Göran Hydén is a noted Africanist and Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida

University of Florida

The University of Florida is an American public land-grant, sea-grant, and space-grant research university located on a campus in Gainesville, Florida. The university traces its historical origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its present Gainesville campus since September 1906...

. He was educated in his native Sweden at the University of Lund and at Oxford University and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He has also worked as an academic at various universities in East Africa including the University of Dar es Salaam

University of Dar es Salaam

The University of Dar es Salaam is a university in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam. The university was born out of a decision taken in 1970 to split the then University of East Africa into three independent universities; Makerere University , University of Nairobi and University of Dar es...

, University of Nairobi

University of Nairobi

The University of Nairobi is the largest university in Kenya. Although its history as an educational institution goes back to 1956, it did not become an independent university until 1970 when the University of East Africa was split into three independent universities: Makerere University in...

, and Makerere University

Makerere University

Makerere University , Uganda's largest and second-oldest higher institution of learning, , was first established as a technical school in 1922. In 1963 it became the University of East Africa, offering courses leading to general degrees from the University of London...

. He has researched a wide range of political economy issues related to development in general and africa in particular. Such issues include: democratization; governance; sustainable development; the role of aid agencies. Hyden's approach has generally been critical of an emphasis on a narrowly defined poverty reduction rather than wider societal progress.

Hyden was formerly president of the African Studies Association.

He is the brother of Håkan Hydén Professor at Lund University

Hyden was chairman of the board of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation was created in 1962 as Sweden’s national memorial to Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary General of the United Nations from 1953 until his death in a plane crash on a mission to the Congo...

and is also an associate of the The Nordic Africa Institute.

Selected publications

Hydén, Göran (1983) No Shortcuts to Progress, University of California Press and Heinemann

Hydén, Göran (1980) Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: Underdevelopment and an Uncaptured Peasantry, University of California Press and Heinemann