Evolving state building conversations and political settlement in Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the evolving state-building conversations in Ethiopia and the role of political settlement thereof in charting a pathway for durable peace and strong state. The paper argues that costly mistakes in state and nation building, the radicalisation of the Ethiopian Student Movement coupled with Marxism–Leninism and ethno-nationalism polarised and fragmented the state-building conversations of the country leading to civil war in the 1970s and 80s. This led to an exclusionary victor settlement in 1991 when the TPLF/EPRDF militarily defeated other political groupings and the Derg. Consequently, the post-settlement in the Ethiopian state has been exclusively forged by the winning coalition sidelining competing narratives about the Ethiopia state including its history and the place of various groups therein. This historically veracious, violent, and exclusionary state and peacebuilding conversation undermined the post-1991 political settlement and the transition towards a durable peace and state. The outbreak of war in Ethiopia in November 2020 (which is not the core focus of this paper) is deeply connected to this violent and exclusionary conversation on the nature and future direction of the Ethiopian state.

KEYWORDS:

• Conversations
• Political Settlement
• State-Building
• Narratives

Introduction

A dominant agenda in post-Cold War Africa has been the question of building peaceful states and societies approached through the lexicon of peacebuilding and state-building. Though the two concepts originated from and were driven by slightly different contexts and concerns, they have been converging in the vision they seek to realise, the principles they espouse and their areas of engagement.¹ Without overlooking possibilities of trade-offs and tensions, the two concepts are rightfully viewed as convergent and complementary as both have the ultimate aim of building more peaceful, inclusive and responsive states and societies. The convergence also suggests the need to view peacebuilding along a state-building continuum as it is a particular characteristic of pre-war state-building conversation that gave rise to civil war.² However, not all forms of state-building are convergent with peacebuilding since, at times, there could be tensions and trade-offs between the two in the context of post-conflict countries.³ Hence, the convergence rather is based on an understanding of state-building as measures that enhance inclusiveness, participation, and responsiveness of the state.⁴ The prevailing approach to state-building theorisation with an overly institutionalist approach to the state does not provide appropriate conceptual tools to analyse how states that usher peaceful and durable social order could emerge.⁵ A fruitful approach to state-building that is convergent with peacebuilding requires an approach that zooms in on inter-elite and elite-society interactions.

This study, emerging from the African Leadership Centre’s research on state and peacebuilding (2013–2017), seeks to recenter the notion of conversation and political settlement as its anchoring principle in the study of state-building for durable peace and social order. Viewing peacebuilding along a state-building continuum, the study, therefore, does not frontally engage with the idea of peacebuilding which rather is viewed as part of the state-building continuum. What is attempted here is to view the outbreak of civil war and their settlement as part of state-building conversation among actors with competing narratives of statehood. We also examine the extent to which the nature of a political settlement is mediated by pre-settlement state-building conversation and how the settlement, as a form and outcome of conversation, shaped the subsequent process of state-building conversations and the possibility for the emergence of durable peace and peaceful state. Hence, when the paper uses state-building and peacebuilding together, it is to point to the possibility of convergence of the two rather than implying any substantive engagement with the concept of peacebuilding. The study relies on a review of party-state documents, personal experiences of the authors, informal conversations with officials and other scholarly works written on the subject.

The paper argues that violent conversation over the identity of the state and the status of various groups thereof in 20^th century Ethiopia eventually led to an exclusionary victory-based political settlement. It also argues that the political settlement, being a ‘victor settlement’ of a particular narrative, has not and cannot neutralise or transform these contending narratives and therefore was not able to lead to conversations that herald durable peace and institute a durable state. Because of the nature of the settlement, opportunities for inclusive non-violent conversations were closed the moment they arose, and therefore violence and repression has never been outside the moral bound of state and peacebuilding conversations of the country. Existing state and its institutions are shaped based on the narratives of the winning coalition (which had been one among many) and hence excluded political movements do not necessarily face a moral restraint to use violence whenever and wherever that is deemed feasible. Consequently, peace in the country, to the extent it prevails, is the result of the sheer monopoly of violence, but not a monopoly of narratives by the ruling front, which inevitably is wedded with state violence and repression against individuals and groups contesting the Front’s narratives.

This article is organised into five sections including this introduction. The next section situates the study in the framework of conversation and political settlement as propounded by the background paper noted earlier. The third section revisits the historical roots of contemporary state and peacebuilding conversations in a bid to outline the main issues of conversation and the kind of settlement that eventually emerged from them. This is followed in the fourth section by an examination of the nature of the settlement that emerged in the 1990s and the state and peacebuilding conversation characterising the consolidation of post-1991 political order and its eventual demise. The section discusses how opportunities for transforming a violent, exclusionary and repressive state and peacebuilding conversations were missed and how the country eventually descended into violence. Finally, the paper concludes by indicating the need to transform the state and peacebuilding conversation into one that is peaceful, inclusive and accommodative of competing narratives.

A ‘conversationalist’ approach to state and peacebuilding

The study approaches the evolution of the Ethiopian state and post-1991 political settlement through the lenses of a ‘conversationalist’ approach to peace and state-building. Conversation ‘involves individuals, groups, entities engaging in “talking” and “talking back” about a thing or an issue through a range of [communicative] actions and inactions, producing a recognizable or distinct narrative’.⁶ According to Olonisakin et al., the range of instrumentalities of talking and talking back could include music, artefacts, theatre, protests, and even violence and silence, and that a conversation is about peace and state-building when it overtly deals with these issues or when it is about ‘institutional’ and ‘normative’ structures of peace and the state.⁷ These conversations can be multilayered inclusive of inter-elite, elite-society, and elite-outsiders. Also, implicit in the idea of conversation is the assumption that there are different types of conversation, some being more conducive for durable peace while others are less so. Viewed along a continuum, conversations that presumably take into account the concerns of both, conversant either in the choice of instruments of conversation, issue of conversation or the message of the conversation are most likely to usher in durable peace and a functioning state. On the other extreme, conversations that rely on violence will end up undermining any peace and state-building effort. In-between these two, various shades of conversation that are more or less conducive for peace and state-building can be identified.

