Development
Singapore: Public Subsidy / Private Accumulation
On a trip to Singapore in 2025 one question that arose as we moved around the country was what tools the government used to generate revenue, and in particular for a small, high income country without natural resources. One of the unexpected areas (beyond the location and development of a maritime trading hub, financial hub, […]
Tags: #Development #Housing #Land #Nationalization #Singapore
Singapore: A Very Short History
A widely read, and apparently common undergraduate reading text, on Singapore is Alvin Tan’s “Singapore: A Very Short History, From Temasek to Tomorrow”, which was first published in 2000 and updated in a 2022 edition. I picked this up in Singapore looking to understand more about the political economy, and this did not deliver much […]
Tags: #Development #History #Policy #Politics #Singapore #Strategy
The Idea of Development in Africa
Taking its cue from another book, The Idea of Africa, this book presents the idea of the idea of development with a focus on Africa – its emergence, meanings, and connotations – and how its conceptualization is deeply rooted in colonialism. “The Idea of Development: A History” (2021) is written by Corrie Decker and Elisabeth McMahon, […]
Tags: #Africa #Colonialism #Development #History #The idea of development
Democracy and Development in Africa
While a visiting scholar at Brookings, Claude Ake wrote “Democracy and Development in Africa” (1995), published by Brookings. As nearly three decades have passed, I focus less on the specifics (e.g., agricultural policy recommendations) and highlight the general arguments, a few notes: “Many factors have been offered to explain the apparent failure of the development […]
Tags: #Africa #Claude Ake #Democracy #Development #Ideology of development
The Asian Aspiration
The Asian Aspiration: Why and How Africa Should Emulate Asia (2020), written by two Brenthurst Foundation employees (Greg Mills and Emily Van Der Merwe) and two former African leaders (Olusegun Obasanjo and Hailemariam Desalegn). The bulk of the book is 10 chapters presenting country case studies from Asia (including: Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, the […]
Tags: #Brenthurst Foundation #Development #Hailemariam Desalegn #Olusegun Obasanjo #The Asian Aspiration
Know The Beginning Well
Lifelong development worker, K. Y. Amoako reflects on a career with the World Bank and United Nations in “Know the Beginning Well: An Inside Journey Through Five Decades of African Development” (2020). The book is interesting in that the author shares inside views, but lacks critical reflection and does not offer any bold or new […]
Tags: #Amoako #Development #Know the beginning well #Racism #World Bank
China’s Gilded Age
China’s Gilded Age (2020) by Yuen Yuen Ang is an accessible read that is well worth reading for multiple reasons. The book advances theoretical understandings on corruption and poverty, it presents creative methodologies that could inspire all sorts of new research, and presents unique findings that explain how China sustained high levels of economic growth […]
Tags: #China #Corruption #Development
Qatar’s Modern and Contemporary Development
One of the benefits of being in Qatar, when reading books written on the country, is the ability to walk the shelves of the Qatar National Library and stumble upon gems that almost certainly would not be available outside of Qatar. One example of this is “Qatar’s Modern and Contemporary Development: Chapters of Political, Social […]
Tags: #Books #Development #Doha #History #Qatar
Qatar: Politics and the Challenges of Development
In the same year that Kamrava published his book on Qatar, Matthew Gray published Qatar: Politics and the Challenges of Development (2013). Kamrava’s book has about three times as many citations and seems to have become the go-to book on political issues in Qatar for the time period. Kamrava took a position at Georgetown University in […]
Tags: #Development #Matthew Gray #Politics #Politics and the Challenges of Development #Qatar
Getting to Zero: On the Ebola Frontline
“It seems very hard to stop this now, but I think we all just have to believe that it is possible.” (Norwegian epidemiologist, p. xvii) Within development studies literature there is a sub-genre of memoires, biographies and dairies. Some are troubling to read. Not all are well written. Some are extremely informative. Most present […]
Tags: #Development #Ebola #Humanitarian #Learning #Public Health
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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