Historian Reginald Stuart's Dispersed Relations is a useful contribution to the emerging interdisciplinary field of North American studies. It emphasizes the pervasiveness of interdependencies within “Upper” North America in four specific “realms”—cultural, social, economic, and political. Stuart argues that questions of political identity and independence are largely distinct from the pervasive interdependence arising from patterns of social and economic interaction and the decisions of individual citizens. It challenges many of the core assumptions of Canada's nationalist historiography, with the latter's focus on the efforts of Canadian elites to create a political and social order distinct from that of the United States. Instead, Stuart's analysis is rooted in a methodological individualism that emphasizes the degree to which “dispersed relations” in each realm has created “millions of stakeholders”—“creators” and “consumers”—in different aspects of the bilateral relationship.
Each of Stuart's “realms” is subdivided into three chapters examining specific aspects of “Upper North American” relations in a historical context. The first section explores overlaps in cultural identities, print-based aspects of culture, and the emergence of parallel mass entertainment industries and consumption patterns. The section on the social realm examines patterns of migration, anti-Americanism in Canada (and its derivative American counterpart), and the development of parallel and transnational social movements. Stuart's economic realm explores the effects of geography and different patterns of economic interaction in the development of “consumption economies reflect[ing] the interplay of central political and free market impulses” (145), the interdependence of border regions, and what he somewhat misleadingly describes as “fiscal integration”: the interaction of monetary policies, banking and capital markets in the two countries. The final section successively explores the political dimensions of defence and security relations, border management, and bilateral political relations or the “Ottawa-Washington axis.” He deftly characterizes many aspects of cross-border politics as “simultaneously a business meeting, a public morality play, an asymmetrical partnership, and a perpetual courtship designed to avoid the altar” (215).
Stuart argues that the dimensions of Canada-US relations are “best understood in a progressive order that begins with cultural foundations, moves through social systems, dissects the integrated and interdependent economies, and analyzes the political realm that gathers and manages threads and themes from the previous three” (216). Unfortunately, his carefully nuanced assessment of the role of political leadership and dispersed bureaucratic collaboration in managing bilateral relations does not carry over consistently to the specific analyses of his sector studies.
Stuart's emphasis on the essential similarity of “Upper North American” cultures, societies, and economic and even political systems lends itself to a form of reductionism that does not consistently distinguish between factors that may contribute to relative homogeneity, parallel but distinctive policies, and aspects of regional differentiation within and across national borders such as those described by Joel Garreau as The Nine Nations of North America (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981).
Moreover, his construct of “Upper North America” raises broader questions about its location. Dispersed Relations makes a case for three different concepts of Upper North America in different contexts: borderlands regions, with their cultural similarities and relatively dense social and economic interactions, a broader if indistinct “penumbra” of widespread economic interaction but limited American awareness of Canada, and the still wider zone of shared market trends and consumer preferences.
However, Stuart's analysis largely ignores the existence of a “Lower North America,” overlapping with Garreau's culturally and politically distinct zones of the American South and “Mexamerica.” The steadily southwestward demographic shift of the US has played a progressively larger role in defining its social and political attitudes in recent decades—further marginalizing most Americans' consciousness of Canada and reinforcing related tensions within “Upper North America.” These considerations have become central to Canadian government efforts to influence American policies towards Canada.
The breadth and depth of cultural and economic interaction between the United States and Canada greatly increase the challenge for any author to do justice to its complexities and nuances in a single volume addressing multiple issues. Stuart makes a valiant effort but is not always successful. His discussion of economic interdependence is a good example of this unevenness.
The chapter on “markets and consumers” draws accurate, well-nuanced parallels between trends in consumer preferences and distributive networks across North America as illustrations of “integrated interdependence,” in which “geography, the natural distribution of arable land and resources, waterways and open boundaries [have] thwarted government controls” (144). However, the other chapters on trade flows and on monetary and capital market (not “fiscal”) policies are marred by a series of broad overgeneralizations—most notably in discussing the allegedly imitative and redundant character of recent Canadian monetary policies (193–202).
Dispersed Relations could also have used more careful editing, sometimes misdating significant events in recent American or Canadian history—as well as little factual ticks such as the location of the Peace Bridge between Buffalo and Niagara Falls, rather than Fort Erie (251). Stuart also greatly overstates the degree to which the Bank of Canada simply follows short-term interest rate shifts of the US Federal Reserve Board (not “Bank”) rather than balancing issues of interdependence with efforts to engage distinctive Canadian monetary conditions (193, 207).
Despite these shortcomings, Dispersed Relations provides a provocative, if often contrarian, view of the challenges of managing Canada's interdependence with its giant American neighbour. It addresses a variety of often overlooked similarities and parallels between the United States and Canada, focusing on the centrality of individual choices in the marketplace of ideas, of economic behaviour, and of social attitudes that often defy the capacities of policy makers in both countries to control or regulate them effectively.
