The department is a lively community that is recognised internationally as one of the top centres for research and teaching in development studies.

Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our courses offer excellent training for a career in international development or for advanced study, and attract students of the highest calibre from across the world.
“I had waited for 10 years before my dream to study in Oxford became a reality and the experience was truly beyond expectation”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Our students are taught to develop as critical and independent thinkers and when they leave us they are equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to bring about real change.
“My time at Oxford strengthened my critical analysis and provided me with a unique interdisciplinary grounding in history, politics and economics that has equipped me well in dealing with public policy issues and program development strategy.”
Biruk Terrefe is a DPhil Candidate at St Antony’s College in Oxford. His research interests lie in the modern history and politics of the Horn of Africa, with a particular focus on the dynamics of state- and nation-building and state-society relations. His recent work has been on the Ethiopian state and the tensions between the ruling party’s centralized developmental ambitions and the ethnically federated architecture of the state. This tension becomes particularly evident in the study of infrastructure, as highly contested material spaces of political bargaining.
Before starting this DPhil, Biruk was an independent political analyst based in Addis Ababa interested in dynamics of political rupture, elite politics and the political economy of infrastructure development. He was also a researcher on two projects focused on the politics of urban infrastructure in Addis Ababa (LSECities) and the energy sector in Ethiopia (University of Manchester).
Biruk was previously the convener of the Oxford University China-Africa Network (OUCAN) and has developed a keen interest in examining the intricate nature of China-Ethiopia Relations. He was a Carlo Schmid Fellow at the World Health Organization. Biruk holds an MPhil in Development Studies from the University of Oxford and a BA in International Economics and Development from Jacobs University Bremen.
History and Politics of the Horn of Africa; Ethiopia; Developmental States; Bureaucracies and Development; State-Society Relations; Federalism & Local Government; Political Economy of Infrastructure & Planning; Urban Politics.