Quest for Apolitical Civil Service in Ethiopia: Regimes in Spotlight
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63990/2026ajoldvol11iss1pp179-197Keywords:
Civil service reform, service delivery, political neutrality, governance, organizational efficiencyAbstract
Efficient, transparent, responsive, accountable and non-partisan civil service is essential to nurture and sustain democratic governance. Ethiopia’s bold move towards transforming the country and introduction of modern government structure goes back to the dawn of 20th century. Yet, public service delivery system of the country increasingly lags behind achieving its desired end despite its considerable chronological age of inception. This study examines paths of the Ethiopian civil service structure since its emergence to the present. The analyses cover significant changes that took place from the time by when Emperor Menelik II established the first ever Council of Ministers in 1908. Historical research design is employed to make a meaningful sense of the past, informing the present and casting insight into the future. Exploring into practices of different regimes in promoting political neutrality of the civil service is the central theme of this inquiry. Despite legislative provisions that claim for neutrality, political partisanship prevails all across the regimes of the past and the present alike. It is common among politicians to promise de-politicization of the civil service system particularly during their election campaigns. Afterwards, regimes usually drag the civil service system into partisanship than neutrality in an attempt to safeguarding their ideological orientation and power consolidation. This study reveals that all subsequent governments of Ethiopia fall short of institutionalizing apolitical system of the public service and work towards encroaching meritocratic space, of course with varying extent. Adoption of ethnic politics, by and large, exacerbates partisanship all across the system. In effect, the system is characterized by growing loss of public trust, inefficiency, poor quality service delivery, ineffective redress mechanisms, corruption, and breaching the essence of accountability.
References
Abir, M. (1968). Ethiopia: The era of the princes: The challenge of Islam and the re-unification of the Christian empire, 1769–1855. Longmans, Green and Co.
Andargachew Tiruneh. (1990). The Ethiopian revolution (Doctoral dissertation, London School of Economics). ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.
Arsema Worku, Deribe Asefa, Kassa Teshager, & Terefe Zeleke. (2020). Deepening democracy through political actors’ empowerment in Ethiopia. In Proceedings of the Global Research Network on Parliaments and People.
Bacha Kebede, Bouckaert, G., Ayenew, M., Terefe, D., Hondeghem, A., Steen, T., & Troupin, S. (Eds.). (2020). Public administration in Ethiopia. Leuven University Press.
Bahru Zewde. (2002). A history of modern Ethiopia: 1855–1991 (2nd ed.). Addis Ababa University Press.
Bantalem Tadesse. (2015). Manufacturing Emperor Tewodros’s cannon at Gafat. Ethiopian E-Journal for Research and Innovation Foresight, 7(1), 66–87.
Berhanu Mengistu, & Vogel, E. (2001). Bureaucratic neutrality in an ethnic federalism: The case of Ethiopia. International Conference on African Development Proceedings. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/africancenter_icad_archive/15
Bersisa Kacho, Terefe Zeleke, & Goitom GebreMedhin. (2016). Implementation of human resource management reform program and civil service professionalism. African Journal of Leadership and Development, 1(1), 52–69.
Curtin, G. G., Sommer, M. H., & Vis-Sommer, V. (2003). The world of e-government. Journal of Political Marketing, 2(3–4), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1300/J199v02n03_01
Fantahun Ayele. (2016). Revisiting history of Gafat: Was Emperor Tewodros’s military reform an attempt at translative adaptation of Western technology? African Journal of History and Culture, 8(4), 25–29.
Federal Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission. (2021). The third national corruption perception survey report. FEACC.
Fiala, Z., & Sovova, O. (2019). Theories of public administration management: A retrospective view. https://doi.org/10.31410/EMAN.2019.141
Garcia, M., & Rajkumar, A. S. (2008). Achieving better service delivery through decentralization in Ethiopia (World Bank Working Paper No. 131). World Bank.
Gebre Miruts, & Melesse Asfaw. (2014). The implementation of civil service reforms in Ethiopia: The promise for civil service de-politicization of Tigray National Regional State. Developing Country Studies, 4(7), 91–105.
