Tom recently completed his PhD in International Development and Social Policy at the University of Bath, UK. His thesis examines ‘The Political Economy of Social Policy and Agrarian Transformation in Ethiopia’, focusing on the socioeconomic and political roles played by social policy in the transformation from an agrarian society to an urban economy. As such, his research is situated at the intersection of the literatures on social policy, rural development and state-society relations.
Tom previously worked as a Research Analyst at UNRISD from November 2006 to August 2008. The majority of his work was on the ‘Poverty Reduction and Policy Regimes’ project and the institute’s flagship report, ‘Combating Poverty and Inequality’. He also spent two years working for the University of Bath’s Research Group on Wellbeing in Developing Countries (WeD), based in Ethiopia, Peru and the UK.
Selected publications
- 2013 (forthcoming). ‘Food security and social protection in highland Ethiopia: Linking the Productive Safety Net to the land question’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 51(3).
- 2012. ‘Patterns of agrarian transformation in Ethiopia: State-mediated commercialisation and the “land grab”’, The Journal of Peasant Studies 39(3/4): 795-822.
- 2012. ‘“Land grab” as development strategy? The political economy of agricultural investment in Ethiopia’, The Journal of Peasant Studies 39(1): 105-132.
- 2008. ‘Reconciling the needs and wants of respondents in two rural Ethiopian communities’, Social Indicators Research 86 (1): 129-147.