Gambling on Development

Dercon’s 2022 development studies book “Gambling on Development: Why Some Countries Win and Others Lose” will likely become one of the key readings for the field (and is endorsed by influential thinkers: Rory Stewart, Blattman, Yuen Yuen Ang). In a nutshell the argument is that development occurs when elites make a “development bargain”, taking various […]

Tags: #Development Bargain #Elite Bargain #Gambling on Development #Stefan Dercon

Thomas Pogge and his critics

The edited collection, Thomas Pogge and His Critics (2010), edited by Alison Jaggar, is an excellent collection of chapters by an exceptional line up of philosophers focused on justice. The critics present a series of challenges, critiques and clarifications for Pogge’s work, such as on positive duties, the inclusion of rights protection, the causes of […]

Tags: #Alison Jaggar #Ethics #Global Justice #Philosophy #Thomas Pogge

Islam, Ethnicity, and Conflict in Ethiopia

With Islam, Ethnicity, and Conflict in Ethiopia, Terje Østebø contributes a historical ethnography to two under researched domains. First, to African and Ethiopian studies and secondly to Islamic studies. As a field of study, African studies, and Ethiopian studies in particular, have tended to focus on dominant themes, such as the largest populations, key livelihoods, […]

Tags: #Anthropology #Bale Insurgency #Conflict #Ethiopia #Ethnicity

Human Rights: A Political & Cultural Critique

I am late to discover Makua Mutua’s well cited (over 1,100 as of this post) book “Human Rights: A Political & Cultural Critique” (2002). Published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, this is work that inspired many of the critiques that followed. Highly recommended. A few notes: “I wanted to explain why I believe that […]

Tags: #Critique #Eurocentric #Human Rights #Ideology #Makua Mutua

Unthinking Social Science

Arguments aplenty about specific forms of biases; in “Unthinking Social Science: The Limits of Nineteenth-Century Paradigms” (1991) Immanuel Wallerstein suggests the problem runs much deeper. The paradigms / worldviews, and assumptions that uphold them, prevent us from truly understanding the world. Drawing upon Marxist thought and critique. Wallerstein offers the beginnings of arguments that would […]

Tags: #Racism #Underdevelopment #unthinking #unthinking social science #wallerstein

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Best-seller Yuval Noah Harari seemed to be riding the wave of his book selling popularity with his “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” (2018), as this book largely pulls together previously published material for the book market. Granted I am picking this book up in 2023 and much has changed in the years since publication, […]