Conversation, understood in this way, would not only reverse the conventional way of approaching the relationship between peacebuilding and state-building but also bring to the fore concepts, such as political settlement, nation-building, legitimacy, and political community.⁸ This, in turn, shifts the conventional approach’s privileging of ‘the technical over the political, power over agency, and the international over the national and local’.⁹ The analytic starting point of state-building that herald durable peace will not be institutions of the state from which ordered life will emerge. Institutions or the lack of it has to be first explained through a focus on the nature of state-building conversation a society had and hence society or various groups thereof and their narratives, contestation, collusion and negotiation have to be re-centred.

A key element of these conversations is the nature of the political settlement a society had. Though the idea of political settlement is defined differently by different authors, this paper, approaches the concept in terms of the modality through which war is ended or one form of order is replaced by another. At one level political settlements could be negotiated, victory based or in rare circumstances stalemated, and at another and depending on the former, they may be inclusionary or exclusionary, based on consensus and dissensus, and may be accompanied by changes in ideology, organisational and mobilizational capacity and will of actors.¹⁰ The nature of the political settlement is both determined by previous state-building conversations but also mediates subsequent processes of state-building conversations. Clearly, as moments of ending war or transition from one form of order to another, political settlements are decisive moments and yet this should not belie the fact that the very forces and processes that herald such decisive moments are as important as the political settlement. Neither should post-settlement state-building conversation be solely attributed to the nature of the settlement since actors with competing narratives may not be eliminated, new actors might emerge and regional and global development might mediate a state-building conversation society is having. Hence, how much a political settlement influenced, and was influenced by pre-settlement political processes and post-settlement conversation, respectively, is an empirical matter. By tracing the nature of peace and state-building conversation that gave rise to the post-1991 political order and the nature of the subsequent peace and state-building conversation in Ethiopia, this article seeks to contribute to the state-building literature that went beyond a Weberian and Neo-Weberian approach to state-building for durable peace and order.

Historical roots of contemporary state and peacebuilding conversations

With the beginning of the process of state formation and/or consolidation through a series of violent and non-violent incorporation of other groups ‘outside’ ‘historic’ Ethiopia,¹¹ the state and peacebuilding conversation of the country was bound to be on certain perennial issues. These conversations were primarily about the exclusionary nature of the state vis-a-vis the various ethnic groups and the crude assimilationist policy it gave rise to and the marginalisation of the peasantry.¹² Though Emperor Haile Selassie, who ruled the country for about 40 years, was keen to modernise the country by expanding and strengthening the bureaucracy, training and equipping the army, and expanding education,¹³ this was embarked without changing the class and ethnic character of the state. Hence, issues of ethnic domination and marginalisation, land expropriation, cultural suppression, and power centralisation¹⁴ continued to be issues of state-building conversation throughout the reign of the emperor. That said, the instruments of conversation metamorphosed from less organised and abrupt rebellion to a radicalised and ideologically inspired movement. A decisive agent in this radicalisation had been the Ethiopian Student Movement/ESM/ of the 1960s and 1970s that interpreted extant material conditions through the lenses of Marxism-Leninism.

This radicalised intelligentsia claimed to act in the name of the oppressed masses and oppression was understood, to varying degrees, in terms of class and nation. Thus, those previous conversations manifested in disorganised peasant resistance as a form of state-society relations were replaced by an inter-elite conversation between a ruling elite and the dissenting intelligentsia that acted on behalf of the ‘oppressed’ classes and nationalities. This intelligentsia depicted Ethiopia as a feudal state characterised by the oppression and exploitation of the peasantry and agitated to do away with this class.¹⁵ It portrayed the country as ‘a prison house of nations and nationalities’ claiming that to be Ethiopian one had to wear an ‘Amhara Mask’.¹⁶ These dissenting intelligentsia constituting the Ethiopian student movement were far from monolithic, which rather had their internal conversations over the Ethiopian state and the role of class and ethnicity thereof. Two notable groupings in the student movement were those inspired more by ethnonationalism than Marxism–Leninism and those multinational groupings that emphasised the class base of oppression. The division within the student movement marked both continuity and departure in the state and peacebuilding conversation of the country. It was continuity in that the main issues of the country were agreed to be class and ethnicity, and it was a departure because it heralds bitter division on how to address them. It was a consensus sufficient enough to overthrow the previous imperial order and yet short of what was needed to build a new consensus-based political order. However, the lack of consensus was not just on the kind of order to be instituted; it was also on the acceptable and unacceptable means of conversation. Specifically, the use of violence and repression as an instrument of conversation has never been viewed as illegitimate among actors with competing narratives. The overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie through a combination of student activism and military rebellion led the country into a situation in which violence was the only means of conversing not just between those in power and those outside but also among the competing armed movements.

This was in part due to the Marxist-Leninist ideology of social change espoused by the major groups of the country. Given that the ideological stance in which only one party would represent the oppressed and thus play a vanguard role,¹⁷ the Ethiopian milieu was bound to be characterised by competing groups that were not and could not work together. Hence, it was expected that to the extent that the war came to an end by way of victory of a group or a coalition of groups, the ensuing political settlement was bound to be exclusionary and hence legitimacy to rule has to rely on something other than popular acceptance manifested in free and fair elections. Indeed, the accounts given below indicate that the nature of the state and peacebuilding conversation and the ideology, mode of mobilisation and operation of the actors involved in it gave a rise to an exclusionary political settlement. This exclusionary victor settlement in turn shaped the subsequent peace and state-building conversation precluding any chance for a non-violent and transformative peace and state-building conversation.

Conversation as student activism, insurgency and a victor settlement

With the heightening of the class, ethnic and political contradiction in the country and the failure of the imperial regime to address them or even prevent famine, a committee of military officers known as the Derg deposed the emperor and eventually declared first Ethiopian Socialism and later scientific socialism as their ideology. The most important outcome of this ideological shift was the distribution of land for the peasantry thereby addressing one element of the issues in state-building conversation of the country. However, the Derg left intact or even further strengthened the centralised Ethiopian state and was not ready to peacefully negotiate with the other organised groups of the period sidelining individuals presumed to be sympathetic to the agenda of oppositions that emerged from the student movement. The issue of self-determination of nationalities espoused by the student movement was thus not entertained, which the Derg rather viewed as being against Ethiopian unity. Hence, violence became the Derg’s preferred mode of conversation with the political forces of the period.

