The Development and Practice of Citizenship and Citizenship Rights in Ethiopia: Crude Assessment in Three Consecutive Regimes

Abstract

Instilling democracy on an unshakable ground in a given society is the main goal of political leaders and political philosophers. This process on its base needs an educated citizen that clearly understands and develops an inherent character about one's own rights and responsibilities. A responsible citizen also helps an inclusive citizen in a given society. In a multicultural society like Ethiopia, social, cultural, economic and political exclusion will be the basic problem that the country faces. However, the legal inclusion can never be a guarantee for developing and ensuring social and cultural inclusion of individuals in a given political community. Rather, educating and creating awareness about citizenship and citizenship rights can possibly mitigate such problems from the grassroot level. Bearing this in mind, this paper attempts to made general assessment and explication about the development and practice of citizenship and citizenship rights in Ethiopia. In doing so, different literature, legal documents, governmental reports and records were used as sources of data. Accordingly, this paper made an assessment, though not made a conclusion, about practice and development and practice of citizenship in to four basic periods namely, pre-Emperor Haile Selassie, Haile Selassie, Derg and the EPRDF.