Ethnic Federalism, Fiscal reform, Development and Democracy in Ethiopia

Keller, Edmond J.

doi:10.4314/ajps.v7i1.27323

Cited by 53 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…As Edmond Keller notes, Ethiopia continues to operate like a unitary state despite the federal administrative structure that is in place and despite the constitutional provisions that empower regional governments to govern themselves. 17 There are a number of indications that Ethiopia's government has failed to devolve real power to the regions and bring about genuine decentralization. One such indicator is the excessive financial dependence of the regional governments, except Addis Ababa, on the central government.…”

Section: Moreover Ethiopia Was Under a Unitary State System And The mentioning

confidence: 98%

Ethiopia's Ethnic-Based Federalism: 10 Years after

Mengisteab¹

2001

African Issues

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. African Studies Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to African Issues.Many sub-Saharan African countries find themselves engulfed in chronic ethnic tensions that often erupt into violent conflicts. In addition to the human costs, these conflicts have contributed to the further depletion of the meager financial resources of African countries. They have also disrupted economic activity and contributed to the region's growing marginalization in the global economic system by discouraging the flow of foreign capital into the continent.The conditions that lead to these conflicts are many and vary from country to country. However, there are at least three common general factors. One is the relative newness of the state-building process in Africa. As in most other countries, political boundaries of African countries are arbitrary in the sense that they rarely correspond to ethnic boundaries. In contrast to most countries in other regions of the world, the creation of African states is relatively recent. The formation of the present-day Ethiopian state, for example, was not completed until the advent of the 20th century. More important, neither the colonial state, which created most African countries, nor the postcolonial state made serious attempts to develop conditions that foster state building.The second related common factor is bad governance. Self-serving dictators who pay little attention to the broad social interests of their populations govern many African countries. The most notorious of such dictators, Mobutu Sese Seko, Siad Barre, Idi Amin, and Miriam Mengistu, fostered ethnic and clan conflicts by manipulating ethnic relations in an attempt to fragment opposition to their regimes. Many others have either mismanaged ethnic relations or failed to develop a vision for building multination states with a degree of state neutrality to allow ethnic entities some level of autonomy. Instead, they coerce minority ethnic groups to assimilate to the dominant culture. By suppressing political freedoms and divergent viewpoints, such leaders have denied Kidane Mengisteab is a professor of African studies and political science and head of the African and African American

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Section: Moreover Ethiopia Was Under a Unitary State System And The mentioning

confidence: 98%

Ethiopia's Ethnic-Based Federalism: 10 Years after

Mengisteab¹

2001

African Issues

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“…Similarly, Keller (2008) concluded that splitting the Ethiopian state into small multiple identities never mitigate the nationality problems, rather aggravates it. Moreover, a lot of literatures and empirical analysis remarked that ethnic based federalism in Ethiopia led the country into fragmentation by provoking ethnic hostilities.…”

Section: Ethnic Federalism As a Fuel For Ethnic Conflicts In Ethiopiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnic Federalism: A Tool for Managing or a Fuel for Ethnic Conflicts in Ethiopia

2019

JCSD

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The overall objective of this study was to examine the Ethiopia's ethnic based federal experiment whether it has been served as a tool for managing or a fuel for the ethnic conflicts in Ethiopia. After the collapse of the military regime in 1991, EPRDF adopted ethnic federalism since it was supposed to solve Ethiopia's chronic ethnic inequalities generated by the flawed nation building process of the Ethiopian state. However, ethnic federalism since its adoption has had different implications for the country. The project has to be more researched. Therefore, the researcher, by taking the Ethiopia's experiences into account, inspired to examine whether the present ethnically based political formation exacerbates or reduces ethnic conflicts throughout the country. The study used qualitative research methodology and it was based on an explanatory research design. The researcher collected data from secondary sources such as documents produced by EPRDF (the ruling party), opposition parties and from related literatures. The qualitative data was analyzed and interpreted qualitatively using words. All in all, the study concludes that ethnic based federal experiment has failed to manage ethnic conflicts in Ethiopia. It is therefore, recommended that Ethiopia should adopt a territorial federal arrangement to manage inter and intra ethnic conflicts in the country.

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“…Culture can be diffused too so as to produce permeated complex when an ethnic group is subjected to an impact of another race, language or culture. For instance, until 1991, successive regimes in Ethiopia either tried to suppress the unique cultural identities of more than eighty distinct ethno-linguistic groups and, at the same time, to assimilate them into the dominant Amhara culture [14]. The tendency is to produce a crisis of existence in virtually all multi-ethnic states depending upon several sociological factors.…”

Section: Language Mix: a Comparative And Theoretical Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

National Language Policy and the Search for National Integration in Nigeria~!2008-03-12~!2009-10-14~!2010-02-04~!

Ojo¹

2010

TOSSCIJ

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At the root of the dilemmas of national integration in Nigeria is the country's search for a lingua franca. No doubt, in a plural and deeply divided society like Nigeria, a national language is seen as unifying symbol. The thrust of this paper therefore is an in-depth analysis of the politics of using language as mechanism for national integration cum the accompanying problems. The paper also considers language mix on comparative basis. The paper however infers that rather than a fruitless search for a lingua franca, Nigeria will be better off if the dominant language in each zone of the country is developed and adopted as such.

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Ethnic Federalism, Fiscal reform, Development and Democracy in Ethiopia

Abstract: The African e-Journals Project has digitized full text of articles of eleven social science and humanities journals. This item is from the digital archive maintained by Michigan State University Library.

Cited by 53 publications

References 16 publications

Ethiopia's Ethnic-Based Federalism: 10 Years after

Ethiopia's Ethnic-Based Federalism: 10 Years after

Ethnic Federalism: A Tool for Managing or a Fuel for Ethnic Conflicts in Ethiopia

National Language Policy and the Search for National Integration in Nigeria~!2008-03-12~!2009-10-14~!2010-02-04~!

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