Gerard W. Boychuk

Economic integration and cross‐border policy convergence: Social and environmental policy in Canadian provinces and American states

Abstract Focusing on social and environmental policy, this paper examines the hypothesis that policy convergence generated by continental economic integration will be greater among specific pairs of tightly‐linked American states and Canadian provinces than is evident in national‐level comparisons. First, the paper outlines a number of important reasons to expect that provincial governments in Canada are more susceptible than the federal government to pressures for cross‐border policy convergence. Second, the paper outlines a methodology for identifying tightly‐linked pairs of American states and Canadian provinces based on various measures of geographical proximity and levels of state‐province economic integration. Finally, the paper examines patterns of similarity and difference over time in matching state‐province pairs with respect to specific aspects of social policy (levels of social protection and income redistribution) and environmental policy (pollution abatement and control). In terms of these indicators, national patterns of convergence/divergence are not fundamentally challenged by sub‐national patterns of convergence and divergence. At the same time, patterns of similarity and difference over time for various subsets of matching state and province pairs generally differ in degree, if not in direction, from national‐level patterns. However, after 1995, there are some indications of a pattern that fits with the contention that convergence may be occurring at the state‐province level which is not evident in national‐level patterns.

The Canada Paradox: The Public-Private Divide in Health Insurance and Pensions

In recent years, academic attention has returned to an issue highlighted by Richard Titmuss half a century ago: the intersection of public and private social benefits (Titmuss 1958). This renewed interest in the public-private divide reflects an understanding that the structure of private benefits can have a significant impact on the development of public programs. It also reflects a growing realization that the balance between public and private benefits is critical to the distribution of risk in contemporary society, and that current changes in private benefits in many countries are triggering a privatization of risk that is not being offset by public benefit programs.

Social protection guarantees as legal rights? The International Labour Organization, the United States, and the American ‘national context’

This article examines the development of the global Social Protection Floor proposal inside the International Labour Organization (ILO) from 2009 (when the ILO was designated as a lead agency in the process) through to the adoption of Recommendation 202 in 2012. While there was a considerably more high-profile external process under the auspices of the Advisory Group chaired by former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, the article argues that it was in the internal ILO process that debates regarding the most important substantive elements of the Recommendation were resolved. The United States was vigorously involved in this process and had a crucial influence on the substantive development of Recommendation 202. First, US involvement played a key role in limiting the degree to which – and manner in which – the recommendation would apply to medium- and high-income countries with established social protection systems. Second, the United States contributed to successfully blocking the definition of social protection as comprising sets of legally enforceable entitlements enshrined in national legislation. This marked a significant shift in the substantive meaning of the recognition of a human right to social protection. US efforts in this regard can be understood as the result of its concern regarding the uneasy fit between a potential recommendation and its own domestic social protection provision.