Logan Cochrane

Ending Aid Dependence

Looking for a different perspective on aid? A short publication (144 pages) called Ending Aid Dependence (2008) by Yash Tandon, with a forward by the former President of Tanzania Benjamin Mkapa, is well worth your read. The book is published by Fahamu, which also published Shivji’s book on NGOs. A few notes: “The political rationale […]

Tags: #Aid dependence #conditionality #Dignity #self-reliance #solidarity

The Racial Contract

Mills’ The Racial Contract (1997) is essential reading – short and generally accessible (the philosophy might be a challenge for those outside of it), but well worth struggling through. Charles W. Mills is currently at City University of New York and has written a number of books (reviews of others to come). The book seems […]

Tags: #Race #Racial Contract #Racism #White supremacy #Whiteness

Waqf in the Islamic World

In an earlier post I commented on the remarkable amount of land and resources managed by charitable foundations / endowments in the Middle East and North Africa, but was also challenged to find the primary source for that data (despite digging from reference to reference, only to hit dead ends). To look into the waqf […]

Ending the Crisis of Capitalism, or Ending Capitalism?

I have covered several of Samir Amin works, including Unequal Development (1976), Capitalism in the Age of Globalization (1997) and The Liberal Virus (2004). This post covers his book Ending the Crisis of Capitalism, or Ending Capitalism? (originally published in French in 2009, and the translation I have was published in 2011 by Pambazuka Press). […]

Tags: #Capitalism #delinking #Land #Samir Amin #sovereignty

Democracy in Chains

Nearly on a weekly basis during the Trump years we heard pundits proclaim something along the lines of “who saw it coming?!” While the specifics were not predictable, the trend was clear. One of those for whom the writing was on the wall was historian and public policy expert Nancy MacLean, who published Democracy in […]

Tags: #Buchanan #Charles Koch #Democracy #Liberty #Nancy MacLean

Ethiopia in the Wake of Political Reforms

Following years of protests, unrest and instability Abiy Ahmed became the Prime Minister of Ethiopia in 2018. After a year of optimism and positivity, the challenges put increasing pressure on a fragile transition. It was around this time that a group of scholars met to take stock of the situation and develop the ideas of […]

Tags: #Abiy Ahmed #Ethiopia #Political Reform #Transition #Tsehai

Can Non-Europeans Think? (Dabashi)

I looked forward to Hamid Dabashi’s Can Non-Europeans Think? (2015), with a forward by Walter Mignolo. Although the articles are interesting, they are a disconnected set of writings over a period of fifteen or so years. Most are former journalistic publications, which leaves academic readers wanting for references to follow-up on and dig deeper. The […]

Tags: #Can Non-Europeans Think? #Colonized mind #Eurocentrism #Fast Knowledge #Hamid Dabashi

The Gulf Crisis, Views from Qatar

With the potential for an end, or at least easing of tensions, in the GCC, it seems an interesting moment to look back and see what the perspectives were when the crisis started. “The Gulf Crisis: The View from Qatar” (2018), edited by Miller, gives a set of perspectives on a wide range of issues, […]

Tags: #Blockade #Gulf Crisis #Qatar #Saudi #UAE

Capitalism, Alone

In the realm of those interested in inequality, Milanovic and Piketty have been leading intellectual voices in the last decade. A few years ago I wrote about Milanovic’s 2016 book on global inequality, this post covers his 2019 book Capitalism, Alone. In general, I think anyone interested in development economics should read this, and fortunately […]

Tags: #Capitalism #Citizenship #Ideology #Inequality #Milanovic

Define and Rule – Mamdani

Mahmood Mamdani has written a number of essential reading books, including When Victims Become Killers, as well as Citizen and Subject and Neither Settler Nor Native (reviews on those to come in future posts). Define and Rule: Native as Political Identity (2012) is the W. E. B. Du Bois lectures, presented in three chapters (Nativism: […]

Tags: #Colonialism #Define and rule #Ethnicity #Mamdani #Race