That said, the issue of nationalities, was also a source of division among the organisations that emerged from the student movement. Though the ESM subscribe to some version of Marxism, the student body was divided primarily based on their approach to the ‘National Question’ as a result of which less and more serious advocates of the questions of nationalities emerged.¹⁸ Multinational parties, the All Ethiopian Socialist Movement/Meison/ and the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Party/EPRP/ viewed the primary contradiction of the period in terms of class rather than ethnicity and hence organised themselves along these lines to operate in all parts of the country. They asserted that economic conditions were not connected with national oppression and pointed to the comparable destitution of Northern Shoa which had been ‘the heartland of Solomonic Dynasty’¹⁹ and from where the majority of administrators of the imperial state sprang.²⁰ Being a committed (pan-Ethiopia) nationalist²¹ their acceptance of the self-determination rights of ethnic groups appeared to be along a Leninist ground that national rights are accepted to the extent they contribute to overthrowing the anti-revolutionary regime and to the extent the respect of this right does not contradict the interest of the proletariat as conceived by the vanguard party.²² Notwithstanding this, these two multinational parties of the time differed in their approach to the military regime or Derg and hence in their general orientation, their conception of trajectories of change required to realise a socialist state. The most important difference between the two though was power and its exclusive control along the Leninist dictum that only one party can be a vanguard party.²³

The ethnonational movements, of which the TPLF and OLF figured prominently, prioritised national contradiction over and above the class contradiction and hence advocated the resolution of the ‘national question’ before multinational class struggle was to be undertaken. While this position is against the fundamental tenets of Marxism-Leninism,²⁴ these movements did not see any contradiction as they were freely invoking Marxist-Leninist percepts. These groups argued that the level of national contradiction is such that it is not possible to subsume the struggle for national liberation within the class struggle no matter how important the latter might be. For this group, the self-determination rights of various nationalities of the country are not to be treated as a mere tactical issue as was the case in the ideology of Marxism-Leninism.

Embedded in these ideological differences between the multinationals and ethnonationalists was the question of which group constituted a vanguard party and whether the territorial integrity of the country needs to be compromised. While the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front is said to have fleetingly entertained the idea of independence, the Eritrean People Liberation Front (EPLF) and Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) framed their struggle as an anti-colonial struggle. This might have rendered any compromise difficult among contending multi-national and ethno-nationalist parties within the framework of the Ethiopian state. Markakis,²⁵ has even gone to the extreme in asserting that the real difference among the multinational and ethno-nationalist parties was the former fear that the multiplicity of nationality-based movement would endanger the integrity of the Ethiopian state and the latter (mainly TPLF) detest of being a subordinate group in multinational Ethiopia.

At any rate, given the radical nature of these differences and the lack of agreement on how to handle them peacefully, violence and war remained the modus operandi of state-building conversation in the country. It was not the case that there was no effort to negotiate, but the parties were not able to compromise as exclusive narratives rather led to a sense of entitlement for an exclusive area of operations in the struggle against a common enemy. In the negotiation between the TPLF and EPRP, the TPLF demanded that the latter operate outside Tigray.²⁶ The TPLF wanted exclusive control over Tigray and hence did not consider other organisations operating there as legitimate. The EPRP, as a multinational party, believed that it had a legitimate right to wage the struggle from any part of the country.²⁷ Beyond this, while the EPRP considered the position of the TPLF as narrow and nationalist, the TPLF considered the EPRP as chauvinistic.²⁸ These ideological differences were finally solved on the battlefield during which the EPRP was defeated and driven out of Tigray.²⁹ The same logic was deployed when the OLF in its negotiation with the TPLF after the latter seized power, demanded that Oromia should be its exclusive area of operation. Similarly, fruitful negotiation with the Derg was not materialised as each side did not get into negotiation in good faith. This lack of willingness to compromise was reflected when the TPLF became a dominant force during which it chose to forge an alliance with the Ethiopian People Democratic Movement (a party formed from dissenters of the EPRP³⁰) and to facilitate the formation of newer friendly ethnic organisations.³¹ These weaker friendly organisations served as a precursor to the establishment of the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front/EPRDF/.

The alliances were essentially achieved through the replication of the ideology, organisational structure, and operational modalities of the TPLF.³² The two fronts formed the Ethiopian People Revolutionary Democratic Front or EPRDF, the EPDM being a junior partner and being largely dependent on the TPLF to administer occupied territories. In 1990, the EPRDF widened its coalition by organising the Oromo Peoples Democratic Organization/OPDO/ from the prisoners of war. Thus, with the nominal participation of the EPDM (later transformed into the Amhara National Democratic Movement), and OPDO the TPLF triumphantly concluded the war with the Derg on 28 May 1991, which marked the end of a violent state-building conversation and the beginning of a new political settlement.

From violent conversation to political settlement and back to violence

It was a foreclosed scenario that movements and parties that had hostile relations with the TPLF were excluded from the transition process. Veteran political organisations such as the EPRP, Meison and the Coalition of Ethiopian Democratic Forces/CEDF/ which espoused rival ideologies and narratives were excluded from the transition process, and barred from entering the country, on the ground that they are ‘chauvinists and warmongers’.³³ The preparation and discussion over the transition process were carefully controlled in a manner that denies the backdoor introduction of the ideals of opposing groups with opposing narratives. Accordingly, the conference approved the right for self-determination with minimal reflection³⁴ and those individuals who presented serious objections on these issues were depicted to have objected to the core of the transition and were threatened with expulsion from the transition process.³⁵ Hence, the terms and provisions of the transitional charter were firmly controlled by the EPRDF and nothing that appeared to threaten its hold on power and ideological hegemony passed unexamined.³⁶

