Outline & Construction of the article,
The paper tries to investigate workability of Ethiopian ethnic federalism in nation building context. To attain this; factual historical analysis is conducted to understand the pre-existing situations which lead us to employ ethnically structured federal governance arrangement. This section shall slightly touch governance philosophy, values and approaches of monarchical and military regimes to sketch their vision of Ethiopia. However, this article gives much emphasis on EPRDF causes for establishment of ethnic based federalism, its objectives and major reforms taken. The second section provides brief facts on existing characteristics of Ethiopian ethnic federal structure from national unity vantage point. The third section shall evaluate workability of ethnic federalism using major parameters. Such as; the concept of shared and self-rule in institutional, legal, political and ideological setup of the regime. Asides, it will also identify key causes which hindered effectiveness of ethnic federal structure. Finally, the last section will give conclusion and recommendations for possible practical solutions.
Historical setup analysis
In Ethiopia, Nation building process is uncompleted task which had been rolling over the past century. If we constrain ourselves to the modern Ethiopian history (1889-1913), nation building process had been disrupted many times. In the up-coming paragraphs I shall discuss the political and governance models of the imperial regime (1930-1974), Derg regime (1974 to 1987) and EPRDF (1991-….).
The Imperial regime (1930-1974): The political and governance anatomy of the regime was highly centralized and very tall since the king was perceived as the guardian of a nation who is divinely assigned. However, the kings approach of building a nation had faced new challenges due to imposition of high taxes on farmers, low wages for low rank militaries, demand for more autonomous power by regional lords, request for land reform “Land to the Tiller” , student straggle which was demanded equal treatment for all ethnicity’s and socialist political reform. Because of this newly constructed social phenomenon’s, unitarily structured imperial regime had failed before accomplishing nation building process.
Military regime (1974 to 1987): Derg regime which was established by low rank military officials came to power in 1974. The regime employed dictatorship as political format and unitary anatomy as governance structure. The regime addressed many questions which were raised during the imperial regime such as, land reform and abashment of feudalistic political system. However, multi-nationalist political questions for better autonomies administration had persisted. Consequently, many ethnically based secessionist military groups ware incubated to fight for their respective national group rights. Finally, the country ends up losing the former federated union of Eritrea by referendum for absolute self-determination. Thus, all trails of the unitary governance approach had filed after a century trial.
Current Regime (1991-…) EPRDF is the outcome of the previous struggle which was started during student’s movement. The revolutionary front adopted ethnically structured federal union which is composed of nine regions and two city administrations. The regime considers Ethiopia as a collection of nation nationalities and peoples[1]. In other word Ethiopian citizenship is redefined only as a collection of nations and nationalities in a current geographic setup.
Pushing factors to adopt multinational federalism in Ethiopia
· The Plural nature of ethnicity
· Ethnic based suppression and domination
· High demand of Localities for self-administration (semi-autonyms governance)
· Size of the country
· High interest of all revolutionary leaders and international pressure.
Objectives of Ethiopian melty- national Federalism
· To impower all nationalities to safeguard equal treatment in a federal union
· To insure human and democratic rights for all individual and group members in the union
· To pledge autonomous administration of their respective regions
The constitution which was ratified in 1995 guarantied and safeguarded ethnic rights in “Arts.39, 46 and 47. Art.39 clearly enunciates the right of ethnic groups to self-determination. Art.46 declares that the basis of state formation is “settlement patterns, language, identity and consent of the people” which is an elaborate way of saying ethnicity. Art. 47 enumerate the member states of the federation the names of most of which also imply ethnic identity” (Nikodimos,2004)
Own compilation
[1] “We, the Nations, Nationalities and Peoples of Ethiopia: Strongly committed, in full and free exercise of our right to self-determination, to building a political community founded on the rule of law and capable of ensuring a lasting peace, guaranteeing a democratic order, and advancing our economic and social development.” doi:http://www.parliament.am/lbrary/sahmanadrutyunner/etovpia.pdf
Characteristics of existing situations in the federal system
· Highly ethnically divided socio-psychological makeup
· Ethnic based conflicts and tensions
· Confusion of authority or jurisdiction b/n regional and federal government
· Disagreement b/n regional and federal governments
· Constraint on freedom of capital and labor movement
· Growing of Narrow ethnic chauvinism
· Elevated level of fiscal centralization
· High demand for policy freedom
· Low competence in local administration
· Demand for higher level of Redistributive justice
Spotlight Analysis of federal system
Self-and-shared rule
Self-rule and shared rule is a main conceptual and pragmatic component of any federal system. However, the constituency of federal, regional and local governments may defer according to the existing context of each country. In Ethiopian case, inter-governmental relationship model of a federal union is called concurrent intergovernmental r/n model which demarks shared and self- rule only b/n regional and federal government. However, the relationship b/n regional and local governments are hierarchical.
