I've just returned home after a whirlwind trip to London and my beloved alma mater. The trip was partly pleasure with a dash of business: some important life decisions have been made, which I will be thrilled to share with you in due course. For the moment, I am merely trying to parry jet lag (why is it always more difficult going from east to west than it is from west to east?) and catch myself up on all the blog-worthy news stories I missed during my absence.
I suppose that I should first mention that I attended a lecture given by Paul Collier last week. The event took place in among my favorite bookshops in the world (no exaggeration) - Blackwell's on Broad Street- and was on the topic of Collier's latest book, Wars, Guns and Votes: Democracy in Dangerous Places. In effect the book reads like a sequel to the Bottom Billion. It's main premise is that the spread of democracy after the Cold War has not actually made the world a safer place, and has even adversely affected the "bottom billion" countries. Collier argues that the international community focuses too much on holding elections, rather than broadening systems of accountability, and makes the case for more and longer peacekeeping missions as a potential international 'solution' (broadly defined) to the problem. Two of my colleagues conducted an interview with Collier for the recent issue of the Oxonian Review, which can be found here.
Collier has also entered the blogosphere. His Bottom Billion Blog is in its early inception yet, but holds great promise for raising interesting questions and stirring worthwhile debate.