The tragedies of a state dominated political economy: shared vices among the imperial, Derg, and EPRDF regimes of Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

Conventional accounts of the Ethiopian political economy either neglect the combined effects of shared political vices across various regimes or treat them separately. This essay, based on informed analytical tools of power and property, tends to explore the basic anatomy of the Ethiopian political economy by exploring the shared vices across the three regimes in Ethiopia: Last Empire, first republic and second republic. Seen in this light, the study identified that, though different regimes come up with varied official policy statements and appear to be better than the other, the empirical realities speak of an opposite story. In shaping the nature, structure, power, and principle of economic development, the three governments have been taking a draconian position, suppressing the private sectors and intervening in the rural economy exploitatively. The shared vices of state domination overall development matters have brought the society under the converging tragedies of poverty, Neo-Malthusian crisis, migration, de-peasanization through dispossession and displacement. Based on this, the study argues that people have to own development narratives and ultimate decision-making power to better design the development skeleton and to guarantee themselves a positive teleological development discourse.

KEYWORDS:

• Development
• government
• political economy
• power
• property

1. Introduction

Gündoǧan (2013) noted that in the margins of the political economy, a state’s attempts to accumulate an enclosed wealth and power could not be meticulously differentiated from the temptation to destroy the material foundation of the society. The intersection of power and property characterizes the theorems through which state attempts to generate, accumulate and sustain power and property at the expense of the society. The history of the human political economy is the history of property and power.

Ethiopia, with a long history of dynastic power and property centralization, is no exception in this regard. There exist, densely and thickly, a series of investigations and scholarly works that explain the political economy of the country. However, they treated the country’s development course as separate in time and space. However, property and power that is one of the oldest but renewed fields of political economy helps to see historical material foundations of state-society relations in a simple and integrated manner, pointing the shared vices and historical extensions. Feudalism, land enclosure, fetish capitalism, and renewed feudalism are some of the themes that characterize the Ethiopian political economy (Markakis 2011; Makki 2012; Habtamu 2017). Regarding the core–periphery development structures, dispossessing the smallholder peasants, allying with foreign capitalist economic expropriators, and forming politically induced patrimonial resource distribution traditions make Ethiopian regimes qualify as ‘development pirates’.

This study, based on an existing work but with a different approach, attempts to mine and historicize the state-society material relations as interrelated ones. Hence, the basic argument is that the three Ethiopian regimes, imperial, Derg, and EPRDF¹ are wombs and offspring of one another as far as the accumulation of property and building of power is concerned. In this light, the study undertakes a comparative analysis based on the informed postulations of property and power. The study begins from the period of Haile Selassie, owing to the fact that the country began to experience an organized policy framework for development at this period (Markakis 2011). The governments’ unwavering anti-Kantian attempt at building its material accumulation, using different policies, concessions, and presumptions, has been consistently stimulating a strong wave of resistance from the Ethiopian society. Thus, this study shows how the three regimes have been making the society vulnerable to poverty and dispossession and accumulating property and power.

2. Power and property: conceptual frameworks

Makki (2012) analyzed the macro and microelements of power and property in the context of state and peasants in Ethiopia. His study provides an important background to expand the macro-analysis of the intersection between power and property in the three consecutive regimes of Ethiopia. The political economy of Ethiopia involves three spheres in which the intersection of power and property is comprehendible.

In developing countries, particularly in Ethiopia, where the demographic context is agrarian, the political economy largely rests on the rural economy. Here, governing regimes are agitated to draw their control, legitimacy, and bargaining power in the rural society (Rahmato 2008). In the Ethiopian context, the peasant and state have a very close contact developed by the public officials whose basic motto, fighting an ideology, and legitimacy depend on the historicization of the peasant economy (Makki 2012). Accordingly, regimes try to control over the rural economic outputs in two contradictory ways: generating public consent through the development of policies, legal structures, and organizational platforms and disproving rural resistance through harsh political measures that destroy the livelihood bases of the society (Clapham 1988).

The second major sphere is the interaction of government and non-governmental actors. The legitimacy of public officials is highly disputed by non-governmental actors in Ethiopia. For this, the government responds with various mechanisms. Governing officials either manipulate and indirectly own non-governmental actors or took harsh measures against them legally and politically to close the space for any action (Donald and Donham 1992). This enables them to have the monopoly of decision-making in controlling the property/material aspects of the society to build political legitimacy.

The third basic sphere is the state’s response to natural and human catastrophes. In countries, like Ethiopia, where economic programs are largely backward, the society is vulnerable to economic problems. This is a threat to the survival of regimes. Hence, the government’s response is twofold. First, governing bodies ignore such emergencies for the sake of not losing the international image and to create and strengthen public demand for the government’s action that brings the community towards them (Gebresenbet 2015). The second government response is the manipulation of emergency programs to weaken the society’s economic capacity to develop the treasury of the state (Rahmato 1993, 2008). The intersection of the three processes discussed above creates a valley between state and society. This study is designed to explore the complementary political economy dimensions among the three regimes of Ethiopia under the three themes discussed in this section. Thus, the study is a synthesis of secondary materials.

