This volume is the first work to emerge from a major international comparative research project exploring the political economy of globalization. This inter-disciplinary team of scholars is focusing on the semi-periphery of world power. Whether defined in social, cultural, economic or simply spatial terms, 'semi-peripheral' countries share two qualities: they are conscious of their subordination to the hegemonic powers at the centre of the global system - the United States and the European Union; they are also strong enough to have some ability to resist their domination. The structural position of these middle powers in global capitalism is unlike those countries at the centre that do not experience domination, and different from those Third World countries on the periphery that have no means to achieve more cultural and political autonomy, more distinctive and diversified development, or greater social equity and better income redistribution.Four countries in North America, Central America, Europe and the Antipodes - namely Canada, Mexico, Norway and Australia - have been selected in order to explore the complexities of globalization from the perspective of the semi-periphery. Opening chapters examine the international institutions, including the North America Free Trade Agreement, the World Trade Organization and the European Union, which now amount to a quasi-constitutional conditioning framework for middle powers under globalization. In the second part, contributors detail the pressures with which these countries have to cope and consider their ability to pursue policies appropriate to the needs and democratically defined goals of each. And in the concluding part, after discussing the new economic, political and social issues of 'governing under stress', they appraise the possibilities for middle powers to chart distinctive national courses in the face of globalization's constraining challenge.

Preface - Gordon Laxer Introduction: States Under Seige - Marjorie Griffin Cohen and Stephen Clarkson 1. Globalization and the Social Question - Janine Brodie Part I: Semi-peripheral Countries: Norway, Mexico, Australia, Canada 2. Globalization in Norwegian: Peculiarities at the European Fringe - Øyvind Østerud 3. Norway, the EEA, and Neo-liberal Globalism - Dag Harald Claes and John Erik Fossum 4. The Rise and Fall of an 'Organized Fantasy': The Negotiation of Status as Periphery and Semi-periphery by Mexico and Latin America - Teresa Gutiérrez-Haces 5. Mexico: Relocating the State within a New Global Regime - Alejandro Alvarez 6. Australia: Asian Outpost or Big-time Financial Dealer? - Dick Bryan 7. Australia: Neo-liberal Globalism and the Local State - Ray Broomhill 8. Global Governance and the Semi-peripheral State: The WTO and NAFTA as Canada's External Constitution - Stephen Clarkson 9. International Forces Driving Electricity Deregulation in the Semi-periphery: The Case of Canada - Marjorie Griffin Cohen Part II: Dealing with the Centre 10. Money on the (Continental) Margins: Dollarization Pressures in Canada and Mexico - Paul Bowles 11. Taking Investments Too Far: Expropriations in the Semi-periphery - David Scheiderman 12. The Rule of Rules: International Agreements and the Semi-periphery - Stephen McBride and John Erik Fossum Part III: Comparing Economic Performance 13. Zonal Structure adnthe Trajectories of Canada, Mexico, Australia, and Norway under Neo-liberal Globalization - Satoshi Ikeda