Though the post-settlement conversation was decidedly hostile and violent against pan-Ethiopian movements, it was initially conciliatory of ethnonationalists. The OLF was invited to participate in the soon-to-be-held transitional conference to the effect of which it participated in the preparation of the transitional charter to be adopted in the conference. Before the TPLF/EPRDF forces entered Addis Ababa, a conference was held in London in 1991 with participation from representatives from the Derg and the EPRDF, EPLF and the OLF. In this conference, the EPRDF agreed to establish two months provisional government and promised to prepare an inclusive transitional conference that would lead to the organisation of the transitional government of Ethiopia. Following the London conference, the OLF and EPRDF prepared the draft transitional charter that was later discussed with³⁷ organisations that were willing to participate in the conference.³⁸ Eventually, when the transitional conference was undertaken in July 1991, 27 organisations took part in the conference. Nineteen of these organisations were ethnic-based political groupings, five were pan-Ethiopia, and three were from trade unions and the university. Notwithstanding the exclusion of groups alluded above, the conference, it can be said, was fairly representative of various shades of ethnic-based parties and professional organisations. Thus, for the first time, it appeared that state and peacebuilding conversation was to shift from violent into a non-violent more cooperative and inclusive search for peace and the underpinning institution. The dominance of ethnic-based parties was taken to be indicative of the seriousness of the national oppression of various groups and their desire to deconstruct the ideological, institutional and historical legacy of the centralised state.³⁹ This was based on the logic that since the central government was overthrown by an ethnonationalist group, the issue of nationality must have been too serious to be ignored or even to give less attention.⁴⁰ Based on this logic, the EPRDF decided to unconditionally accept the rights of nations and nationalities for self-determinations to be realised through an ethno-federal arrangement.⁴¹ The TPLF/EPRDF was decidedly biased in favour of ethnic parties as it considered them ‘allies in narratives’. However, as will be shown below, when there was a conflict between their role as an ally in narrative and as a threat to the regime’s hold on to power, measures that privileged the latter were undertaken.

During this period two opposing and uncompromising groups of conversations began to take shape. The first that was maintained by those who held the view that affirming the right of self-determination was a necessary condition; that without it, talking democracy was futile. This school of thought (promoted by the EPRDF and the OLF in particular) argued that it was not the recognition of the right, but its denial that had created conditions for civil war in the past. Those who held the second view, who opposed the inclusion of the right to self-determination, were those who claimed to resist what they termed the ethnicization of politics. To this school of thought (espoused by multinational organisations including AAPO), such a right does not reflect the history of the country and would diminish ‘unity’ and sow the seeds of discord among Ethiopians whose organic ties had persisted from time immemorial.⁴² Another set of people who feared the principle of secession was that of ethnic minorities. Though they welcomed the TPLF/EPRDF’s agenda of ethnic assertiveness and self-rule they feared that if viable nations succeeded in becoming independent entities, such nations might tend to decide the fate of the minorities singlehandedly.

To the extent that the transition process is spearheaded democratically among those ethnic-based parties represented in the conference, there would have been a gradual process of inclusion and the possibility for setting the Ethiopian state-building process on firm foundations and the national state and peacebuilding conversation on a peaceful path. Indeed, the participation of the OLF in preparing what would constitute a Transitional Charter⁴³ and the acceptance given by almost all ethnic-based parties to the contentious principles relating to self-determination included in the charter that was further entrenched in the 1995 constitution render the charter and the constitution (though most parties already boycotted the election for the constituent assembly that approved the constitution) a ‘compact’ of ethno-nationalists.

However, what followed the adoption of the Charter began to be against the spirit and letter of the transitional charter. The TPLF/EPRDF wanted firm control over the transition process while the opposition struggled to have as much involvement as possible. This set the process to be marred with currents of control and exclusion and allegations and counter-allegations from its inception. The TPLF already showed what its preferred political model and order would be when it formed an alliance with a weaker EPDM and facilitated the formation of OPDO instead of OLF. The OLF aspiration, on its part, was also too high to be on par with the prevailing power balance.⁴⁴ It demanded either greater control over the Ethiopian state or secession.⁴⁵ Thus, it entered the transition process with ambivalent goals and aspirations that were not probably well-suited to realistically push the agenda of democratising the country. In the short term, the OLF objected to the operation of OPDO in Oromia and its political strategy, whereas the TPLF, winning the war through bloodshed, was not ready to lose or even accept parity of power through the political process. TPLF and associates invoked entitlement narratives similar to liberation narratives across Africa. This was invariably reflected in the power struggle between the Oromo People Democratic Organization backed by the TPLF/EPRDF and the OLF in the months following the 1991 conference that finally led to the withdrawal of the latter from the transition process marking the end of prospect for a peaceful state and peacebuilding conversation.

In the June 1992 election, the OLF faced stiff competition from the OPDO, EPRDF`s affiliate. Alleging that the election would not be free and fair under the intimidating pre-election situation, the OLF withdrew from the transitional government and decamped its army. After brief fighting, the OLF was easily neutralised by the much-sophisticated EPRDF force. This heralded the end of pluralism and meaningful power-sharing among ethnonationalist parties in the immediate post-1991 period and therefore the hope for a kind of conversation that would lead to a peaceful state and durable order was dashed. This was not entirely unexpected given the substantial power imbalance between the TPLF/EPRDF and other ethnic-based parties and the conflicting aspirations and demands of the conversing actors. The military strength developed by the former and more specifically the TPLF makes the latter unwilling to take a risky measure that would undermine its hold on to power even to those forces that share its narrative whereas the OLF failed to be pragmatic enough to take measures that are realistic in the face of power disparity. Other ethnic-based movements too challenged TPLF/EPRDF hegemony at the regional and local levels. Even before a new constitution was adopted the parliament of the Somali Regional State consensually opted to undertake a referendum on self-determination alleging interference from the EPRDF-led federal government.⁴⁶ The ramifications of this were even greater federal control over the region and the return of the Ogaden National Liberation Front/ONL/F to guerilla struggle as the government removed the regional leaders from power insisting that self-determination should not be invoked by a political grouping but the entire nation. And other ethnic-based parties in the current Southern Nations and Nationalities Region also offered a challenge to the EPRDF at the local level leading to the withdrawal of some of these parties from the transition process of which the Sidama Liberation Front is one example.⁴⁷ These conversational actions and counteraction between the political forces of the period eventually ended in the TPLF’s unquestioned monopoly of power and coercive capacity while also foreclosing the possibility of the emergence of inclusive institutions and state. The nature of the post-settlement state and peacebuilding conversation was by and large shaped by the victory-based nature of the political settlement crafted in the post-1991 period.

