Abstract
The ruling Ethiopia People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in its notable second reform appraisal held in the aftermath of the 2005 national election concluded that the utmost priority of the government should be realizing fastest and sustainable economic growth that fairly benefits its citizens’ unless the very existence of the country wouldn’t be guaranteed. Given the history of poverty reduction in developing countries, particularly in Africa, EPRDF realized that it is unthinkable to eradicate poverty from Ethiopia adopting neo-liberalism. Above all, the miraculous economic transformation of the South East Asian countries like South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong has proved that there is another way to development, not just neo-liberalism. Accordingly, EPRDF, after examining South Korea’s and Taiwan’s history of economic development in particular where both countries have had a large section of rural population unlike Hong Kong and Singapore where both are urban, found ‘developmental state’ relevant to Ethiopia. However, unlike these countries which were originally under non-democratic regimes where their leaders fear the rural peasant and external aggression from their communist rivals, EPRDF has had a great support of rural and urban population with no imminent foreign threat(s), and decided to execute the ideology rather under the umbrella of democracy. Therefore, employing secondary sources, this desk study aims to analyze whether Ethiopia is a ‘democratic developmental state?’ And, concludes that given the practices of the government vis-a-vis the principles of democracy and developmental state, Ethiopia couldn’t be taken as best model for democratic developmental state, rather emerging developmental state.
Highlights
As a matter of historical fact, the implementation of donor-induced neoliberal programs in Africa and the adoption of the developmental state in South East Asia has coincided in the late 20th century
As it is discussed above, despite the 1995 Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) constitution named the state democratic (Art 1) and stated "It is prohibited to assume state power in any manner other than that provided under the Constitution" (Art 9(3)), the government is repeatedly accused of its bad human right record, being oppressive, limiting political space, censoring media, oppress freedom of speech etc by various opposition political parties, western allies and so on
A developmental state is mainly characterized by its ideological orientation and institutional capacity to implement the ambitious development policies
Summary
As a matter of historical fact, the implementation of donor-induced neoliberal programs in Africa and the adoption of the developmental state in South East Asia has coincided in the late 20th century. It forced African states to search an alternative development path/paradigm which can get the continent out of the vicious circle of poverty and backwardness This has brought the debate of developmental state to Africa. The paper assesses the relevance of developmental state to Ethiopia taking the economic history of South Korea and Taiwan into consideration in line with Ethiopia's context. To this end, as a method of inquiry, the paper relays on secondary sources. The final section, presents concluding remarks of the study
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