Contemporary Ethiopia Research Articles

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church as Religious Other in Contemporary Ethiopia: Discursive Practices of Three Selected Religious Authorities

The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church as Religious Other in Contemporary Ethiopia: Discursive Practices of Three Selected Religious Authorities

Uncovering the Role of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church in the War between the Tigrian Forces and the Federal Government

Abstract The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church (EOTC) has a long and glorious history in the Ethiopian polity. It was an institution deeply engaged in Ethiopian politics and has long served as a unifying political force. For example, when foreign enemies invaded Ethiopia, the EOTC was tasked with uniting Ethiopians to fight against aggressors. However, in times of internal political crisis, particularly in contemporary Ethiopia, the EOTC’s role is relatively insignificant. Previous studies have not focused on this issue. Through a qualitative research approach, this study takes the post-2020 conflict between Tigrian forces and the federal government as a litmus test for showing the EOTC’s insignificant role in cases of internal political crisis. It shows that, as an institution, the EOTC played an insignificant role in reconciling, condemning, or trying to manage the conflict. Indeed, two challenges prevented the EOTC from doing what it was supposed to do in this conflict: ethnic politics and the EOTC’s top authorities’ submissiveness to the ruling regimes. This article recommends further studies aimed at assessing the invisible role of the EOTC in the Ethiopian polity and its counter-relationships. Conducting additional studies is significant for policymakers in general and the EOTC in particular.

Impacts of Ethnic Federalism in National Integration and Peacebuilding in Contemporary Ethiopia: Dynamics of Ethnic Conflicts

Impacts of Ethnic Federalism in National Integration and Peacebuilding in Contemporary Ethiopia: Dynamics of Ethnic Conflicts

Religious Dynamics and Conflicts in Contemporary Ethiopia: Expansion, Protection, and Reclaiming Space

AbstractEthiopia has often been portrayed as a unique case of peaceful inter-religious relations. The country has, however, seen an increase in violence between religious communities over the last decades, something which has been interpreted within the prism of extremism. Analyzing inter-religious dynamics in Ethiopia, Østebø argues that the notion of extremism is an inadequate analytical tool, and proposes instead an alternative approach that explores how mutually constitutive developments within each of the main religious communities in Ethiopia together have contributed to exacerbate inter-religious tensions. In particular, Østebø suggests a typology consisting of the intersected processes of expansion, protection, and reclaiming of space.

The emperor, the lion and the peacock: Monuments and contested state sovereignty in contemporary Ethiopia

As a first project launched after his nomination as Ethiopia’s new prime minister in 2018, Abiy Ahmed renovated the Imperial Palace in Ethiopia’s political center, Addis Ababa to turn it into a heritage site of significance for nation-state building. This project was widely interpreted as a sign for the end of authoritarian rule and political tensions in the country. In this paper, we scrutinize the monumentalization inside the palace as an assemblage of of mythical figures – political rulers and animals. In our focus are different statues, which we interpret in the context of Ethiopia’s political history of authoritarian rule, the politics of history, and ongoing ethno-nationalist contestations. On that basis, we demonstrate the strategic significance for Abiy Ahmed of articulating these mythical figures in his attempt to substantiate his sovereignclaim—especially in the context of his regime’s sever legitimacy crisis. Our analysis reveals the palace as a site of cultural and political significance in the broader context of ongoing ethno-nationalist struggles about nation-state authority, representation, legitimacy and history. It contributes to an inherently political understanding of developments of monuments and their significance for state sovereignty, hegemony, and authoritarian rule in Africa and beyond.

Mother tongue-based primary education in contemporary Ethiopia

Mother tongue-based primary education in contemporary Ethiopia

Preface to Special Issue on Ethiopia: Beyond Ethnic Federalism and the Statehood Solution

This preface provides a brief introduction to this special issue on contemporary Ethiopia. It highlights the role played by land, ethnicity, federalism, and political ideology in the constitutional development and politics of Ethiopia. The Ethiopian state with its ethnic federation of different ethno-linguistic regions is contextualized. The preface concludes by proposing the thesis that the current constitution of Ethiopia does not contribute to the continuation of Ethiopia as an integrated nation-state; rather it contributes to a loose collection of semi-autonomous warring ethnic regions.

