Department of Development Studies

Professor Christopher Cramer

Key information

Roles
Department of Development Studies Professor of the Political Economy of Development Centre of African Studies Management Committee Member Centre on Conflict, Rights and Justice Member Food Studies Centre Member
Qualifications
MA, MPhil, PhD (Cantab)
Building
Russell Square: College Buildings
Office
288
Email address
cc10@soas.ac.uk
Telephone number
+44 (0)20 7898 4492
Support hours
Please book using link in 'Biography' below

Biography

Christopher Cramer is Professor of the Political Economy of Development at SOAS.

He has worked with senior officials since teaching economics to Mozambican government officials early in the mornings in Maputo in 1992, then moving in 1993 to South Africa as Director of Training for the Macroeconomic Research Group (MERG), leading the design and delivery of short courses in economics for trade unionists and for disadvantaged South Africans.

He chairs the Management Committee of the African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE); and directed the Mo Ibrahim Foundation/SOAS Governance for Development in Africa initiative. In 2013-2016 he led a programme of intensive workshops on development policy and thinking for the then Prime Minister of Ethiopia, in collaboration with Dr. Arkebe Oqubay and John Sender. These sessions were a foundation for the book the three of them then wrote: African Economic Development: Evidence, Theory, Policy (OUP, 2020, open access).

He was a Vice-Chair of the Royal Africa Society for more than a decade, is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and has served on the Norglobal Portfolio Board of the Norwegian Research Council for two terms. At SOAS he launched the MSc Violence, Conflict and Development (VCD) in 2000/01. He led the research project Fairtrade, Employment, and Poverty Reduction in Ethiopia and Uganda. His other publications include Civil War is Not a Stupid Thing: Accounting for Violence in Developing Countries (2006), The Oxford Handbook of the Ethiopian Economy (2019, co-edited with Cheru and Oqubay), and The Oxford Handbook on Industrial Policy (OUP, co-edited with Chang, Kozul-Wright, and Oqubay).

Office hours

Research interests

Economics of Africa, political economy of development, political economy of war and peace in southern Africa; post-conflict reconstruction; the economics of cashew production, processing and trade; poverty and rural labour markets; privatization.

PhD Supervision

Name Title
Weiwei Chen The Dynamics of Chinese Private OFDI in Ethiopia: A Comparison of Light Manufacturing Industry and Construction Materials Industry
Charlotte Hübner “The Role of the Oil & Gas Sector in Late Industrialisation: Lessons from Malaysia” (Working Title)
Mr Sarajuddin Isar Taxation and state-building in Afghanistan, a political economy framework
Ms Hisae Kato Sociology of work in conflict-affected communities: Labour, gender and violence in El-Rahad, Sudan
Kota Watanabe State formation in Myanmar’s borderlands
Ms Cristina Mosneaga Transition from informality to more formality of small and medium enterprises in Lagos, Nigeria
Taylor Daniel Rockhill
Joel Sam
Khadija Yakubu GOVERNANCE AND SECURITY IN AFRICAN CITIES: Structures and Practices in Northern Nigeria for Sustainable Development; A Case Study of Kaduna Metropolis.

Publications

Contact Christopher