The Original Sin of Ethiopian Federalism

Abstract

Territorial autonomy for ethnic groups is an important component of Ethiopian federalism designed to deal with the challenges of ethnic diversity. The constitutional decision to use ethnicity as a basis for the organisation of the state represents a recognition of the political relevance of ethnicity. However, the decision that each major ethnic group should be dominant in one and only subnational unit has elevated ethnic identity to a primary political identity. This approach overlooks other historically and politically relevant territorial identities. The constitution thus misses an opportunity to respond to ethnic concerns without freezing ethnicity as an exclusive political identity.

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges the support of the University of Michigan Presidential Scholar programme and the National Research Fund. My discussion with Prof Daniel Halberstam, Michigan Law School, were crucial in framing the perspective of this article. Special thanks to Prof Ege Svein and Prof Harald Aspen, from the Department of Social Anthropology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, who, in the final writing stage, welcomed me to their department and facilitated access to physical and electronic resources.

Notes

1 The Tigray region is named after the regionally dominant Tigre ethnic community. The same goes for the other four states.

2 According to the 2007 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia, the Hararai constitute less than 10% of the population in the state. The non-proportional power of control that the Harari are entrusted with is often justified by reference to the historical claims that the community has to this city which is classified as World Heritage by UNESCO.

3 A major exception to the ethnically defined states is the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) that is home to numerous small ethnic groups.

4 A procedure for the establishment of such a state is provided in the same article.

5 A good example of such geographical configuration is India, where the federal system reflects the linguistic collectivities by reorganising all non-Hindu-speaking multilingual provinces of the country into states in which in a single regional language is dominant. This type of territorial structure, it is argued, provides extensive self-rule for an ethnic group by allowing the latter to form a majority in one of the constituent units. Kymlicka (1995), pp. 27–28.

6 The only state that has opted for bilingualism is Harari.

7 The more than two-decades of federalism that, in some respects, emphasised the domination of the Amhara ruling class in the past might have contributed to the emergence of pan-Amhara ethno-political consciousness. One cannot, therefore, dismiss the possibility that even the division of the Amhara state might be viewed as a deliberate attack to weaken the political capital of the Amhara.