Power
The Invention of Africa
V. Y. Mudimbe, Congolese-born American philosopher, is probably most well known for this book “The Invention of Africa – Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge” (1988). The book is a discourse analysis of sorts on the conceptualization of Africa and of African philosophy. With decades having passed since its writing, the novelty of this […]
Tags: #Africa #Invention of Africa #Knowledge #Mudimbe #Power
The Silk Roads
In a random bookshop in Kathmandu I came across “The Silk Roads: A New History of the World” (2015) by Peter Frankopan. Having taught Global Political Economy in the past and gone through a number of textbooks (which are largely centered on the Euro-West and its perspectives on global matters) I was hoping this book […]
Tags: #History #Politics #Power #Silk Roads #Trade
The Powers of Mourning and Justice
Judith Butler’s “Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Justice” (2004) was published in the “Radical Thinkers” series of Verso Books. The book is a series of essays written after Sept 11, 2001, collected in this short publication of ~150 pages (of writing, excluding Notes). In the Preface, the author suggests in the years following […]
Power in the Age of AI
With all the talk of AI of recent, I picked up “Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” (2023) by Paul Scharre to see where the new changes might fit into courses I have covered of recent (political economy, ethics, evaluation). A complaint to start: many figures in my copy of this book […]
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism
We are increasingly surrounded by technology, the data collection it employs is not only pervasive but also seemingly unescapable. In 2019 Shoshana Zuboff wrote “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power”, which has gone viral (for a social sciences academic-ish book), being cited nearly 10,000 times […]
Tags: #Ethics #Justice #Power #Privacy #Surveillance Capitalism
I Write What I Like – Steve Biko
Similar to other giants of the struggle against apartheid, we do not have a book written by Steve Biko that pens his ideas. For Robert Sobukwe, a biography was written, while for Steve Biko, we have a collection of his writings and transcripts, first published in 1978. The book contains powerful ideas, some of which […]
Tags: #Apartheid #I Write What I Like #Power #South Africa #Steve Biko
The Challenge of Democracy from Below
Edited volumes do not tend to have staying power as a publication – collections of essays pass like most academic articles. Rarely does an edited volume remain an essential reading for decades. “Ethiopia: The Challenge of Democracy from Below” edited by Bahru Zewde and Siegfried Pausewang (2002) is one of those books. A number of […]
Tags: #Democracy #Ethiopia #Governance #Participation #Power
The Political Basis of Agricultural Policies
Why are policies created they way they are? This question is particularly interesting when the policies do not appear to function well. It may be that the ‘failing’ policies are not actually failing, but serving another, often unstated, purpose. A classic, essential read on this question is “Markets and States in Tropical Africa: The Political […]
Tags: #Agricultural policy #Agriculture #Political Basis of Agricultural Policies #Politics #Power
The Arts of Resistance
James C. Scott wrote “Weapons of the Weak” (1985) and “Seeing like a State” (1998), which have been widely influential (cited over 10,000 times each), and each are covered in earlier posts. Scott’s 1990 book “Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts” has similar been widely read and referenced (also over 10,000 citations) and […]
Tags: #Domination and the Arts of Resistance #Hidden Transcripts #Infrapolitics #James C. Scott #Power
Decolonizing the Mind
Linda Tuhiwai Smith wrote “Decolonizing methodologies” (1999). Ngugi wa Thiong’o wrote “Decolonizing the Mind” (1986). This is essential reading and the insights are numerous – from curricula design and literary critique to social transformation and liberation. In this post I focus on one of Ngugi’s central and influential arguments about the power of language. The […]
Tags: #decolonization #Decolonizing the Mind #Language #Ngugi wa Thiongo #Power
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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