CPSA/ISA-Canada section on International Relations

C17(a) - Economic and Trade Partnerships

Date: Jun 1 | Time: 10:30am to 12:00pm | Location: Classroom - CL 312 Room ID:15772

Chair/Président/Présidente : Sabina Singh (University of Victoria)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Jeffrey Rice (Queen's University)

Discursive Politics of Energy in Canada's China Policy: Anna Kuteleva (University of Alberta)
Abstract: How does Canada respond to China’s rise as one of the world’s largest energy consumers and to China’s global quest for energy resources? How does Canada frame its engagement with China in the energy sector? Finally, how does Canada perceive the future of its relations with China in the context of the global energy challenges? To answer these questions, this paper examines emergence and evolution of discourses about extraction, production, consumption, and export of energy in Canada in the period between 2006 and 2016. Further, it analyzes how these multifaceted and sometimes contradictory discourses are manifested and enacted in Canada’s China policy. An intertextual discourse analysis of an eclectic collection of texts reveals discourses about energy that dominate in Canada’s foreign policy towards China and differentiates them from the discourses that are marginalized or even suppressed.

Objects in the Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear! NAFTA in Hindsight and Moving Forward, Implications for Food Systems and Smaller Producers: Elizabeth Smythe (Concordia University of Edmonton), Kelsea Gillespie (Concordia University of Edmonton)
Abstract: This paper will examine the negotiation of NAFTA in 1994 and the experiences of the past twenty-three years and what they tell us about power and the creation of trade rules. It focuses in particular on food and agriculture, especially changes in the level of trade, the impact of NAFTA on market access and on small agricultural producers in the US, Canada and Mexico and the growth of agribusiness. If the past is prologue to the future what does this experience and that of other recent regional trade negotiations suggest will be the impact and outcomes of re-opening NAFTA? What do they tell us going forward about the ability of the largest state actor, the United States, to re-shape the rules and the influence of major corporate actors on negotiated outcomes? The paper focuses in particular on the impact of NAFTA on domestic food and agricultural producers in the US, Canada and Mexico, particularly small scale producers and asks what then are the implications for creating rules that allow for the developing of alternative and local food systems.

What Shapes Attitudes Toward Potential FTA Partners?: Kim-Lee Tuxhorn (University of Calgary)
Abstract: Why do voters support trade deals with some countries while opposing deals with others? I argue that despite trade policy being a complicated issue, the average voter perceives FTAs as agreements with cross-national distributional consequences. As a result, voters discriminate against developing states as trading partners based on fears of adverse wealth transfer. Using original data from cross-national surveys with conjoint analysis experimental designs, I find that individuals - regardless of their education and income levels - prefer trade deals when the potential partner country has a well-educated workforce and high-level of GDP per capita. The results are consistent with sociotropic explanations of trade preferences and suggest that voters associate trade deals that include less-developed states with a net loss for the national economy.