3. Imperial era

3.1. Imperial domination of private development actors

After the total demise of the Italian occupation with the help of the British forces, the imperial regime was very much concerned with securing absolute power and stabilizing the country’s ungoverned territories rather than focusing on the economy of the rural community. The government’s intention was dominating the economic process, in collaboration with foreign forces (Eshetu 2004).

This unsettled political situation had led the country in the path of a complex economic crisis. Consequently, demand for foreign support had become a major trend, thereby opening the space for foreign states and private companies. The agreements signed with foreign actors favored the foreign companies. Eshetu (2004) provided a note of the role of the United States of America (USA).

The decline of the British influence was hand in hand with the growth of relations between Ethiopia and the USA, relations that were to be economically more meaningful over the long haul. The American advisory group recommended the import substitution strategy. However, little was to materialize out of this scheme. Based largely on the work of the technical mission, the Ethiopian government put in a request or a loan of $130, 088, and 870 in January 1948. Nevertheless, the request did not fall on responsive ears.

The process opened the way for the government to accumulate wealth and become powerful. The period of 1950 had been coalesced by the emergence of the political and economic crises of domestic and international ones. Domestically, policy proposals do not reflect grassroots participation, development assistance incorporates external motives, and land eviction and distortion of demographic landscapes became rampant. Henceforth, the government was opening the space for foreign private companies while closing the legal and institutional space for the domestic private actors (Markakis and Nega 1986). This preferential treatment of the foreign capitalist actors ushered in different fashions of restrictions upon the domestic private development actors.

Apart from giving a privileged legal provision for foreign companies, the emperor was exercising different forms of restrictions on the actions of non-governmental actors (Tibebu 1995). Until 1962, the Ethiopian private sectors were forbidden from establishing trade unions, which could otherwise became strong property holders (Markakis and Nega 1986). Since most of the labor forces in Ethiopia were unskilled and uneducated, they were easily victimized and denied the opportunity to improve their skills and enjoy better wages (Eshetu 2004). There was no minimum labor wage, which rose above 1.25 Ethiopian Birr, particularly in Addis Ababa City (Markakis and Nega 1986). The foreign companies were free to enter into the country without any requirement to train, empower, and customize in their projects (Rahmato 2008). The additional burden was that trade unions had not enjoyed legal privilege until 1962 (Girma 1987). Besides, the government began to take harsh extra-judicial measures.

Though the government ruled out any form of organization to block resistance to the existing economic practices, the Confederation of Ethiopian Labor Unions (CELU) was established with more than 50,000 members. However, the government banned any form of strikes and quasi-insurrections and responded to workers’ actions physically (Rahmato 2008). The problem was that while the manufacturing production grew by 11.1 percent in the 1960s with the government’s what the International Labor Organization termed ‘highly mechanized and extremely capital intensive’ mechanisms, the labor force experienced a reverse process (Markakis 2011). The country suffered from an unemployment crisis. The regime was not worried about such tragic circumstances, for its major objective was power consolidation at the expense of the local actors, considered as enemies of the imperial throne.

The decline of labor absorption in the industry, compounded by the rise of retail price index, rise of the country’s petroleum bill, and expansion of domestic drought, escalated the hostility between the government and non-governmental actors, with the former trying to protect its capital and taking radical military measures against the latter (Rahmato 1993). Besides, the government’s declining revenue caused by the aforementioned factors, the closing of the Suez Canal, the decline of the price of coffee, and the rise of debt servicing to 15.8 in 1968 compelled the government to further engage in extrajudicial and repressive actions against the petty bourgeoisie and others actors (Markakis and Nega 1986).

The imperial regime introduced the three five year plans, which created a pyramid of wealth and power, with the state at the top. The second five-year plan emphasized on private sector development, but what was more disappointing was the lack of achievement of the targets. One of the major factors was that the first and second five-year plans gave limited emphasis on the agricultural sector where the potential for privatization and economic development was deeply embedded (Eshetu 2004). The third five-year plan, in contrast to the earlier two five year plans, emphasized on agricultural sectors. Nevertheless, the achievements were no different from the other five-year plans. Generally, both in the first and second five-year plans, only 14 and 21 percent of the government budget was allocated to the agricultural economy (Robinson and Yamazaki 1986).

3.2. The state and the peasants: involuntary and coercive intervention in rural life

The rift between the regime and society was also marked by the existence of policymaking and articulation, which was a state-dominated one. The country’s what Timer calls ‘Jump Strategy’ of economic development programs had been a source of failed development courses (Zerihun, Oosthuizen, and Schalkwyk 2002). The Imperial regime’s development emphasis neglected the smallholder farmers.

