Logan Cochrane

Navigating Complexity in International Development

Danny Burns and Stuart Worsley offer one of the best development studies reads of 2015 with their book “Navigating Complexity in International Development: Facilitating Sustainable Change at Scale.” There are shelves of books that cover similar topics in development studies, with much repetition and little innovative thinking. Burns and Stuart offer just that by viewing […]

Tags: #Complex systems #Complexity #International development #Power #Sustainability

Rules for Radicals

Saul Alinsky was one of the most influential community organizers, activists and rabble-rousers of his time (1909-1972). His most well known work is “Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals” (1971). The book provides a wealth of interesting examples of community organizing, these stories and experiences make the book well worth the read, […]

Tags: #collective action #Democracy #Participation #Participatory #Social change

There is no such thing as a free gift …

“No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy” by Linsey McGoey (2015) provides critical perspectives on the role of foundations, and more generally on philanthropy. However, the book makes a series of questionable linkages and claims, without which it would have been a much stronger book. Attempting to drive home […]

Tags: #Capitalism #Gates Foundation #GMOs #Inequality #Philanthropy

The World’s Emergency Room

Michael VanRooyen’s book (2016) “The World’s Emergency Room: The Growing Threat to Doctors, Nurses, and Humanitarian Workers” presents a personal narratives of work in the humanitarian sector. While readers do gain glimpses of humanitarian work, and of the challenging settings staff work within, the book does not make a forceful argument about the growing threat […]

Tags: #Coordination #Harvard Humanitarian Initiative #Humanitarianism #Novice aid #Positionality

Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy

Acemoglu and Robinson are most well known for their book Why Nations Fail. This thought provoker post covers an earlier work, from 2006: Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Parts of this book are heavy with the formulas; so those wary of economics and mathematics, and interested in more of the social sciences side of political […]

Tags: #Democracy #Dictatorship #Institutions #Middle Class #Power

Social Consequences of Resettlement & Relocation

Particularly since 2008, there has been a rise in displaced people due to land grabbing, or large-scale land investments. These developments has led some researchers to ask what the consequences, beyond the obvious loss of land, abuse of rights and disruption of livelihoods. For this, history has much to teach us. One such study is […]

Tags: #Anthropology #Political Protest #Relocation #Resettlement #Social Consequences

Yemen and the Politics of Permanent Crisis

Before the onset of the 2015 Yemeni war, the situation in the country was dire: it was home to one of the world’s highest rates of child malnutrition, was chronically food insecure, depleting oil and water resources, corruption and long-term instability. Sarah Phillips explores these dynamics in her work “Yemen and the Politics of Permanent […]

Tags: #Instability #Politics #Politics of Permanent Crisis #Power #Yemen

Descent into Chaos – Afghanistan

Reflections on international development from Ahmed Rashid’s award-winning 2008 book “Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.” For those interested in the region, or of military intervention in the era of the ‘war on terror’ this is essential reading. Proposals before 9/11: “We proposed using economic aid related […]

Tags: #Afghanistan #Conflict #Failure #International development #War on Terror

On “supportive outsiders”

Platzky and Walker offer some suggestions on the role of ‘supportive outsiders’ in the context of the struggle against apartheid in their book “The Surplus People: Forced Removals in South Africa” (1985), covered here. It may be interesting for students of international development to reflect on the progression of ideas over the last three decades, […]

Surplus People: Forced Removals in South Africa

The experts for this ‘thought provoker’ come from “The Surplus People: Forced Removals in South Africa” (1985) by Platzky and Walker, which is the summarized version of a five volume study on the topic. The book was published while apartheid was still forcing relocation and displacement, as one of its many policies for “separate development.” In […]

Tags: #Apartheid #Forced Removal #Relocation #South Africa #Surplus People