Thought Provokers
23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism
Ha-Joon Chang has written a number of excellent books, I’ve only covered one (Kicking Away the Ladder) on this blog so far. Another of his books – also very accessible and clearly written for non-specialists, is “23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism” (2010). This argument has become more mainstream since Chang started to […]
Tags: #Capitalism #Free-marketers #Ha-Joon Chang #Neoliberal #Protectionism
The Just Society
An earlier post, on Equity and Fairness in Islam, added to conversations in ethics about the balance between equity and equality. Similarly, in ethics classes we look at questions of justice, which usually takes us to Rawls and Pogge. What else might we consider when thinking about these broader justice issues? And, what other traditions, […]
The Ethiopia Book of Travels
In many of my critiques of books written about Qatar I have focused on the almost exclusive reliance upon the British colonial record for history making, despite other sources being available (notably Ottoman records in that case). I was directed to an interesting translation of a travel dairy of an Ottoman dignitary, sent by the Sultan, […]
Tags: #Decolonial #Ethiopia #Ethiopia Book of Travels #History #Ottomon
Delinking
In 1985 Samir Amin wrote La Deconnexion, which was translated in 1990 as “Delinking: Towards a Polycentric World” and published by Zed. Parts of the book are dated (e.g. discussions of the USSR). My main interest in this book was Chapter 2, on The Problem of Delinking, which sets out some of the theory of delinking. Chapters […]
Tags: #delinking #Historical Continuity #Polycentric #Renovation #Semir Amin
Equity and Fairness in Islam
One of the courses I have taught across three continents is ethics. Most textbooks (nearly all) are exclusively eurocentric (other than brief nods to other peoples and traditions existing). An interesting conversation we have in class is engaging with how different ethical theories consider equality and equity. In “Equity and Fairness in Islam” (2005) by Mohammad Hashim Kamali provides […]
Capitalism in the Age of Globalization
Semir Amin was prolific, and I have covered a number of his books on this blog, including:
Tags: #Capitalism #Globalization #Intellectual Property #Samir Amin #Trade
Qatar and the Gulf Crisis
In 2017 the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain launched a land, sea, and air blockade of the State of Qatar. Kristian Coates Ulrichsen (author of more than ten books on the region) documents the blockade in “Qatar and the Gulf Crisis” (2019). The author notes in the text that the writing of the book […]
Everyday Politics of the World Economy
One of the important efforts to shift the gaze in IPE studies beyond elites and regulation was a 2007 book edited by Hobson and Seabrooke called Everyday Politics of the World Economy. I was not seeking the book out per se, but reading other works by Hobson and stumbled on it. The book covers a […]
Tags: #Everyday politics #global political economy #Hobson #international political economy #World Economy
Social Dictatorships
What do some non-democratic governments have stronger social protection systems than others? That is the main questions attempted in the book “Social Dictatorships: The Political Economy of the Welfare State in the Middle East and North Africa” (2020) by Ferdinand Eibl (published by Oxford University Press). This book is largely an elaboration of a 2016 […]
Tags: #Authoritarian welfare states #Middle East #North Africa #Social Dictatorships #Welfare States
The Concept of Human Rights in Africa
“Human rights talk constitutes one of the main elements in the ideological armoury of imperialism. Yet from the point of view of the African people, human rights struggles constitute the stuff of their daily lives. For these two interconnected reasons, human rights talk needs to be subjected to a closer historical and political scrutiny.” (p. […]
About me
Logan Cochrane
Associate Professor at HBKU in the College of Public Policy. He is an Associate Fellow of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences and an Adjunct Professor at Hawassa University (Institute for Policy and Development Research). Over the last fifteen years, he has worked in Afghanistan, Benin, Burundi, Canada, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Logan acts as a consultant for governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations, seeking to create bridges between research and practice.
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