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Abstract
Ethiopia provides one of the clearest examples of a ‘developmental state’ in Africa. Drawing on a deeply entrenched experience of statehood, the present Ethiopian regime has embarked on an ambitious programme, depending on the central capture of ‘rents’, to fund a massive expansion especially in communications, education, and hydroelectricity. High initial rates of growth have been achieved. However, the political setting is tightly constrained and the state has not allowed the private sector freedom of action to generate the required levels of production. Ultimate success will depend on the capacity to transform a state that has itself been central to the development process.
Acknowledgements
My thanks are due to William Davison, Dereje Feyissa, Elsje Fourie, Tegegne Teka and Sarah Vaughan for commenting on a draft of this paper, and providing very helpful suggestions and information.
Notes
1. World Bank, World Development Indicators 2015, table 4.1. African economic statistics are rightly subject to all manner of caveats, and World Bank figures are used where possible; Ethiopian government assessments are generally higher.
2. Harald Aspen, Rural Land and Urban Aspirations: Future Orientation in a Time of Change, unpublished ms.
3. See Vu, “Studying the State.”
4. This is a theme that I have explored in Clapham, “Ethiopian Development.”
5. Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States; Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions.
6. See Clapham, Transformation and Continuity in Revolutionary Ethiopia.
7. Kohli, State-Directed Development.
8. Henley, Asia–Africa Development Divergence.
9. This enthusiasm is best accounted for by Albania’s role as an example of self-sufficient development independent especially from the USSR (which supported the Derg regime against which the TPLF was fighting).
10. Conspicuously excluded from the EPRDF are the pastoralist peripheries of lowland Ethiopia, largely it would seem on the ideological ground that their peoples are not ‘peasants’, and cannot be fitted into a Marxian class structure; for an excellent survey and analysis of politics in the periphery, see Markakis, Ethiopia: The Last Two Frontiers.
11. See de Waal, “Theory and Practice of Meles Zenawi,” with subsequent critique by René Lefort and rejoinder by de Waal in African Affairs.
12. See Lefort, “Free Market Economy.”
13. See Jacquin-Berdal and Plaut, eds. Unfinished Business; Negash and Tronvoll, Brothers at War; de Guttry et al., The 1998–2000 War.
14. Fourie, “China’s Example for Meles’ Ethiopia.” The Chinese example both replicated the central role of the Leninist party-state, and lay outside the Cold War framework that arguably affected the other three East Asian cases.
15. The road network, for example, is reported to have expanded from 36,496 km in 2004 to 85,966 km in 2013; UNDP, National Human Development Report Ethiopia 2014, 83, table 6.6. This report provides the most recent comprehensive data on the Ethiopian economy, though it should be noted that it was prepared in collaboration with the Ethiopian government, which is likely to have imposed its own views on the findings: the discussion of democracy and human rights, for example, is notably anodyne. The figures for roads come from the Ethiopian Roads Authority. See also International Monetary Fund, Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.
16. For a striking case, see Soares de Oliveira, Magnificent and Beggar Land.
17. Cited in Feyissa, “Aid Negotiation”; see also Furtado and Smith, “Ethiopia: Retaining Sovereignty”; and Fantini and Puddu, “Ethiopia and International Aid.”
18. See Feyissa, “Aid Negotiation,” 808–9.
19. According to United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) figures, FDI, while varying significantly from year to year, rose from US$135 million in 2000 to $953 million in 2013. See http://unctadstat.unctad.org/wds/TableViewer/tableView.aspx
20. See Kelsall, Business, Politics and the State, 108–10; and Melese and Helmsing, “Endogenisation or Enclave Formation?”
21. See Kelsall, Business, Politics and the State, 110–1; and Gebre-Egziabher, “Impacts of Chinese Imports.”
22. See Rosen, “Made in Africa.”
23. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 2016, Country fact sheet Ethiopia.
24. See Okubay, Made in Africa.
25. See Lefort, “Powers – mengist.”
26. See Ojulu, Large-Scale Land Acquisitions.
27. See Kamski, “Kuraz Sugar Development Project.”
28. See Mosley, “Two Africas?”
29. Gebremichael and Vaughan, “Ethiopia: Rent Seekers and Productive Capitalists.”
30. Oqubay, Made in Africa, 70–2, makes a case for the endowment funds, which should, however, take account of his own position in the Ethiopian government.
31. The Siltie, a largely Moslem group previously included with the Gurage, voted in 2001 to form a separate nationality; see Smith, “Voting for an Ethnic Identity.”
32. Ethiopia ranks 132nd out of 189 worldwide in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index (www.doingbusiness.org), and 14th out of 47 for sub-Saharan Africa, but much lower, at 165/189, for access to credit.
33. UNDP, National Human Development Report Ethiopia 2014, 19, figure 2.5.
35. Kelsall, Business, Politics and the State, 147.
36. This system, unusual in Africa, is probably best ascribed to Meles Zenawi’s complete lack of interest in the theatrical elements of power represented by being head of state.
37. See Gebreleul, “Ethiopia’s Grand Renaissance Dam.”