Prof. James W Dean holds a BSc in Mathematics from Carleton University, and MA and PhD degrees in Economics from Harvard. During his tenure at Simon Fraser, he held visiting appointments at 27 universities and research institutes in the US, South America, England, Western and Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. He has published widely, with a focus on international macroeconomics: specifically, financial crises and sovereign debt relief. He plays mediocre jazz tenor saxophone with the James Dean Trio, based in Vancouver. 

Globalism and Nationalism; Democracies and Dictatorships

"..... At no time since the end of World War 2 has “globalization” been under greater threat. In 1944, at the Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire, the western allies – led by the US and the UK – laid the foundations for three institutions designed to underpin international free trade between post-war economies. The institutions were the IMF, World Bank and the GATT. The GATT in particular was to focus on reduction of trade barriers. But the early 21^st century began to see growing discontent with globalization. Many countries complained that the WTO was interfering with their sovereign prerogatives to shield fragile or sensitive sectors of their economies from foreign imports or investments: sectors ranging from agriculture to natural resources to national defense to culture. Some countries also objected to the WTO’s efforts to harmonize health, safety and labor standards. And at grass roots levels, ordinary people who felt threatened by imports and immigrants from low wage countries began protesting in the streets.The upshot is that by 2018, we find ourselves in a paradoxical world where the two prime advocates of liberal post regimes, notably the US and the UK, have both voted to undermine global free trade and investment, and even, in the case of the UK, exit from the world’s largest free trade agreement, the European Union. Indeed, most European countries have seen the rise of xenophobic politics, as has Russia. Paradoxically, China, the world’s only remaining major “Communist” country, has emerged as its most adamant advocate of full-on globalization.

This talk explores the roots of these paradoxes: rising nationalism, rising localism and reviving populism, all in the context of the most globalized period in human history...."