Contested Power In Ethiopia

This book offers a comparative ethnography of the contested powers that shape democratization in Ethiopia. Although multi-party elections have become the norm in Africa, relatively little is known about the significance of non-state actors such as traditional authorities in electioneering. Focusing on Ethiopia’s competitive 2005 elections, this book analyzes how customary leaders, political parties and state officials confronted and complemented each other during election time. Case studies reveal the contemporaneousness of traditional authorities in modern politics, but also how multi-party competition reproduces traditional relations of domination among ethnic groups. The book documents the importance of customary authority in selecting party candidates and providing legitimacy to political parties, but also their limitations in a country dominated by a semi-authoritarian party-state.

Drawing on nine case studies, this book offers a comparative ethnography of the contested powers that shape democratization in Ethiopia. Focusing on the competitive 2005 elections, the authors analyze how customary leaders, political parties and state officials confronted each other during election time.

This book takes stock of national political developments in Ethiopia since the formal adoption of multi-party politics and ethnic federalism in 1991. Chapters on ethnic federalism, revolutionary democracy, opposition parties, the press, the judiciary, state-religion, and state-foreign donor relations provide the most comprehensive review of contemporary Ethiopian national politics to date. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Eastern African Studies.

This book examines the relationship between inequalities and identities in relation to an unprecedented state advocacy of "ethnic rights" in post-civil war Ethiopia. The analysis is set against the background of a dramatic state remaking by a rebellion movement (the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front - EPRDF) that seized control of the Ethiopian state in 1991, after a decisive battlefield victory over an unpopular regime. The new government of former rebels pledged to institute a new system of ethnic self-governance that celebrated ethnic diversity with a firm pledge to guarantee basic human rights. After twenty-five years in office, however, the Ethiopian government is challenged by the resilience of identity-based inequalities it sought to end, and by protests against its own policies and practices that intensified inequality. The events in Ethiopia, reverberating throughout the Horn of Africa, have inspired polarized debates between academics, policy experts, political activists, and the media. Data D. Barata contributes to this debate through a nuanced ethnographic analysis of why identities with distinct notions of inequality persist, even after being attacked and ideologically repudiated. The contestations and struggles over political representation, local governance, land and religion that the book examines are shaped by the global human rights discourse that has inspired millions of Africans to confront entrenched structures of power. Contesting Inequalities, Identities and Rights in Ethiopia will be of interest to scholars and students in the fields of anthropology, African studies, political science, sociology and cultural studies

When do rising powers fail to establish legitimate regional leadership and instead face contestation by their regional challengers? This book investigates how and why the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) project leadership in South America, post-Soviet Eurasia, South and Southeast Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa, respectively, and in what ways their main regional challengers respond. Based on a systematic conceptualization of the types and drivers of leadership and contestation, the authors assess the impact of the rise of regional powers on weaker states’ security, sovereignty, and status, as well as the consequences of contestation for regional economic development and stability and the regional powers’ bid for greater voice in global governance. By illuminating the sources and effects of power politics in five regions that are increasingly pivotal for the emerging world order, the volume offers a global comparative analysis of contemporary regional contested leadership that will interest scholars and students of international affairs, foreign policy, and area studies.

"The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic marks the most significant, singular global disruption since World War II, with health, economic, political, and security implications that will ripple for years to come." -Global Trends 2040 (2021) Global Trends 2040-A More Contested World (2021), released by the US National Intelligence Council, is the latest report in its series of reports starting in 1997 about megatrends and the world's future. This report, strongly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, paints a bleak picture of the future and describes a contested, fragmented and turbulent world. It specifically discusses the four main trends that will shape tomorrow's world: - Demographics-by 2040, 1.4 billion people will be added mostly in Africa and South Asia. - Economics-increased government debt and concentrated economic power will escalate problems for the poor and middleclass. - Climate-a hotter world will increase water, food, and health insecurity. - Technology-the emergence of new technologies could both solve and cause problems for human life. Students of trends, policymakers, entrepreneurs, academics, journalists and anyone eager for a glimpse into the next decades, will find this report, with colored graphs, essential reading.

In this exciting new study, Bahru Zewde, one of the foremost historians of modern Ethiopia, has constructed a collective biography of a remarkable group of men and women in a formative period of their country’s history. Ethiopia’s political independence at the end of the nineteenth century put this new African state in a position to determine its own levels of engagement with the West. Ethiopians went to study in universities around the world. They returned with the skills of their education acquired in Europe and America, and at home began to lay the foundations of a new literature and political philosophy. Pioneers of Change in Ethiopia describes the role of these men and women of ideas in the social and political transformation of the young nation and later in the administration of Haile Selassie.

Being a home to more than 80 ethnic groups, Ethiopia has to balance normative diversity with efforts to implement state law across its territory. This volume explores the co-existence of state, customary, and religious legal forums from the perspective of legal practitioners and local justice seekers. It shows how the various stakeholders' use of negotiation, and their strategic application of law can lead to unwanted confusion, but also to sustainable conflict resolution, innovative new procedures and hybrid norms. The book thus generates important knowledge on the conditions necessary for stimulating a cooperative co-existence of different legal systems.