1. After the Sands: Energy & Ecological Security for Canadians [Book]
Madeira Park, BC:
Douglas & McIntyre, 2015
2. Open for Business: The Roots of Foreign Ownership in Canada [Book]
Toronto:
Oxford University Press, 1989
Open for Business is out of print but is available from many libraries and for purchase from Amazon and other sites. I will soon put the full text on this website and in the public domain.
Mel Watkins, a pre-eminent staples theorist, wrote the following about Open for
Business:
"The premise of Open for Business is “that Canada was significantly
industrialized, or at least well launched on that path, prior to the emergence of significant
foreign ownership. Why, then, was so much foreign ownership thought necessary?
Comparative study shows, that the reason was less the complicity of the Canadian
business class (the staple argument of political economists) than the fragmented character of the agrarian class; relative to the domestic social formation, Canadian capital was not too weak, but too strong. Full-blown indigenous (sic) industrialization requires more than a strong business class; it also requires a strong push from below, from popular democratic forces, insisting on such things as a better banking system and restrictions on foreign ownership, to which capital and the capitalist state have creatively to respond.
That mostly means farmers historically, but in Canada (a.k.a. British North America)
their populist discontent was all too easily labelled pro-American and disloyal, and
anyway they never quite got their act together nationally in considerable part because of
English-French tensions”.
In effect, Laxer argues that Canadian political economy, left-leaning though it is, has
been too elitist oriented, to the neglect of proper allowance for popular democratic forces. Laxer insists that Canada’s failure to cut the umbilical cord with Britain militated against the development of an independent armaments industry with linkages into engineering and machine production. This is potent stuff, about how colonial-mindedness becomes, intentionally or otherwise, pervasive, and the superior alternative, of independent industrialization, suppressed. The problem was not too much economic nationalism, as orthodox scholarship alleges, but too little."
Watkins’ book review in the Canadian Historical Review 1990.
3. "Class, Nationality and the Roots of the Branch Plant Economy" [Peer-Reviewed Article]
Studies in Political Economy 21, pps 7-56
Autumn 1986
Click above for PDF
4. “Solidarity in the Age of Globalization: Lessons from the anti-MAI and
Zapatista Struggles” [Peer-Reviewed Article]
Co-authored with Josée Johnston
Theory and Society, Vol. 32 Issue 1. Feb. 2003. pp. 1-53
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5. "The Movement that Dare not Speak its Name. The Return of Left Nationalism / Internationalism" [Peer-Reviewed Article]
Alternatives. Global, Local, Political 26, 2001. pp. 1-32.
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6. "Popular National Sovereignty and the US Empire" [Peer-Reviewed Article]
Journal of World-Systems Research XI, 2, December 2005. pp. 317-353.
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7. "Alberta's Sands, Staples, and Traps"
Progressive Economics Forum, The Staple Theory @ 50
8. "Global Civil Society and Its Limits" [Book]
Co-edited with Sandra Halperin
Houndsmill UK: Palgrave Macmillan, May 2003
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9. "Social Solidarity, Democracy, and Global Capitalism" [Peer-Reviewed Article]
Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 32.3, August 1995. 287-314
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10. "On Suppressed historical possibilities" [Peer-Reviewed Article]
A reply to the Canadian Journal of Sociology Symposium on my book Open for Business
Canadian Journal of Sociology, Vol. 15, No 3, Summer 1990 pp. 345-353
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11. "The Schizophrenic Character of Canadian Political Economy" [Peer-Reviewed Article]
Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology. 26:1, Fe-89, pp. 178-192
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12. "Foriegn Ownership and Myths About Canadian Development" [Peer-Reviewed Article]
Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 22:3, August 1985. pp. 311-345
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13. "Introduction to the Special Issue on Globalisation" [Peer-Reviewed Article]
Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 32.3 Au-95, pp. 247-251
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14. "Radical Transformative Nationalisms Confront the US Empire" [Peer-Reviewed Article]
Current Sociology, March 2003, Vol. 51 (2):131-149
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15. "Perspectives on Canadian Economic Development"
Class, Staples, Gender and Elites, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 361 pps
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16. "Not for Sale, Decommodifying Public Life" [Book]
Co-Edited with Dennis Soron
Peterborough Ontario: Broadview Press, (now U of T Press) May 2006. 280 pps.
Note: Pages are missing in many places. I am looking for the full version. Stay tuned.
17. "Surviving the Americanizing New Right" [Peer-Reviewed Article]
The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology
37.1 2000
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18. "Opposition to Continental Integration: Sweden and Canada" [Peer-Reviewed Article]
Review of Constitutional Studies
Vol. II, No. 2, 1995
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19. Constitutional Crises and Continentalism: Twin Threats to Canada's Continued Existence
[Peer-Reviewed Article]
Canadian Journal of Sociology
17 (2): 1992, 199-222
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20. Progressive Inter-nationalist nationalisms: The Return of Transformative, anti-imperialist traditions [Editor reviewed]
in Trevor Harrison and Slobadan Drakulic eds., Against Orthodoxy: Studies in Nationalism
Vancouver, UBC Press, 2011
Pps 290-313
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21. Energy Security for Canada [Editor reviewed chapter]
in Cy Gonick (ed.), Energy Security and Climate Change
Halifax: Fernwood Books. October 2007. pp. 89-96.
Click above for PDF
22. Act or Be Acted Upon. The Case for Phasing Out Alberta's Sands [Peer reviewed Report]
Green paper prepared for the Alberta Institute of Agrologists
March 16, 2017
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23. Distinct Status for Québec
Constitutional Forum Constitutionnel
Vol. 3, No. 3, Winter 1992, pp. 57-61
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24. Alternatives to Secession [Peer-Reviewed Article]
Review of Constitutional Studies. Vol. 7, No. 1&2, 2002. 272-293.
Peer reviewed
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