Lahra Smith. Making Citizens in Africa: Ethnicity, Gender, and National Identity in Ethiopia.Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press. 2013. xxi + 252 pp. Maps and Tables. Acknowledgments. Abbreviations. Glossary. Appendixes. Bibliography. Index. $29.99. Paper.

Abstract

POLITICS, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, AND GLOBALIZATION Lahra Smith. Making Citizens in Africa: Ethnicity, Gender, and National Identity in Ethiopia. Cambridge, U.K: Cambridge University Press. 2013. xxi + 252 pp. Maps and Tables. Acknowledgments. Abbreviations. Glossary. Appendixes. Bibliography. Index. $29.99. Paper.Ethiopia's policies of ethnic federalism have generated a great deal of analysis and debate among scholars. Lahra Smith develops the concept of meaningful to make a valuable intervention in these debates. Smith argues that scholars must go beyond an analysis of formal citizenship and legal rights, and examine acts of citizenship and the exercise of rights. For Smith, citizenship is a practice, something that is done.Smith traces the roots of contemporary ethnic conflict in Ethiopia to the expansion of the Orthodox Christian Abyssinian empire in the late-nineteenth century and the modernizing and centralizing policies of Haile Selassie during the mid-twentieth century. Conquered ethnic groups were forced to acculturate in order to participate in civic life. Despite some reforms implemented under the Marxist military Derg regime, oppressed ethnic groups in southern and western Ethiopia still had very little sense of meaningful citizenship. Since the fall of the Derg in 1991, Ethiopia has been governed by a policy of ethnic federalism that is intended to provide rights to disenfranchised ethnic groups. The country is divided into regional states on the basis of ethnicity. States have a broad range of powers covering education, economic development, health, police forces, and legal courts. Regions may conduct government business and education in the language of their choice, and in theory they have the right to secede and form their own nation. Based on a thorough reading of the secondary sources, Smith offers a very clear and detailed account of the historical processes behind the development of ethnic federalism, and provides a useful rereading of Ethiopian history through the lens of citizenship.Individual chapters focus on the implications of ethnic federalism for language policy, ethnic sovereignty (the Silte and Oromo cases), and gender. In each of these chapters Smith demonstrates the complexities of implementing policies that respect ethnic identity and promote a sense of membership in the nation. In the case of language policy she demonstrates the difficulty of selecting languages for education that allow young people access to economic and political goods without compromising their sense of self and ethnic identity. The Oromo case for self-determination, discussed in chapter 5, is particularly complex, because, as Smith explains, the political oppression that Oromo people have experienced since the advent of ethnic federalism will likely prevent them from investing in any state policies aimed at citizenship expansion. …