The belts of the country’s sovereignty, ‘last frontiers’, suffered a state-mediated capitalist intrusion. Rather than providing a working framework for sound development projects, the government had established large tracts of land deals along with the foreign groups (Makki 2012). The byproducts of such strategies were the tragedies of dispossession, eviction, exclusion, and exploitation of the lowland settlers that never realized the light of becoming ecological and social citizens both in the agricultural and non-agricultural domains. As a result, such provinces became the exploitation zones of foreign companies, making them vulnerable (Rahmato 1993). This created a large number of tenants in the various parts of the country.

Markakis and Nega (1986) explained how the peasants fled out of their land, economic opportunity, and market possibilities and became objects of the global market needs. The regime exerted little effort of its own to promote agricultural development. However, it did consider commercialization in agriculture desirable and thought it essential for this purpose ‘to induce more foreign private investment and import the needed managerial skills (Ministry of Planning and Development 1968).

Regarding the Southeastern region where land was abundant, the capitalist intrusion of the regime and foreign companies was thick. In the first place, the regime claimed all the pastoral lands (Markakis and Nega 1986). Consequently, the possibility of agro-industrial development was absent, for these people were incapable of guarding their source of livelihood, and exposed to the capitalist pirates (Markakis and Nega 1986). People around the Awash River, Gile (Oromo pastoralists) were evicted, experienced brutal labor exploitation, disintegrated, and even virtually disappeared as a group because of the capitalist intrusion coming from various countries: the Netherlands, Israel, Italian firms, and Indian investors. The following note provides evidence.

Ali Mira and his chiefs were tricked by the accumulation of large wealth; while the Afar depend on their grazing land for subsistence and even for future privatization development. One-third of their land come under the capitalist horrors; another tragedy was also the fact that the Afar were forced to congregate on less fertile land, with overpopulation and, overgrazing as a result; lastly, disposed and betrayed by their local chiefs and leaders, the Afar were doomed when drought hit the region in 1973. (Bondestam 1974)

In addition to this, the Arsi farmers also suffered. Initially, the government and the Swedish government argued that the Chillao Agricultural Development Unit (CADU) would help the local farmers to engage in commercialized agriculture. The following quote provides a clear explanation of the tragedies of comprehensive package projects and large-scale farming on the rural society.

In four years, the CADU area had 126 farmers, with 184 tractors and 36 combines, cultivating 10 percent of the landed area. However, about 60 percent of the beneficiaries of the CADU were outsiders who had come to cash on the green revolution. Land prices and rents rose dramatically, and tenants were evicted at a rapidly increasing rate. The primary beneficiaries were traders, landlords and local chiefs. Displaced tenants seldom moved out of the district, but usually settled on surrounding heights keeping watch on their lost land like birds startled out of their nest. (Markakis and Nega 1986)

In the 1960s and early 1970s, international companies acquired land for cotton, banana and sugarcane plantations in the Awash Valley in a joint venture with the state to boost export-oriented agricultural production. The Tendaho Cotton Plantation, owned by the British firm Mitchell Cotts, and the Wonji Sugar Plantation, which in turn was owned by the Dutch company HVA, were established in the 1960s and received 52,370 hectares of land. Over 20,000 Afar and Karayu pastoralists were displaced from their ancestral land shortly before the 1974 revolution. (Regassa and Korf 2018)

Therefore, due to the government’s unreasonable laissez-faire for foreign companies, the domestic community suffered a lot.

3.3. Government’s response to emergency: ignorance and manipulation programs

The government’s deliberate ignorance of famine that claimed the lives of 200,000 people was the peak of the devilishness of the regime (Girma 1987). Whether the intervention of the exploitative foreign companies, the eviction of peasants or the conversion of landed peasants into slaves of capitalist modes of production are the results of regime domination upon the economy. Such combined forces sharpened the ego of the imperial regime to neglect the deadly catastrophes that took the lives of many people.

The regime’s response to the deadly disasters, such as drought, famine, and low level of productivity was limited. Though the government understood the severity of the drought by mid-1973, it precluded any form of intervention by the outside multilateral donors (Rahmato 1993). Thus, the government established private and quite limited provision of food aid and other donations by the World Food Program, the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) (Girma 1987). However, reports showed that one million people were at risk of starvation in the Wollo and Tigray provinces.

A report prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization revealed the vulnerability of the people in Tigray and Wollo provinces to drought and famine (Rahmato 1993). However, the government prevented the intervention of global donors, withheld large amounts of grain in storage, and exported some of the grain to the global market (Regassa and Korf 2018). This was to preserve the global political legitimacy of the emperor by strongly censoring the Medias. Even when the starving people began to march towards the capital, the government responded with blocking roads, imposing additional tax burdens, and shooting of eight students who demonstrated opposing officials’ undemocratic response to the impending drought (Markakis and Nega 1986).

