Abstract
Being one of the most diverse nations in the world, Ethiopia is not an exception to be free from ethnic conflicts due to its weak political structures and mal governance. The existing ethnic federal arrangement of EPRDF is devised with the aim to accommodate the interests of distinct ethnic groups in Ethiopia. Meanwhile, it is still subject to criticisms. Hence, this study questions whether the contemporary ethnic federalism in Ethiopia enables to manage ethnic conflicts or exacerbates them due to its theoretical and empirical applicability. The study is entirely based on secondary sources of data that were interpreted using a mix of interpretivism and constructivism to guide the qualitative method of research. The findings of the study revealed that ethnic federal model of Ethiopia, which solely or majorly formed on the basis of ethno-linguistic lines in most, but not all situations exacerbate and/or generate and transform ethnic conflicts from national into lower structural levels. Thus, a mixed federal system that guarantees ethnic groups self-governance with high inducements for integration and inter-ethnic collaboration is a suggestive solution to move federalism forward in Ethiopia.
Highlights
Africa Report (2009) showed that ethnic federalism has not resolved the national question from the fact that ethnic conflicts are widened, transformed from the national to lower structural levels or been contained by the security forces
As clearly depicted in the discussion above, ethnic federalism in Ethiopia enables to recognize the diversity of distinct ethnic groups specially by granting them an opportunity to speak by their own languages
It led to ethnic conflicts by which different ethnic groups mistrust each other and, as a result, endangered the sense of nationalism
Summary
Ethiopia is one of ethnically diverse nations in the world. This multiplicity in language, religion, culture, tradition and the overall identity is a beauty for the country considering the fact that the peoples of Ethiopia have had the culture of living together without any narrowly and shallowly-focused ethnic belongingness. According to the assessment of ethno nationalists, the Derg rule was a continuation of the Social Sciences 2015; 4(4): 94-105 imperial period when it comes to the issue of ethnic oppression (Semahegn 2012) Mobilization of these ethno-regional forces coupled with some military gains further strengthened and took the ‘question of nationalities’ beyond the scope of the Marxist view of the concept that was advocated during the period of the students movement. Among the ethno-regional movements, north-based Eritrean People Liberation Front (EPLF) and Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) who fought for the ‘self-determination’ rights of the Eritrea and Tigray provinces respectively became more prominent in terms of posing threat to the military regime. Many of the conflicts that emerged at local and regional levels and related to the federal restructuring of the country could be conflicts that emerge on a range of issues such as self-determination/secession, the politics of resource sharing, political power, representation, identity, citizenship, ethnic and regional boundary and others (Asnake 2009)
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