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, SOAS Food Studies Centre Research Cluster Member Research Cluster Member Research Cluster Member
- Department
- Department of Development Studies
- 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
- Telephone