Political linkage: The relationship between education, western educated elites, and the fall of Haile Selassie's feudal regime : Milkias, Paulos Amays, McGill University, 1982.

Abstract

When Westernization was introduced into Ethiopia at the beginning of this century, it was to fulfil the need of a modernizing autocracy aspiring to enter the Technological Age. But through Westernization also came a very intense Anglo-American cultural penetration. The first group of Western-educated intelligentsia integrated themselves into the feudal system, embraced western values and the American way of life. Haile Selassie hoped that the American free enterprise system would absorb those his bureaucracy could not. The missionary zeal that guided America's global policy of containment also created a situation whereby the U.S., in order to influence Ethiopian politics and particularly its youth, invested heavily in the ideological sector. Thus, the feudal regime, the U.S., and the first generation of Western educated elites became necessarily interdependent.