At any rate, this gradual and yet steady transformation of the state and peacebuilding conversation from one based on consensus and mutual understanding to one characterised by intimidation, harassment, and arrest of even ethnonationalist opposition members became the hallmark of the subsequent process of governance. The nature of the conversation was largely the making of the EPRDF whereas the opposition adopted a self-defeating strategy. While the government continued to take measures that limited the possibility for open competition, the opposition both national and ethnic-based boycotted many of the elections intending to delegitimize the government. The process resulted in the steady consolidation of the ruling party and the persistent exclusion of rival forces. Hence, in the short term, the winning coalition in general and the TPLF, in particular, was the beneficiary of the evolving transformation of the state-building conversation. However, transforming this into long-term benefit would have entailed transforming an effective monopoly of violence into a legitimate monopoly through inculcating a habit of obedience to authority.⁴⁸ The TPLF’s/EPRDF’s dominance was too constrained to achieve such legitimate monopoly to the effect of which the nature of the political settlement had been a key factor. Due to their subordination, the parties with whom the TPLF formed alliances were seen as an instrument of TPLF`s control mechanism and were not able to garner popular legitimacy⁴⁹ and thus the government (and the state) has been contested throughout its more than two decades of existence. State organisations were largely captured by personal and partisan interests limiting the possibility for institutionalised political order.⁵⁰ Without strong institutions being established or strengthened, the political system was vulnerable to violence and its duration questionable.

In sum, though the initial processes of transition gave a cautious optimism that the state-building conversation would unfold in a direction that led to a peaceful state and society, it was a short-lived and misplaced optimism. The nature of the political settlement, more specifically the overwhelming military victory of a force whose past conduct remained intolerant of dissent make such an eventuality more likely. As will be shown in the next section, the nature of political settlement continued to hinder the possibility of peaceful state and peacebuilding conversation and that even when there seems to be some attempt, as was the case in the 2005 election, the opportunity was easily wasted at the peril of Ethiopians.

EPRDF/TPLF and other competing narratives

In the course of state and peacebuilding conversation, as noted earlier, competing narratives often associated with competing ethnic groups are propounded. The fact that the Ethiopian state acquired its present shape largely due to expansion by an indigenous elite generated controversy over Ethiopian history and the role of various groups thereof. Perhaps, the history of other African countries is rarely as controversial because Ethiopia’s state formation was achieved by a major ethnic group from inside the country. The acrimonious nature of Ethiopian history is a major part of the problem. Hence, imagining and working for the realisation of a common purpose and statehood inevitably involves looking back at the past. Far from addressing this, the emergence of radical political movements further added to the exclusionary currents as these movements deployed a range of delegitimizing discourses against one another that range from narrow nationalist, fascist, national chauvinist to reactionary force.⁵¹ Needless to say, the constituencies of these groups are divided on the basic principles of political life, namely the need to live together in the same country and the need to base political power on certain agreed principles. Because of this, some groups, mainly the ‘inheritors’ of ‘historic’ Ethiopia, attach high value to the territorial integrity of the country.⁵² On the other hand, many members of the newly incorporated people do not necessarily feel a strong attachment with the idea of the Ethiopian state. As such they do not necessarily oppose the restructuring of the Ethiopian state along ethnic lines. Indeed, for some within historic Ethiopia such as the Tigrayans, there has never been a historical contradiction between ‘being an Ethiopian and a Tigrayan’.

That said, historical Tigray stressed Ethiopian unity, territorial integrity and access to the Sea. However, the TPLF abandoned the core narratives of the region and people it claimed to represent in favour of an ideological narrative that supported Eritrean independence and the restructuring of the country along ethnic lines. While this might have ensured short-term dominance of the Ethiopian political landscape, it weakened the TPLF/EPRDF in the face of historically dominant narratives. However, for others, largely the Amhara, true to their historical narrative, ‘being Ethiopian’ comes first while for many in the South and the Oromo the sequence might be reversed. This is reflected in the nature of political organisations and their manifestos.⁵³ Almost all political organisations led by the Amhara elite were pan-Ethiopian and focus on the unity and territorial integrity of the country. On the other hand, the other ethnic groups particularly, the Oromo, continued to organise as Oromos with political objectives that range from self-determination to independence. While many from the Amhara ethnic group and others with inter-ethnic genealogy claim that the ethnic federal system is going too far, others, mainly from the Oromo, say it is too little. The problem lies in the nature and format of conversation and the way the leaders of the TPLF/EPRDF reacted.

Opposing groups and parties have been talking past each other instead of conversing with each other. When one considers what they have been doing as a ‘conversation’ in the sense deployed in this paper, it has never been of the genre needed for a durable state and peace. No one has paid attention to the narrative or perspective of the other. TPLF/EPRDF leaders were convinced that there was no alternative to the way they could have organised the country, while their opponents were categorically persuaded that there was nothing valuable in how the ruling party structured Ethiopia and ruled it since the 1990s. This has been reflected in the regime’s approach towards the two narratives it confronted.

The pan-Ethiopian narratives and actors are categorically labelled as ‘chauvinist’ that seek to bring back the century of ‘national’ oppression under feudal Ethiopia.⁵⁴ That cultural and linguistic issues that are the hallmark of ethno-nationalism could have been addressed through mechanisms other than granting every ethnic group the unrealisable sovereign rights of self-determination was ignored. Even worse, the fact that this arrangement has been victimising minorities who found themselves outside the region where their ethnicity was dominant was wished away even when thousands were displaced. Probably the most ominous feature of this labelling has been its total castigation of any group within or outside the party that speaks the concerns, grievances and ideals of the pan-Ethiopian constituencies as ‘chauvinists’.⁵⁵

