University News

Bishop’s Professor receives a Prestigious Canada-U.S. Fulbright Award

Sherbrooke QC - November 1, 2007

Bishop’s University is pleased to announce that Dr. Gilbert Gagné, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Studies, has received a Fulbright Award from the Canada-U.S. Fulbright Program which supports outstanding researchers doing research on issues relevant to Canada, the United States and the relationship between the two countries.

During his sabbatical leave in Winter 2008, Dr. Gagné will be the Visiting Chair in Canadian Studies at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina.  He will be attached to the Centre for Canadian Studies, as well as the Departments of Public Policy Studies and Political Science, which enjoy a worldwide reputation. "Such an exchange will allow me to better understand the U.S. reality and to develop research collaborations for the coming years," states Dr. Gagné. He will teach an undergraduate course and pursue his research on the Canada-U.S. Softwood Lumber dispute.

 

The conflict over the Canadian exports of softwood lumber products to the United States has proven a major issue in Canada-U.S. relations.  The United States has argued that Canadian forest policies, including the fees charged by provincial governments to firms to harvest trees on public land, result in subsidization and dumping.  Belonging to what is known as the political economy of U.S. protectionism, the prevailing explanations of the dispute consider the material or economic-political interests of the protagonists as the essential factor at the basis of the conflict.  However, the differing Canadian and American views on fair trade and subsidy also reveal ideational and normative factors at play in the dispute.  As a Fulbright Fellow, Dr. Gagné will assess both the respective and mutual impact of interests and norms, and how these two dimensions have so far interacted in the evolution of the softwood lumber dispute.

Dr. Gagné earned his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and his Master’s degree in Political Economy from University of Ottawa, and received his Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Oxford in 1995.  His research and teaching interests include international economic organizations, North American integration, Canadian foreign policy, and Canadian-American relations.  Since 2003, he has also been the Director of the Groupe de recherche sur l’intégration continentale (Research Group on Continental Integration) based at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

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