Infrastructures of Renaissance: tangible discourses in the EPRDF’s Ethiopia

Abstract

In late 2014, disputes around land, displacement and compensation related to the roll-out of big infrastructure projects across Ethiopia mutated into much deeper conflicts about the authoritarian nature of the state, the political marginalization of particular ethnic groups and the legitimacy of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). As security forces continued to quell mounting protests, the federal government imposed a state of emergency. This article explores how the EPRDF navigated this period of political fragility and why infrastructures were used as strategic vehicles for the party’s discourse. Drawing on the Addis-Djibouti Railway as an analytical lens, this research explores how the party strategically deployed posters, images and speeches centred around infrastructure to directly respond to protestors' grievances. This choice to deliberately embed visuals and rhetoric descriptions of such megaprojects in its political messaging about Ethiopia’s aspired ‘unity in diversity’, ‘democracy’, and ‘good governance’ illustrates how infrastructures were effective carriers of the party’s narratives. Roads, railways, and dams rendered EPRDF’s abstract ideas of political reform and economic renaissance tangible. At this critical juncture, these tangible discourses not only expose how the party attempted to restructure state-society relations in Ethiopia, but also how centrally anchored infrastructure was in the EPRDF’s self-styled developmental state project.

À la fin de 2014, les différends concernant la terre, le déplacement et l’indemnisation liés au déploiement de grands projets d’infrastructure sur l’ensemble de l’Éthiopie se sont transformés en conflits beaucoup plus profonds sur la nature autoritaire de l’État, la marginalisation politique de groupes ethniques spécifiques et la légitimité du Front démocratique révolutionnaire du peuple éthiopien (FDRPE). Tandis que les forces de sécurité continuaient de réprimer les protestations croissantes, le gouvernement fédéral a imposé l’état d’urgence. Cet article explore comment le FDRPE a traversé cette période de fragilité politique et pourquoi les infrastructures ont été utilisées comme véhicules stratégiques du discours du parti. En utilisant le chemin de fer d’Addis-Djibouti comme prisme d’analyse, ces recherches explorent la façon dont le parti a stratégiquement déployé des affiches, des images et des discours centrés sur l’infrastructure pour répondre directement aux griefs. Ce choix d’intégrer délibérément des descriptions visuelles et rhétoriques de ces mégaprojets dans ses messages politiques sur « l’unité dans la diversité », la « démocratie » et la « bonne gouvernance » auxquelles l’Éthiopie aspire illustre à quel point les infrastructures ont été des vecteurs efficaces des récits du parti. Les routes, les chemins de fer et les barrages ont rendu tangibles les idées abstraites de réforme politique et de renaissance économique du FDRPE. À ce moment critique, ces discours tangibles exposent non seulement comment le parti a tenté de restructurer les relations entre l’État et la société en Éthiopie, mais aussi à quel point l’infrastructure était ancrée au centre du soi-disant projet d’État développemental du FDRPE.

Keywords:

• developmental state
• ethnic federalism
• railways
• legitimacy
• Meles Zenawi
• ideology
• Ethiopia

Mots clés:

• Etat développemental
• Fédéralisme ethnique
• Chemins de fer
• Légitimité
• Meles Zenawi
• Idéologie
• Ethiopie

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Douglas Gollin, Harry Verhoeven, Simukai Chigudu and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on earlier versions of this paper, as well as Agraw Ali for his support in developing the map. The author is also grateful to Barnaby Dye, Will Jones and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira for their invitation to join the special issue and the authors’ workshops hosted in 2018.

Disclosure statement

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

Statement of Ethics

Ethical approval was obtained from the ethics committee at the University of Oxford's Department of International Development. Permission to conduct the interviews for the purposes of this research was obtained from each community leader/local authority. All interviewees have been anonymised and have given consent to be interviewed for the purposes of this research, of which they were fully informed.

Notes

1 National Planning Commission (2016).

2 This article was mainly written in 2018. It does not engage with the proximate factors that lead to the conflict.

3 Interview, Senior Official ERC, Addis Ababa, August 1st, 2017.

4 Interview, Senior Advisor to former Prime Minister, Addis Ababa, September 25th, 2018.

5 Interview, Chief Officer (A) ERC, Addis Ababa, July 21st, 2017.

6 Interview, Member of Transport Advisory Group, Addis Ababa, 27th November, 2018.

7 For a discussion of this ‘new resurgence period’ of high modernism, see Dye (2016).

8 See introductory article of this special issue by Jones and Dye entitled ‘Manifesto of African Illiberal State-building Modernism’: Organizational Leninism: ‘these projects are implemented through ‘democratic centralism’, in that they require total control by a small secretariat, enclave of bureaucratic confidence or cadre at the centre, but combined with a need for mass popular mobilization, delivered by a population sensitized by mass political structures which cascade down from the centre.’ (2) The Anti-Politics of Total Consensus: ‘these projects and grand plans are presented as commanding complete assent within these societies, and it is deemed impermissible to challenge them. Criticism must operate within the boundaries set by these consensus. Typically, this narrows the content of citizen protest to delivery, takes the form of quasi-feudal supplication to ‘monarchic’ and infallible leaders to step in and correct the incompetence and oversights of middle-men.’ (3).

9 Data taken from Pinaud, Raleigh, and Moody (2017). According to this report, 1400 people died during protest between November 2015 and May 2017 of which ‘660 fatalities [were] due to state violence against peaceful protesters, 250 fatalities from state engagement against rioters, and more than 380 people killed by security forces following declaration of the state of emergency in October 2016’ (Pinaud, Raleigh, and Moody 2017, 14). ‘State violence’ here also includes violence perpetrated by regional and local security forces, illustrating the multi-layered and complex nature of the political dynamics at the time.

10 Ministry of Defence (2016).

11 Hailemariam Desalegn (2017).

12 Interview, Chief Officer (C) ERC, Addis Ababa, July 28th, 2017.

13 Debo Tunka (2016).

14 Debo Tunka (2016).

15 Interview, Former Senior Official Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Addis Ababa, July 26th, 2017.

16 Interview, Former Minister, EPRDF, Addis Ababa, September 19th, 2017.

17 Interview, Chief Officer (B), ERC, Addis Ababa, July 28th, 2017.

18 Interview, Senior Official ERC, Addis Ababa, August 1st, 2017.

19 Interview, Senior Official ERC, Addis Ababa, August 1st, 2017.

20 Demeke Mekonnen (2013).

21 Interview, Chief Officer (C) ERC, Addis Ababa, July 28th, 2017.

22 Government Communication Affairs Office (2017).

23 Interview, Journalist Dire Dawa Mass Media Agency, Dire Dawa, August 22nd, 2017.

24 Zelalem Girma (2017).

25 Zelalem Girma (2017).

26 Sintayehu Tamirat (2017).

27 Ministry of Transport (2005).

28 Interview, Senior Official ERC, Addis Ababa, August 1st, 2017.

29 Interview, Senior Official ERC, Addis Ababa, August 1st, 2017.

30 Interview, Senior Ethiopian Economist at International Think Tank, Addis Ababa, September 4th, 2017.

31 Interview, Former Senior Official Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Addis Ababa, July 26th, 2017.

32 Interview, Senior Official ERC, Addis Ababa, August 1st, 2017.

33 Interview, Senior Official ERC, Addis Ababa, August 1st, 2017.

34 Ethiopian Herald (2017).

35 EPRDF (2018).