Ethnic Federalism: The Ethiopian Experience in Comparative Perspective (review)

This fine edited volume examines the first decade of Ethiopian experience with ethnic federalism, since the 1995 constitution officially inscribed linguistic provincial autonomy as the cornerstone structural principle. The book grows out of a 2004 conference in Addis Ababa, jointly organized by the British Council, the University of Addis Ababa and the Ethiopian Ministry of Federal Affairs. The excellent roster of contributors includes three Ethiopian scholars (Assefa Fiseha, Dereje Feyissa and Merera Gudina), and four other Ethiopia specialists (Christopher Clapham, Gideon Cohen, David Turton and Sarah Vaughan). A broad comparative perspective is provided by Will Kymlicka, a political philosopher noted for his normative reconciliation of liberalism and multiculturalism. Nigerian scholar Rotimi Suberu and Indian academic Rajeev Bhargava explore the possible relevance of the federal experience of these two nations of extraordinary cultural complexity.

The dynamics which embedded a ‘federal character’ in Nigerian politics differ markedly from Ethiopia, though Suberu teases out some useful comparative observations. Notably, in both cases the federated units and more local ones are completely dependent on revenue transfers from the centre, which explain why political practice is far more centralized than constitutional prescription might suggest. Bhargava is more sceptical regarding the transfer of constitutional formulas, arguing that comparison is useful ‘only to illuminate the specificity of the case in question’ (p. 115). His succinct but insightful exegesis of Indian federalism does succeed in this limited goal.

Rather than responding to any abstract merits in ethnic federalism, the Ethiopian version is primarily a product of its unique historical itinerary. In rebellion against the centralized empire constructed by Menelik and consolidated by Haile Selassie, by the early 1970s a young intelligentsia emerged which found in Marxism-Leninism diagnosis and remedy for what they regarded as the humiliating feudal backwardness of Ethiopia. Included in the doctrinal import was the formula devised by Lenin and Stalin to cope with the nationality question: the right of national self-determination, including secession, emptied of its content by the centralized rule of the Communist party. Elements of Soviet dogma were borrowed by the Derg, and influenced the redrawing of provincial lines on linguistic criteria in 1987. The military Leninist formula was destroyed by multiple insurgent challenges, above all the thirty-year Eritrean liberation struggle, but also by rebel challenges from Tigrean and Oromo guerrillas. In reality, ethnic federation, whatever its problems and perils, was the sole political avenue for preserving an Ethiopian state in 1991. The 1995 constitution merely ratified this reality.

All the chapters wrestling with Ethiopia underline the unresolved dilemmas and problematic aspects of ethnic federalism as it has evolved. Cohen persuasively shows the limits of the linguistic principle in defining the federated units; language and ethnicity are far from identical The three provinces containing ethnic communities far too small to constitute separate units have encountered innumerable difficulties, perhaps exacerbated by the federal formula, as Vaughan and Feyissa compellingly document. The autochthonous principle in provincial employment and educational policies is a frequent source of conflict. In addition to the pair of chapters on multi-ethnic southern units, one might have wished for comparable case study contributions of particularly problematic provinces such as Oromiya or Somali.

Perhaps most of all, the full scope of ethnic federalism has not yet been tested. Real power, as Clapham accurately notes, is exercised in centralized fashion by the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Party and its ethno-national satellites, under the tight control of Meles Zenawi. For different reasons, large numbers among the two biggest groups – Amhara and Oromo – are sceptical or disaffected towards the current political order.

Thus the questions raised in most of the chapters about the long-term viability of the ethnic federalism formula are well-founded. Yet Ethiopia is a prisoner of its own past, and the hold which ‘national oppression’ or ‘internal colonialism’ readings of the historical narrative retain outside the Amhara core left little choice but something resembling the ethnic federation formula. Perhaps in deference to this reality...