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The Tyranny of Metrics
Jerry Z. Muller’s “The Tyranny of Metrics” (2018) has a title suggestive of an essential read, but in detail it runs thin. The author may have aimed for a broad audience, providing a brief overview. For those versed in the challenges of metrics, this is not your book. Nonetheless, there are some interesting points, including: […]
Tags: #Accountability #Evaluation #Metrics #Transparency #Tyranny of Metrics
Social Movements and Market Transformations
In the 1990s and into the 2000s, there were effective treatments for AIDS, yet the poorest countries and people did not have access to them. How did the global transformation come about whereby treatments became more readily available, and in most countries in the Global South free? Kapstein and Busby outline how this transformation took […]
Tags: #Advocacy #HIV/AIDS #Market transformation #Social Movement #Theory of strategic moral action
The Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-41)
In back alleys and old book shops in Ethiopia, you can occasionally stumble across old gems. A recent example I found was “The Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-41) Genesis Ordeal Victory”, published by the Ministry of Information in 1975. It is a 28-page pamphlet that includes a large set of images. For a historian, the pamphlet is […]
Resistance and Decolonization
Amilcar Cabral (1924-1973) is one of Africa’s great anti- and de-colonial activists and writers, and led the struggle for the independence of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde. Another post, on Davidson’s “No Fish is Big Enough to Hide the Sky“, also covers Cabral. This post focuses upon a collection of his ideas in “Resistance and […]
Tags: #Amilcar Cabral #Decolonial #decolonization #Post-colonial #Resistance
Why We Lie About Aid
“Why We Lie About Aid” (2018) appeared all over development studies social media in 2018, at one point topping Amazon’s best seller list for the sub-category. For those who do not think aid is political, or who sit on the fence of development being political, Pablo Yanguas’ book is an essential read. The book makes […]
Tags: #Aid #International Assistance #Pablo Yanguas #Politics #Why we lie about aid
Civil Society: Challenging Western Models
Edited volumes seems to have a shorter shelf life than books, similar to academic articles. I recently picked up the somewhat dated (1996) edited volume of “Civil Society: Challenging Western Models”, edited by Chris Hann and Elizabeth Dunn, to see what it might offer. It was written at a time when literature on civil society […]
Tags: #Civil society #magic of transition #Steven Sampson #Susanne Spulbeck #The Social Life of Projects
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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