Robarts Centre wins major research grant

Daniel Drache, director of the Robarts Centre, will lead the study involving 40 scholars from eight countries.

by Mary Ann Horgan

SSHRC-RDI GRANT FUNDS INTERNATIONAL STUDY OF THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

The Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at York University has received a $90,000 grant to study the concept of the public domain.

The SSHRC-RDI (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada -- Research Development Initiative) grant ranked third out of 47 proposals in the competition. The project brings together 40 leading researchers from North America, Europe, South America, Australia and New Zealand. They will examine how the public domain is being defined, constituted and contrasted in different markets, specifically in developing countries.

The title of the three-year project is "Defining the Public Domain: A Proposal for a Multi-Disciplinary, Comparative Enquiry on Exploring a Key Concept of Governance and State Practice in an Era of Global Markets."

Robarts Centre Director Daniel Drache is leading the project. Drache, a political economist, has longstanding expertise in public policy and solid experience in organizing large, multi-faceted research projects.

"The public domain is considered to be the assets that are held in common that cannot be bought or sold on the open market," said Drache. "We think of the public domain as the benefits that belong to everyone. People use the concept of 'public domain' all the time without thinking. If you're talking about a city like Toronto, the public domain includes parks, cultural centres, malls, playing fields, synagogues, and churches. On the other hand, if you look at some American cities, they are organized around commerce, and they have no centre. They have been hollowed out. You feel like you're eyeless in Gaza. But the term 'public domain' is not limited to cities. It also has relevance to the world economy."

"We have had 10 years of deep commitments to the marketplace, and globalization is often seen at the top of the agenda, but with the magnitude of the current global financial crisis, it's timely for us to look beyond commerce to see where societies get their cohesiveness," Drache said. "There's a growing awareness that we need to rethink the role of the public domain. It's things that cannot be traded, like values, beliefs and public goods -- that form the public domain."

The proposal states that "in the struggle between states and markets, it is not a foregone conclusion that markets have regained the upper hand. Indeed, it appears that the public domain -- the non-tradeable social goods sector that exists in every society -- is ready to make a comeback." Drache added, "We need to look at how this public domain is a critical instrument of governance. This discussion strikes a cord with people. There are many dimensions of this we don't understand yet, but we hope to be on the leading edge of a discussion that forms a new agenda for us all."

"In the past, the Robarts Centre has organized and worked extensively on the issues of the limits of globalization, so this project follows on our earlier initiatives," he said. The project coordination will be located at the Robarts Centre. Drache's area of policy expertise is the public domain as a concept of governance, with particular interest in how it is constituted in different jurisdictions. Under Drache's direction, four other leading scholars will take responsibility for the major areas of investigation. They include:

* Richard Higgott, Director of the Centre for the Study of Globalization and Regionalization, University of Warwick, England, who is an expert on globalization and international relations. He will be responsible for coordinating the group's research on European economic integration and public accountability;

* Stephen Clarkson, a political economist at the University of Toronto, who will have special responsibility for the resizing of state forms and practices in the context of simultaneous trends to regionalization, continentalization, and globalization;

* Isabella Bakker of the Department of Political Science at York University, who has worked extensively as a consultant for international organization on state-market relations. She will oversee the group's work on the issue of the optimal size for government; and

* Daniel Latouche of the Institute of Urbanization in Montreal, who will be in charge of the special group examining the new architecture of the Canadian state and the redefinition of the public domain.

One of the unique features of this research project is that it involves policy specialists from both the private and public sector, who will collaborate actively with their university counterparts. Members of the research advisory committee include: John McCallum, vice-president and chief economist of the Royal Bank; David Marqand, political theorist and principal of Mansfield College, Oxford; Jim Stanford, senior research economist with the Canadian Autoworkers Union; Michael Adams, public opinion expert and president of the polling firm of Environics Canada; Michael McCracken, macro-economist and president, Infometrica Consultants; Barry Appleton, trade lawyer and expert in international trade law; and Arthur Donner, a public policy expert and president of Arthur Donner, Macro-Economics Consultants.

Besides Drache and Bakker, other York University participants include Harry Arthurs, president emeritus of York and professor at Osgoode Hall Law School; David Bell, director of the Centre for Applied Sustainability and former dean of the Faculty of Environmental Studies; Barbara Cameron, a political scientist at Atkinson College; Robert Cox of the Department of Political Science; Ramesh Mishra, School of Social Work, Atkinson; and Sergei Plekhanov of York's Post-Communist Studies Programme.

Some of the international scholars are: Stephen Blank, Business Administration, Pace University in New York; Robert Boyer, research director at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in Paris, France; Boaventura de Sousa Santos of the University of Coimbra, Portugal; Wolfgang Streeck, director, Max-Planck Institute in Cologne, Germany; and David Trubek, dean of international studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Drache said the group plans to do additional fundraising for their project to supplement the SSHRC-RDI grant. He also said he is excited about the research project, which will begin with an intense, four-day workshop to help frame the research agenda. The team researchers will then need to audit how the public domain is being defined and redefined, especially in developing countries. The second phase will be to audit the public domain in social market economies, particularly Canada, but also countries such as France, England, Germany, Italy, Mexico and Brazil. The group will also organize some summits and public workshops around issues such as how the public domain can be strengthened internationally.

"This is a unique opportunity to do a leading-edge project at the Robarts Centre at York University that will enable so many top scholars to work together in a creative way on one of the important issues of our time: states, markets and the return of the public domain," said Drache.