Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front Research Articles

Media, Participation and Constitution-Making in Ethiopia

AbstractThe role of communications in facilitating public participation in constitution-making is often neglected and misunderstood, particularly in post-war state-building when mass media may be weak. In the early 1990s, Ethiopia's ruling party, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), drafted one of Africa's most ambitious constitutions, allowing for ethnic federalism, decentralization and democratic reforms. The constitution has been highly controversial and many of its aspirations remain unrealized. This article explores how the EPRDF sought to use the media to explain and encourage acceptance of the constitution. It offers a framework for analysis that is relevant for countries beyond Ethiopia by examining: the role of media policies in providing domestic and international legitimacy for constitutions; the ways in which media can provide a space for non-violent political conflict or negotiation, where elites can navigate political struggles and debate ideology; and the use of media to implement the constitution's most ambitious goals.

THUGS, SPIES AND VIGILANTES: COMMUNITY POLICING AND STREET POLITICS IN INNER CITY ADDIS ABABA

ABSTRACTThe implementation of community policing schemes and development programmes targeting street youth in inner city Addis Ababa, intended to prevent crime and unrest, has resulted in an expansion of structures of political mobilization and surveillance of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the party that has ruled the country since 1991. Yet the fact that the government managed to implement its programmes does not imply that the ruling party was entirely successful in tackling ordinary crime as well as political dissent. As neighbourhoods continued to be insecure, especially at night, the efficacy of the ruling party's politicized narratives on community policing and crime prevention was questioned. An appreciation of the shortcomings of government action on the streets of the inner city raises questions about the extent of the reach of the EPRDF's state into the grass roots of urban society as well as about the ways in which dissent is voiced in a context where forms of political surveillance and control are expanding. This paper investigates these issues in order to contribute to the study of the Ethiopian state and to the broader debate on community policing and crime prevention on the African continent.

'Do not cross the red line': The 2010 general elections, dissent, and political mobilization in urban Ethiopia

Only five years after it lost a national election in Addis Ababa, the overwhelming victory of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in the 2010 general elections marked the defeat of the opposition parties and the return to a dominant-party state. The capacity of the EPRDF to mobilize people in towns and the capital city triggered debates on the nature of consent in urban Ethiopia. This article contributes to this debate in two ways. First, it maps the specific institutions and strategies the ruling party has used to close political space in the capital since 2005, explaining how it has tied political mobilization to the delivery of services to those at the bottom of urban society. Second, it examines interactions between the ruling party and young people involved in government development programmes and youth organizations, demonstrating the subtle ways dissent is expressed even as EPRDF power is reproduced. In this regard, the victory of the ruling party in 2010 does not bear witness to the neutralization of dissent. Rather, it reveals a reshaping of the way the government has governed and controlled the city since the late 1990s. © The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press.

EPRDF’s Nation-Building: Tinkering with convictions and pragmatism1

The Ethio-Eritrean war (1998-2000) is often considered a turning point in the nationalist discourse of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and the main cause of the reactivation of a strong Pan-Ethiopian nationalism (here taken as synonymous with Ethiopianness), after the introduction of “ethnic federalism” in 1995. This paper argues that Pan-Ethiopian and “ethnic” nationalism coexisted in TPLF-EPRDF’s nationalism before the 1998-2000 war. As a political and pragmatic tool to grasp and keep power, the “multifaceted” nationalism of the EPRDF was adapted and adjusted to new circumstances. This explains the ease with which Pan-Ethiopianism was reactivated and reinvented from 1998 onwards. In this process, the 2005 general elections and the rise of opposition groups defending a Pan-Ethiopian nationalism also represented an important influence in EPRDF’s nationalist adjustment.