When the principle of ignoring emergencies failed to work, the emperor turned to the second option of manipulating emergency programs. The government’s approach to addressing the drought and famine was done after the problem of famine was exposed to the global society, and thus to maintain the legitimacy of the emperor (Regassa and Korf 2018). Though relief workers, such as Ethiopian Red Cross Society, were set up to cater from 60,000 victims, 200,000 had already died of starvation, malnutrition, and disease (Girma 1987). Besides, 80 percent of the crop was lost due to the government’s reluctance to support the rural community. Thus, the government was against the rural community.

4. The first republic: the Derg regime, 1974–1991

4.1. State suppression of non-governmental development agents

As Crummey (2000) explained, the change from empire to the republic- social change as linear and progressive- brought hierarchy and difference into a stable relationship. Virtually, the Derg regime experienced intense political turmoil both from the domestic and international events, thereby relinquishing all government attention and development engagements to global capitalism. The intensifying political upheavals that were challenging the legitimacy and survival of the Derg Junta had greatly influenced the courses of development projects. The economic policies of the Derg regime, such as the nationalization of various means of production were a barrier to all-inclusive development. The land policy, rather than enabling the peasants to have control over the geometry of property ownership, made them more dependent and ineffective, thereby precluding them from accelerating their economic performance (Markakis 2011). As a result, the military junta diverted the revolutionary talk and the country moved into another form of crisis (Abera 2016). Democratically established and autonomous peasant associations were restricted because the Derg regime filled the key positions of peasant associations by its affiliates. Then, the All-Ethiopian Peasant Association (AEPA) emerged and took the responsibility to implement the political and economic goals of Derg (Lefort 1983). Peasant associations took the mandate to undertake villagization programs, resettlement programs, control of the public property, and establishment of judicial tribunals under the instructions of the military officials (Girma 1987).

Apart from openly discriminating against the non-governmental actors, the macro and micro decision-making processes on the social, economic, and political affairs were done by the military junta affiliates and appointees (Ottaway 1977). The decision-making processes were centralized. The military junta alone did plenary meetings, orders, and approvals on economic plans and political decisions. The role of the state appointees was simply to approve without discussing and reflecting upon draft proposals (Turner 1986). Therefore, the ministers, economic experts, and plain soldier members participated only nominally in all decision-making processes.

4.2. State monopoly of peasants’ means of production

The land redistribution program far from delegitimizing the historical land dispossession problems, as it appears in its motto, had brought the government as a strong holder of all the means of production under a new form of rubric. Though the land policy was introduced to leap the private sector forward, the economics of the implementation of land policy and the very intentions behind the policy proposals were designed to curtail any form of political opposition.

The tone of the peasant associations in the southern part of the country was quite contrary to the political goals of the military regime. The campaigners sent by the government for rural development began to empower the peasants for self-governance, making them targets of harsh government measures (Turner 1986). Besides, in the last frontiers of the country, particularly in Afar, the local leaders were dissatisfied with the government’s action. This was owing to the government’s denial of their possessory rights over land. The campaigners organized opposition in Afar, recruiting a group of landless tribesmen and orienting the consciousness of Ali Mira, the Afar ruler, against the regime. The question of the local tribesmen and Ali Mira blew the Military junta. Though Ali Mira got an invitation for talks in Addis Ababa, he refused and faced a military incursion in his territory, finally fleeing to Djibouti (Markakis and Nega 1986).

The technological inputs essential to maximize the economic success of the private sectors were monopolized by the military regime, thereby restricting access to such inputs very limited. Even though their performance was limited, in the 1980s, state farms took 80 percent of the agricultural credit, 82 percent of fertilizer imports, and 73 percent of the improved seeds. Additionally, commodities of such state farms were priced 20–25 percent higher than the private farms’ (Girma 1987). This made private farmers ineffective and inefficient whereas the state farms dominant with no significant impact in the economy except assisting the regime to survive their power. The targeted plans of the state farms were never met. For example, in 1982, 2,900,000 quintals of crops were designed to be produced. However, one-half of this was produced (Markakis and Nega 1986). The state farms were also allowed to have privileges in the market. The government intervened in the market to set the price, restrict licensing, and establish public marketing agencies and Agricultural Marketing Corporation (AMC). AMC compelled the peasants in Gojjam, Balle, Gonder, Arssi, Shewa, Wellega, and Wollo to sell their products at government prices (Girma 1987). This intervention in the market enabled the government to resell the products at profit and support its military, civil service, and bureaucracy while discouraging the peasants from producing much and withdrawing the cooperative farm programs (Eshetu 2004).

Though the military juntas had tried to introduce various development campaigns through the mobilization of different selected experts, the rationalizing dynamics of development programs were not only ill-conceived ones but also politically oriented. The military junta and its affiliates dominated the bureaucratic system necessary to support and transform the development process. Of the 198 central committee members of the Workers Party of Ethiopia (WPE), 116 were military officers, which constitute half of the committee (Girma 1987). The rest that are 25 members represented peasant associations, women associations, trade unions, and youth associations (Markakis and Nega 1986). This brought the decision-making process under the will of the military junta.

