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Introducing Liberation Theology
Over the last decades, one of the sources of inspiration for new thinking in development practice has been liberation theology. Dr. Paul Farmer has utilized the ideas (in a less overtly religious form) and conveyed them to a broader audience, as the preferential option for the poor. What is liberation theology? Leonardo Boff and Clodovis […]
Tags: #Boff #Liberation #Liberation Theology #Paul Farmer #Practice
(Still) Challenging Received Wisdom on the African Environment
In the 80s and 90s an emerging set of research began to highlight that much of what we thought we knew about the environment in Africa, was, at best, only partially accurate. This had implications for policy and programs – and in some instances these narratives are still present. “The Lie of the Land: Challenging […]
Tags: #Africa #Environment #False Narratives #Myths #Soil Erosion
A Socialist Peace? Explaining the Absence of War
Recently published as: Cochrane, L. (2018) Review: A Socialist Peace? Explaining the Absence of War in an African Country. Progress in Development Studies 18(3): 214-215. McGovern, Mike. 2017. A Socialist Peace? Explaining the Absence of War in an African Country. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 249 pp. $ 30.00 (paper). ISBN: 9780226453606 Many studies have […]
The Origins of Political Order
Francis Fukuyama’s “The Origins of Political Order” (2011) is already standard reading, and should be read by all students of development studies. For those unfamiliar with the work, it focuses on the development of government institutions. This post picks up on a few points that resonated on a recent reading: The background: “Political institutions develop, […]
Tags: #Fukuyama #Inequality #Methods #Origins of Political Order #Unity
Development Blindspot: Children & Environmental Toxins
Robert Chambers recently highlighted corruption, entomophagy, neglected tropical diseases, cookstove air pollution, climate change and ocean ecology as blindspots in his “Can We Know Better?” (2017) book. I think we ought to add environmental toxins and child health. Consider the following quotes from “Children & Environmental Toxins: What Everyone Needs to Know” (2018) by Landriagan […]
Tags: #Blindspot #Chemicals #Children #Development Studies #Environmental toxins
Listening to the Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy
Arundhati Roy’s “Listening to the Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy” (2009) is a collection of essays, written during the 2000s. The topics span a range of issues, largely occurring in India. While the “field notes on democracy” were present, they were often implicit – which is somehow expected as the content was not written as […]
Tags: #Arundhati Roy #Civil disobedience #Democracy #India #Nonviolence
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.
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