Heather Whiteside and Stephen McBride’s The Canadian State seeks to “update and reinvigorate our understanding of the Canadian state” in the twenty-first century (15). Explicitly referencing Leo Panitch’s (ed.) influential 1977 book of the same title, Whiteside and McBride (alongside 10 contributing authors) examine Canada in a moment of global turmoil. Reflecting the multifaceted nature of the state, the book contains a diversity of focus areas and approaches. In their introductory chapter, Whiteside and McBride identify “public-private hybridity… the close relations between capital and the state… the enduring significance of historical dynamics… the centrality of coercion, and the change and continuity in state institutions, relations, and roles” (1–2) as key themes which inform this edited collection.
Like in Panitch’s volume, the authors in Whiteside and McBride’s The Canadian State do not share a unified vision of what the state is. This is not a weakness of the text, but rather a reflection on the difficulties inherent in the state as an object of study (see Abrams, 1977/Reference Abrams1988). Each chapter focuses on a specific aspect of the Canadian state’s relationship to civil society. Contributing authors address longstanding focus areas in Canadian political economy scholarship (CPE) (for example, Anna Stanley on resource extraction, Carlo Fanelli on labour, Dennis Pilon on democracy) as well as areas which have been given less emphasis in the tradition (for example, Adam J. Barker on settler colonialism, Joy Schnittker on politics of/through scale and Julie MacArthur on energy). Expanding on the political economy approach, Peter Graefe and Marjorie Griffin Cohen both use social reproduction theory to uncover and explain the dynamics which limit Canada’s social service provisioning. Chapters also focus on the profit-oriented logics and public–private interconnections which shape public management (Chris Hurl) and central banking (Dan Cohen). Finally, Whiteside and McBride’s individual contributions bookend the volume, and each contribution takes a long view of the Canadian state’s central role in a property regime and shaping a national economy, respectively. This breadth is the biggest strength of the book. Each chapter is focused on the Canadian state as its object of study, but the entry points to this object of study are varied and novel.
The Canadian State is relevant to both the subject area expert and the newcomer to CPE and Canadian state debates. For the expert, the book includes novel approaches to examining the various facets of the Canadian state, and useful connections between specific areas of contemporary and historical state practice. While Whiteside and McBride’s introduction frames the book as focusing on the first quarter of the twenty-first century, many of the chapters reach back to the nineteenth century to trace the origins of contemporary state structures. For those new to this material, Whiteside and McBride’s introductory chapter provides a crash-course in 50 years of Marxian state debate and the application of these debates in the Canadian context. Each chapter author connects their work in some way to the 1977 Panitch text, explicitly drawing connections to and points of divergence from the CPE tradition.
As discussed above, the editors identify coercion as a key theme in examining the Canadian state. Throughout The Canadian State, authors focus on various coercive mechanisms at the state’s disposal. However, the most explicitly coercive (domestic) state institution—the police—is given relatively little attention throughout the book, and no chapter-length treatment. Barker (44–47) briefly discusses policing’s relationship to colonialism, and Fanelli (209–210) also discusses the coercion at the heart of capitalist societies (whereby individuals are compelled to enter into wage relations). However, these brief discussions are not the central focus of either chapter. Given the historical and ongoing role of Canadian police in suppressing labour, antiracist, land defence and national liberation struggles (see, for example, Maynard, Reference Maynard2017; Pasternak & King, Reference Pasternak and King2019), as well as the public debate about—and grassroots political mobilization against—policing in recent years (Angus Reid Institute, 2020; Nasser, Reference Nasser2022), a more substantial discussion of policing seems warranted. This would also complement the chapters which examine settler colonialism, land and property, resource extraction and grassroots politics.
Whiteside and McBride’s The Canadian State is a timely intervention in a moment of domestic and global uncertainty. The book’s use of different vantage points for examining the state’s role in the Canadian political economy helps to define the contours of a slippery object of study. Whiteside and McBride’s framing and explanation of state theory and its application in the Canadian context, alongside the empirical work in the substantive chapters, effectively identify and explain key dynamics which shape Canadian political economy. Overall, the book is successful in its purpose, and will appeal to a wide range of readers interested in understanding the very particular character of the Canadian state.
