Thought Provokers
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
Murdering Patrice Lumumba
Having recently read and posted about the letters, writing and speeches of Patrice Lumumba, I was looking forward the book by Gerard and Kuklick (2015), published by Harvard, titled “Death in the Congo: Murdering Patrice Lumumba”. While it was well researched and interesting, it was a different book than what I was expecting, and I […]
Charity in Islamic Societies
Amy Singer’s book on Charity in Islamic Societies (2008) covers a wide range of topics related to charitable giving (zakat, sadaqah) and charitable institutions (awqaf), providing canonical and historical examples of them. In particular, I was interested in the parts on endowments / foundations / trusts (singular waqf, plural awqaf). Singer describes them as “specific endowed properties, the revenues of […]
Tags: #Amy Singer #Awqaf #Charity #Islam #Waqf
Lumumba: May Our People Triumph
LeoPard books has collected the speeches, writings, letters and telegrams of the former Prime Minister of DR Congo, Patrice Lumumba in “May Our People Triumph” (2016). It also collects a set of articles written about him after his murder. The book has some editorial errors and formatting issues, but nonetheless is a useful collection to […]
Tags: #anti-colonialists #Dignity #DR Congo #DRC #Patrice Lumumba
The Green Book – Gaddafi
The former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi explained his political philosophy in The Green Book. The Green Book is a short work (the English translation is 92 pages) presented in short chapters on a wide range of topics, organized into three parts. The first part is a critique of Western forms of democracy and a proposal […]
Tags: #Democracy #Gaddafi #Green Book #Just Share #Socialist Society
About me
Logan Cochrane
Logan is a 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 twenty 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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