This document summarizes a presentation by Dr. Rosalind Warner about Canada's role in a changing world. It discusses the liberal international order established after WWII and signs it is unraveling. Three possible futures are examined: a neoliberal renewal, a clash of civilizations, or multiple cascading crises. Canada's strengths like its location and moral leadership are noted, but also weaknesses in being heard on the global stage. Opportunities in technology and threats to Canada are considered.

1. Canada's Role in a
Changing World
Dr. Rosalind Warner

2. Who am I? Rosalind Warner, PhD
College Professor of Political Science
Email: rowarner@okanagan.bc.ca
Twitter: @rwarner23
Blog:
http://rozwarner.wordpress.com/

3. Overview
• The LIO (Liberal International Order)
– What is it and why do we care?
• The Great Unravelling: Where are we headed?
– Neoliberal renewal - probably not
– Clash of civilizations – maybe, but huge reservations
– Cascading Crises – a distinct possibility
• SWOT’s Up, Canada? (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,
Threats)

4. The Liberal
International Order

5. Snapshot: the World in 1945
• Concentration of
power
• Consensus on
fundamental
principles
• Existence of a
hegemon

6. Hegemon

7. US would gain…
• Top currency
status
• Set the rules for
the other players
• No challenges
from allies
…in return, US
would provide:
• Security
guarantees
• Support for UN
system & EU
• Permission for
some markets to
remain out of its
reach
The art of the deal….A simple ‘deal’ was struck in
1945

8. Clearly things have changed…the Great
Unravelling

9. Where are we Headed?

10. Two views…
The world is
coming together
[Fukuyama]
The world is
falling apart
[Huntington]

11. The world is coming together…Neoliberal
Renewal
Star Trek: TNG – a liberal paradise

12. Neoliberal world ‘coming together’?
Evidence is not
encouraging

13. “Trade ain’t what it used to be.”
• “Between 1985 and 2007, trade grew at twice the
rate of world GDP, but since the 2008 financial
crisis, it has hardly managed to keep pace, at
times even lagging behind”
~Magnus, G. (2017)

14. 36 Kilometre
lineup…
Evidence for a
neoliberal
‘coming
together’ is not
encouraging…

15. Rising inequality and
lack of opportunity

16. TL;DR version:
Income inequality will continue to
rise because technological changes
will not improve worker productivity,
but only replace workers
Thomas Picketty
Capital in the
Twenty First
Century

17. Situation in Canada
• Canada’s richest 20 per cent
hold 67.4%
• The middle 20% actually hold
9% of wealth,
• …considerably less than the
23.7% Canadians said would be
their ideal.

18. So, if not a neoliberal world, then what?

19. Clashes over fundamental values
are more intractable.
The Clash of
Civilizations thesis

20. The ‘Clash of Civilizations’ 1996 – Samuel
Huntington
Cultural conflict would
develop along the ‘fault lines’
of world civilizations:

21. Japanese…

22. Islamic…

23. Hindu…

24. Slavic-Orthodox…

25. Latin American…

26. Chinese…

27. African…

28. Western…
Canada helped construct
the ‘West’
• Founding member of NATO (the
Western Alliance)
• Balanced relations between Britain
& the US
• A Great ‘Middle Power’ – welcomed
into an elite club of great powers
• …but a bridge between North and
South as well.

29. What does Sam Huntington mean by a clash
of civilizations?

30. Sorry Huntington…
78% of the total deaths
from terrorism globally
are in 5 countries:
Afghanistan, Iraq,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Syria
“As researchers have pointed out, most of the attackers
in Europe and the US turned to terrorism after years of
criminal behaviour, delinquency or domestic violence.
Despite their use of Islamic metaphors and practices,
they were far from pious. Olivier Roy, a French expert on
political Islam, has called this an “Islamisation of
radicalism and not the radicalisation of Islam.””