A very violent wave of offensive measures was taken by the Derg juntas to create a political recipe and remain in power. The existing organizations, associations, and socialist advocators were bestowed and replaced with the government favored dysfunctional militant units. Apart from direct exclusion, the private sectors were disconnected from the country’s economy through the financial system, which was under the monopoly of the Derg regime. Eshetu (2004) explained this as follows:

The past lending practice of the country's financial institutions has been discriminatory towards private investors. The major development-lending agency, the Agricultural and Industrial Development Bank, concentrated most of its loans on the state sector, the share of the private sector being negligible. Thus, private entrepreneurs have had to rely on their resources or non-bank sources of finance for both their start-up and working capital needs.

4.3. Emergency management: legitimization and manipulation

The other fundamental political ontology that characterized the political economy was the government’s anti-territorial and anti-functional decentralization policies. Neither the political decision-making nor the bureaucratic processes were shared across the country, precluding any form of move and step towards collective property and collective action (Eshetu 2004; Dorosh and Rashid 2012).

Attempts that were made to address the recurrent famines, insecurity problems, agricultural productivity declines, balance of payment declines, inflationary economic realities and declining per capita income were largely reactionary, inadequately researched, and exclusive of the responsible stakeholders. Eshetu (2004) explained that the country, partly due to lack of attention for and the suppression of private sectors, had experienced a massive economic downturn.

The government’s response to the deepening economic crisis in the 1980s in the time of alarming resurgence and escalating insecurity both from domestic and external actors was improper. Eshetu (2004) explained how the government’s lack of appropriate policy response to increasing economic decline brought domestic and external problems.

The deepening crisis brought forth internal and external calls for economic policy reform. But because of the underlying ideological motivation of the policies, the government was reluctant to make timely responses. In addition, the economic problems kept on compounding. The shift in East–West relations, growing policy conditionality pressure applied by the donor community for external assistance and loans, the intensification of the war and a series of military reversals, as well as a growing crisis of confidence on the part of the populace finally acted in concert to nudge the government towards reform.

Though measures and suggestions were made in the Ninth Plenum of the central committee in November 1988, the measures taken were largely ill-conceived ones. The economic realities were not well considered. The government was rather obsessed with the means of consolidating its power over the economic production system (Eshetu 2004; Poster 2012). Besides, guerilla fighting was intensifying. Unfortunately, the government, rather than providing policy and institutional structure for the flourishing of the private sector and acquisition of legitimacy, had been repeating mistakes.

Finally, towards the end of its era, the Derg regime was forced to introduce some economic measures that, at least in principle, incorporated modest improvements. However, these policy orientations were not implemented as the Derg regime was facing the last hours of opposition and introduced the policies themselves involuntarily to consume the mounting political crisis. Eshetu (2004) explained that the international and internal instability eroded the ability of the government to maximize its political economy.

The government’s approach and economic programs towards creating a sustainable and environmentally resilient economy were weak. Rather, the government was concerned more with building its muscle through cooperativization, villagization, and resettlement programs than empowering the rural society. Scholars, including Sepehen, argued that the country suffered famine between 1983 and 1986 due to the government’s aggressive and non-consented implementation of socialist policies that were unsuitable to the existing scenario (Girma 1987). On account of the regime’s poor governance capacity, the international community, including the USA, withheld assistance to address hunger and poverty. Thus, aid was cut from 8, 172 metric tons in 1982 to zero in 1984 though millions were at risk (Eshetu 2004). Because of the government’s undemocratic governance, the famine took the lives of 300,000 people in 1984 (Girma 1987). The government had limited infrastructural capacity to address hunger. By 1985, more than 20 percent of the 40 million populations were at risk (Turner 1986).

The resettlement program taken by the Derg regime carried some political purposes. Since opposition guerilla forces controlled the areas affected by drought, the Derg made an aggressive resettlement program to depopulate and cool the mounting opposition (Girma 1987). Because of this, the government was not concerned with developing alternative strategies of rehabilitating the peasants to use their land and property effectively (Turner 1986). The depopulation activity suffered from insufficient research and rehabilitation programs (Ottaway 1977). Therefore, the resettlement program resulted in deaths, human rights violations, and conflict. Tens of thousands of people died and many more others fled to Sudan (Girma 1987).

5. The post-1991: an age of systematic dispossession of a polyglot community

5.1. Party control of non-governmental actors: monopoly and restriction

In 1991, a coalition of forces came to power claiming to provide dignity for a polyglot community. A constitutional doctrine was brought to depart the preceding regimes. Through the introduction of market capitalism, partnership with outside investors, land lease law and certification, the regime managed to scale up the economy and foreign investment figures (Jemma 2001). However, the regime monopolized the economic system in two basic ways: the control of private actors and the establishment of a giant party owned business entities.

One of the ways the EPRDF regime used to build its political and property vessel was the manipulation of the state budget for party members. This was done in many circumstances through the establishment of state businesses, which enjoy a privileged status than those companies established by ordinary citizens. Abegaz (2013) summarized this as follows.

