ABSTRACT
I must confess that I agreed to contribute to this volume somewhat reluctantly. I enjoyed reading Benjamin Cohen’s recent book, but found myself wondering when I saw the subsequent commentaries whether the field might be about to plunge into a long phase of navel gazing. Self-reflection is an important activity, but it can be overdone. I have also sometimes worried that discussions about ‘the state of IPE’ attempt to draw much stricter boundaries around the field and impose a greater degree of order on it than is compatible with the rather openended and eclectic intellectual enterprise that actually exists under this banner. All the same, Benjamin Cohen’s book raises some interesting issues on which I have some views. And since he has cast me in the book as one of the Canadians playing a bridge-building role between the ‘British’ and ‘American’ schools, I feel compelled to share some reactions in the spirit of Canadian compromise.
