Globalization, Trade Policy, and the Permissive Consensus in Canada (Working Paper 27)
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Authors
Mendelsohn, Matthew
Wolfe, Robert
Parkin, Andrew
Date
2001-11
Type
working paper
Language
en
Keyword
Globalization , Trade Policy , Consensus , Canada
Alternative Title
Abstract
Do public protests dramatize the new political salience of trade policy? This article
analyzes a survey of Canadian mass opinion taken just before the protests against the proposed Free
Trade Area of the Americas in Quebec City in April 2001. The survey design allows a comparison of the
difference between Canadians’ positive assessment of trade agreements but more ambivalent
responses to “globalization.” We examine a series of underlying attitudes and values to probe latent
opinion on trade and globalization. We conclude that the permissive consensus on trade agreements
is robust – that is, Canadians are prepared to defer to governments on trade liberalization – but this
consensus may be endangered by ongoing globalization and pressures for North American
integration that go well beyond issues of tariffs and trade. On these latter issues, the nature of
globalization and integration, not its existence, are subject to heated debate.