Other mechanisms used to build up party assets included manipulating the state budget to subsidize party-owned enterprises (through overpricing, reselling stolen assets, paying party officers from state budget, and the like); giving no-bid public procurement and infrastructural contracts to party enterprises; relying on less conspicuous or even bogus subsidiaries to escape legislative scrutiny, and establishing joint ventures with state and private enterprises.

There are also different party-affiliated companies that monopolize the economic system. This process is facilitated by the EPRDF regime’s preferential treatment based on political and economic grounds. MIDROC company, owned by Sheik Mohamed Hussein Ali al-Amoudi, enjoyed preferential party support and had a net worth of $10 billion (Makki 2012). This company alone controls 50 companies that collectively capture over $1 billion in investment. Abegaz (2013) noted that the four parties that formed the EPRDF front have their own party business.

The four constitute the heart of the EPRDF conglomerates that also include for-profit entities owned or co-owned by allied regional elites, and politically connected associations – aptly called para-NGOs. The Endowment Fund for the Rehabilitation of Tigray (EFFORT or Tirit), owned by the TPLF (Tigray) and formally established in 1995, is by far the biggest conglomerate (known locally as endowment) in terms of assets, number of subsidiaries, sectoral coverage and supra-regional orientation. The junior partners of the EPRDF coalition also own for-profit companies of lesser importance, again overseen by holding companies registered as endowments. They are Endeavour (Tiret) of ANDM² (Amhara), Tumsa Endowment (formerly Dinsho) controlled by OPDO³ (Oromiya), and Wondo Group controlled by SEPDM⁴ (Southern). SEPDM, the weakest of the four, has yet to establish a central directorate to coordinate its interlocked companies.

Though the EPRDF regime introduced and tried to implement it, the state-private actors’ interface does not allow cooperation. Clapham (2018) provided a note of how the political economy experienced a closed governance system and suppressed the private actors.

The internal operation of the regime is characteristically byzantine, like that of all Ethiopian governments before it, and although there is an evident factional politics, of a kind that is likewise characteristic of closed governance structures, it is not at all clear how, or to what extent, political agendas arising from the base can be transmitted to central decision-making level … Despite the regime’s formal recognition of the need for the private sector to assume a dynamic role in expanding the economy, its underlying attitudes remain instinctively statist, and correspondingly suspicious of private businesses, which are subject to an uncertain regulatory environment and readily targeted as ‘rent-seekers’.

The major motive of labeling the private actors as rent-seekers has been to effectively control them and stave of them from any form of engagement in the political aspects of the country.

5.2. Manipulative state intervention in the rural community

The other crucial vice shared by the EPRDF regime with the preceding regimes is the intervention in the peripheries. The regime with its presumption that the last frontiers are empty lands waiting for the redemptive role of the state has ruthlessly intervened in the ecology of the local residents (Logan & Terje 2015). This harsh encroachment into these belts of the state in concession with the giant global companies threatened the very existence of the society. Rahmato (2014) documented the scale of dispossession that large-scale sugar companies, from the 1990s to 2012, had created on the peasants in South Omo, western Oromiya, Gambella, and Benishangul. More than 3 million hectares of land was leased out. He also noted that government-sponsored selling of land brought a parallel process of degeneration of the ecological, biodiversity, and ecosystem aspects of the livelihood of the society, and abuse of human rights of the people through neo-Dergian resettlement and villagization programs (Rahmato 2008).

The 1995 constitution and the Rural Land Proclamation provided shelter for the regime. It goes like this: Land is the common property of the Ethiopian nations, nationalities, and peoples (FDRE 1995, Article 40(3)). A smallholder whose land is expropriated for public activities is compensated in three forms, property situating on the land, the permanent improvement made on the land and displacement compensation (FDRE⁵, Article 40(8); Federal Rural Land Proclamation, Article 7 and 8). Nonetheless, something is still mysterious. What about the use of land? The taking of land entitlement by the peasants is the most powerful resource left unanswered. In addressing this concern, Tura (2017) claimed that laws that justify land titling for the community are flawed and incomplete which is manipulated by the government to maximize its power.

5.3. Emergency management strategies as a means of legitimization

Quite contradictory to the claimed fast-growing gross domestic product (GDP), the problems of food insecurity, drought, famine, and neo-Malthusian deaths have been intensifying, exposing the indifference and also the draconian position of the government (Prášková 2018). Coercive resettlement of the poor has been made invisible to the world through a state-dominated media, institutional framework, and criminalization of any form of authenticated scientific programs about the society (Hammond 2008). This violates the basic useful postulates of Kant and Lock who stated that property is the fundamental building block of human survival, dignity, and welfare (Makki 2012). Hammond (2008) has also found out that the government has been systematically utilizing natural and human-made calamities as a means of making the vulnerable more vulnerable, the hungry more hungry, and the migrant more migrant. This has been done through alienating the society from its material foundation to firmly establish the property and power of the state. Migration, poverty, and famine have been used to rearrange the relationship between state and society. Though attempts have been made to avert famine cycles and bring international collaboration, there have been embarrassing temptations by the public bodies to hide information and provide under-response, thereby sustaining an existing impoverishing phenomenon (Hammond and Maxwell 2002). The society has been alienated from engaging in development decision-making and ownership to recover its social and environmental ecology. Justice and public duty have been neglected opposite to what Kant and Lock suggested.