On the other hand, those who raised the narratives of Oromo and other opposing ethno-nationalists arguing that the federal arrangement has done too little and therefore posed a maximalist demand were castigated as narrow. Narrowness, it was claimed, refers to individuals who pushed the idea of self-determination to its limit regardless of the concern of other groups.⁵⁶ In relation to the past, these individuals conflate national oppression perpetrated by the ruling elite with the mass from whom the ruling class emerged. It further exaggerates the nature of national oppression to claim that different groups could no longer live together. The problem, it should be noted, is not in the categorisation of some political groupings as narrow or chauvinist. The problem is that this labelling was applied for any dissidents of Oromo and Amhara origin regardless of the nature of the criticism individuals poses to the regime. Using this discursive label an Amhara who complained against unfair distribution of development benefits was labelled chauvinist whereas an Oromo who raised the same question is labelled narrow. Ultimately, both chauvinism and narrow-ism though ostensibly radically opposite, are declared to be driven by the same rent-seeking concern of using state power for personal enrichment.⁵⁷ Because of this, the TPLF/EPRDF declared that all alternatives outside EPRDF`s way are ways of destruction. In a training it gave in the aftermath of the 2005 election for university students it reflected this thinking when it claimed

… the choice for the Ethiopian people is simple and short. Either we choose the dependent [the rent seekers] way and lead the country to antidemocracy, atrocities and disintegration or resist dependence and lead the country on the course to peace, development and democracy. There is no other choice. The choice is a matter of survival. Because of this, no Ethiopian can hold a middle position or can be a neutral spectator. Either he/she will line up in support of peace, development and democracy or, knowingly or unknowingly, will become a force of dependence and destruction. Since the intellectual is a leader of the country, it has to choose the better option and identify its role thereof.

Thus students, who might have embraced the pan-Ethiopian and the ethnonationalist way other than the TPLF/EPRDF, were warned/begged not to join that rent-seeking camp that is anti-democratic, dependent and would lead the country down to disintegration. Once alternative narratives that sought to engage in constructive conversation for durable peace and state-building were silenced, it was forgone that the state-building conversation would be getting increasingly violent. Before narrating how the conversation indeed becomes increasingly violent, exclusionary and repressive, it would be important to comment on an attempt at foreclosing such possibility as manifested in the prelude to the 2005 election.

State and peace building conversation in the 2005 pre-election campaign

Following the 1998–2000, Ethio-Eritrea conflict, the TPLF experienced a bitter division among its top leadership leading to what the winning coalition eventually called ‘Renewal’. As part of the renewal, the regime declared that the main problem of the country was not a threat to sovereignty coming from Eritrea or some other neighbouring country: it was the lack of development and democracy.⁵⁸ Probably believing in this discourse but also, as admitted by Meles, assuming that the EPRDF would win even in a free and fair election,⁵⁹ the 2005 pre-election campaign was rendered one of the freest and fairer election campaigns with extensive pre-election debates and strict discipline on the part of the ruling party.⁶⁰ To its surprise, the opposition used the space to quickly organise, form coalitions, and disseminate their programme and run election campaigns aggressively. Two major parties with competing narratives were reflected in the pre-election campaign. The first, advocated by the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), campaigned for an individually based, territory oriented, civic, pan Ethiopian nationalism that primarily aimed to present Ethiopia as a collection of individual citizens with their entitlements and obligations.⁶¹ Parallel to this, it advocated scraping constitutional provisions relating to secession and government ownership of land.⁶² It effectively used discourse related to the secession of Eritrea, the unity and territorial integrity of the country, the divisive nature of the constitution, the loss of Assab port and its economic consequences to discredit the EPRDF.⁶³ The other major opposition view represented primarily by a loose coalition of ethnic-based parties called the Union of Ethiopian Democratic Forces (UEDF) blamed the EPRDF for failing to implement the constitution.⁶⁴ Election time conversations on narratives put the EPRDF on the defensive and shifted its narrative to economic growth.⁶⁵

Turn out on Election Day was reported to be the highest on record with significant support for the opposition including CUD’s landslide victory over the City Council of Addis Ababa. This widespread opposition gains inevitably led to a backlash resulting in post-election violence and a general trend of narrowing of the political space as the EPRDF introduced a series of repressive laws⁶⁶ and structures of control⁶⁷ and shifted its legitimation discourse more towards its economic achievements.⁶⁸ Thus, an attempt to chart a state and peacebuilding conversation peacefully and democratically ended in a fiasco. The EPRDF in general and the TPLF and its Tigrayan constituencies, in particular, were anxious about some of the remarks of the opposition that point against Tigrayan dominance of the government. One such unnecessary speech was Bedru Adem’s of the CUD where he said in one of the largest rallies in Addis that ‘we will send Woyane [the TPLF] back to where it comes from.⁶⁹ EPRDF in turn compared the CUD with the Interahamwe of Rwanda trying to get behind its Tigrayan constituency. Justified by such concerns the EPRDF decided to undertake all the repressive measures noted above while also subtly shifting its legitimacy discourse to economic development through the instrumentality of the developmental state, which makes the latter at once instrument of conversation and a development agenda.

The EPRDF claimed to adopt the developmental state model of South East Asia to change the extractive and predatory state into one that is enabling and developmental.⁷⁰ However, the regime also used the developmental state to justify its authoritarian grip on power, to relegate other narratives of statehood and by extension pressing questions of the country relating to political inclusion to the back burner, and to create an ethnically and politically skewed capitalist class.⁷¹ Adopting the developmental state discourse and its tenets and structuring Ethiopia as a multinational state was a move in the right direction. However, both could not be achieved without a breakthrough in bridging narratives and historical accounts. Introduced by an exclusionary state in a context of competing (ethnically inspired) narratives of statehood, the successes of the developmental state model were thus overshadowed by its failure.