The Rise and Demise of Ḥaylä Śəllase I Military Museum (1972–1991)

Abstract Ḥaylä Śəllase I Military Museum first opened its collections to the public on 5 May 1972, on the 31st anniversary of the Victory Day against the Italians. The selection of this particular date indicates the interest of the state to exploit history for personal glorification. In the displays of the museum, the emperor’s central role was highlighted and his imperial artifacts prominently exhibited. Although the museum claimed to depict the military history of the country, it did not have any display that represented the heritage and history of opposition groups. Another important issue of cultural politics in the museum was the issue of how defeat and victory were celebrated in the museum’s displays. The collapse of the imperial regime in 1974 was followed by a period of confusion and instability in the country. The military socialist government ordered the demolition of all heritage related to the ancien regime. The philosophy of the museum was shaped by this socialist ideology. The museum faced a further predicament when the rebel groups organized under the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) overthrew Mängəśtu’s regime and took control of the country in 1991. This paper considers the cultural politics connected to the history of the museum. In particular, it examines the role of heritage in the process of modern nation-building: the appropriation of history and heritage for the purpose of political legitimacy; the celebration of selected heroes and the silencing of others deemed discordant with dominant narratives of the politically powerful; and elite imagination of the history of the Ethiopian empire state as a timeless phenomenon.

Negotiating Indigenous Metaphysics as Educational Philosophy in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, the history of the use of modern philosophical categories in education is short. This is because the country’s modern education itself is barely 100 years old. What is not so short, however, is the history of the use of indigenous metaphysics in temehert (traditional education), which goes back as far as the introduction of Christianity to Ethiopia—to the fourth century A.D. Since its inception, education has had a close, if ambivalent, relationship with different philosophical tenets, with the advocates of each tenet trying to formulate educational philosophy around its own unique metaphysical narrative. While some narratives arose from indigenous legends, others were imported (and domesticated in some cases) from abroad. The recent tendency of educational philosophy in Ethiopia has a slightly ‘(post)modernist’ philosophical flavor to it, even though it might not be self-consciously postmodernist in nature. In this essay, I intend to show how a deliberate, or unwitting, de-link with indigenous metaphysics could affect the trajectory, and also the success, of the educational system in Ethiopia. After a brief paradigmatic characterization of two metaphysical categories and their underlying narratives, I critically unravel the ethno-federalist metaphysics of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). I focus on the ethno-federalist system because it is an incumbent philosophy. After discussing a nascent remedy proposed by Maimire Mennasemay, viz., the notion of ‘nostalgic memory,’ best known as tezeta, I argue for the primacy of the notion of ‘covenant thinking,’ also known as qal-kidan, as a better alternative.

Compromising with Ethiopianness After 1991: The Ethiopian Festival of the Millennium (September 2007–September 2008)

Abstract This article argues that imperial marks and symbols were central to the nation-building strategy of the leaders of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) before the outbreak of the 1998–2000 war against Eritrea and even before 1991. It thus presents the Ethio-Eritrean war, often perceived as a radical turning point concerning EPRDF's nation-building policy, in a different light. The study also highlights how two often opposed conceptions of the Ethiopian nation—i.e., Pan-Ethiopian and “multinational”—have actually been presented as compatible by EPRDF leaders in the last decades. It argues that these two conceptions do not appear exclusive of each other, and their equilibrium is more clearly manifested since the National Festival of the Millennium, celebrated from September 2007 to September 2008 to mark Ethiopia's entry into the third Millennium. The official narrations of Ethiopian statehood and nationhood expressed at this occasion confirmed the consistency of the new leaders' interpretation of what Ethiopia “was” and “shall be,” but simultaneously show how current and concrete contingencies—here the post-1998–2000 war context and the turmoil of the 2005 general elections—force these same state/nation-builders to adjust their discourses.

The Importance of Winning: Victorious Insurgent Groups and Post-Conflict Politics

Civil wars that end in rebel victory follow distinct war-to-peace transitions compared to the more often analyzed cases of negotiated settlement and internationally supported peacebuilding. In many cases, strong authoritarian parties dominate post-war politics insurgent triumph. Four cases in East Africa illustrate this pattern. The victorious Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), Uganda’s National Revolutionary Army (NRA), and Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), all remade themselves into authoritarian parties that dominated post-conflict politics. How is war termination by rebel victory linked to post-conflict authoritarian regimes? This paper proposes a mechanism that explains this pattern that emphasizes characteristics of the insurgent movement and the distinct characteristics of transition following victory.