Even though Ethiopia inter-governmental relation model assume horizontal relationship b/n regional and federal government; the practical situations doesn’t confirm to that. In practice, intergovernmental relationship seems more of inclusive model which is manifested by hierarchical relationship b/n federal regional and local governments. Thus, such relationship would expose the system to confusion of responsibility and authorities of respective governments. Consequently, this would lade to conflict and disagreement b/n federal and region governments in the federation.
Thus, in general self-rule and shared rule values of federalism can’t be practiced without implementing concurrent inter-governmental relationship model. Asides, government political determination to implement the model is essential. Correspondingly, creating dynamic legal framework which can help to address problems related to dynamic inter-governmental relationship is also indispensable. The other most important to insure self-rule and shared rule values of federalism is institutional capacity. Government also needs to build strong and independent institutions which can govern and facilitate inter-governmental relations.
Building strong institutions and dynamic legal framework which can insure legitimate constituency of regional and federal government would be an asset to build a national unity in peaceful and sustainable manner.
Political ideology
The other fundamental cause for the problems mentioned above is EPRDF’s political Ideology. One of the main pillars of EPRDF’s program is revolutionary democracy. Content wise revolutionary democracy is characterized by high emphasis of group rights and very tall government involvement in the economy and individual life. Thus, in general it can be classified as illiberal democracy. Apart from that, democratic practices in Ethiopia are very pathetic.
Any type of federalism can’t be practiced without the full presence of liberal democracy. However, EPRDF’s inner party system which is compounded by democratic centralism doesn’t allowed the party to move ahead to achieve the primary motives of the revolution —Such as, transforming a nation in to new era of sustainable peace, democracy and prosperity. Thus, a new nation building process will be imperiled if the government keeps executing revolutionary democracy and higher emphasis to group right at the cost of individual right. Instead of adopting contextualized liberal democracy and providing equal stress to individual rights.
Encapsulation and Insinuation
· Current practices of ethnically structured federal system in Ethiopia are causing paramount social and political problems. But if, the system is reformed in a way which can incorporate strong applicability of individual rights and liberal democracy in the system will remain intact until class conflict arise.
· Execution of concurrent inter-governmental model is crucial to build a strong sustainable and efficient relationship b/n regional and federal government.
· Building dynamic legal farmed work which can solve dynamic problems which arise b/n regional and federal government
· Fiscal decentralization is one of the most crucial elements to hale the system. Local and regional government should be to be empowered to collect and advance different type of incomes, collectively agreed and performance and competition based resource division among federated unions with resource allocation policy freedom is indispensable .
· Sustainable Economic development and fair distribution of public goods is also essential corner stone for building national unity.
· Institutions also play a vital role in building sustainable relationship in federal system. Thus, allowing institutions to be independent and legally empowered to facilitate and govern intergovernmental relationships is important to sustain nation building process.
· Based on my analysis I don’t recommend a system change from ethno-language to geographic or economic due to the following reasons:
1. At the current momentum it’s difficult to change since most of the people is demanding more of autonomy in the current system than a shift to a new system.
2. Geographic federalism had been implemented during the Imperial and Derg regime. However, it was not successful due to high and continued demand for nationalities more autonomous administration.
Publication Details
- Originally Published At: July 31, 2019
- Originally Published On: LinkedIn