Developmental State Model and Democratic Decentralization in Ethiopia: The Compatibility Dilemma

Abstract

Developmental State Model has been implemented in many countries across the globe. The model however oftentimes associated with unitary and authoritarian governance system as once practiced in the East Asian newly industrialized countries since mid-20th century. Thus, the model has been a subject of contests for its compatibility with a constitutional democratic decentralized governance systems. As this article shows, Ethiopia's experminte with the model in a federal system raised comparability issues which according to some the model by and large is pursued in a manner that undermined both federalism and democracy. This is, as argued by this article, manifested in top-down, exclusionary and coercive governance propelled by a party-state structure at the center. However, in this predominantly a qualitative study it is shown, based on the result from the investigation and analysis of relevant scholarly works and policy documents, that even though the Ethiopia's experiment with the model shows centralized and authoritarian governance, these features however are not necessarily the inherent features of the model. Unlike the twentieth century model, this article argue that developmental state model in the twenty-first century tends to embrace more of participatory and capability enhancing principles along noncentralized institutional arrangements. This is carried out, as argued in this article, through subsidiarity principles in the allocation of power, intergovernmental relations and electoral engineering which allows multiple democratic developmental tires of government to flourish at local, regional and national level.