Where Formal and Informal Justice Meet: Ethiopia's Justice Pluralism

Ethiopia is a federal republic of 82 million, where the former victorious Tigrean rebels, under the auspices of the political party known as the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), hold a firm grip on power. In 2010, the EPRDF and affiliated parties won 545 of 547 parliamentary seats, ensuring a fourth consecutive five-year term. In the concurrent elections for regional parliaments, the EPRDF and its affiliates won 1,903 of 1,904 seats. Two years earlier in 2008, the EPRDF and its affiliates had won all but four of 3.4 million local and by-elections, helped by the fact that the opposition parties abstained from the process. The ambitions of an authoritarian government that as part of its ideology of revolutionary democracy desires to maintain its authority at every level and yet is conscious of its political insecurity, inevitably mean that the State’s formal justice system is subject to significant political intervention and influence. This

Compromising with Ethiopianness After 1991: The Ethiopian Festival of the Millennium (September 2007–September 2008)

This article argues that imperial marks and symbols were central to the nation-building strategy of the leaders of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) before the outbreak of the 1998–2000 war against Eritrea and even before 1991. It thus presents the Ethio-Eritrean war, often perceived as a radical turning point concerning EPRDF’s nation-building policy, in a different light. The study also highlights how two often opposed conceptions of the Ethiopian nation—i.e., Pan-Ethiopian and “multinational”—have actually been presented as compatible by EPRDF leaders in the last decades. It argues that these two conceptions do not appear exclusive of each other, and their equilibrium is more clearly manifested since the National Festival of the Millennium, celebrated from September 2007 to September 2008 to mark Ethiopia’s entry into the third Millennium. The official narrations of Ethiopian statehood and nationhood expressed at this occasion confirmed the consistency of the new leaders’ interpretation of what Ethiopia “was” and “shall be,” but simultaneously show how current and concrete contingencies—here the post-1998–2000 war context and the turmoil of the 2005 general elections—force these same state/nation-builders to adjust their discourses.

Cultural Politics and Education in Ethiopia: A Search for a Viable Indigenous Legend

The history of modern education in Ethiopian is short. What is not so short, however, is the history of traditional education, temehert. It goes back as far as the introduction of Christianity to Ethiopia – fourth century EC. Since its inception, education had a close, if ambivalent, relationship with different ideological tenets, and each tenet trying to formulate its educational philosophy around its own unique narrative. While some narratives arose from indigenous legend, others are imported (and domesticated in some cases) from abroad. In this essay, I do not intend to discuss educational policies per se. I, however, intend to show how a deliberate, or unwitting, de-link with indigenous legend would affect the trajectory, and also the success, in educational system in Ethiopia. After a brief paradigmatic characterization of two ideologies and their underlying narratives, I will critically unravel the ethno-federalism educational philosophy of Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) and its undergirding ethnic legends. I focus on ethno-federalist system because it is an incumbent philosophy. After discussing a nascent remedy proposed by MaimireMennasemay, vis,.the notion of tezeta, I intend to argue for the primacy of the notion of qal-kidan as a better alternative. I will base my argument on the cultural prevalence, but also conceptual credibility.

Agamben in the Ogaden: Violence and sovereignty in the Ethiopian–Somali frontier

This paper asks what makes the periphery or the frontier a prime locus of the “inclusionary exclusion” that is, according to Giorgio Agamben, so constitutive of the state of exception. By applying Agamben’s analytics to the Ogaden – a frontier province of the Ethiopian state – we propose an interpretation of the political history of the Ethiopian Ogaden as a recurrent government by exception that spans the Imperial rule (c. 1890–1974), the socialist dictatorship of the Derg (1974–1991), and the current revolutionary democratic regime led by the Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) (1991–today). Drawing attention to the historical continuities in the exercise of (Ethiopian) state sovereignty in its (Somali) frontier, we offer a genealogy of the violent incorporation of the Ogaden into the Ethiopian body politic. We identify recurring practices of sovereign power by successive Ethiopian regimes that are constitutive of the state of exception, namely a conflation between law and lawlessness, the politics of bare life and an encampment strategy. By doing so, this paper insists on the constitutive importance of land appropriation – Carl Schmitt’s Landnahme – in performances of sovereignty and territorialization at the margins of the postcolonial state.