Ethiopia and the Running Sores of Ethnic Federalism: The Antithetical Forces of Statehood and Nationhood

Ethnic federalism in Ethiopia proved non-viable in practice because it came to be widely seen as a political tool used by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)-dominated Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), whose ideological foundation was inspired by Soviet system of ‘democratic centralism’: a benign façade that veneered an authoritarian vanguard party operating under a token parliament. This article examines the dynamics of statehood and nationhood: antithetical forces of integration and differentiation, which play out around the commonly shared albeit highly contested polity of the nation-state. The need to dialectically resolve these antagonistic though mutualistic stakes lies at the epicentre of political debate in contemporary Ethiopia, ultimately pointing to the constitutional reform dilemmas it now faces. By drawing on literature on political theory, the article argues that the federal constitution proved antagonistic to the inherited politico-cultural orientations that posited the nation-state as the principal supranational identity. By redefining narrow forms of collective identity that were anchored precisely on ethnic sentiments that grew largely in reaction to perceived injustices, the federal constitution appeared neither to embrace, as a system of legitimation, the characteristic and authoritative dimensions of ‘Ethiopian’ identity as a supra-national universal habitus of loyalty and identification. Nor did it provide integrative cohesion to an otherwise essentially differentiated primordial ethnic and linguistic identity features that now came to be diffused and indeed accentuated at sub-national regions as rigid and hermetic sites of conflict and strife, rather than discursive, reflexive, and interactive domains of cultural and social life.

Realist Perspectives on Nile Politics: Conflict and Cooperation between Ethiopia and Egypt

ABSTRACT In Northeast Africa, great power interests have often impeded local capabilities for effective statecraft in anarchy. However, construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the Nile presents a revealing case study of evolving domestic constraints on foreign policy. Three realist perspectives may be drawn upon to analyze Nile Politics and the GERD through the prism of statecraft and statebuilding in contemporary Ethiopia. In the neoclassical realism analysis, Nile policymaking emerges as a murky outcome of elite preferences and threat constructions. In the subaltern realism analysis, Ethiopia’s construction of the GERD, in defiance of Egypt, is the culmination of a decade-long statebuilding project resulting in improved capabilities for statecraft. In the constructivist realism analysis, Nile politics reveal Ethiopia’s evolving interests and ideational constraints informing variations in preferences for assertive foreign policy orientation. Notably, and in contrast to the association of mainstream constructivist approaches with optimistic outcomes in international politics, analysis of the Nile conflict through constructivist realism reveals the most pessimistic outlook on peaceful resolution, compared to other approaches. Subaltern realism reveals the most optimistic outlook on the outcome of this conflict, due to greater incentives for cooperation introduced by statebuilding constraints in Ethiopia’s increasingly unstable contemporary polity.

Identity and dissent in Ethiopian football fandom (2012–2019)

ABSTRACT This article contextualizes football fandom in Ethiopia during a period of increasing political dissent, drawing on interviews and first-hand observations as well as historical and contemporary media and academic sources. The analysis takes into consideration socio-political realities while presenting the complexity of identity and belonging in contemporary Ethiopia. By engaging with spectator cultures, and the aesthetics of fandom at Ethiopian football stadiums, the article shows that the stadium is a space where Ethiopian fans express their concerns about socio-political injustices, the ethics of the media and police, and about identity and belonging.

Challenges in Ethiopia’s Post-1991 Ethnic Federalism Entwined with Ethnic-based Political Parties

For about two and a half decades (1991-2018) it was propagated that Ethiopia’s ethno-linguistic federalism was primarily meant to unify the state and build the nation. However, competing perspectives on whether ethnic-based federalism would preserve unity in diversity in the country as a whole and in regional states in particular have proliferated. This article examines the outcome of post-1995 Ethiopian federalism in ethnic conflict management. It focuses on why Ethiopia has remained deeply divided and prone to ethno-cultural conflicts despite the ethno-linguistic federal political system, which was adopted as a mechanism for building unity in diversity in the context of peaceful coexistence among various ethno-linguistic groups. Although ethnic-federalism alone may not exacerbate ethnic conflicts, ethnic-federalism entwined with the existence of ethnic-based political parties and the rapid proliferation of narrow ethno-nationalist politics constitute major impediments to peaceful co-existence among the country's ethnic groups. Furthermore, the land ownership questions raised by various ethno-linguistic political elites are among the causes of violent ethnic conflicts in contemporary Ethiopia. Mistreatment of ethnic minorities in all regional states is also a source of ethnic conflict. I argue that the current government at the federal and regional levels should work hard to ensure that identity-based politics will incrementally dissolve like salt in water.

