Drew Halfmann's research and teaching focuses on social movements and the politics of health and social policy. He is the author of Doctors and Demonstrators: How Political Institutions Shape Abortion Law in the United States, Britain and Canada (University of Chicago Press, 2011), which won the 2012 Charles Tilly Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association Section on Collective Behavior and Social Movements, and the 2013 Distinguished Scholarship Award from the Pacific Sociological Association. His work has appeared in the American Sociological Review, Social Problems, Mobilization, HEALTH, Studies in American Political Development, and the Journal of Policy History. His current research is on the African-American struggle for health equality from Reconstruction to Obamacare. He is a member of the Scholars Strategy Network and co-director of its Bay Area Regional Network. He blogs at After-Dinner Critic and Dissent.
My areas of expertise are social movements and the politics of health and social policy. In particular, my research examines the ways in which macro-level political institutions shape when, where and how meso-level collective actors involve themselves in politics. My first book was about the politics of abortion policy in the United States, Britain and Canada. My latest book project is on the African-American struggle for health equity from Reconstruction to Obamacare.
