Balancing Between Empowerment and Inclusion: Multinational Federalism and Citizenship Rights in Ethiopia

Abstract

The major rationale behind the introduction of a federal system in Ethiopia was the accommodation of the country's significant ethnic diversity. The federal system aims to achieve this by empowering ethnic groups through the establishment of regional states, which explains the common designation of Ethiopian federalism as ‘ethnic federalism’. Yet, the ethnic profile of the nine regional states hitherto established exhibits a considerable lack of overlap between ethnic and territorial boundaries, which implies that many Ethiopian citizens live outside the regional state established for the group whose identity they share. Recent migratory trends are furthermore fuelling this phenomenon. The lack of correspondence between regional and ethnic boundaries generates tensions between the empowerment of ethnic groups – which the federal system is set to guarantee – and the rights of individuals who do not belong to the regionally empowered groups but who are Ethiopian citizens nevertheless. The core argument of this article is that a reduction of this tension requires the Ethiopian state to strike a balance between the two competing objectives of group empowerment and protection of citizenship. From this perspective, the article outlines a number of legal instruments that could arguably contribute to this delicate balancing act.