Habtamu (2017) noted that the post-1991 EPRDF regime is a mix of an ideological theory of imperial and Derg, capitalism and socialism, though many scholars are critical of whether the preceding two regimes were really following those ideologies consistently. All the episodic policy shifts made by the government are supported with seemingly benign justification; nevertheless, the tragedies brought on the livelihood of the society are shocking. Considering the gap between policy proposals and implementation, it is logical to characterize the act of the government as a denial of ownership and control of property by the society and weakening of the power of the society (Tables 1–4).

Table 1. Manufacturing industry growth and labor absorption in the 1960s.

Year	Gross value of production in Ethiopian birr	Growth in %	Labor force	Growth in %
1961	114, 412		28, 314
1962	128, 880	12.6	32, 584	15.0
1963	156, 894	21.7	33, 553	0.3
1964	219, 894	40.1	47, 745	42/2
1965/66	269, 822	22.7	47, 343	−0.8
1966/67	357, 110	32	48, 652	2.7
1968/69	467, 093	30.7	48, 903	0.05
1970/71	625, 936	34.0	51. 312	4.9

Source: Statistical abstracts adapted from Markakis and Nega (1986).

Table 2. Tenant population in the newly annexed parts of the country.

	Tenant population with	Tenant population with
Province	Wholly rented land (%)	Part-owned & part-rented land (%)	Total
Arussi	45	7	52
Gemu Goffa	43	4	45
Hararge	49	5	54
Illubabor	73	2	75
Keffa	59	3	62
Shewa	51	16	67
Sidamo	37	2	39
Wollega	54	5	59
Wollo	16	16	32

Source: Central Statistical Office, National Survey Sample of Arussi, Gemu Gofa, Hararge, Illubabor, Kefa, Shewa, Sidamo, Wellega and Wello (Addis Ababa: Central Statistical Office, 1963–1967). Table adapted from Teshale Tibebu, The Making of Modern Ethiopia, 1896–1974 (1995, 147).

Table 3. The business empires of party states in Ethiopia.

Party companies	Ethiopia, 1991–2010
Wealth at peak (net)	• Africa’s richest party: US$1.0–1.5 billion
Initial party assets	• Redirected famine relief aid
Management	• EFFORT and party central committee
	• Party NGOs (REST, TDA) and regional
	Governments
	• Restraint: donors and IFIs
Legality of Parbus	• Prohibited by Civil Code and electoral laws
	• Endowments in 1993: closed books
	• One of two income centers: state and party coffers
Development agents	• Government bus providing basic public services
	• Diversified Parbus
	• Limited complementarity: compete with private
Accumulation and	• Government bus monopolies as cash cows
utilization of	• Main profit centers for state companies
Resources	• Jobs and rents for patronage,
	• Development of ethnic homelands
Evolution of and role of Parbus	• Initially: party rebuilding through revenue max
	• Later: occupying high-profit activities in competition with Government bus and large private
	• Later: boosting the development of ethnic bases
	• Continued growth in the face of an enfeebled private sector and regimented multiparty politics

Source: Compiled from: Fields, 2002; Vaughan and Gebremichael 2011. In Abegaz (2013).

Table 4. A partial list of large scale land transfers in Ethiopia (except Gambella).

Investor	Foreign and domestic	Land Size (Hectares)	Crops	Location
Al Habesh	Pakistan	28,000	Sugar estate	Wollega, Oro
Ambassel	Domestic	10,000	Biofuel crops	Metekel, BS
B&D Food	USA	18,000	Sugar estate	Awi, Amhara
Chadha Agro	India	122,000	Sugar, Biofuel	Oromia
Djibouti Gov’t	Djibouti	3,000	Food crops	Bale, Oromia
Dubai World	Dubai	5,000	Tea	Illubabor, Oro
E. Africa Agric	Domestic	6,500	Food crops	Pawe, BeniShangul
Emami Biotech	India	80,000	Biofuel crops	Oromia
Finote Selaam	Domestic	5,000	Sesame	Guba, Benishangul
Flora EcoPower	German	13,000	Biofuel crops	E. Harage, Oro
Fri El Green	Italy	30,000	Biofuel crops	Omo Valley, SNNP
Global Energy	Israel	10,000	Biofuel	Wollaita, SNNP
IDC Invest	Danish	15,000	Biofuel	Assossa, BS
Kanan D Hills	India	10,000	Tea	SNNP
Karuturi	India	11,000	Rice, Biofuel	Bako, Oromia
P. Morrell	USA	10,000	Wheat	Bale, Oromia
N. Bank Egypt	Egypt	20,000	Food crops	Afar
Omo Sheleko	Domestic	5,500	Cotton, palm	SNNP
PetroPalm	German	50,000	Biofuel	Rayitu, Bale, Oro
SHAMPORJI	India	50,000	Biofuel	BeniShangul
Spentex	India	25,000	Cotton	Beni Shangul
Sun Biofuels	UK	5,000	Biofuel	Wollaita, SNNP
Sun Bio (NBC)	UK	80,000	Biofuel	Metekel, B.S
Sunrise Indust	India	15,000	Food	Oromia
Tomaisin	Israel	10,000	Food crops	Oromia
Vatic	India	20,000	Biofuel	Borena, Oromia
United Farm Bus	Domestic	3,000	Food crops	Bako, Oromia
Yehudi Hayun	Israel	10,000	Biofuel	Oromia