The model indeed led to massive investment in infrastructure and agriculture and registered a robust and sustained rate of growth for well over a decade. By 2014 public investment increased by more than three times of the 1990s; road density increased to 60,000 km, well more than twice what it was in the late 1990s; and electricity generation increased close to four times the 2002 figure.⁷² Between 2009 and 2016 capital expenditure in pro-poor sectors of education, road, health, agriculture and water and sanitation was as high as 70 per cent of the government`s total spending.⁷³ On top of these successes, the government, pursuing the developmental state model, registered robust growth estimated by even critical observers to be at 5–7 per cent range while also reducing poverty from 45 per cent of the population in the early 2000s to 22 per cent in 2018. Since these investments and improvements were not brought by a political economy that allows sustainable financing and macroeconomic stability, they help little in bridging the competing narratives of statehood. A sustainable development financing would have required concerted domestic mobilisation of resources. However, the political economy of the country in which actors that controlled the modern economy (the endowments, government enterprises, and politically connected private businesses)⁷⁴ were either unwilling or unable to pay the necessary tax did not allow such mobilisation. The endowments were outside the tax system for a long period while benefiting from favourable allocation of credits, licences, bids, and access to foreign exchange. Though some state-owned enterprises were profitable, their profit was used to subsidise domestic consumer items, such as wheat and oil and therefore they had little left to contribute for investment.⁷⁵ The private sector that thrives in a context of political connection was not ready to pay the necessary tax either. The discourse of ‘developmental’ and ‘rent seeking’ business introduced as part of the model was grossly abused to marginalise uncaptured business creating a rigged system amounting to state capture.⁷⁶

Consequently, the principal means of development financing was government borrowing and printing money resulting in a skyrocketing debt of 29 billion dollars in 2018 and a yearly 30 per cent increase in the money supply which was 4 to 5 times higher than what is acceptable.⁷⁷ While borrowing would not have been, in principle, a problem so long as it is invested in well planned and executed projects, a government that was suspicious of intellectuals (according to EPRDF the intellectual class was unreliable and therefore should not be allowed to take leadership position)⁷⁸ was not willing to create a meritocratic bureaucracy. The increase in the money supply together with low agricultural productivity increased the rate of inflation undermining the gains in poverty reduction.

These shortcomings of the model combined with an extended structure of surveillance and repression undermined the utility of the developmental state model as an instrument for shifting the state-building conversation. Far from bridging the competing narratives of statehood as the EPRDF hoped for, economic development in unresolved statehood rather sharpened conflicts leading to a series of mass violent protests in 2016 in Amhara and Oromia region (these two regions constitute about 60 per cent of the country’s population and represent the two major competing narratives of statehood in Ethiopia). These protests not only signified a steady deterioration in the state and peacebuilding conversation of the country but also represented a new form of conversation evolving outside the structure of party politics that eventually transformed the political spectrum in the country. Hence, a closer albeit brief scrutiny of these conversations is in order.

Conversation through mass protest, diasporic movements and state of emergencies

What began as an Oromo protest against the Master Plan of Addis Ababa that encroached into the Oromia region expanded into protests aimed at defying and denying EPRDF the right to govern.⁷⁹ The mass protests and resultant one side state violence escalated in geography from Oromia region to Amhara region and part of the Southern Nations and Nationalities Region and in intensity from a handful of protestors that were largely peaceful to a mass movement that at times turned violent. What appeared to be distinctive about these series of mass protests was that there was little indication of an organised group leading it notwithstanding the government’s ascription of it to foreign powers and ‘extremist’ diaspora,⁸⁰ and the diasporic movements` presentation of themselves as the leaders of such movement.⁸¹ Overseas opposition groups indeed upped the propaganda and the agitation using conventional and social media to address the Amhara and Oromo youth to join and intensify the protest. Given the narrow political space inside the country, open debate and conversation were largely hinged. This made the conversations in the diaspora the most vocal.

While these protests were driven by discontent over exclusion and repression, the Ethiopian government swiftly declared a six-month state of emergency nationwide that restricted the rights of citizens and moved the responsibility and power of running security and stability affairs from the regular state institutions to a newly set-up Command Post. The result of this was the deinstitutionalisation of the semblance of functionality state institutions were imbued with. While the regime was not constrained by the legal system from violating peoples’ rights, the significance of this measure instilled a sense of fear, suppressing, the all-powerful and vocal narratives. The government also promised to undertake what it called ‘deep renewal’ in the area of good governance, improvement of the life of the youth, reform of state institutions, the appointment of non-party members to its cabinet and other related areas.⁸² However, these were too little too late. The discourse in the oppositions based in the diaspora, on the other hand, as exemplified in many of the conferences, was not about government reform: it was about smooth transition and the post-transition dispensation, an issue characterised by strong contestation.⁸³

What was striking about these diasporic conversations was that the issues of conversation that proved contentious at the early 1990s transition cropped up once again. The OLF still seems to waver between the goals of secession and achieving political domination in Ethiopia whereas the unity-based opposition, while advocating a federal system, still viewed ethnic federalism as the embodiment of Ethiopia’s problem.⁸⁴ However, the rapid change in Ethiopia in recent years has thrown the state-building conversation wide open, which makes it an apparent fact that actors’ competing narratives do not necessarily follow a peaceful and inclusive state and peacebuilding conversation even if the government opted for an accommodative path. On the one hand conversation between those who subscribed to the pan-Ethiopia and ethnonationalist narratives began to be manifested in a widespread ethnic pogrom. On the other, the resignation of Hailemariam Desalegn and the emergence of Abiy Ahmed (of Oromo Democratic Party) as Prime Minister of Ethiopia in April 2018, saw increasing contestation among the competing visions for Ethiopia, particularly between TPLF and the Federal Government and the outbreak of war in November 2020.

Conclusions

Given the nature of state formation, contradictory narratives, radicalised ideologies and divisive history, the single political practice that characterised Ethiopian politics has always remained to be the exclusion of rival elites, repression and control. As a result, the state and peacebuilding conversation of the country has never been inclusive, predictable and free of violence. The ultimate result of this has been the lack of institutionalisation of functioning state and durable peace without which the aspirations of Ethiopians` would not be realised. The victory-based nature of the political settlement that emerged from the fall of the military regime did not help this quest for institutionalisation. The ideology, narratives, organisational and mobilizational strategy of the winning coalition and rejectionist agendas of the opposition were all a hindrance against such a move.

