Russian and Italian.
Clarkson's first wife was then broadcaster and future Governor General of CanadaAdrienne Clarkson. His second wife was the late political writer Christina McCall.
Clarkson died in Germany of pneumonia which had developed into sepsis, while on a research trip with his students.[1] He is survived by wife Nora Born, whom he married in 2014.
Bibliography
1970 L'analyse soviétique des problèmes indiens du sous-développement, 1955-1964
1972 City lib: parties and reform
1978 The Soviet theory of development: India and the Third World in Marxist-Leninist scholarship
1982 Canada and the Reagan challenge: crisis in the Canadian-American relationship
1990 Trudeau and Our Times: Volume 1: The Magnificent Obsession (with Christina McCall)
1994 Trudeau and Our Times: Volume 2: The Heroic Delusion (with Christina McCall)
1998 Fearful asymmetries: the challenge of analyzing continental systems in a globalizing world
2000 "Apples and oranges": prospects for the comparative analysis of the EU and NAFTA as continental systems
2001 After the catastrophe: Canada's position in North America
2002 Lockstep in the continental ranks: redrawing the American perimeter after September 11th
2002 Uncle Sam and Us: Globalization, Neoconservatism, and the Canadian State
2005 Big Red Machine: How the Liberal Party Dominates Canadian Politics
2008 Does North America Exist?: Governing the Continent after NAFTA and 9/11
2010 A Perilous Imbalance: The Globalization of Canadian Law and Governance (with Stepan Wood)
2011 Dependent America? How Canada and Mexico Construct US Power (with Matto Mildenberger)