Source: Findings from field visits, MOARD, MELCA Mahiber 2008, local press reports. In Rahmato (2011).

6. EPRDF since the coming of Abiy Ahmed

Currently, the Abiy (Who is currently the Prime Minister of Ethiopia) administration brought some changes regarding the political economy of the country. These changes have two diameters. Rhetorically, the policy initiatives appear to differ from the prevailing revolutionary programs. The government announced its intention to bring more private sector participation in its motto, Medemer (Synergy). Some improvements include the program to bring improved relations with neighboring countries, create sound investment climate, and the promise to improve relations with global finance companies (‘Roundup: Ethiopia's newly unveiled economic reform aims to unlock major development potentials’ 2019).

On the other hand, the Abiy administration is suffering from mounting domestic crisis. Conflict and the escalating power of the regional governments are threatening the capacity of the central government (Collier 2019). This is affecting mobility, the market, and international investment inflows (Xuxin 2019). Therefore, the country is now evolving in two contradicting paths, rhetorical motivations to reorient the market and the economy in neo-liberal terms and the crisis that is happening in the party system. Regarding rural society, the regime has not made any changes. Thus, standing in this crossroad, the Abiy regime might grab more power and implement its initiatives or fails and the regime rolls back to another cycle.

7. Conclusion

The three Ethiopian regimes are not different as some scholars argue or the regimes themselves claim. The substantive element of state-society relations is a reflex of property and power. While the regimes were trying to preserve an oligarchy of wealth, a parallel process that made the society de-proprietized and powerless has been unfolding. In this light, it is logical to argue that the three successive regimes were the midwives of each other.

Peasants were the extreme targets of the governments’ wealth accumulation programs in various modes. The governments’ assumptions have been against the property ecology of the society. Policymaking processes, which were designed to sustain quasi-feudal and a mix of various primordial and modern ideologies, were restricted from the society. Thus, the policies have been, inherently, draconian, hostile to the livelihood ontology of the society.

The other shared vice is regarding the treatment of the private actors that experienced suppressive and manipulative measures. On the contrary, state companies and global companies enjoyed preferential treatment. As far as it is for their aristocratic and dynastic centralization of power, which is based on the property element of the society, the three regimes have been opening the property space of the society for the ruthless exploitation and expropriation by global capitalist companies.

The emergency management approaches followed by the three regimes incorporated both ignorance and manipulation. The regimes’ basic motive has been preserving legitimacy and controlling the society systematically. Thus, the emergency management programs have not designed to bring sustainable solutions. Rather, they were welcomed as political instruments.

8. The way forward

For a genuine development program to prevail in the country, a break has to be made with the historically inherited organizational, policy, and patrimonial systems. Therefore, state-society relations have to change with more private sector participation. This entails that the state should not de-proprietaize and dispossess the society. To achieve a transforming economy that takes the whole community to better wellbeing requires critical consideration of the peasant community in Ethiopia. In other words, the economic system should naturally grow out of the material foundation of the peasants without making them vulnerable to the global system and denying them global opportunities. Besides, emergency management programs should be divorced from political objectives and customized in the society. If the society owns and controls its own material foundation supported by critical scholarly works, the country could be able to stand on its two feet. For a better future, the current Abiy administration should focus on party discipline, domestic stability, and rural-based economy.

Acknowledgements

The author is thankful to anonymous reviewers who commented on the earlier draft of this paper. The study was presented in the 10th International Conference of Debre Markos University, Ethiopia in which the author collected constructive comments from many scholars. Besides, the author is also grateful to Wolkite University staffs who took part during the presentation of this paper and provided constructive comments.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 EPRDF stands for Ethiopian People Revolutionary Democratic Front. This party is the governing political party in the country. It is changed into Prosperity Party in 2019.

2 ANDM stands for Amhara National Democratic Movement.

3 OPDO stands for Oromo People’s Democratic Organization.

4 SEDPM stands for Souther Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement.

5 FDRE stands for the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.