Getachew Assefa. (2022). Ethiopian constitutional law: A textbook (2nd ed.). Addis Ababa University School of Law & Author.
Getachew H. Mengesha, & Common, R. K. (2006). Civil service reform in Ethiopia: Success in two ministries (Research Memorandum No. 59). University of Birmingham. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237523633
Grönlund, Å., & Horan, T. A. (2004). Introducing e-gov: History, definitions, and issues. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 15, 713–729.
Henok Seyoum. (2018). Practices and challenges of institutionalizing the Ethiopian civil service in the context of the Ethiopian developmental state: The case of federal institutions (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Addis Ababa University.
Henok Seyoum. (2020). Meritocracy, career development, and promotion in Ethiopian civil service. In B. Kebede, G. Bouckaert, M. Ayenew, D. Terefe, A. Hondeghem, T. Steen, & S. Troupin (Eds.), Public administration in Ethiopia. Leuven University Press.
Indian Institute of Commerce. (2026). Max Weber’s theory of bureaucracy. https://lakshyacommerce.com/academics/max-weber-theory-of-bureaucracy
Denhardt, J. V., & Denhardt, R. B. (2007). The new public service: Serving, not steering (Expanded ed.). M.E. Sharpe.
Kapucu, N. (2006). New public management: Theory, ideology, and practice. In A. Farazmand (Ed.), Handbook of globalization, governance, and public administration.
Lane, J.-E. (2000). New public management. Routledge.
Lunenburg, F. C. (2017). Organizational structure and design. Journal of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, 1(1), 21–43.
Mesfin Taffese. (2008). The Ethiopian civil service reform program. In T. Assefa (Ed.), Digest of Ethiopia’s national policies, strategies and programs. Forum for Social Studies.
Ministry of Civil Service. (2012). Civil service reform program in Ethiopia: General overview with special emphasis on civil service reform program. Ministry of Civil Service.
Nickerson, C. (2026). Bureaucratic theory of Max Weber. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/bureaucratic-theory-weber.html
OECD. (1996). Civil service legislation contents checklist (SIGMA Papers No. 5). OECD Publishing.
OECD. (2000). Government of the future. OECD Publishing.
Ofcansky, T. P., & Berry, L. (Eds.). (1993). Ethiopia: A country study (4th ed.). Federal Research Division, Library of Congress.
Pattison, K. (2021). Lucy and Ardi: The two fossils that changed human history. BBC Science Focus Magazine. https://www.sciencefocus.com
Repucci, S. (2014). Designing effective civil service reform: Lessons from past experience. Public Administration and Development, 34(3), 207–218. https://doi.org/10.1002/pad.1684
Sager, F., & Rosser, C. (2021). Weberian bureaucracy. In E. Hannah (Ed.), Oxford research encyclopedia of politics. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.166
Selamu Bekele, & Vanderlinden, J. (1967). Introducing the Ethiopian law archives: Some documents on the first Ethiopian cabinet. Journal of Ethiopian Law, 4(2), 411–431.
Taddese Beyene, Pankhurst, R., & Shiferaw Bekele (Eds.). (1990). Kasa and Kasa: Papers on the lives, times and images of Tewodros II and Yohannes IV (1855–1889). Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University.
Tesfaye Fentaw. (2017). Beyond the rhetoric: Re-innovating Gafat first industrial village in current Ethiopian development. Abyssinia Journal of Business and Social Sciences, 2(1), 1–9.
Transparency International. (2021). Corruption perceptions index 2021. Transparency International.
Vogel, M. E. (2005). Pursuit of professionalism in bureaucracy: Perceptions about bureaucratic values of civil service employees in the ethnic federalism of Ethiopia (Doctoral dissertation, Old Dominion University). https://doi.org/10.25777/h4ez-4x47
Wren, K. (2009). Before “Lucy,” there was “Ardi”: First major analysis of one of earliest known hominids published in Science. American Association for the Advancement of Science. https://www.aaas.org/
Zelalem Workagegnehu. (2019). Politicization of public service and policy implementation: The case of Addis Ababa City Administration (Unpublished master's thesis). Addis Ababa University.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Alemayehu Debebe Mekonnen
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
