Thought Provokers
How to Rig an Election
“The greatest political paradox of our time is this: there are more elections than ever before, and yet the world is becoming less democratic” (p. 1). This paradox is explained in How to Rig an Election (2018) by Cheeseman and Klaas (published by Yale). In sum: “How is it possible that the flourishing of elections […]
Tags: #Democracy #elections #fraud #hacking the election #How to rig an election
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster by Bill Gates
Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need (2021) is well written. The book seems to aim for an audience that has had minimal engagement with climate change conversations. The first chapter sets the scene for the author’s positionality, followed by a few chapters on climate science 101. […]
Tags: #Bill Gates #Climate #Climate Change #Climate Disaster #How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
Another Now
What would the world look like is the 2008 financial crisis inspired a radical transformation of society as we know it (rather than bailing out the banks to continue the status quo)? Yanis Varoufakis has ventured some answers in his Another Now (2020). The book is fictional, which the author uses to present a range […]
Tags: #Another Now #Financial Crisis #Futurism #Futurist #Yanis Varoufakis
The Data Detective
Harford has written a pile of books on economics and ran a show decoding the world of statistics. I picked up The Data Detective: Ten Easy Rules to Make Sense of Statistics (2021) to see if it might be useful for undergraduates in the social sciences. Harford is a good storyteller, hence the pile of […]
Epistemic Freedom in Africa
For students looking for an introduction to decolonization, or faculty looking to catch up on conversations they have been missing (or conversations they have avoided or actively sought not take part in), Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni has brought it together for you in Epistemic Freedom in Africa: Deprovincialization and Decolonization (2018). As the title implies, this book […]
Tags: #Africa #decolonization #Deprovincialization #Epistemic Freedom #Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni
Native Colonialism
The people of Ethiopia defeated European attempts to colonize it. However, Dr Yirga argues that in embracing western education and erasing local history and tradition, the institutions and laws put in place colonizing processes, what he calls ‘native colonialism’. This is one of the most interesting books I have read of recent, highly recommended to anyone interested […]
Tags: #Colonialism #Education #Ethiopia #Native Colonialism #Tradition
Ethiopian Discourse
Teodros Kiros is a public philosopher, demonstrated by his commitment to making philosophy accessible and bringing philosophy into the public spaces. Ethiopian Discourse (2011) is a kind of companion book to Teodros Kiros’ Philosophical Essays (2011). Both are published by Red Sea and both are collections of articles written in the Ethiopian Reporter newspaper, amongst […]
Tags: #Ethiopia #Ethiopian Discourse #Philosophy #Public Philosophy #Teodros Kiros
Policy-Making in a Transformative State
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 […]
Tags: #Doha #Policy #Policy Making #Qatar #Tranformative State
On the Genealogy of Morality
In looking for ideas about how to present the history and connectivity of ideas, I returned to Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality, published in 1887. Sharing a few notes with that interest in reading (and only a periphery interest in the arguments of the book). In the Introduction of the version I read (by […]
Tags: #Genealogy #Genealogy as method #History #Nietzsche #On the Genealogy of Morality
Qatar: A Modern History
Other than a short publication from 1979, there are few academic books on the history of Qatar. After spending a year in Qatar, at Qatar University, Allen Fromherz wrote ‘Qatar: A Modern History’. The book was originally published in 2012, (Kamrava’s book is 2013) however, the updated version (published in 2017) provides updates throughout the […]
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.
Featured Posts
Tags
Africa Agriculture Anthropology Books Capitalism Civil society Climate change Colonialism Colonization Conflict Culture decolonization Democracy Development Development Studies Economics Education Ethics Ethiopia Ethnography Fellowship Food Security Gender Globalization Governance History Human Rights Inequality Interdisciplinary International development Islam Justice Land Leadership Middle East Migration Participation Philosophy Policy Politics Post-doc Poverty Power Qatar Racism Resilience Revolution Rural Development South Africa SustainabilitySubscribe to receive new blog posts via email