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Defiant Publics: The Unprecedented Reach of the Global Citizen, by Daniel Drache, with Marc D. Froese. Cambridge, U.K. and Maiden, MA: Polity Press. 2008. 198pp. $64.95 cloth, $19.95 paper. ISBN: 9780745631790.
Many western democracies today exhibit a surprising combination: growing inequalities of income and wealth alongside an expand- ing normative commitment to deliberation, public participation, and transparency. The globalization of markets, the narrative goes, has facilitated the expansion of information and communication technologies, growth of non-governmental organizations, increas- ingly decentralized governance networks, and the relative ease of cultural and institu- tional diffusion across borders. Has the global integration of societies and markets helped to concentrate power at the top, in multinational corporations, inter- and supra- national organizations and the like? Or has it instead helped to enhance the power of citizens by unlocking new communicative potentials and devolving power to the bottom?
Daniel Drache's Defiant Publics proposes that it is very much the latter, and sees considerable potential for democratic renewal in this reconfiguration. Walking the line between descriptive and normative styles of argumentation, Drache argues that modern societies are undergoing a "Great Reversal" in which "hierarchical authority, centralization, and . . . Iiigness' are under increasing strain, burdened by the mistrust of the multitude" (p. 158)....