Constitution as Social Contract in Contemporary Ethiopia: The Need to Re-construct Political Arrangements

Constitutions represent social contracts that accommodate subjective interests of groups within the framework of impersonal shared interests among citizens of the society at large. This article examines the contemporary social contract theory in relation to the constitutional making process in Ethiopia. The lawmaking process of Ethiopia’s 1995 Constitution does not fulfil the procedural legitimacy of social contract because important sections of the society were neglected. The institutions created by the FDRE Constitution denote the subjectivist approaches to social contract theory thereby ignoring the impersonal interests of the society. To accommodate both the subjective ends and impersonal interests of the society, the Constitution should be reconstructed in light of the dualist contemporary social contract theory. This article argues that Ethiopia's contracting actors should consider both the subjective and impersonal interests of society. The article examines the conditions that make constitution a social contract. It also discusses the controversies concerning Ethiopia's Constitution in light of the theory of social contract, and tries to show what the Constitution should fulfil as a social contract in contemporary Ethiopia.

Creeping Towards Multicultural Federalism in Contemporary Ethiopia: Assessing the Legal and Political Complicatedness

From 1991 onwards federalism has been introduced as the best option of governance to ensure constitutionalism and democracy in Ethiopia in particular and in the Horn of Africa in general for the first time in history. Despite this fact, currently there are numerous political parties, Liberation Fronts, and governments, basing their political questions on quest for federation, unification, and secession (Independence) in Ethiopia. As a result of these divergent political questions; ethnic conflicts, inter-state and intra-state conflicts, rampant corruptions, and poverty are still remained as a brand of Ethiopia in particular and in the Horn of Africa in general. Consequently, the Horn of Africa, in which Ethiopia is considered as the center is globally known as a center of crisis. Accordingly, Ethiopia has been suffering from the prevailing contending political ideologies, legal, and practical problems; though she has been introducing and practicing multicultural federalism as her state structure since 1991. Hence, this research has the objective of analyzing the prevailing legal and political challenges against the present-day Ethiopian multicultural federalism. Consequently, as its research methodology; this research has employed: critical legal and political analyses, historical interpretations of multicultural federalism in Ethiopia and beyond, document analyses, observation and personal experiences of the researcher. Therefore, it has utilized a qualitative research method. Consequently, the findings of this research has pointed out that there is a legal, political, and practical problems in order to ensure genuine multicultural federalism in the present-day Ethiopia. Keywords: Constitutionalism, Ethiopia, Federalism, Law, Politics DOI: 10.7176/JLPG/109-02 Publication date: May 31 st 2021

Remembering the revolutionary past: the post-revolutionary generation(s) of Ethiopia and memory of the revolutionary period (late 1960s – late 1970s)

ABSTRACT The revolutionary period in Ethiopia (from the mid-1960s until the late 1970s) has long been a matter of scholarly interest and public debate. This article examines this period from the perspective of memory studies: the ways in which this period is remembered, the meanings attached to it and the roles the memory of this period plays in contemporary Ethiopian politics and society. More specifically, the paper focuses on perspectives of members of the post-revolutionary generation (i.e. Ethiopians in their 30s and 40s). As the study shows, members of this generation indeed see this period as extremely important both to them personally and to contemporary Ethiopia in general. It shows that the themes they associate with this period – the Leftist-Marxist ideology and practice, the legacy of armed struggle and violence, the ethnic/national question and more – are also issues crucial for understanding contemporary Ethiopia.

English

A history of anti-government opposition in Ethiopia is a very complex topic and a subject extremely difficult to investigate. It runs through the analysis of intractable social crisis of the entire feudal empire covering a wide range of historical processes across ages to the various people’s movements in contemporary Ethiopia. It also involved different styles and methods over the years ranging from violent to nonviolent, and from dialogues and negotiations to conventional politics. The major purpose of this article is to provide a brief historical overview of the genesis, development, nature and dynamics of civil resistance in light of experiences ranging from the second half of 20th century to the 2015 Oromo and Amhara protest.   Key words: Civil resistance, Ethiopian students movement, Ethiopian May-2005 election dissent, everyday forms of resistance, rebellions.

