The Politics of Ethnicity in Ethiopia

The Politics of Ethnicity in Ethiopia

Author: Lovise Aalen

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-06-22

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 9004207295

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Ethiopia s unique system of ethnic-based federalism claims to minimise conflict by organising political power along ethnic lines. This empirical study shows that the system eases conflict at some levels but also sharpens inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic divides on the ground.


The Politics of Contemporary Ethiopia

The Politics of Contemporary Ethiopia

Author: Yohannes Gedamu

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-07-22

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 1000411931

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This book investigates the role of ethnic federalism in Ethiopian politics, reflecting on a long history of division amongst the country’s political elites. The book argues that these patterns have enabled the resilience and survival of authoritarianism in the country, and have led to the failure of democratization. Ethnic conflict in Ethiopia stretches back to the country’s imperial history. Competing nationalisms begin to emerge towards the end of the imperial era, but were formalized by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) from the 1990s onwards. Under the EPRDF, ethnicity and language classifications formed the main organizing principles for political parties and organizations, and the country’s new federal arrangement was also designed along ethnic fault lines. This book argues that this ethnic federal arrangement, and the continuation of an elite political culture are major factors in explaining the continuation of authoritarianism in Ethiopia. Focusing largely on the last 27 years under the EPRDF and on the political changes of the last few years, but also stretching back to historical narratives of ethnic grievances and division, this book is an important guide to the ethnic politics of Ethiopia and will be of interest to researchers of African politics, authoritarianism and ethnic conflict.


Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Ethiopia

Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Ethiopia

Author: Asnake Kefale

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-07-31

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 1135017980

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This book examines the impact of the federal restructuring of Ethiopia on ethnic conflicts. The adoption of ethnic federalism in Ethiopia was closely related with the problem of creating a state structure that could be used as instrument of managing the complex ethno-linguistic diversity of the country. Ethiopia is a multinational country with about 85 ethno-linguistic groups and since the 1960s, it suffered from ethno-regional conflicts. The book considers multiple governance and state factors that could explain the difficulties Ethiopian federalism faces to realise its objectives. These include lack of political pluralism and the use of ethnicity as the sole instrument of state organisation. Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Ethiopia will be of interest to students and scholars of federal studies, ethnic conflict and regionalism.


The Origins of Ethnic Conflict in Africa

The Origins of Ethnic Conflict in Africa

Author: Tsega Etefa

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-02-01

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 3030105407

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From Darfur to the Rwandan genocide, journalists, policymakers, and scholars have blamed armed conflicts in Africa on ancient hatreds or competition for resources. Here, Tsega Etefa compares three such cases—the Darfur conflict between Arabs and non-Arabs, the Gumuz and Oromo clashes in Western Oromia, and the Oromo-Pokomo conflict in the Tana Delta—in order to offer a fuller picture of how ethnic violence in Africa begins. Diverse communities in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya alike have long histories of peacefully sharing resources, intermarrying, and resolving disputes. As he argues, ethnic conflicts are fundamentally political conflicts, driven by non-inclusive political systems, the monopolization of state resources, and the manipulation of ethnicity for political gain, coupled with the lack of democratic mechanisms for redressing grievances.


Making Citizens in Africa

Making Citizens in Africa

Author: Lahra Smith

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013-05-20

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 1107035317

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This book provides a study of contemporary politics in Ethiopia through an empirical focus on language policy, citizenship, ethnic identity, and gender. It is unique in its focus not only on the political institutions of Ethiopia and the history of the country but in that it studies these subjects at the intersection of both modern and historical time periods. In particular, it argues that meaningful citizenship, which is much more than the legal state of being a citizen, is a process of citizens and the state negotiating the practice of citizenship. Therefore, it puts the citizen back at the forefront of the process of expanding citizenship, suggesting the ways that citizens support, resist, and affect state policy on political rights.


Ethnic Federalism

Ethnic Federalism

Author: David Turton

Publisher: Ohio University Press

Published: 2006

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780821416976

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Presents an examination of trends in ethnic federalism around the world with case studies from Nigeria and India. This book offers an analysis of Ethiopia's ten-year experiment with ethnic federalism, and asks why the use of territorial decentralization to accommodate ethnic differences has been unpopular in Africa, as compared to the West.


Islam, Ethnicity, and Conflict in Ethiopia

Islam, Ethnicity, and Conflict in Ethiopia

Author: Terje Østebø

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-10

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1108839681

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Discussing an armed insurgency in Ethiopia (1963-1970), this study offers a new perspective for understanding relations between religion and ethnicity.


The Politics of Ethnicity in Ethiopia

The Politics of Ethnicity in Ethiopia

Author: Lovise Aalen

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-06-24

Total Pages: 230

ISBN-13: 9004209379

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Most governments in Africa, seeing the political mobilisation of ethnicity as a threat, have rejected the use of ethnic differences as an explicit basis for political representation. The one prominent exception is Ethiopia, which since 1991 has imposed a system of ethnic-based federalism that offers each ethnic group the right of ‘self-determination’. This book provides a detailed empirical study of this system at work in the complex multiethnic environment of southern Ethiopia. It finds that ethnic self-rule, in combination with the power politics of an authoritarian regime, has produced both intended and unintended outcomes. While arguably easing large-scale ethnic conflicts, it has led to ‘ethnicisation’ of local socioeconomic disputes and to sharper inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic divides, often to the disadvantage of historically marginalised groups.


Multi-Ethnic Coalitions in Africa

Multi-Ethnic Coalitions in Africa

Author: Leonardo R. Arriola

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1107021111

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Africa's long-ruling incumbents stay in power because opposition politicians struggle to secure the finances required to build electoral coalitions.


Reconfiguring Ethiopia: The Politics of Authoritarian Reform

Reconfiguring Ethiopia: The Politics of Authoritarian Reform

Author: Jon Abbink

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-22

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1134916043

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This book takes stock of political reform in Ethiopia and the transformation of Ethiopian society since the adoption of multi-party politics and ethnic federalism in 1991. Decentralization, attempted democratization via ethno-national representation, and partial economic liberalization have reconfigured Ethiopian society and state in the past two decades. Yet, as the contributors to this volume demonstrate, ‘democracy’ in Ethiopia has not changed the authority structures and the culture of centralist decision-making of the past. The political system is tightly engineered and controlled from top to bottom by the ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). Navigating between its 1991 announcements to democratise the country and its aversion to power-sharing, the EPRDF has established a de facto one-party state that enjoys considerable international support. This ruling party has embarked upon a technocratic ‘developmental state’ trajectory ostensibly aimed at ‘depoliticizing’ national policy and delegitimizing alternative courses. The contributors analyze the dynamics of authoritarian state-building, political ethnicity, electoral politics and state-society relations that have marked the Ethiopian polity since the downfall of the socialist Derg regime. Chapters on ethnic federalism, 'revolutionary democracy', opposition parties, the press, the judiciary, state-religion, and state-foreign donor relations provide the most comprehensive and thought-provoking review of contemporary Ethiopian national politics to date. This book is based on a special issue of the Journal of Eastern African Studies.