David Sogge

David Sogge

Independent Consultant

Based in Amsterdam, David works as an independent researcher and writer. As an associate of the Norwegian think-tank NOREF, he currently focuses on public control over transnational flows affecting societies on the global periphery. Professional activities since 1970 provided a basis for books and articles on the politics of foreign aid, and on Africa, particularly Angola and South Africa. Evaluative research assignments have taken him to Vietnam, Eastern Europe and countries of the former Soviet Union. Trained at Harvard, David earned his graduate degrees from Princeton and the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague.

Work area:

Areas of expertise:

Foreign Aid Ideologies and Impacts; Member-based Organisations, including Movements of Urban Poor in Africa and Trade Unions; Policy Activism via Networks and Academic Units; Southern Africa

Contact

dsogge [at] antenna.nl

Twitter: DavidSogge

English, Portuguese

Netherlands
See map: Google Maps
application/pdf iconDavid Sogge Long Bio.pdf

Selected publications

Give and Take
Compassion and Calculation

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Recent content by David Sogge

Thatcher’s Voices in the Air

April 2013
Keynes, convinced of the power of ideas over that of “vested interests”, famously held that “Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.” Now there’s little doubt that the social life of ideas helps explain the astonishing persistence of ‘Thatcherism’.

Angola's Ten Years of Peace: Some Perspectives

April 2012
A presentation with a general overview of social and political transformation in Angola

Supranational governance: a challenge to building resilient states and peace

September 2011
Corporate Planet:
In troubled areas, the vital work of building peace and resilient states continues to be undone by weak and distorted governance at the supranational level. 

We want our money back

July 2011
Angry citizens want their nations’ money back and rightfully so. Banks should be curbed instead of allowed to enthusiastically facilitate the illicit outflow of money by dictators.

Millennium Development Goals for the Rich?

September 2010
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are today’s global foreign aid agenda. Yet if we look at who's aiding whom, the world's pro-rich global agenda is rather more obvious.

Angola: Reinventing Pasts and Futures

June 2010
Today’s political economy in Angola resembles the colonial order of yesterday: a narrow state-based elite manages the economy to promote a development model that redistributes wealth upward and outward.

Moving targets: notes on social movements

March 2010
Social movements cannot be built or engineered, but outside actors - such as aid agencies seeking to support transformative change - can play a constructive role in enabling an environment in which movements can flourish and expand their outreach.
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Repairing the weakest links: a new agenda for fragile states

October 2009
In order for fragile states and the concept of state weakness to be properly understood, they need to be considered in the contexts of political economy and world history. Four apparently disparate cases – Guatemala, Haiti, Kosovo and Angola – show surprising similarities, and highlight common lessons for international state-building efforts.

Angola, "Failed" yet "Successful"

May 2009
Angola has topped the list of 'failed states' for decades, but its government has recently managed to put an end to 40 years of violent conflict and its economy is growing as the situation stabilises. European and other international decision-makers might look afresh at notions of state weakness in general, and their relevance to the case of Angola in particular, argues David Sogge. Portuguese

Inequality: Can the foreign aid industry help roll it back?

March 2009
When news arrives from faraway places of disaster, hunger and economic setbacks, our political figures and media usually start talking about how to mount a rescue with foreign aid. It’s the cowboy in the white hat. After all, some of the world’s most powerful institutions, notably the IMF and World Bank, lead the aid industry. It has a global budget of over 70 billion Euros a year and employs a global workforce of more than half a million. Its people rub elbows with diplomats, military commanders and influential pundits.