31. Sorry Huntington…it really is politics, not
culture.

32. So, if it’s not neoliberal triumph or a clash of
civilizations, what is going on?

33. A Third Possibility…multiple cascading crises

34. Collapse &
Cascading
Crisis
5 ‘tectonic stresses’ [Homer-Dixon, “The Upside
of Down”]:
Energy stress especially from increasing scarcity of
conventional oil
Economic stress from greater global economic
instability and widening income gaps between rich and poor
Demographic stress from differentials in population
growth rates between rich and poor societies and from expansion of
megacities in poor societies;
Environmental stress from worsening damage to
land, water forests, and fisheries; and,
Climate stress from changes in the composition of Earth's
atmosphere.

35. Cascading Crises…a distinct possibility?

36. Canada is invested in the ‘old order’

37. If not a new ‘grand agreement’ between the US (or
any other hegemon) and the world, then what?

38. Canada set adrift…
What will a ‘New’ deal look like?
• Fewer (or more conditional) security
guarantees
• More use of force, less diplomacy
• Bilateralism in trade
• Moral leadership?

39. SWOT’s Up, Canada?
(Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)

40. Strengths…Location, Location, Location

41. Strengths…Moral Leadership

42. Weaknesses…Being Heard
• 1947 Louis St. Laurent’s Gray Lecture
“The freedom of nations depends upon the rule of
law between nations. A country of our stature,” he
said, would need to demonstrate a “willingness to
accept international responsibilities.”
He also committed Canada to continue working in
lockstep with the US, a “vastly more powerful,
more self-confident, more wealthy” state “with
purposes and ambitions parallel to ours.”

43. Opportunities
• more than 200,000 jobs expected to be created across the
country between now and 2020.
• Montreal is already recognised as a hub for deep learning
• while Toronto’s newly announced Vector Institute aims to turn the
city into a global nucleus in artificial intelligence.
• Ontario’s University of Waterloo was recently ranked among the
world’s top ten when it comes to alumni who have created billion-
dollar startups.

44. Threats

45. Snapshot: the World in 2020?
• Concentration of
power
• Consensus on
fundamental
principles
• Existence of a
hegemon

46. Thank You!

47. References
Fraser, G. (2017). It’s not the religion that creates terrorists, it’s the politics Opinion The
Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2015/jun/27/its-not-the-
religion-that-creates-terrorists-its-the-politics
Fukuyama, F. (2012). The end of history and the last man. London: Penguin.
Gilmore, S. (2017). The American Dream has moved to Canada - Macleans.ca.
http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/the-american-dream-moved-to-canada/
Huntington, S. P. (January 01, 1993). The Clash of Civilizations?. Foreign Affairs, 72, 3, 22-49.
Irwin, N. (2017). To Understand Rising Inequality, Consider the Janitors at Two Top Companies,
Then and Now - The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/03/upshot/to-
understand-rising-inequality-consider-the-janitors-at-two-top-companies-then-and-now.html
Kassam, A. (2017). Canada calling: tech industry lures workers north in wake of Trump | World
news | The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/04/canada-tech-
industry-recruit-americans-silicon-valley-trump
Keating, J., & Kirk, C. (2017). The Middle East Friendship Chart.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_world_/2014/07/17/the_middle_east_friendship_chart.html

48. References
Parvez, A. F. (2017). Religious conservatism doesn’t make a terrorist. But crime
and exclusion can Opinion The Guardian.
https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/06/religious-
conservatism-terrorist-crime-exclusion-theresa-mayPiketty, T., & Goldhammer, A.
(2014). Capital in the twenty-first century.
Robertson, D. C. (2017). As US pulls back from world, Canada steps up to fill the
gap - CSMonitor.com. https://www-csmonitor-
com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/World/
Americas/2017/0630/As-US-pulls-back-from-world-Canada-steps-up-to-fill-the-
gap
Stewart, A. (2016). How Trump’s opposition to NAFTA affects Canada PBS
NewsHour. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/trumps-opposition-nafta-affects-
canada/
Strapagiel, L. (2016). Wealth inequality worse than Canadians think: report –
canada.com. o.canada.com. Retrieved from http://o.canada.com/news/wealth-
inequality-worse-then-canadians-think-5626