EPRDF's revolutionary democracy and religious plurality: Islam and Christianity in post-Derg Ethiopia

In 1991 the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) introduced policies aimed at recognizing the country's long-standing religious diversity, providing a public arena for religious groups, and maintaining a sharp division between religion and the state. This further eroded the traditionally dominant position of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, strengthened Protestant Christian and Muslim communities, and created a more fluid and competitive configuration among the religious communities. Seeking to maintain its political power, the EPRDF has at the same time made efforts to monitor and control the different religious communities. Therefore, the last 20 years have been marked by uneven developments, in which the government's accommodating attitudes have been interlaced with efforts to curtail the influence of the religious communities. This article surveys the intersection and reciprocal influences between EPRDF policies and religious communities over the last 20 years, and discusses how Muslims and Christians (Orthodox and Protestant) have negotiated their roles in relation to politics and public life. These developments have, the article argues, led to the emergence of divergent and competing narratives, reconfiguring self-understanding, political aspirations and views of the religious other. The EPRDF ideology of “revolutionary democracy” has, in this sense, enabled religion to surface as a force for social mobilization and as a point of reference for attempting to define nationhood in Ethiopia.

Aid negotiation: the uneasy “partnership” between EPRDF and the donors

Ethiopia has become a major recipient of international development aid since the coming to power of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). This is despite ideological differences between EPRDF and its donors. EPRDF champions the developmental state model that assigns to the state a key role in the development process within a dominant party political framework. Donors broadly fall within the liberalism continuum with the private sector as the driving force and the assumption of a democratic-pluralist politics. The paper examines the making of a robust aid relationship across this ideological boundary and the underlying tensions. It also analyses the “significant others” that have influenced the tone of the conversation between EPRDF and donors. The paper refers to the literature that considers aid relationship as a negotiation rather than the normative and politically loaded term “partnership”.

Abyotawi democracy: neither revolutionary nor democratic, a critical review of EPRDF's conception of revolutionary democracy in post-1991 Ethiopia

Since 1991 and the arrival of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) into power, the Ethiopian ideologists have maintained revolutionary democracy (abyotawi democracy in Amharic) as their core doctrine. The notion inherited from the struggle (1970s–1980s) aims at legitimizing a political and economic structure which de facto implies the resilience of authoritarianism. Abyotawi democracy has been presented by EPRDF as the exact opposite of liberalism and neoliberalism. As no article dedicated to a review and engagement with EPRDF's abyotawi democracy has been written so far, this article aims at analysing this Ethiopian version of revolutionary democracy. The evolution and uses of the notion since 1991 reveal a “bricolage” that abyotawi democracy has been operating out of Leninism, Marxism, Maoism, and also liberalism. While a review of party pamphlets and official party/state discourses reveals the degree to which revolutionary democracy has become an ambiguous doctrine vis-à-vis “liberalism”, the doctrine remains powerful as a fighting tool to exclude internal and external “enemies”.

Revolutionary democratic state-building: party, state and people in the EPRDF's Ethiopia

