Development and Democracy, Complementary or Contradictory: A Critical Reflection on Ethiopian Democratic Developmental State

Abstract

Achieving economic growth and sustainable development remain the prior policy all nation states across the world. To achieve their sustainable development and economic growth goals, international communities has been fermenting and diagnosing various development models and paradigms. However, there is no one size and fit all development paradigms which obliged to be followed by nation states around the globe. This paper examines developmental state growth model and its nexus with democratization with reference to Ethiopian democratic developmental state growth model. The paper employed qualitative research approach as a research methodology. This paper is based on desk review. This paper argued that, even though EPRDF government claim the country as democratic developmental state which is unique to Asian authoritarian developmental state, the country portrayed as one of poor human right records and leading journalist jailer in the Africa despite the country has been witnessing the fastest economic growth for the last ten consecutive years. This paper also argued that Ethiopian developmental state and democratization process is contradictory since Ethiopian governments have been garnering the political legitimacy through development achievement not directly from public elections and the government has been using the economic achievement as an excuse for its democratic back sliding and democratic deconsolidation in Ethiopia.