Rodrigue Tremblay is a prominent Canadian-born economist with a Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is a former Woodrow Wilson fellow and a Ford International Fellow.
He is presently professor emeritus at the University of Montreal, after having occupied the positions of full professor of economics at the University of Montreal, president of the North Economics and Finance Association, president of the Canadian Economics Society, vice president of the International Association of French-speaking Economists and advisor to numerous governments and organizations. In 2004, he was awarded the Condorcet prize of political philosophy.
In politics, Mr. Tremblay was a member of the Quebec National Assembly (Gouin) from 1976 to 1981. He also served as minister of Industry and Commerce in the Quebec government (1976-1979).
He has written 30 books dealing with economics and finance, some also tackling moral and political issues.
Dr. Tremblay has travelled extensively in the Middle-East, in North Africa and in sub-Sahara Africa.
The author critically explains
the fundamental shift that foreign and domestic
policies have taken under George W. Bush,
since September 11, 2001. In a clear and
direct style, he deplores the direction
taken by the Bush administration, behaving
as a 19th Century empire, disregarding existing
international law and ignoring the multilateral
institutions which have been created since
World War II. — Professor TREMBLAY
adopts the humanist approach to analyse
the morality of empires and of wars. In
particular, he singles out religion as one
factor in the decision to engage in wars
of aggression.
His greatest fear is to see
the long and uninterrupted march—since
1945—towards multilateral international
cooperation and world economic interdependence,
being replaced by unilateral imperial initiatives,
accompanied by a widespread suspicion of
the United States, as many countries refuse
to accept an overt American hegemony.
Dr. Tremblay observes that
at the beginning of this century, the United
States finds itself in the same position
as Great Britain was at the beginning of
the 19th Century, after its 1815 victory
at Waterloo, with no competing power capable
of preventing it from imposing its imperial
hegemony. Thus, the true question according
to him is not whether the U.S. can build
a new world empire—it can—but
whether it should. Should a great democratic
republic become an empire without ceasing
being democratic? That is the question he
attempts to answer in his provocating book.
Besides attempting to focus
a critical light on the new international
geopolitical situation against the backdrop
of the war in Iraq, the book embraces the
larger perspective of the evolution of Western
civilization over the last five and a half
centuries, that is, since the fall of Constantinople
in 1453.
The book also considers such
topics as "Religion and Politics"
(pp 51-56);- "The ideological foundation
of the new U.S. imperial doctrine"
(pp 85-86);- Parallels between "Iraq
and Kosovo" (pp 167-172);- "The
Just War Theory" (pp 177-181);- "Bush
and international law" (pp 174-177);-
"The Project for the New American Century"
and the neo-conservative agenda (pp 189-194);-
"Parallel between the Bush Doctrine
and the (1968) Brezhnev Doctrine (pp 211-215);
- "Leaders against War" (pp 239-243);-
"The 600-year Megacycle of Empires"
(pp 329-330);- "Religion and Western
civilization" (pp 330-333) ...etc.
The Way it Is (L'Heure
Juste), The shock between politics, economics
and morality, 2001, Stanke international
(in French)
"Macro-Based International
Competitiveness with Free Trade",
in Beyond NAFTA, ed. A.R. Riggs and Tom
Velk, the Fraser Institute, Vancouver,
Winter 1993, 15 pages.
Contact
Mr. Rodrigue TREMBLAY,
Department of Economics,
University of Montreal, Quebec,
Canada, H3C 3J7
Phone: (514) 343 - 6549
Fax: (514) 343 - 7221
e-mail: rodrigue.tremblay [at] umontreal.ca
