Daniel Drache

Daniel Drache is Full Professor of Political Science in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University. His work focuses on understanding the changing character of the globalization narrative in its economic, social and cultural dimensions. His 2008 book, Defiant Publics: The Unprecedented Reach of the Global Citizen (London: Polity) looks at the evolving responses from states, social movements and private sector actors to global governance and the increasing role of microactivists and social movements in public policy formation. He has worked extensively on the WTO's failed Doha Round with particular focus on TRIPS and public health, food security and nutrition, and poverty eradication. Another vital interest is North American integration and border security (Big Picture Realities: Canada and Mexico at the Crossroads, Wilfrid Laurier Press, 2008) and the impact of new information technologies and the ways in which micropublics have employed these technologies in innovative ways.

He has written or edited (with others) twelve books in the recent period. Among his recent publications are: The Market or the Public Domain: Global Governance and the Asymmetry of Power (Routledge, 2001); Health Reform: Public Success, Private Failure (Routledge 1999, and Terry Sullivan); States Against Markets: The Limits of Globalization (Routledge 1996, and Robert Boyer); and The Changing Workplace: Reshaping Canada’s Industrial Relations System (Lorimer 1994, and Harry Glasbeek)

His work has been recognized internationally and he has been a research associate at the European University Institute, Florence; a professor invité at CEPREMAP-CNRS, Paris; a visiting scholar at Macquarrie University, the University of Western Sydney and the AGSM, University of New South Wales and a guest lecturer at UNAM, Mexico. In January 2008 he was the Shastri Indo Canada Visiting lecturing at ten departments and/or institutions throughout the country. In 2010 he was the Ford Foundation Visiting Professor at JNU Centre for the Study of Law and Governance New Delhi. He is an expert evaluator for the EU since 2005. In 2003-04 he was invited to be the Senior Resident, Massey College, University of Toronto, and in June 2003 he was the Australia-Canada Millennium Lecturer in Sydney Australia. He has won major SSHRC research awards and is currently principal investigator, along with co-investigators Seth Feldman and Fred Fletcher of a SSHRC Research Development Initiative, entitled, "Global Cultural Flows, New Information Technologies and Re-Imagining the National Community" that was successfully completed in 2006. In 2011 he was awarded a grant from the Indo-Shastri Foundation for a collaborative project with the Centre for Culture, Media and Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University New Delhi. During the same period he published a series of digital report on activist counterpublics and the remarkable iconography of dissent in post-modernity.

His current research examines the role of counterpublics, skeptics and contrarians as a worldwide phenomenon politicizing and mobilizing civil society. Social media and new information technology are empowering users world wide and his current project is to evaluate the role of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as transformative networks of amazing complexity. He continues to research on North American integration and the evolving role of borders as policy levers in the post-NAFTA.

Professor Drache is a regular commentator on national news for the CBC and other networks.