Policy books on specific issues with specific cases tend to have a shorter shelf life of relevance. Keeley and Scoones wrote "Understanding Environmental Policy Processes: Cases from Africa" in 2003, and it largely falls in this category. The book has three cases as chapters (Ethiopia, Mali, Zimbabwe) and some general chapters on knowledge, power and politics; environmental policy processes; international policy processes; and a concluding chapter on engagement spaces. The Ethiopia case study brought out the naive and idealistic views, such as those pitched by Sasakawa Global 2000, suggesting that the addition of fertilizer would triple yields and "off the shelf" packages would increase maize yields tenfold. SG2000 was integrated in, and was the primary driver of, the expanded agricultural extension program of the then new Zenawi government. The influence was exerted by foreign consultants, often with World Bank and CG ties, to put SG2000 in this unique position of influencing power. The book offers some interesting historical notes of Zenawi visiting farms with Jimmy Carter and Norman Borlaug (in 1994). The authors suggest - in 2003 - a lot of money wasted and little progress. This book is interesting in that is looks at the role of networks in influencing or setting policy. One lengthy note in the Conclusion of the Ethiopia case:

"... the policy process - linked to agriculture, natural resources and environment in Ethiopia - is undoubtedly complex. Policy conflicts are not resolved, it seems, as a result of simple technical and rational choices between different alternatives. Policy is the stuff of politics and people, and of knowledge and power. The rise or fall of different policy emphases depends upon the successful (or otherwise) enrolment of actors - scientists, donors, politicians, NGO staff, farmers and others - and the creation of networks that are able to make use of a policy space, emerging as a result of particular contexts, circumstances and timings. Policies can be seen to be embedded in local settings - in the political histories of different regions, in the cultures of regional bureaucracies and administrations, and dependent upon the histories of educational advantage and disadvantage, as well as rooted in ideologies and practices of governance and participation. Policies, it seems, often have a certain inertia: particular ideas and practices stick, despite concerted challenges to basic concepts and ways of working. If actor networks are tightly formed and impenetrable, and contexts and circumstances are not conducive to change, no amount of rational argument will budge a policy from its pedestal. However, as we have noted, things do change once distinct and well-guarded policy positions begin to fall apart, and other arguments become incorporated, softening the stance and, through this process, enlarging the associated actor network. Key events may allow this to happen, creating new policy spaces and new opportunities for challenge and open debate. The result is often the partial unravelling of old actor networks and the creation of new ones around alternative policy discourses, which, previously, featured only on the fringes of mainstream policy discussion." (p. 97) 

From his doctoral work, Yahia Baiza wrote "Education in Afghanistan: Development, Influences and Legacies since 1901" (2013), published by Routledge. The book covers more than a century (1901-2012), structured around the political eras of the period. As much as this book is about education, it is equally about the context of each time period. This partly to help us as readers have context and probably also partly due to the scarcity of available research specific to education during the period of study. In that sense, a parts readers are left wanting more about the actual education systems. This is a niche book of which there are few comparable options, so for anyone interested in this specific area of study this is worth picking up. A few quotes:

"There has often been a misconception about the nature of modern as well as madrasa education in Afghanistan. Since the latter is understood to be an exclusively or predominantly religious-oriented form of education, it has been often described as 'Islamic school' or 'religious school', although madrasas do also teach non-religious subjects. By contrast, as modern education has been adopted from the European model of education and many of its subjects are different from the traditional madrasa education, modern education has too often been mistakenly described as 'secular' education. As shall be discussed in this book, the modern education system not only includes both religious and non-religious subjects, but religious subjects for a very long time occupied an important position. In addition, the so-called 'secular' education had to rely on teachers from the madrasa system, who would teach language, literature, religion, Arabic language and grammar, mathematical sciences, etc. Furthermore, the modern education system has been borrowing terms and concepts from the traditional madrasa system. For instance, terms such as maktab (an elementary level of education), talib (seeker) or talibul Ilm (the seeker of knowledge) for student, mudaris (teacher), talim (education) and tarbiyah (upbringing for education) etc are rooted in the so-called 'Islamic' education system. Equally, the madrasa, maktab, and makatib-e asri for a long time were used interchangeably, and meant 'modern school'." (p. 44-45)

"The curriculum, which was an important characteristic of the 'modernness' of the schools, was a combination of aspects of religious education and aspects of western education. In civil schools, the curriculum for primary level education consisted of religious education (reading and reciting the Quran), Persian, mathematics, geography, and calligraphy. The lower secondary level curriculum included religious education, history, geography, painting, health care, Persian, Afghani or Pashto, and foreign languages, specifically English, Urdu, or Turkish. The curriculum at the upper secondary level consisted of subjects such as religious education (recitation of the Quran, Tradition (hadiths), Arabic language and grammar, Persian, history, geography, algebra, geometry, analytical geometry, natural sciences, alchemy, and English." (p. 51-52)

"Education became a key catalyst as well as victim on both sides of the war. The PDPA, under the Soviet Union's advisers, integrated socialist ideology in school textbooks, and teacher education programmes. Similarly, the resistance parties, under the United States' and other Western educational experts, used schools in refugee camps and in the areas outside the state's control in Afghanistan as recruitment and propaganda centres for the Islamist parties. They developed their textbooks for disseminating anti-Soviet and anti-PDPA messages of violence, aggression, killing, and use of firearms, etc. As a result, this period experienced two key parallel education streams: the state's education system under the control of the PDPA, and the refugees' education, under the control of resistance parties." (p. 131)

