Noah Fry Successfully Defends His Doctoral Dissertation

On June 27, Noah Fry successfully defended his PhD dissertation on “State in Absentia? Team Canada in a Post-CUSMA North America”.

Noah argued that in contrast to many interpretations of the Canada-US Mexico Trade Agreement (CUSMA) that stressed continuity with its predecessor, NAFTA, the new agreement represented a radical departure. Using a framework of dynamic continentalism, he found that CUSMA signalled a move to a non-cooperative trade regime of dissociative continentalism characterized by neo-mercantilist ideas, nationally driven coalitions, and weak formal institutions. He concluded that though the Canadian response to the new challenge – developing a broadly based trade coalition known as Team Canada had some initial success, it was ultimately found wanting because it remained committed to a waning neoliberal trade architecture for which there was and is little regional appetite. A better option for Canada would be an industrial policy coalition built upon a recalibrated and reinvigorated state.

Noah’s defence was chaired by Dr. Karen Bird, and his supervisory committee consisted of Dr. Stephen McBride (supervisor), Dr. Peter Graefe and Dr. Robert O’Brien. Dr. Laura Macdonald (Carleton University) was the external examiner.

In September Noah is taking up a postdoctoral fellowship at Dalhousie University.

Congratulations, Noah!