Ethnification of the Ethiopian Media

This report looks into the issue of media and ethnicity in contemporary Ethiopia. As anyone can witness, there have been immense changes in the local media situation since Dr. Abiy Ahmed assumed leadership in April 2018. In just two years, the country has improved its ranking on Reporter Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index by 51 places, which is the greatest leap of any country anytime – by far. There is a lot to celebrate. At the same time, the press situation in the country is deeply disconcerting. The reason for this is that the media landscape is as polarized as never before and that parts of the media are being blamed for playing a pivotal role in the turbulence which has erupted in various parts of the country since 2019. The suspicion of many people is that the media are being exploited to propagate an ethnic agenda. Towards this backdrop, the intention of the study is to examine the role of the media in ethnic tensions in contemporary Ethio- pia. The methodology is twofold, combining in-depth interviews with framing analysis. For the interview part, we have met approximately 25 persons with key positions in all major parts of the media in the country. For the framing analysis, we have scrutinized the media coverage of eight crucial incidents of 2019 in ten different media outlets. We argue that the tendencies we’re ob- serving in the media can be described as an intensified ethnification process. By this, we mean that ethnic belonging and identity politics are gaining significance as central frames of reference in the current Ethiopian media discourse. Ethnicity is being employed as a key to interpreting media messages, and it outlines a frame for classifying media channels and personalities. We identify two major frames, annihilation and othering, which are indicative of the tendency of journalists to align with their ethnic background. We also find that many media practitioners are deeply concerned about the developments. Research data point towards a more pluralistic media society in Ethiopia (albeit segmented pluralism), but also significantly more polarization. The polarization is fuelled by ethnonationalic media of different origin and ownership, vis-a-vis pan-Ethio- pianist channels. The previous stronghold of the federal state media (EPRDF-supportive) has been overtaken by a fragmented state media structure with the growing significance of regional mass media agencies. Journalists are beginning to form alliances along regional and ethnic fault lines, as illustrated by the launch of the Amhara Journalists Association, Oromia Journalists Association, Tigray Journalists Association, and so forth. Journalists are highly inclined to use sources that support their own ideological interest, and avoid quoting sources from other ethnicities which could balance the story. When it comes to professional ideals, various channels practice a hybrid reporting style that blends acknowledged standards with an interventionist or activist agenda. We ar- gue that ethnic and political agendas are at risk of being at odds with media professionalism.

Nationalism and self‐determination in contemporary Ethiopia

AbstractThe 1995 Ethiopian Constitution envisions a multinational state with the right to self‐determination, including secession, given to the nations, nationalities, and peoples of the country. This remarkable document is a product of a unique combination of Ethiopia's history, Marxist‐Leninist debates of the 1974 revolution, and political circumstances of the time the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) took power in 1991. The subsequent 20 years witnessed a concerted attempt to implement measures for federal decentralization alongside continued political centralization in the ruling party, with several intended and unintended consequences. Since 2016, a combination of the manipulation of constitutional provisions for personal and factional advantage, and polarized perspectives over the identity and future of the country, have unveiled a chapter of political crisis. The 1995 Constitution is hardly a cause of this crisis, yet the fate of the Constitution has become central to the dynamics of the crisis.

Identity Politics in Contemporary Ethiopia and Sudan

In Sudan and Ethiopia, different strategies have been implemented to frame cultural diversity and ethnic identities into the nation-building process. We discuss it here with Günther Schlee, who has been conducting field surveys in these countries over the past 30 years. We focus on the case of nomadic and pastoral populations, their changing identity affiliations and social belongings.

Of Taming Carnal Desire

Abstract Focusing on Ethiopia, an empire off-center, this article argues against dominant narratives that link the regulation of sexual practices to colonial (Western) imperial relations. Within this context, the paper investigates struggles over the past by contrasting two versions of history, discussing how different groups mobilize the past in contemporary Ethiopia. It begins by exploring the imperial, Christian roots of the country’s penal codes, interrogating how the state mobilizes such histories to criminalize same-sex desires and practices. The article then focuses its attention on those deemed “outlaws” by such legislation, exploring their search for histories silenced by empire, and their assertion as longstanding, integral parts of the country’s past.

Introduction

Introduction