Background

Stephen Clarkson, FRSC, is currently a CIGI senior fellow and professor of political economy at the University of Toronto. His published works focus primarily on the transborder governance and economic relations between Canada, the United States and Mexico that were institutionalized in conflicting ways by two decades of neo-conservatism, by NAFTA in 1994, and by the securitization of the United States' borders that followed the terrorist attack on 2001. Currently, his research efforts are devoted to assessing the extent to which the continental periphery -- Canada and Mexico -- constructs and/or constrains US power.

Mr. Clarkson's recent books on these issues include Uncle Sam and Us: Globalization, Neoconservatism and the Canadian State (2002); Governing under Stress: Middle Powers and the Challenge of Globalization (co-edited 2004), and Does North America Exist? Governing the Continent after NAFTA and 9/11 (2008).