Description
Book SynopsisHistorically, Canada's Constitution has been principally viewed as a federal framework or a rights bulwark. This book offers a brand new interpretation. The Strategic Constitution, as proposed by Irvin Studin, can be a framework for Canada to project strategic power in the world. This framework lays the foundations for a new school of Canadian constitutional scholarship.
Studin begins by reducing the Constitution to its strategically relevant essentials or building blocks. He then provides a wide-ranging audit of the Constitution in terms of its implications for so-called factors of strategic power: the military, diplomacy, executive potency, natural resources, the economy, strategic communications, and the national population. He later applies the Strategic Constitution framework to four policy case studies: Canadian regional leadership in the Americas; bona fide war (as in Afghanistan); Arctic sovereignty; and counterterrorism.
Provocative and well-argued, this book ma
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Part 1: The Conceptual Framework for Assessing Canadian Strategic Power in Constitutional Terms
1 Framing Some Key Concepts
2 Diplomacy
3 The Military
4 Government, or Pure Executive Potency
5 Natural Resources (and Food)
6 National Economic Might
7 Communications
8 Population
9 The Strategic Constitution as Conceptual and Analytical Framework
Part 2: Applying the Conceptual Framework: Four Policy Case Studies
Case Study A: Canadian Strategic Leadership in the Americas
Case Study B: Bona Fide War
Case Study C: Arctic Sovereignty
Case Study D: National Security-Counterterrorism
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