An ideology of “revolutionary democracy” has driven the project of state building in Ethiopia over the last 20 years. This paper explores the relationships that the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) government have sought to forge with the Ethiopian state and its people, by means of the various political organizations (parties, fronts, mass associations) that organize, represent or control them. It examines continuities and shifts across a series of iterations since the late 1970s: the Front's politico-administrative organization in 1980s Tigray; the party-led construction of the federation, civil service reform and political “gimgema” in the 1990s; the politicization of capacity building as the focus shifted to the developmental state following party splits and “renewal” from 2001; and the reconstruction of party structures distinct from those of the state in the wake of a strong electoral challenge in 2005, culminating in sweeping electoral wins in 2010. Despite its imprecision, the notion of revolutionary democracy has anchored shifting constellations of party–state relations, and changing strategies of political mobilization and organization, in the all-encompassing and fundamentally non-liberal political aspiration characterized by the Prime Minister as forging a direct “coalition with the people”. Whilst the ruling party has been widely criticized for failing to compromise or collaborate with alternative sources of authority, the paper suggests that this reflects a set of deliberate political choices that are both ideologically and sociologically reinforced. Processes of state building are at root about power, and as such their assessment calls for a nuanced understanding of context. The paper traces the role of ideological, historical, institutional and cultural influences and continuities in the Ethiopian case.

The press and the political restructuring of Ethiopia

Divisive debates on what constitutes the Ethiopian nation, how the state should be structured and how power should be devolved, have dominated Ethiopia's private press since the ruling party, the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), came to power. The press has served as both a mirror reflecting these issues and a space for literate elites to engage in political debates. This article analyses the role of the media, and the press in particular, in Ethiopia's political debates. It also explores how the tenets of “Revolutionary Democracy” have shaped the media. This has polarized Ethiopia's media, which has been unable to effectively serve as a forum for the negotiation of political power or for reconciliation between divided sectors of society.

The (un)making of opposition coalitions and the challenge of democratization in Ethiopia, 1991–2011

A key challenge in the consolidation of a democratic system in transitional countries is the lack of effective opposition political parties to counter the dominance of incumbent regimes. In the case of Ethiopia, to be described in this article, opposition parties are weak, fragmented, and mutually antagonistic. Hence, in order to counter the dominance of the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), coalitions and alliances have been used by the opposition parties. But opposition coalitions remain unstable and prone to fragmentation due to both internal and external factors. This study analyses the factors responsible to the often repeated fragmentation of opposition coalitions in Ethiopia.

Twenty years of revolutionary democratic Ethiopia, 1991 to 2011

This paper introduces a special issue of the Journal of Eastern African Studies devoted to a review of Ethiopia's 20 years of “revolutionary democracy”. The collection brings together 11 articles exploring differing aspects of Ethiopia's political experience since 1991. This introduction begins with a short summary of these 11 papers, but then moves to a substantive review of Ethiopia's political history over the past two decades, featuring consideration of the extent of transformation and continuity under the ruling Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the importance of economic issues in defining government policies, and the significance of development and relations with donors.

MA thesis abstracts from Addis Ababa University, Faculty of Journalism and Communication 2007

This research attempts to look into what practical changes the broadcasting media in Ethiopia have experienced in light of media regulation policies, and if the intended changes have not taken place, attempts to point to reasons. The period after the coming into power of EPRDF (Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front), 1991 and onwards, marked a change in Ethiopian media politics. Of the reforms EPRDF made was liberalizing the media through granting different freedoms. This was done through various laws and policies. The 1992 press law that gave citizens the freedom to exercise freedom of expression through private print media, the 1999 broadcast proclamation, the 2003 press law and the newly endorsed broadcast proclamation of the year 2007 are the major policies introduced with regard to the media. The 1995 Ethiopian Constitution also is a monumental document for reinforcing freedom of expression in Ethiopia. Article 29 of the Constitution confirms that all citizens have the right to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in prints in the form of art, or through any idea of his/her choice” (FDRE Constitution, Art 29). After eight years of the endorsement of the first Broadcast Proclamation in 1999, which further affirms the full grant of the right to own a private broadcasting station, there is no private television station, and radio stations are still under the control of the control of the government in one way or another. Why are the broadcast media regulated severely while full freedom of expression is granted on other arenas? Data for the study was acquired from documents and personal interviews with actors in the media industry. The conclusion of the research include: private broadcasters and licensees do not work together; the new broadcasting regulation policy gives broadcasters a chance to appeal and imprisonment is excluded from the punitive articles.