State-building conversations in Ethiopia cannot be put on firm grounds unless and until the major competing groups agree on the need to live within the Ethiopian state and introduce a workable formula for how power is to be acquired and with what limit it should be exercised. There is a dire need to seek a breakthrough in bridging narratives and historical accounts. Peaceful conversations are required at the national level to hammer out and recognise intersections and contradictions surrounding the political history of the country and conflicting narratives. If such a course is blocked or not pursued by the stakeholders the breakdown of order and even the country appears threateningly possible, and as the outbreak of war in November 2020 has revealed, the pursuit of a dangerous and violent conversation could lead to a fragmented state of Ethiopia if the situation is not arrested.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Medhane Tadesse

Medhane Tadesse is a Visiting Professor at the African Leadership Centre, King’s College London; an academic specialist on peace and security issues in Africa; and an international expert on Security Sector Reform (SSR). He has served as advisor to governments and peace and security-related organisations and worked as Senior ASSN SSR advisor to the African Union (AU).

Alagaw Ababu Kifle

Alagaw Ababu Kifle is an Alumnus and Research Associate at the African Leadership Centre, and a PhD Candidate in Leadership and Security Studies, a Joint PhD Programme of University of Pretoria and King’s College London.

Dade Desta

Dade Desta is a journalist, senior public policy analyst, researcher, and author with a particular interest in the Horn of Africa. Desta worked for the Voice of America prior to joining the Ethiopia Strategic Studies Institute.

Notes

1. Balthasar, ‘Peace-building as State-building?’; Menocal, ‘State-building for Peace’.

2. Olonisakin et al, ‘Shifting Ideas of Sustainable Peace’.

3. Call, ‘Building State’.

4. Menocal, ‘State-building for Sustainable’.

5. Hameiri, Regulating Statehood.

6. Olonisakin et al, ‘Shifting Ideas of Sustainable Peace’, 9.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid., 11

11. Fisha, ‘The Challenge of Building’.

12. Messay, ‘Minilik and Southern Ethiopia’.

13. Keller, ‘Making and Remaking State’.

14. Jamma, ‘The Politics of Land Tenure’.

15. Markakis, Ethiopia.

16. Ibid.

17. Kolakowski, Main currents of Marxism .

18. Ibid.

19. Gebru, The Ethiopian Revolution.

20. Clapham, Haile Selassie’s Government.

21. Markakis, Ethiopia.

22. Kolakowski, Main currents of Marxism.

23. Tiruneh, The Ethiopian Revolution. While the EPRP started an urban guerilla fighting against the Derg leading to the Red Terror campaign as a counter reaction, the AESM was giving what it called critical support for the Derg. The AESM itself was eventually decimated by the Derg when the former began to raise objection against the policy measures of the latter.

24. Kolakowski, Main currents of Marxism.

25. Markakis, Ethiopia.

26. Gebru, The Ethiopian Revolution.

27. Ibid.

28. Berhe, A Political History of.

29. Ibid. The TPLF, in its drive to become the only force in Tigray had also engaged in an intense fighting and finally defeated the Ethiopian Democratic Union (the only party that was non-Marxist). Though the relation between the TPLF and other ethnic based movements in general and the Oromo Liberation Front in particular had for the most part been characterised by limited interactions, it was not cordial either. It has to also be noted that none of these fronts follow a democratic procedure in resolving difference within them.

30. Isaw, The Making of EPDM.

31. Berhe, A political history of.

32. Ibid.

33. Berhanu, ‘Ethiopia Elect’.

34. Markakis, Ethiopia.

35. Tesfaye, ‘Political Power’.

36. Tuso, ‘Ethiopia’.

37. Vaughan, ‘ Addis Ababa Transitional’.

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid

40. EPRDF, Abiyotawi democracy.

41. Abraham, ‘Ethnicity and Dilemmas of’.

42. AAPO, ‘Press Conference’, 26 September 1994.

43. Vaughan, ‘The Addis Ababa Transitional’.

44. Ottaway, ‘The Ethiopian Transition’.

45. Henze, ‘Conversations with Meles Zenawi’.

46. Samatar, ‘Ethiopian Federalism’.

47. Gbremedhin, ‘Election’.

48. Wulf, ‘Reconstructing the Public’.

49. Gudina, ‘Party Politics’.

50. Hassan, ‘Corruption, State Capture’.

51. Berhe, A Political History of; Tiruneh, The Ethiopian Revolution.

52. Meckonnen, ‘Who is Amhara?’.

53. The fate of AAPO’s leader Professor Asrat Woldeyes shows how the EPRDF was determined to incapacitate centrist forces.

54. EPRDF, Abiyotawi Democracy.

55. This was an issue many former officials raised when one of the authors raise the issues after a reform was attempted in 2018. They viewed both the idea of chauvinism and narrowism as a weapon of delegitimizing an otherwise legitimate question not necessarily because the way these concepts were defined was problematic but because they were applied to entrench a certain narrative.

56. Ibid.

57. EPRDF, Yedimkracy sire`at Ginbata.

58. Ministry of Information, The Foreign Policy.

59. EPRDF, Ehadig.

60. Leyon, ‘The Ethiopian Election’.

61. Nega, The Dawning of Liberty.

62. FDRE. Constitution.

63. Smith, ‘Implications of’.

64. Berhanu, ‘Party Politics’.

65. Gill, Famine and Foreigners.

66. This includes Freedom of the Mass Media and Access to Information Proclamation; The Revised political parties Registration Proclamation; Anti-Terrorism Proclamation; and Charities and Societies Proclamation.

67. Tronvoll, ‘The Ethiopian 2010 Federal’.

68. World Bank, 4th Ethiopia Economic Update; Bach, ‘Abyotawi Democracy’.

69. Daniel, ‘A look at Bereket’.

70. Medhane, ‘Meles Zenawi’.

71. Tronvoll, ‘The Ethiopian 2010 Federal’.

72. WB, Ethiopia`s Great Run.

73. OECD, Rural Development.

74. Berhanu, ‘Political Parties’.

75. Geda, ‘Democraciyawe’.

76. Informal conversation with a government official.

77. Geda, ‘Democraciyawe’.

78. EPRDF, Yetehadiso Medirek.

79. The latest of this being the loss of 50–100 lives (according to government report) from the stampede at the Irecha (annual Oromo cultural and religious ritual festivity) on 22 December 2016

80. Aljazeera news, ‘Ethiopia Declares’.

81. VOA Amharic news, 31 October 2016

82. Ethiopian Prime Mister Speech to the parliament, 10 October 2016.

83. Vision Ethiopia. 2016. ‘Third Conference’.

84. Lata. 31 July 2016.