"When the University of Nebraska programme staff developed these textbooks, international organizations chose to ignore the images of Islamic militancy in them for the first five years of the programme (Davis 2002: 93). Later on, when the United Nations and various NGOs lobbied against such teaching and learning materials, some images and messages that promoted violence and killing were removed from the text- books, but the religious content remained unchanged (Pourzand 2004: 24–25). However, it is also worth noting that none of the NGOs or the UN agencies criticized these textbooks as long as the Soviet Union's army was present in Afghanistan." (p. 155) 

Ha-Joon Chang is an exceptional academic - unique contributions, excellent storyteller, interdisciplinary approaches, and in this book appetizing: "Edible Economics: The World in 17 Dishes" (2022). This book was not written for academics, but everyday readers who might get pulled into economics, history and politics via food. This book is an easy and enjoyable read (~160 pages), and he continues his typical myth-busting style throughout. Reflecting on my notes, seems I was more interested in Chang's "greens" than the "ice cream" (see first quote below):

"With this book, I'm trying to make economics more palatable by serving it with stories about food. But be warned. The food stories are mostly not about the economics of food - how it is grown, processed, branded, sold, bought and consumed. These aspects are not usually central to the economic stories I have for you. And there are lots of interesting books about them around. My food stories are a bit like the ice cream that some of your moms may have offered to bribe you to eat your greens - except that in this book ice cream comes first, the greens later…" (p. xxv)

"It is a complete myth that people in poor countries, many of which are in the tropics, lack in terms of work ethic. In fact, they work much harder than their counterparts in rich countries. To begin with, usually a much higher proportion of the working age population is working in poor countries than in rich ones. According to data from the World Bank, in 2019, the labor force participation was 83% in Tanzania, 77% in Vietnam and 67% in Jamaica, compared to 60% in Germany, 61% in the US and 63% in South Korea, the supposed nation of workaholics." (p. 24)

"There was much criticism of these policies, not just outside but also inside Japan. Critics pointed out that Japan would be better off if it just imported things like steel and automobiles and concentrated on making things like silk and other textile products, which it was good at. If you protect your inefficient producers of, say, passenger cars (like Toyota and Nissan) by imposing tariffs on foreign cars, consumers either have to pay more than the world market price to get better cars from abroad or drive inferior and uglier Japanese cars, they pointed out. Also, by artificially channeling bank loans into inefficient industries, like automobile production, through government directives, they added, you are taking away funds from efficient industries, like silk, that could be using the same amount of capital to produce far more output. This is an absolutely correct argument - if you take a country's capabilities as a producer as given. However, in the long run, a country can change its productive capabilities and become better at things at which it is not good at today." (p. 43)

"Countries have required MNCs to transfer technology to their subsidiaries or put ceilings on the royalty they can charge for licensing their technologies to the subsidiaries. They have sometimes mandated MNCs to hire more than a certain proportion of the locals in the workforce, or to train workers they hire. To maximize the indirect benefits of MNC investments, they have required the MNC subsidiaries to buy more than a certain proportion of their inputs from local suppliers - this is known as the 'local contents requirement'. These policies were used extensively - and successfully - by countries like Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Finland between the end of the Second World War and the 1980s." (p. 84)

"… the best economists should be, like the best of the cooks, able to combine different theories to have a more balanced view. They understand both the power and the limitations of the market, while knowing that entrepreneurs are the most successful when supported and suitably regulated by the state. They should be willing to combine individualist theories and socialist (or, more broadly, collectivist) theories - and augment them with theories of human capabilities - in order to come up with a more rounded view on issues like inequality, care work and the welfare state." (p. 161-162) 

Edited collections are challenging to write about and review, with the chapters covering diverse areas / topics and each offering unique data and perspectives. One unique edited collection on Qatar is Policy-Making in a Transformative State: The Case of Qatar, edited by M. E. Tok, L. R. M. Alkhater and L. Pal (2016). The book is over 400 pages and has 14 chapters, beyond the scope of a quick summary. However, there are some valuable contributions that I will point readers toward, which will be of interest from the perspective of understanding policy making as well as unique contributions to understand the Qatari context.

One of the gems in this book is Khalid Rashid Alkhater's Macroeconomic Stabilization Policies and Sustainable Growth in Qatar (Ch 12). While the title is generic, this is an excellent contribution on financial and monetary policy, which I will continue to use in my teaching. The chapter by Lolwah Alkhater on educational reform (Ch 4) provides much more detail than Vora's book. For anyone interested in the education system (and its transformations), this is a critical reflection of decisions made and an important resource. This is followed by a chapter on higher education (Ch 5, by Ahmed Baghdady), which is more descriptive.

In the available English literature, there are few places where one can find nuance on constitutional and legal details of Qatar (while there are political books, like Kamara, these remain quite broad on these points). For this, Hassan Al-Sayed's chapter on Qatar's Constitutional and Legal System (Ch 2) is worth reading. Now the dean of CHSS at HBKU, Amal Mohammed Al-Malki, has a chapter on identity (Ch 9) and Hend Al Muftah has a chapter on labour (migration, Qatarization; Ch 10) with explicit policy recommendations.

Many of the books available on Qatar are written by outsider voices, sometimes following short stays in the country and often by scholars who do not have access to Arabic sources or conversations. This edited volume provides a broader range of content, not only with insider perspectives but also in many instances contributing original data and interviews. Although much has changed since 2016, this is still a useful book for those interested in understanding Qatar, and particularly useful understanding policy challenges and policy making. One downside to the book is the cost - this is an expensive academic book published by Palgrave, which reduces the accessibility of this collection for those without institutional subscriptions.